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thanked her for what she did for us before she died.
It was because things hadn’t always been easy when we were growing up that it pleased Nicky
whenever I said a kind word about Esther. It pleased her immensely.
I agreed to go to John’s house. Laura came round to housesit because I still couldn’t stand to leave it
empty. Just in case. Nicky and I had to fight through the journalists to get to Nicky’s car. They jostled
us, shouted questions at us. We ignored them, but the questions hurt. They were aggressive, and
accusatory. Some of the photographers ran alongside the car as we pulled away, lenses at the
windows, snapping away at our white, scared faces.
John and Katrina’s house was only ten minutes’ drive away, on a quiet suburban street where
everybody had driveways and two cars parked on them at the weekend. The house was semidetached,
art deco in style, painted white, and had long, linear windows along the front of it, which
would normally give a view into both their sitting room and office. When we arrived the curtains
were drawn in both rooms, and there were journalists lounging on their low front wall like teenagers
at a bus stop. They leaped to their feet at the sight of us.
John opened the door and ushered us in quickly. He looked dishevelled, and he was unshaven.
‘In the kitchen,’ he said.
‘John,’ I said, before we stepped out of the hallway. ‘I’m so sorry about the press conference, so,
so sorry. I didn’t mean to…⁠’
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘At least you didn’t just cry like a baby.’
It hadn’t occurred to me that John might be berating himself for his own behaviour. I’d thought mine
so much worse.
‘Don’t be ashamed,’ I said, but he was already on his way into the kitchen.
Before I joined him I couldn’t help noticing the parquet floor in the hallway, and remembered what
Ben had said about it: ‘There’s a shiny floor, but I’m not allowed to skid on it.’
Katrina stood in the kitchen beside a small round table. Like John, she appeared haggard and undone
somehow. She was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, a cardigan over it. She looked very young. She glanced
at John as if expecting him to play host and when he didn’t she asked, ‘Can I get anything for you?
Would you like a cup of coffee? Or water? Or tea?’
It was awkward being in their house, I can’t deny it, but together we made a flyer, and in some
ways it was a relief to have something constructive to concentrate on.
Ben’s photo was prominent in our design, as was the phone number to contact. The word
‘MISSING’ ran along the top of the page. The plan was to print out one hundred copies there and then
and Katrina said she would get more done at a local print shop. She and Nicky discussed how and
where we should distribute them.
When we were done, Nicky said, ‘John, Katrina, do you mind if I ask, can either of you think of
anybody who might have done this? Anybody at all?’
John’s reply was curt. ‘I’ve told the police everything I can think of.’
‘Are you sure you can’t think of anything odd at all, people behaving strangely around him, anything
like that?’
Katrina said, ‘We’ve gone round and round in circles talking about this, haven’t we, John?’
He had his elbows on the table, his hands flat on its surface. It was almost a position of surrender.
He nodded at her. ‘We have,’ he said. ‘And I can’t think of anything.’ His eyes were so bloodshot they
looked painful.