***

All we knew was this: the body was female, it had been found in a Martenwood warehouse and it had been there some time.

And this: my father was being interviewed by the police.

That night my mother holed herself up in the den with the curtains drawn tight. She was there when I went to bed, and still there early the next morning, slumped on the sofa like a discarded rag doll, mouth open, hair disheveled, mascara smeared beneath her eyes. Beside her, an empty gin bottle rolled on its side. I covered her with a blanket, switched off the TV and righted an old black-and-white snap in a frame. It had been taken by some paparazzi at a club in London, and had later appeared in the back pages of Tatler. In it, my mother, on her twentieth birthday and at the height of a brief modeling career, is dancing on a table, holding a cigarette in one hand and the neck of a bottle of champagne in the other. Wearing a mini-skirt, long boots, a white vest top and several long chains of beads, and she’d been caught mid laugh with her eyes shut and mouth open, the beads and her long hair flying round her head like ribbons flung from a maypole. In it, she looks startlingly beautiful, young, wild and completely, deliriously happy. My father is in the photograph too, standing half shadowed in the background with his eyes fixed on my mother, grinning broadly and applauding, his expression somewhere between wonder and animal desire. According to the story, that’s the night they first met, but things must have moved along fairly fast. My mother’s modeling days came to an abrupt halt, and not even ten months later I came along. I held the picture up close so I could look at her face. Even from a black-and-white photograph you could tell she was plastered, and it occurred to me that there must have been a time when my mother was a happy drunk. I couldn’t ever remember her being like that. Where other people would become truculent or loud when they’d been drinking, my mother would slip into a quiet despair. Booze made her cry.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I stood in the doorway of the conservatory, gazing at that expanse of white marble, that spotless white surface, the rigid, gray pool of cold concrete that lay underneath. I thought about that one, single chance I’d been given to talk to the police on my own, the morning we’d retraced her footsteps to school. What I could have, should have told them: what happened with the scissors that night, how culpable I was, what I had done. I should call them perhaps, ask for another chance to talk. But how could I start telling them things now that I hadn’t mentioned before? I was scared. Things were already bad enough.

Finally I could hear my mother moving around, the TV switched on, then straightaway off. I went back with two mugs of tea.

“Mum,” I said, “I want to ask you something. It’s important.”

I gave her the tea. She placed it on the floor and crossed her arms.

“Yes,” she said, “I am all ears.”

I realized I hadn’t planned how to phrase what I wanted to say. I paused, looking at her. After a moment, I said, “D’you think—”

“Do I think he did it? Is that what you’re asking? Do I think your father killed Laika? How could you ask such a thing, Willa? How could you even think such a thing? Of course he didn’t do it.”

I said, “You don’t think—”

“No,” she said, “not for one second do I think.”

It was rare for my mother to ever sound cross. I said, “I’m sorry—I don’t…” My voice trailed off.

“Your father couldn’t get away with murder, Willa. He doesn’t have the wherewithal. He’d get caught and he knows it. He’d make all sorts of stupid mistakes.”

A thought fluttered through my mind too fast for me to net it. I blinked, trying to catch the sense of what she’d said.

“Take this away, will you? I’m not in the mood for tea.” I took the still hot mug from her outstretched hand. It was clear the conversation was over.

“Can I get you anything else?” I asked.

Without looking at me she said, “I could murder a gin.”

***

A police liaison officer turned up at our house in the morning. They hadn’t yet managed to identify the body, but they did know this: it wasn’t Laika. The dental records had been conclusive. I clutched my mother, wiping away the tears streaming down my face.

My father was released. He arrived home gray and uncommunicative, then spent the following week holed up in his study with the door slammed shut. During those strange, strained days my mother hung by me like an orbiting moon. Something about her continual presence reminded me of being a child. Then one morning, after my father had appeared in the kitchen in pursuit of fresh coffee and my mother, wearing rubber gloves, had manifested from somewhere upstairs, I realized just what it was: it had been exactly like that when Laika and I were small. When my father was at home, my mother was always close by. If we weren’t out, either at school or attending an endless stream of holiday clubs, she was by our side. She brushed our hair and read us books and sang to us while we took baths. She never, ever, let us be around him on our own.

But now he said he wanted a word, alone, with me. I followed him into his study, not looking back in case I met my mother’s eyes. He shut the door. Then he sat back in his black leather chair and templed his fingers. I stayed standing, pinned to the wall.

