Sophie’s heart jumps slightly. ‘Which …? I mean, who?’
‘Liam Bailey?’ he says. ‘He’s a special ed assistant. I think you met him at the Registration Day Dinner? Apparently, he was around the night those kids disappeared.’ He closes up his sandwich and cuts it in half. ‘So, yeah. I suspect this might run on a bit.’
‘But if they find out what happened to the teenagers, then it’ll be worth it, yes?’
He bites into his sandwich and leans up against the kitchen counter, his legs crossed at the ankle, his gaze fixed hard on the floor at his feet. She watches him wipe a smudge of butter from the corner of his mouth, hears his jaw grinding down on his food.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
He lifts his gaze from the floor and his eyes meet hers and his face relaxes. He smiles at her. ‘Don’t be,’ he says. ‘It’s not your fault. And you’re right. If they find out what happened to those teenagers, you’ll have done a good thing. I just wish you’d involved me, that’s all. Remember, we’re a team now. You and me. We work together. Yes?’
She smiles, grateful for the softening of his mood. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I know that. I love you.’
He gazes at her for a moment and then, after a beat, says, ‘I love you too.’
‘Let me know,’ she says a moment later as he places his plate in the dishwasher and collects his lanyard, ‘what happens with the teaching assistant. With Liam. Won’t you?’
Sophie spends the afternoon wandering around campus, trying to pick up developments via osmosis. The school grounds manager and Kerryanne Mulligan are overseeing the search of the woods; students going between lessons slow down as they glimpse the activity. She feels the bubble of her pulse as the drama ripples through the grounds. She thinks of her hand on the rough wood of the trowel from the Jacqueses’ greenhouse, her fingers scrabbling in the soil, the feeling of dread that she might be about to find something gruesome; she remembers how alone she was then, how small a moment it was in the scheme of her life and how weird it is that that tiny, lonely moment has somehow blown up into this: detectives, dogs, a potential media circus.
At around three o’clock, Sophie finally feels hungry, decides she doesn’t like the look of any of the healthy stuff in their fridge and heads to the vending machine outside the school refectory. She finds some coins in the bottom of her purse and slots them in, presses the buttons that correlate to the salt-and-vinegar crisps and the Dairy Milk bar, which is all she can face, collects them and walks to the cloisters at the back of the hall. Here she sits on the same bench where she’d sat on the evening of the Registration Day party, looking at Liam Bailey’s feet.
The sun appears suddenly from behind a cloud and she closes her eyes against the rays. When she opens them, Liam is standing in front of her. She jumps.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d seen me coming.’
She laughs to hide her embarrassment at being caught with her eyes closed in public. ‘No, it’s fine. How are you?’
He shrugs and says, ‘Bit wrung out. Just had the third degree from the cops. They seem to think that ring being buried there is something to do with me.’ He shakes his head in bafflement.
Sophie moves up the bench and gestures to him to sit down. He looks up at the windows of the college and then back to her. ‘I should go back to class, really, I’ve already missed a whole lesson.’
‘Just quickly, what were they asking you about?’ she asks.
‘Just, you know, more of the same about the night those kids went missing. Who was there. What time did I leave. What did I see. What didn’t I see. The same questions I answered a hundred times after it happened. They showed me the ring, asked if I’d ever seen it before. I told them you’d shown me the photo of it.’
Sophie starts. ‘You did?’
‘Yeah. I mean, I just wanted to answer all their questions one hundred per cent truthfully, and when they said, “Have you ever seen this ring before?” I had to tell them that I had. I mean, it’s OK, they didn’t seem to make anything of it. And anyway, hopefully that’s that. Hopefully they won’t be back asking me any more questions, because I can tell you for nothing, they’d be totally wasting their time.’ He puffs his cheeks and then exhales. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I really should get back to it. Enjoy your lunch,’ he says, eyeing her crisps and chocolate bar.
‘Liam,’ she says quickly. ‘Before you go. The Jacques family. Did you ever think it might have been them? You know, that they might have had something to do with those kids’ disappearance?’
‘Of course I thought that,’ he replies. ‘It’s the only theory that makes any sense.’
‘But why would they have wanted to hurt them? And how did they get away with it? And the ring? What about the ring? Who would have put it there? And why?’
He shakes his head slowly. ‘I really need to get on now,’ he says. ‘But maybe we could meet up, another time?’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘yes. Please.’
He tips his head at her, throws her a smile and heads away. But then he turns back and he says, ‘Oh, I meant to say! I ordered your books, the whole series; they arrived this morning. I started reading the first one straightaway.’
‘That’s so lovely of you. You really didn’t have to.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘But I wanted to.’
By the time Shaun gets home from work at eight o’clock that night, the police have gone and the school feels restored to equilibrium.
The sun has already set, the summery day turned instantly to autumn, and Sophie is on her knees in the spare bedroom, finally unpacking some of the movers’ boxes, almost, she suspects, as a silent apology to Shaun for making his first few days in his new job more stressful than they needed to be.