The officer asked me to begin before the photograph arrived. Where had I been sitting? What had I been doing? What had made me look at the phone?
I described the kitchen conversation with Beth, returning to the sitting room and the ordinary movement around the chairs. Some details were clear. Others were less certain than they had felt when we first talked about them as a group.
“Tell me which is which,” she said.
The message from Tom arrived at twenty thirty-six. I had looked at Poppy’s photograph, then looked up. Celia was in the room, holding the milk jug. That was the point I could connect to a preserved time on my device.
“Had she just entered?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you hear the front door?”
“I don’t remember hearing it.”
“Is that the same as saying it didn’t open?”
“No.”
The officer moved on to the notebook.
We discussed the notebook’s claim of a return by twenty past. I said when I had first read it and what Vivienne had told me about the addition. I could not make that time my own because somebody had written it neatly.
“Have you discussed the timing with Celia since?”
I described our conversations. Celia had asked me to remember her as a friend; she had not asked me to confirm a particular time.
The officer asked about my contact with the other women. I described the fund discussions, the boundary-setting conversation at the café and what had been said about the application. I did not assume those subjects were irrelevant because today’s appointment concerned minutes on a clock.
After she left, I sat at the table with the photograph still open. Tom came in quietly and asked whether the school form on the counter needed my signature or his.
“Either parent’s.”
He signed it. Another small piece of administration ceased to wait for me.
I went for a walk before my shift. Without meaning to, I counted my steps towards the hall. I lost count at the crossing and made myself stop.
Near the hall, I met George carrying a shopping bag. He looked better than he had in the first weeks, though he still hesitated when a delivery van stopped abruptly beside us.
“All right?” I asked.
“Most days.”
We talked about the weather and his daughter’s upcoming visit. He did not owe me another account of finding Martin because we happened to be standing near the building.
Before we parted, he said someone had told him the women had been together all evening.
“We weren’t continuously together,” I said. “I’ve been clear about what I saw.”
He nodded.
“I thought that sounded too tidy.”
At work, I kept catching myself checking the clock. Twenty minutes could be a long time or no time at all, depending on whether you were waiting for news or helping someone reset a password.
During my break, Celia messaged to ask whether the police had been round again. Someone had seen the officer’s car.
I replied that I had answered follow-up questions about my own account. I would not discuss the details by message.
Her reply was quick.
I hope they’re getting the full picture.
I looked at the photograph of Poppy once more, then closed it.
On my way home, a woman outside the pharmacy called my name. I recognised her from the next street but could not remember hers.
“Nora? I’m Ruth Fenwick. We met at the summer stall photographs.”
She meant the afternoon people had been showing the old fundraiser pictures, not a summer I had spent here. I remembered her then.
“I think we should clear something up,” she said. “People keep saying nobody saw Celia on the road.”