Lost

This is one of Joe's psychological games. He wants me to play along. I pick up the receipts, which have dried into a clumped ball. The wallet was in the river with me. I peel them apart. Some are impossible to read but I notice half a dozen receipts for takeout food. I bought a pizza on September 24. When Joe came to see me in the hospital he asked me the last thing I remembered. I told him it was pizza.

Glancing at the table, I feel depressed. My life is piled in front of me. There are business cards from rugby mates; a discount voucher from some random shop; a reminder note from British Gas that my central heating needs servicing; a Royal Mail receipt for registered mail; my driver's license; a photograph of Luke . . .

It's a snapshot taken on the seafront at Blackpool. We were on a day trip and Daj is wearing a dozen petticoats and lace-up shoes. Her hair is hidden beneath a scarf and she is scowling at the photographer because my stepfather has asked her to smile. Luke is swinging from her hand and laughing. I'm in the background, staring at the bottom of one of my sandals as if I just stepped in something.

“You were always looking at the ground,” Daj used to tell me. “And you still managed to fall over your own feet.”

I remember that day. There was a talent competition on the pier. Hundreds of people were sitting in the sun listening to amateur Joe Blows singing songs and telling jokes. Luke kept tugging on Daj's hand, saying he wanted to sing. He was only four. She told him to be quiet.

Next thing we were watching this guy in a checked jacket and slicked-down hair pulling faces and telling jokes. He suddenly stopped because a little kid had walked right onto the stage. It was Luke with a blond cowlick and ice cream–stained shorts. This comedian made a big fuss about lowering the microphone so he could ask Luke a question.

“Well now, little boy, what's your name?”

“Luke.”

“Are you here on a holiday, Luke?”

“No, I'm here with my mum.”

Everyone laughed and Luke frowned. He couldn't work out why they were laughing.

“Why are you up here, Luke?”

“I wanna sing a song.”

“What are you gonna sing?”

“I don't know.”

They laughed again and I could have died, but Luke just stood there and stared, mesmerized by the crowd. Even when Daj dragged him off the stage and they all clapped, Luke didn't wave or acknowledge them. He just stared.

Joe is still sifting through the contents of my wallet. “Everyone leaves a trail,” he says. “It isn't just scraps of paper and photographs. It's the impression we make on other people and how we confront the world.”

He glances to his right. “You take that couple over there.”

A man and a woman are ordering lunch. He's wearing a casual jacket and she's dressed in a classic A-line skirt and cashmere sweater.

“Notice how he doesn't look at the waiter when he's being told the specials. Instead he looks down as though reading from the menu. Now, his companion is different. She's leaning forward, with her elbows on the table and her hands framing her face. She's interested in everything the waiter says.”

“She's flirting with him.”

“You think so? Look at her legs.”

A shoeless stockinged foot is raised and resting on her partner's calf. She's teasing him. She wants him to loosen up.

“You have to look at the whole picture,” says Joe. “I know you can't remember things—not yet anyway. So you have to write things down or make mental notes. Flashes, images, words, faces, whatever comes to you. They don't make sense right now but one day they might.”

A waitress arrives at the table with a plate of sardines.

“Compliments of the chef,” she says.

I raise my glass to Alberto who is standing in the kitchen door. He thumps his chest like a gladiator.

Sucking fish oil from his fingers, Joe begins to focus on the bikini and who might have had it. Mickey was wearing very little when she disappeared and her beach towel became the most important piece of evidence against Howard.

All investigations need a breakthrough—a witness or a piece of evidence that turns theory into fact. In Mickey's case it had been her striped beach towel. A woman walking her dog had found it at East Finchley Cemetery. It was heavily stained with blood, vomit and traces of hair dye. Howard had no alibi for when Mickey disappeared and had been working at the cemetery in the days that followed.

A precipitin test confirmed the blood on the towel to be human—A negative, Mickey's group (along with seven percent of the population). The DNA tests were conclusive.

Without hesitation, I ordered a search of the flower beds and recently dug graves. We used ground-penetrating radar and Caterpillar diggers, as well as SOCO teams with hand spades and sieves.

Campbell went ballistic, of course. “You're digging up a fucking cemetery!” he yelled. I had to hold the phone six inches from my ear.

I took a deep breath. “I'm conducting a limited search, Sir. We have the cemetery records showing all the recently dug graves. Anything that doesn't match is worth investigating.”