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‘Victory was Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar,’ I say. ‘It established British naval supremacy for more than a hundred years.’
‘Is that important?’
‘Far-right groups like banging on about past glories of the British Empire.’
‘We don’t know if this was a racist attack,’ he says, sounding hopeful rather than confident.
Evie has been waiting for me on the far side of the dock gates. She is sitting on a broken block of concrete, arms wrapped around her chest, rocking slightly, scuffing her shoes in the dirt. To reach the cars, we have to pass near the arrested men. She suddenly stops and stares at one of them. The man with the scarred neck is sitting in the back seat of an unmarked police car.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
Evie isn’t listening. Her eyes have glazed over, and she stares into the distance, at some point on the horizon, seen or unseen. Taking a step, she seems to lose her balance. I catch her before she falls. Putting my arm around her waist. She sinks against me.
‘What is it?’
Her face turns to mine.
‘I know him.’
24
Evie
Some memories are like old photographs in dusty frames that are fading but forever preserved, while others are like shards of broken glass. If you hold them too tightly they can cut you over and over again. This one is sudden and savage and steals my breath. I know this man. I’ve seen him before.
Cyrus has pulled me away from the others. He whispers, ‘You recognise him?’
I nod.
‘From where?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is he one of the men who . . . one of the . . .?’
‘No.’ I answer too quickly.
Cyrus stops himself. He wants to know if this man abused me. If he’s one of the many who passed me around like a birthday parcel, each unwrapping another layer, until they found their prize.
‘You’re sure?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
I would remember him if he was one of them. Most were older, richer, uglier. Maybe he worked at one of their houses – as a driver or a guard or a gardener or a tradesman. He could have been one of the men who searched for me – who ripped up carpets and floorboards and knocked holes in walls, while I hid in my secret room, as quiet as a mouse.
At Langford Hall they kept trying to place me in foster homes, but each family sent me back because I was damaged goods or was just plain ‘creepy’. I remember the fathers; none of them had a face like his. Most of them were do-gooders or churchgoers or looking to make the world a better place for children.
Where else could I have met him? He wasn’t a teacher or a therapist or a childcare worker. And it wasn’t some random fleeting encounter like a charity door-knock or an Uber Eats delivery or someone in a supermarket queue. I know him.
A voice yells from across the dock. A detective waves and jogs towards us.
‘Did you pick up the knife?’ he asks.
Cyrus answers. ‘It was lying on the ground.’
‘It’s not there – and we searched him again.’
‘Maybe he kicked it into the water.’
