On the way to school the next morning, Poppy and I sang songs together and made up extra verses and silly rhymes and giggled madly. On the way back I thought about Charlie’s visit, which now had the quality of a dream, and about Jason. With a cold clutch of fear, I thought about losing Poppy. That was impossible, it couldn’t happen, it would be the end of me.
When I got home I felt a sudden sense of purpose. I made myself a pot of coffee and took a stack of paper from the tray of my printer and wrote notes of everything I could remember, underlining names. They filled several pages. I took a fresh sheet and started to construct a flow chart. I wrote ‘Poppy’s drawing’ then ‘Skye’s flat’ and drew an arrow from one to the other. I wrote ‘Peggy’s house’ and ‘watch’ and drew an arrow from the watch to Peggy’s house and another from Skye’s flat to the watch. The watch. Had Jason been wearing a watch? I tried to remember, but it was impossible. My mind had been on other things. I put a question mark next to ‘watch’. Then I wrote ‘home’ and ‘cap’ and drew an arrow between them. I wrote ‘Poppy’s school’ and drew an arrow from the school to the cap.
I stared at it. Skye’s flat. My flat. Peggy’s house. All the arrows between them just looked like a cartoon of confusion.
I pushed the paper aside and found a fresh one and wrote ‘Jason’s house’ on it and underlined it. What next? Under it I wrote Jason’s name, then Emily’s name, then Ben’s name.
I wrote a timeline, starting from the Sunday that Poppy had returned from Jason’s house with her drawing in thick black crayon. I looked at the calendar on my phone to work out the exact dates. It had been going on for three weeks and four days. It felt longer than that, a lifetime, or no time at all.
I cleared a space on the table and then spread out all the sheets I’d written on and looked at them. I moved the sheets around, rearranged them in different shapes. I’d hoped that by doing this a pattern would emerge, but it was just the same old mess, the same places and objects and fears. I’d taken them out of my brain and put them down on paper, but it hadn’t made any difference. It wasn’t like a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t fit together. It was worse than that. I was starting to think that they were pieces that didn’t fit together because they were from different puzzles.
I picked up my phone and looked at the time. It was twenty to three. I had missed lunch. I had been so lost in this that I had forgotten to be hungry. I checked for messages. My emails were the usual rubbish, about perfume and miracle cures and fake offers, but there was also one from a name I recognised: Inga Haydon. She was one of the women I’d found on Jason’s computer. The one who had written to me saying she didn’t know Skye Nolan and asking how I’d got her address. I’d assumed I’d never hear from her again. I clicked on the message. It was just a short question: Can I come and see you?
I stared at the sheets of paper on my table then back at my phone. It felt like something magical had happened. It also felt too good to be true. Could there be something wrong? I made myself think of the worst that it could be. Was it possible that it wasn’t really from Inga at all? Jason had only just accused me of interfering in his life. Could this be a trap? Could he be luring me into doing it again and that would give him the evidence he needed to take Poppy away from me? I looked at the message. The email address was in the name of Inga Haydon. I looked back at the previous message from her. It was the same address. Could that also have been from Jason?
I felt like I was driving myself insane. I considered it and made up my mind. I couldn’t see Inga now. I was about to collect Poppy. But later? I typed a message: What about this evening at 8 at my flat? I wrote my address. There was nothing incriminating in itself about responding to a message like that. I took a deep breath and pressed send.
Barely a minute passed before I got a message back: OK.