Chapter 9: Before He Could Disappear
I called the number on Patricia Hale's card at seven forty-five the next morning.
It rang twice.
"Detective Reeves."
"My name is Claire," I said.
"Patricia Hale told me to call.
She said you'd know the file."
A brief pause.
"I know it.
I've been waiting for this call." Another pause, shorter.
"Are you somewhere you can talk?"
I was sitting at Dot's kitchen table.
Dot had insisted I stay the night.
She'd made up the spare room without asking and put a glass of water on the nightstand, and I had slept — not well, but I had slept.
"Yes," I said.
"I can talk."
"Good.
I need to tell you something before we go any further." Detective Reeves's voice was measured, professional, but not unkind.
"We received information last night that your father may be attempting to leave the country.
We've been in contact with border control.
His passport has been flagged."
"Lisa told me he'd taken it," I said.
"She called us as well.
Last night, around eleven." A pause.
"She also brought in the financial agreement he had her sign before the wedding.
Our documents specialist looked at it this morning.
There are irregularities."
"He did the same thing to her," I said.
"It appears so.
She's cooperating fully."
I looked at the table.
Dot set a cup of tea in front of me without a word.
"What do you need from me?" I said.
"A formal statement," Reeves said.
"Today if possible.
And the USB drive — we'll need the original, not a copy, for the chain of evidence.
Can you bring it in?"
"Yes," I said.
"There's one more thing," Reeves said.
"The recording your mother made — the one where she speaks directly to camera, giving dates and a description of events.
We've reviewed the copy Gerald Marsh provided.
It's strong.
But I want you to be prepared for what it's like to hear it in a formal context."
I wrapped both hands around the mug.
"I've heard it," I said.
"You've heard it once, privately.
Hearing it played in a statement room is different.
I just want you to know that."
"I understand," I said.
"I'll be there."
I arrived at the station at ten.
Dot drove me.
She waited in the car without being asked.
Detective Reeves was a woman in her fifties, with short dark hair and reading glasses pushed up on her forehead.
She shook my hand and walked me through the process before we started — what the statement would cover, how the recording would be handled, what came next.
"Your father was stopped at the airport at six this morning," she said, before we began.
"He's been detained for questioning.
He has a solicitor present."
"Is he talking?" I said.
"His solicitor is talking," she said.
"Which is not the same thing."
She set a recorder on the table between us.
"Ready?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
The statement took two hours.
I told her everything — the day I came home early and heard them in the kitchen, the months of pretending I didn't know, my mother's last weeks, the wedding, the box, Dot, Patricia Hale, Gerald Marsh, Lisa, the message about the passport.
At one point Reeves stopped me and asked me to repeat a date.
I repeated it.
At another point she asked me how I had obtained the USB drive.
"It was left in my mailbox," I said.
"By Dot — Dorothy Callahan.
She'll confirm it."
"She already has," Reeves said.
"She called us this morning as well."
I looked at her.
"She called before I did," I said.
"About twenty minutes before," Reeves said.
A small, dry pause.
"She wanted to make sure you wouldn't have to do it alone."
I looked down at the table.
I didn't say anything for a moment.
"She and your mother were close for a long time," Reeves said, not unkindly.
"Fifty years," I said.
"It shows," she said.
When we finished, she walked me back to the front of the station.
She stopped at the door.
"This will take time," she said.
"I want to be honest with you about that.
The legal process is slow.
There will be hearings.
There may be delays.
His solicitor will look for every angle."
"I know," I said.
"But the evidence is solid," she said.
"Your mother built a very careful case.
She gave us everything we needed."
I pushed open the door.
Outside, Dot's car was parked at the kerb.
She was reading something on her phone.
When she saw me, she put it away and leaned over to push the passenger door open.
I got in.
"Done?" she said.
"Done," I said.
She pulled out into the road.
We drove in silence for a while.
The town looked ordinary in the morning light — shops opening, a school run thinning out, a man walking a dog along the pavement.
"She knew he'd try to run," I said.
"Yes," Dot said.
"Is that why she made the recordings?
So there'd be something that couldn't disappear with him?"
"Partly," Dot said.
"And partly because she wanted you to hear her voice." She kept her eyes on the road.
"She said — when we were at the solicitor's office, the last time — she said she was afraid you'd spend years wondering if she knew.
If she'd been fooled.
If she'd been helpless." Dot's voice was steady, but only just.
"She didn't want you to wonder."
I looked out the window.
"She wasn't any of those things," I said.
May you like
"No," Dot said.
"She wasn't."
