Sister: A Novel Read Free Page B

instructions to junior policemen. There was a discussion about the camera crew and of who would play you. I didn’t want a stranger imitating you so I offered to do it. As we left the room, DS Finborough turned to me. ‘Mr Codi is a great deal older than your sister?’
    Fifteen years older and your tutor. He should have been a father figure, not a lover. Yes, I know I’ve told you that before, many times, building to a critical mass which forced you to tell me in so many words to butt out, only you would have used the English equivalent and told me to stop putting my nose in. DS Finborough was still waiting for my reply.
    ‘You asked me if I am close to her, not if I understand her.’
    Now, I think I do, but not then.

    DS Finborough told me more about the reconstruction.
    ‘A lady working at the post office on Exhibition Road remembers Tess buying a card and also air-mail stamps, some time before two p.m. She didn’t say Tess was pregnant, but I suppose there was a counter between them so she wouldn’t have seen.’
    I saw Mum coming along the corridor towards us as DS Finborough continued.
    ‘Tess posted the card from the same post office some time before two fifteen.’
    Mum’s voice snapped with exhausted patience. ‘The card was my birthday card. She hasn’t been to see me for months. Hardly ever phones. But sends me a card as if that makes it all right.’
    A couple of weeks before, I’d reminded you that it was her birthday coming up, hadn’t I?
    Before we go on, as I want to be honest in the telling of this story, I have to admit that you were right about Todd. He didn’t hear my song. Because I’d never once sung to him. Or to anyone else for that matter. Perhaps I am like one of those birds that can only imitate car alarms.

    Mr Wright gets up to close a Venetian blind against the bright spring sunshine.
    ‘And later that day you did the reconstruction?’ he asks.
    ‘Yes.’
    Mr Wright has the reconstruction on tape and doesn’t need additional details of my extraordinary game of dress-up, but I know you do. You’d love to know what kind of you I made. I didn’t do badly, actually. I’ll tell you about it without hindsight’s glaring clarity.

    A middle-aged woman police officer, WPC Vernon, took me to a room to change. She was pink-cheeked and healthy, as if she’d just come in from milking cows rather than policing London streets. I felt conscious of my pallor, the red-eye flight taking its toll.
    ‘Do you think it’ll do any good?’ I asked.
    She smiled at me and gave me a quick hug, which I was taken aback by but liked. ‘Yes, I do. Reconstructions are too much of a palaver if there isn’t a good chance of jogging someone’s memory. And now we know that Tess is pregnant it’s more likely that someone will have noticed her. Right then, let’s get your clothes sorted out, shall we?’
    I found out later that although forty, WPC Vernon had only been a policewoman for a few months. Her policing style reflected the warm and capable mother in her.
    ‘We’ve fetched some clothes from her flat,’ she continued. ‘Do you know what kind of thing she might have been wearing?’
    ‘A dress. She’d got to the point where nothing else would fit over the bump and she couldn’t afford maternity clothes. Luckily most of her clothes are baggy and shapeless.’
    ‘ Comfortable Bee.’
    WPC Vernon unzipped a suitcase. She had neatly folded each tatty old garment and wrapped them in tissue paper. I was touched by the care that she had shown. I still am.
    I chose the least scruffy dress; your purple voluminous Whistles one with the embroidery on the hem.
    ‘She got this in a sale five years ago,’ I said.
    ‘A good make lasts, doesn’t it?’
    We could have been in a Selfridges’ changing room.
    ‘Yes, it does.’
    ‘Always worth it if you can.’
    I was grateful to WPC Vernon for her ability to make small talk, a verbal bridge between two people in the most unlikely of