34

Kenneth’s feet pound the pavement. His head is pounding too with the effort of thought. Everything is a puzzle … a muzzle … a wuzzle … a fuzzle. There are so many pieces to the jigsaw now that Kenneth feels he is losing his battle. He is bewildered … beleaguered … besieged … bedazzled … bedraggled. ‘Shut up!’ he shouts at the voice. ‘Shut up!’ He smacks himself in the head to quieten it. His brain is a crossword, a cryptic puzzle. But he has to find the clues as well as the answers. He has found many leaflets encouraging the Christmas conspiracy. Christmas in July … Christmas will die … Christmas in July will die … Kenneth shakes his head. It feels as if it is in a vice, his brain, his thoughts, his ability to reason is being squeezed into an unmanageable triangle where the voice shouts and jibbers … flibber-jibbers … flibber-jibbers … from every corner. How will he ever solve the problem … the puzzle … the great con-nun-drum? How do you solve a problem like Maria? Maria? Mia? A prickle of recognition zig-zags around his brain. Mia. The little girl … the lost girl … the dead girl … is an abbreviation of Maria. M—i a. There, the voice shouts, there! MIA. A clear connection. And somewhere and somehow Christmas in July is in there too. Take the letters … take the letters … snatch them out … the letters … M … I … A … How do you find a word that means M—ia? Kenneth sees it in his head. The letters M I A are all there living inside ChrIstMAs. She can be plucked from the word.

‘Mia!’ Kenneth shouts. ‘Mia!’ He pumps his fist to the sky. Plucked from the sky … the sky … from the sky in July … It’s July and Mia is missing. This is significant. Kenneth is sure. How do you solve a problem like M—ia? She’s a darling! She’s a demon! She’s a darling! She’s a demon! She’s a darling! She’s a demon! She is dead … Is she dead? There is something else knocking on the window of Kenneth’s brain. Something … someone … somebody … some body … She is gentle! She is wild! She’s a riddle! She’s a child! She’s a headache! She’s an angel! She’s a girl! Amelia. Kenneth’s head nods. Yes … Yes … She’s in there, too. Mia is trapped inside Amelia … aMelIA … Mia. She’s a riddle! She’s a child! She’s a headache! She’s an angel … an angel … an angel. A Christmas angel? Kenneth cannot be certain but he has to go … has to go … to the source … the source. He opens the flyer … the poster … the clue … and storms off.