Harri cried out, startled by a loud knock.
“Everything all right?” Cynthia asked through the door.
“Yes,” Harri lied, and she heard Cynthia mutter disapprovingly before moving along the corridor.
Harri was trembling. Had he followed her to Arthog? Had he been watching her on the cliff? Why?
She flushed the toilet and washed her hands. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the poem as she dried them, and she inhaled deeply to settle her nerves before opening the door. She pinned a smile to her face and stepped out.
Cynthia Hughes was nowhere to be seen, but Harri caught sight of Elliot in the room on the other side of the corridor through a gap between the door and frame. He had his head down and seemed to be concentrating, so she edged closer in an attempt to see what he was looking at. The house was strangely still. No radio or television, not even the sound of a computer fan. Just the tick of a distant clock, which did little to mask the sound of Harri’s breathing. It seemed loud to her, so she held her breath and crept forward until she was at the threshold and could peer through the gap in the doorway. She leaned against the frame and watched him.
Elliot was reading handwritten notes scrawled in what looked like indecipherable code. What was it? Why was he reading it? She scanned the page, looking for something, anything she might understand, but the letters and symbols were beyond her.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Elliot asked, and Harri tried to conceal the fact that he’d made her jump.
He’d turned to face her, and she found his sad eyes unsettling. He wasn’t angry, just broken. Children weren’t supposed to know such complete grief.
“My mum said she’d always be with me, but she never answers when I talk to her,” he revealed, and Harri’s heart broke for him. “Why would she tell me something that isn’t true?”
“It is true,” Harri replied.
“Then why doesn’t she answer?” he asked. “Or my dad. Have I done something wrong?”
The weight of his grief was almost too much for Harri to bear. She had no idea how he carried it on such small shoulders.
“Some people think our loved ones talk to us all the time. We just don’t know how to listen,” Harri suggested.
She recalled how the deaths of her own parents had affected her, and how she’d longed to have just one more conversation with them. She’d been grown when they’d passed and could only imagine the confusion and frustration she would have felt as a child.
“I’m listening very carefully,” Elliot said. “I’m doing everything I can.”
He fell silent, and the only sound was the ticking clock.
“I miss them so much,” he confessed at last. “Mum was sick, but Dad… well, he just left. Why would he do that? I thought he loved me. Why would he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“I still love them so much. Ben says my heart doesn’t know they’re gone and my brain won’t let me forget them. When I felt bad like this before, I could talk to them or hug them, smile together, but now they’re not here to make me feel better. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Where do I put all the love I have for them?” His voice trembled, and Harri found herself on the verge of tears.
“I’m so sorry, Elliot.”
She wished she could take his pain away, but she didn’t know how, so she did the next best thing and changed the subject in an attempt to take his mind off his loss.
“Can you tell me about that poem in there?” she asked, gesturing to the loo. “Is it new?”
“He said you’d come asking questions,” Elliot replied sadly, as though Harri had somehow let him down.
“What are you doing?” Cynthia Hughes asked, appearing behind Harri.
Harri became flustered. “I… we were just talking.”
“Come on,” Cynthia added. “You’ve done your business. It’s time to go. Move along.”
She chivvied Harri to the front door with a combination of come ons, tuts, and irritated sighs. Harri kept her eyes on Elliot, who moved to the doorway to watch her.
“I just want to—”
“Not interested,” Cynthia cut her off. “Out with you.”
She gave a final nudge, and Harri backed over the threshold, where she was rewarded with the front door swinging shut in her face.
“Went well, then?” Sabih remarked. He was leaning against the house, a few yards from the porch. “Friendly bunch.”
“I—” Harri began, uncertain how to explain what she had just seen. “There was something weird in that house.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’d describe you as strange rather than weird.” Sabih started down the drive. “Come on.”
Harri followed. “Very funny. I’m being serious. There was a poem in the loo. It was written for me. He confessed to watching me from Elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?” Sabih asked, hurrying towards the car.
“It’s a house near the spot where David Asha jumped.”
“And this poem was a confession that he spied on you?” Sabih got into the passenger seat.
Harri opened the driver’s door. “Not as such,” she replied, climbing in.
“Did you get a photo?” Sabih asked, holding up his phone.
Harri rolled her eyes in irritation and slammed the door. How could she not have taken a photo?
“Take it easy,” Sabih urged. “This Elsewhere is famous, right?”
She started the engine. “I wouldn’t say famous, but the locals use the name. Its proper name is the Elsewhere House.”
“So lots of people know what it’s called. Maybe the poem was about someone else and you’re just reading yourself into it? Maybe it was about David Asha?”
Harri nodded, but she wasn’t so sure. It was possible, because that was where David Asha had taken his own life, but she couldn’t shake the feeling the poem was about her and that she’d been meant to find it, but that was impossible, wasn’t it? She put the Volkswagen in gear and drove away from the strange cottage. A shiver ran down her spine. A release of tension? Or a premonition of things to come?
“I’m not interested in poems, though,” Sabih said, and Harri knew what was coming. “How many people know you and he dated?”
Harri kept her eyes on the road. “I don’t know who he told.”
“Well, he told the housekeeper at least,” Sabih remarked. “We need to think about how to handle this. It won’t look good if we need to make a case. You’ll seem compromised.”
“I’m not,” Harri protested, perhaps a little too strongly. Her stomach churned at the thought of making a case. This was all getting too real. Could she really cast Ben as a villain?
“I know that, but a jury won’t. You know how these things go. It’s not about truth, it’s about appearances. Got to give people the comforting illusion life’s fair.”
Harri didn’t reply. She focused on the beams of light making road from darkness. Was he warning her she’d have to withdraw from the investigation? There was something else on his mind. She could sense it in his prolonged pause.
“Let me ask you something,” he said at last. “Did you really find that message in the book?”
Harri’s mouth opened and closed in disbelief. He’d seen it. Was he accusing her of forgery?
“Of course I did,” she replied. “Do you think—”
He cut her off. “Don’t you think it’s strange you found a random message that ties you to a man you once dated?”
The coincidence bothered her too, but she hadn’t yet found the missing piece that would make sense of it.
“You know what I think about coincidences,” Sabih went on. “They don’t exist. There’s always a reason.”
“What reason?”
“To throw shade on you?” Sabih suggested. “You were still on the force when you met him, right?”
“You think he dated me to compromise some investigation months down the line? That’s crazy.” But even as she railed against the idea, part of her couldn’t dismiss it entirely.
“Or maybe he planned to use you as a source?” Sabih said. “Find out if the police were investigating the death of his friends, feed some information that would keep us off the right trail.”
“So why did he dump me?” Harri asked.
“Who knows? The only thing I do know is that I don’t believe in coincidences. Either you’re working an angle…”
Harri took a breath and was about to respond to the accusation, when Sabih raised a calming hand.
“Which I don’t think is what’s going on. Or he’s working an angle, and he’s been planning this since the very first day you met.”