“I thought we should have a little chat,” he said in an equable tone; “thought I’d better check in with my little Golden Girl, make sure you’re doing okay. Can’t be easy for you, what with that girl’s body being found, all these rumors flying around, me being taken off by the police. God knows what’s been going through your mind.” He leaned back, one arm supporting the elbow of the other, his thumb resting on his jaw. “You know what I’ve always appreciated about you, Willa? You always tell the truth. That’s a good trait. A trait I appreciate. Makes you someone I can trust.” His voice soft, he added, “You’re a good girl, Willa.” I felt myself filling with a sort of violent headiness, like vertigo, or the plummeting sensation that comes before a faint.

“Tell me something,” he said, “did you think that was Laika?”

“What?”

“You didn’t somehow imagine that Daddy had chopped your little sister into pieces and stashed her body inside one of my own warehouses?” His voice was mild, almost amused.

“Jesus, Dad, no. Of course not.”

“How about your mother?” He gave me a benign smile.

“She wouldn’t ever”—he doesn’t have the wherewithal—“ever think that.”

“You’re sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

My father pursed his lips. Then he nodded, a look of quiet satisfaction on his face. “Okay,” he said, “good to know.” I blinked. I felt as if thousands of spiders were crawling out of the back of my shirt. I forced myself to stand still. He crossed his arms, his eyes still holding mine. “Your mother”—he paused, as if searching for the right words—“has been known to entertain some pretty odd ideas at times. I would hate for you to be—infected by that sort of thinking. Anyway. We probably shouldn’t bother her with this conversation, I think. Better we should keep it between ourselves, tell her we were chatting about school. We wouldn’t want to worry her. You understand me, precious?” I nodded, standing very still. He looked at me for a long time. Finally he said, “You will be all right, Willa.”

He looked down at his desk. I turned, reaching for the door handle.

“And, just so we’re clear,” he said, “I did not.”

I stopped. I looked back, my breath caught in my throat. My father was leafing through some papers. He didn’t look up. When he didn’t say anything further, I turned again to go.

“You’re a good one, Willa,” he said, almost half to himself. “If all women were like you, my life would be a damn sight easier.”

***

A day later, the police liaison officer was back.

“Based on what we know so far, we suspect it’s a migrant,” he said. “Some poor kid from the Philippines or Vietnam. Somehow ends up inside a long-term lockup.”

“But how did she get there?” my mother said. “That poor girl.”

“People smugglers, almost certainly. It’s a growing business. Mr. Martenwood, we’re going to need to interview your drivers, in fact, your entire workforce. All of them.”

My father said, “Jesus Christ, do you have any idea what that’s going to do to my business? Some little whore steals a lift from me and I pay the price.”

Two days later, my father let my mother and me know that he intended to take a trip to Southeast Asia. He planned to sell Martenwood Haulage and wanted to investigate possible business opportunities abroad. He couldn’t say when he’d be back. The morning after, a driver came to take him to the airport. I stood on the stone steps beside my mother, her arm around my shoulders, my chest tight. I felt as if I’d been holding my breath for weeks.

The day was already warm, the sky a peacock blue. My mother watched the limousine as it disappeared down the drive, a rigid smile fading slowly from her face. She stood for a long time after the car finally disappeared from sight, a fingertip pressed tight against her lips. I thought she looked unspeakably sad. The metal gates they’d installed swung open, and then shut. My father was gone. My mother sighed, and the look of exhaustion seemed to slip off her like a cloak. She pulled herself upright. She put her arms around me and clasped her fingers tight together. She looked at my face. Her eyes roved over mine and I waited for her to say something momentous.

After a moment she said, “Did you ever apply for that provisional license? I really ought to teach you to drive.”

***

We practiced every day. My mother put down the roof of her convertible and we went hiccuping up and down the gated road, first at a snail’s pace, then gradually faster. My mother was a relaxed instructor. Wearing a spotted sundress, head scarf, dark glasses and red lipstick, she appeared completely oblivious to the bucking, jerking motion of the car and the fact that I didn’t appear to be making any progress. Occasionally she’d shout clutch but mostly she kept up a stream of commentary about our neighbors, which she interspersed with lines from Dynasty, all of which were delivered in a slow American drawl. I’d say, “I keep forgetting which one is the indicator and which one is the wipers,” to which she’d reply, “Felicity Williams has most definitely had work done, you overrated cowboy.”

Later she based my lessons around trips out—to country houses, the coast or tea shops in little local towns. Despite my appalling skills behind the wheel, she always looked like she was enjoying herself. She smiled a lot that summer. She laughed. She sang along to her George Michael CDs. She wore short sleeves.

One warm afternoon we drove miles to see a crop circle that had appeared in a field. We stood looking at a vast yellow meadow beneath a sky filled with banks of lavender clouds. In front of us was a small section of flattened ground, but, from where we were standing, it mostly looked like a normal field of wheat.