Half the World Away

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It’s something I’ve read online, my eyes skimming over the columns of advice, what to do next, the bullet-pointed lists of What We Can Do, What We Are Not Able to Do but I must barely have registered it because when Peter Dunne, from the consulate in Chongqing, speaks to me on the phone, when he says it near to the close of our conversation, adding, ‘Just in case,’ I feel as though I’ve been electrocuted. A jolt that sears my heart and sends currents fizzing through my veins to the tips of my fingers and the backs of my thighs.

I grit my teeth and agree I will do as he suggests. After that I put the phone down and rest for a few seconds, arms braced on the table, eyes shut. I stir, pick up a pen and add to the growing list of things we need for our trip to China: bring something with Lori’s DNA on.

It is macabre, sorting through the boxes that came out of Lori’s room for something that will carry strands of her hair or skin cells or whatever else they might use. I’m looking through scarves and belts, bags and necklaces. I stop and say to Nick, ‘Does that mean her toothbrush isn’t there? At the flat?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says.

‘If it were there, we wouldn’t need to take anything. But if it’s not, that would fit with her going on holiday, wouldn’t it? She’d take her toothbrush and her hairbrush.’

‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘but maybe they’re just covering all the bases.’ He holds up a joke tiara, black and silver with feathers attached and pointy black ears. Part of a Hallowe’en outfit Lori wore a couple of times. I’ve a picture of her in my head, like some punk imp, rowdy with her friends, drinking cocktails before setting off to a party.

‘That,’ I say, ‘and this.’ I lift up her black beret. ‘She’s worn this for ever, there must be… well…’ I don’t need to spell it out.

Isaac comes in asking for a drink and sees the jumble. He picks up a scarf and Nick tells him to leave it alone.

‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘You can have a play as long as they all go back in these boxes after.’

‘And them?’ He points to the things I’m holding.

‘No, I need them,’ I say.

‘Why?’ he says.

‘I just do. Where’s Finn?’

He shrugs.

‘Isaac?’

‘On the trampoline. Why?’

‘He might like to dress up, too,’ I say.

Isaac drapes Lori’s scarf around his head and goes to peer in the hall mirror. I put the beret and the tiara in freezer bags and take them upstairs.

Nick follows me. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘Undermine me. I just told Isaac to leave stuff alone and you say the opposite.’

‘But why should he leave it alone? What harm can it do?’

‘That’s not the point,’ he says.

‘So if you say something stupid and illogical I’ve got to agree to it?’ I sound like a bitch so I start to back-pedal. ‘Sorry, I just think we have to pick our battles.’

‘Don’t bother,’ he says, and walks away.

I stare at the suitcase I’ve started to pack and hear Finn’s voice drifting up from the garden, some little chant, and realize my hands are aching because I’m gripping the freezer bags so very tightly.