Words were useless, utterly useless.

You just had to try to keep living. Continue being in the world, keep on acting as if it meant something, there was a reason, behave like your actions were meaningful. It was much harder than it sounded.

Ellie finished her tea, slipped upstairs and got dressed. She patted the keys in her pocket, put her jacket on and left the house, pulling the front door behind her.

She started walking. Not aimlessly, this wasn’t just a way of freeing her mind. No, this time she had a purpose, she was compelled, there was somewhere she needed to go.

She checked her watch. 2.35 a.m. She walked past the police station to the end of Hopetoun Road then hooked right, following the road up the hill. Her stride had vigour as she passed the two churches and the turn off for Station Road, then the primary school and the park. What did it mean to know a place so well? To know every bench in every park, every bin and postbox on every corner. Did it amount to anything?

She turned off Kirkliston Road at Viewforth and headed into the warren of residential streets. A left then a right and she was on Inchcolm Terrace. She hadn’t walked past a single soul since she left her house down by the water. Not even a car or a taxi had swished past in the streetlights. The town was hibernating.

She got to number 23 and stopped. Glanced up and down the street then looked at the house. The lights were off. She opened the gate and walked up the path. When she got to the front door she stopped. Looked at the glass and wood of the door, the doorbell, the handle she touched that first time.

She got the keys out of her pocket, Jack’s keys, slid the Yale into the lock and turned. The door clicked open and she stepped into the McKennas’ home.

42

She stood with the door closed at her back and listened. Just her own breath in her throat, a pulse in her ears. She took a step forward and heard her ankle click. Just a joint thing, it happened occasionally after she’d been swimming, but the sound of it was outrageous in the dark.

She angled her head to listen upstairs. Nothing. She crept towards the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. She looked at the floor to the left, where Jack had been lying that first day. She walked over to the spot and knelt down. Rubbed at the laminate flooring. No sign of blood. She brought her fingers to her nose and smelled. Particles of dust and grit between her fingers, nothing more. She stood up and looked along the work surfaces. A knife block with one knife missing. Presumably still at the police station as evidence. She wondered what they’d been able to make of that.

She went to the patio door at the back of the kitchen. Looked at the handle, the one she touched. People must’ve come and gone out this door since then. She wondered how many remnants of fingerprints had been left over the years. If the house was fifty years old, say, think of the hundreds of people passing through, new owners, friends, family, parties, a slice of mundane humanity in this insignificant corner of the world.

She went into the living room and did a circuit. Looked at the family portraits on the wall, the school photos of Sam and Libby, the holiday snaps, a picture of Alison holding a baby. Ellie couldn’t tell which child it was, and it seemed unfair that there was only one baby picture on the wall.

She went to the bottom of the stairs and began walking up. She’d read somewhere as a kid that the way to sneak upstairs was to place your feet at the sides of the steps, as the centres were more inclined to creak under your weight. She had no idea if that was true but she did it all the same, spreading her weight and placing her feet carefully on the edges of each stair as she went up.

She stood at the top, her hand on the banister, and cocked her head again. She could hear breathing from one of the bedrooms, the one to her right. It sounded male, though she wasn’t sure. Not quite snoring but close, a peaceful, rhythmic sound.

She went in the other direction to the bedroom nearest the bathroom. Stood looking at the door for a while, then pushed it open and stepped inside.

Libby’s room. It was a midden, as Ellie’s mum would’ve said. There were clothes scattered all over the floor, magazines and books in three tumbling piles next to the bed. Make-up, cheap bracelets and necklaces were piled on top of a chest of drawers, along with hair straighteners, and half a dozen bottles of grooming products. The desk was strewn with empty Coke cans, biscuit wrappers and crisp packets, schoolbooks buried underneath.

Libby was lying on top of her covers in a short T-shirt and skimpy pants, only her legs under the duvet. She was on her back with her arms behind her head, like a soldier surrendering.

Ellie walked over. Her breathing was deep but gentle, her face peaceful, her skin so fresh and smooth that Ellie wanted to pinch it. She stood watching the girl for a few moments, then rubbed at her own eyes and left the room. She headed for the snoring next, waiting for a moment at the door before going inside.

Sam. The smell of him straight away, not the deodorant but really him, earthy and animalistic, like a fox. She breathed it in. His room was more organised than Libby’s, but not much. Clothes on the floor, football stuff in one corner, an Xbox and television in the other.

Ellie stood over him. He was half-out from under the covers, and she could see he was only wearing pants, the pair of Logan’s that Ellie had given him. She gazed at his bare torso, wiry and hard, ribs ridged up his sides, his elbows and wrists thin and delicate, like they would break easily. He shuffled in his sleep, shifting his weight, turning his face away from her. Ellie’s body tensed. Sam’s back was to her now, a bony spine, the shoulder blades like nascent wings. She wanted to touch them, see them flutter free. She watched his shoulders rise and fall with his breathing then turned and walked out the room.

That left Alison.

Ellie stood at the door and listened. All she could hear was Sam’s breathing from the other direction. She swallowed and pushed open the door.

Alison had her duvet pulled up to her chin. Asleep on her back, a hand hanging over the side. She was tucked into one half of the double bed, hadn’t spread out. Maybe over time she would get used to the extra space and claim it. Ellie imagined having a double bed to herself – freeing or lonely?

An empty bottle of white wine and a glass were on the floor next to the bed. A lamp, clock and a packet of painkillers for the morning. Her clothes discarded on a chair in the corner of the room. A large mirrored wardrobe along one wall, a print of stones on a beach from IKEA on the wall above the bed. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a normal married couple’s bedroom.

Ellie stood over Alison, watched her. Imagined picking up Jack’s pillow and placing it over Alison’s face. She sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand over Alison’s mouth.

‘Wake up,’ she said.

She gave Alison’s rump a shake through the covers and Alison’s eyes pinged open. She grunted and squirmed but Ellie pressed down on her mouth, felt the hard enamel of her teeth and the skin of her lips.

‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘I’m not here to harm you, I just want to talk.’

Alison’s eyes were wide. She shoved Ellie’s hand away from her mouth.

‘What the fuck are you doing in my house?’ she hissed. ‘I’m calling the police.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘I know about your family.’ Ellie looked behind her at the bedroom door. ‘I want to talk to you, but I think it’s best if we don’t wake Sam and Libby, don’t you?’

Alison stared as Ellie got up. She could see that Alison was wearing silky underwear, burgundy with lace trim.

‘Put something on and meet me downstairs,’ Ellie said, walking out the room.