The House on Birch Road

I knew the house by its back gate better than by its number.

When we were children, Finn's grandmother kept boiled sweets in a tin shaped like a postbox on the kitchen shelf. We had to ask for one, and she always pretended to count them afterwards. The garden had a plum tree that dropped fruit onto the path in August. Finn and I once tried to build a trap for wasps using half a plastic bottle and made a place where wasps could gather more efficiently.

There was a piano in the front room with three keys that did not sound right. Height marks on the pantry door. A radiator that clicked before the heating came on.

It was not a sinister house. I had to keep reminding myself of that.

Mum and I did not go there.

Instead we met Mrs Pemberton and Finn's grandmother at the library annex later that afternoon, because Mrs Pemberton was checking which stored items could be returned without sending volunteers to a property nobody had permission to enter.

Patricia Sayer wore a raincoat despite the clear sky. Her sister Winnie came with her and complained about the car park before she had taken her seat.

“Beatrice,” Patricia said. “You still look like your mother around the eyes.”

“I am here,” Mum said.

“I know, Ruth. That's how I can compare.”

For one dangerous second, it felt like an ordinary family acquaintance we had neglected for too long.

Mrs Pemberton explained that the police had been told about the storage records. She needed the practical arrangements clarified for the board as well. Nobody was asking us to investigate the house.

Patricia put a ring of keys on the table, then drew them back towards her.

“I offered the front room for the display boards,” she said. “Not the whole contents of the centre. The leak was in the back bedroom. Downstairs is dry.”

“Who arranged it?” Mrs Pemberton asked.

“Clare asked whether they could use the room for a fortnight. Finn said he'd bring things over after the event. He has a key.”

“Did you see what he brought?”

“No. I was already at Winnie's. The plumber had turned the water off. I'm not living in a house where I have to make an appointment to use a toilet.”

Winnie nodded firmly.

“Did Finn stay there?” Mum asked.

Patricia looked at her.

“He's worked there on his films. I let him use the table because he says his father comes into his room without knocking. Teenagers need somewhere to spread things out.”

“Has he lived there?”

“No.”

The answer was plain enough to make the room uncomfortable.

Mrs Pemberton looked down at the list.

“There's a soft equipment bag on this page,” she said. “Do you know anything about that?”

Patricia shook her head.

“I haven't been in since the Wednesday before the event. Winnie went round on Monday to collect my tablets and the brown shoes.”

“The good brown shoes,” Winnie said. “Not the ones by the door.”

“Did you see bags or cases?” I asked.

Winnie considered it.

“Display boards in the front room. A black holdall on the table. Something blue on the floor. I didn't inspect them. I was looking for shoes my sister had put somewhere sensible.”

Patricia made a small noise of disagreement.

“What sort of blue thing?” I asked.

“A box. Maybe a case. I can't tell you more than that.”

The blue hard case had already been returned to the hire shop on Saturday. Whatever Winnie saw on Monday could have been another box entirely. I wrote that in my head before the colour could become what I wanted.

Patricia watched me.

“Is this about the missing camera?”

“Different equipment,” Mum said. “Bea's original recording cards haven't been found. She's told the police what she knows.”

Patricia's hand closed over the keys.

“Finn said he'd returned the cameras.”

“He did return at least one case,” I said. “The cards weren't in it when the shop checked.”

“And you think they're at my house.”

“They might have been put in the soft bag. I don't know.”

She looked away towards the window.

“I rang him this morning,” she said. “He didn't answer. That's not unusual. Young people treat phones as everything except something to answer.”

No one laughed, though the sentence had been offered for that purpose.

Mrs Pemberton asked permission to give the police Patricia's contact details and the account of who had access. Patricia agreed. Winnie wanted to know whether someone would tell them before arriving. Mrs Pemberton said she could pass on the request, not make promises on anyone else's behalf.

The meeting lasted twenty minutes. It felt much longer.

When we stood, Patricia touched my arm.

“I heard about the film,” she said.

I did not know which film she meant, or which version of what had happened.

“I made mistakes,” I said.

“We all do.”

I looked at her tired face and understood how useful that sentence could be, and how little it settled.

Outside, Winnie asked Mum where we had parked. Mum said we had walked.

“Good for you,” Winnie said in a tone that made it sound like an unusual hobby.

Patricia remained beside me while her sister found the car key.

“Finn used to say you could mend anything on a computer,” she said.

“He exaggerated.”

“He often does.”

The small concession seemed to surprise her. She looked at the library doors, then back at me.

“When you see him, tell him to ring me.”

“I will.”

On the walk home, I remembered the pantry door. Finn had once insisted on standing on a book for his height mark because I had grown faster that year. Patricia caught him and made a second mark labelled WITH BOOK. We had laughed about it for years.

It was a tiny thing. A child wanting to be taller. I did not want to turn every memory into an early warning, as though we had been given a complete explanation of him at nine and failed to read it.

“Mum?”

“Yes.”

“Do people always know what their children are like?”

She took a few steps before answering.

“They know parts. Sometimes very well. Sometimes they know an older version and take too long to notice it's changed.”

“Do you?”

“With you?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me.

“I'm trying to keep up.”

I nodded. That felt like enough for the moment.

At home, there was an email from Adebayo asking me to confirm the time of the photograph showing the card wallet in the open case. She had the image already. She wanted the original message thread in which I told Finn where I had packed it.

I opened the conversation.

Cards in blue-latch case. Please don't let the hire shop wipe them. Need original sound Monday.

Got it. Go to bed, Bee.

I had read the exchange so many times that the words had become almost flat. Now the instruction sounded different. Go to bed. Stop watching. Leave the rest to me.

That was an interpretation, not something the message said. I sent the unaltered thread without adding it.