Free The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson

them.
    â€œAnd so we’ll leave you to get on with your evening,” said the copper.
    The young one looked at me again now, my face shiny with cream and my feet in my yeti slippers that should be white but pick up all the dust going and Walter Scott’s hair too and have always got a border of grey around the bottom.
    I shut the door behind them and bolted it.
    â€œâ€”uck’s sake,” I heard the younger one say as they splashed back to their car. “She’s as bad as the freak show up at the loony bin.”
    I waited for his boss to scold him, but all I heard was a snort of laughter, so I clicked off the porch light. Let them find the rest of their way in the dark.
    We waited, me in the hall and Stig up on the landing, until the sound of the car had faded into the hissing rain. Then I switched the light on and went up.
    â€œDid you hear that?” I said.
    â€œEvery word,” said Stig. He breathed in and out very fast four times and rubbed his face hard with the palms of his hands. “I didn’t stalk April Cowan,” he said. “That was a pack of lies. I can show you my phone and her phone and the call history. Jesus fucking Christ.” He had started pacing up and down the hall, in and out of the bedroom. I’d never seen anyone pace before. “She really had it in for me.”
    â€œNo sugar, Sherlock,” I said.
    â€œJesus, Glo, if they had come right up here as soon as they got the call they’d have found us parked up in the lane and mucking about in the huttie.” Then he fell silent, stopped pacing, and stared.
    â€œYes,” I said. “Well spotted. April Cowan wasn’t on the road at eight. She was bled out and stone cold by nine. Telling the cops you were chasing her was just about the last thing she did. She must have called them right before she—” I stopped, frowning.
    â€œYeah,” said Stig. “We’ve got her phone.”
    But I thought of a way to explain that. “We’ve got a phone.”
    â€œBut you said there was no signal.”
    â€œMaybe the huttie’s a hotspot.” It was all I had, but it didn’t seem likely.
    Stig thought it over. “Do you think they’ll come back when they get radioed through about the body?”
    â€œThey won’t get radioed,” I said. “I didn’t tell them. I hung up. Thank God, as it turned out.”
    â€œWhy not?” said Stig. “Why thank God?” He was watching me very carefully.
    â€œBecause it suddenly occurred to me that if she tried to get you to the huttie and she planted her bag at your flat, what do you think she’s left behind at her place? I bet if there’s a suicide note, your name’ll be mentioned.”
    His face, I was sure of it, turned pale. “But we’ve got to tell them, Glo. We can’t just leave her there.”
    I shook my head. “We’ve got to help April, that’s true. But we don’t need to tell them anything. They are not good people.”
    I was rummaging in the deep bottom drawer of the dressing table in the spare room.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    I hadn’t taken down the little eyes from either side of all the windows and I had kept the elastic wires coiled up in a drawer. The net curtains themselves I had dipped in Glo-white, just like my mum did, and then folded them away when they were dry.
    â€œAnd how do you know they’re worse people than me? Why did you cover for me when they said I stalked her?”
    â€œI asked them five times if Nicky was all right,” I said. “Five times. You heard me.”

Eight
    Tuesday
    It was strange the next morning, waking up with the windows muffled in net, like being inside a cocoon that turned the weak wintry daylight drab and grey. I missed the sight of the hill from my bedroom when I opened my eyes and the view of the garden laid out like a tapestry as I passed the landing window. Stig