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‘Your childhood. The abuse. What happened to your friend, Brooke.’
‘Brooke?’ Her heart turns black for a moment; her stomach churns.
The detectives exchange a look. ‘Yes. Brooke Ripley. She was your friend, from school. She had a relationship with your father?’
‘Had a relationship with my—?’
‘She went missing, you know, about the same time you left home, and we’re investigating the possibility that her disappearance might have been related to your parents.’
‘You’re joking, right?’
‘No. We’re not joking. We’re acting on the testimony left by your mother on Mrs Summer’s podcast recording.’
Roxy shakes her head and closes her eyes. ‘Listen. I can’t deal with this, OK? What else did my mum say to this woman?’
‘She shared hours of testimony with her. All of which pointed towards a very toxic domestic situation in your home, towards the possibility of spousal and child abuse, including the alleged sexual abuse of your sister.’ The woman stops, licks her lips, touches the paperwork with her peach fingertips. ‘By your father.’
‘My—?’ Roxy slams her hands down on the tabletop and the two detectives jump slightly. ‘Seriously? My dad? That’s what my mum told her, is it?’
‘She said that your father left the marital bed every night and went into Erin’s bedroom, then didn’t come back.’
‘Yes. He was gaming with her.’
‘Gaming?’
‘Yes. He was part of the thing, part of the act, you know. The subscribers loved my dad being there. He would just sit behind her and make wisecracks. He had a nickname. Pops. Erased and Pops. That was part of why her stream was so popular, because of him.’
‘So why do you think he didn’t tell your mother about it?’
‘She just couldn’t – could not deal with anything he had to do with either of us. She was so jealous of him, of the fact that we loved him. She was sick with it. You know. Sick in the head. So tell me, please, I can take it. Tell me what she did to him. Tell me what my mum did to my dad.’
Roxy sits outside the chichi coffee shop on Salusbury Road. Her brain is on fire. It’s hot with things, with thoughts rolling and jostling and images flashing and pounding, and she acts like she doesn’t care, she acts like she’s seen it all before, but she hasn’t and her dad is fucking dead and Erin is attached to a thousand wires in a hospital room, her life still hanging in the balance. She shreds a paper napkin with tense fingers, then realises what she’s done and balls the shreds together tightly. She glances up through the plate glass and sees a woman walking hurriedly towards the shop. She’s tall, and her hair is very blonde, it looks natural, but Roxy can see the roots starting to grow back in her side parting. She is wearing flared jeans and a sweatshirt, stack-heeled trainers and no make-up. She looks like she hasn’t slept for days. She sees Roxy as she enters the café and looks at her questioningly. Roxy nods.
‘Hi. Roxy.’ She sits down. ‘God. This is …’ She seems lost for words and her eyes scan Roxy’s face as though she’s trying to remember it for later. ‘I can’t believe it’s you. I just feel like …’ Her hands go up in the air and flutter around vaguely before landing in her lap. ‘Are you OK?’
Roxy nods. Roxy is always OK and would never want anyone to think otherwise.
‘I’m really sorry about your father.’
Roxy nods again. Then she looks at Alix and says, ‘What did my mum tell you about my dad?’
Alix eyes her uncertainly and then says, ‘I’m not sure how true a lot of it was?’
‘Just tell me.’
So Alix does.
3 p.m.
‘Is that comfortable?’
Alix looks across the desk in her recording studio at Roxy, who is adjusting her headphones. Roxy nods and gives her a thumbs-up.
‘Great.’
Roxy is five foot tall and terrifying. Her jaw juts defiantly, even when she’s being pleasant.
‘This is all bullshit,’ she’d said in the café just now, loud enough for the two young mums sitting behind to pause their conversation and turn slightly in their seats. ‘I can’t believe she told you that stuff. It’s—’ And she’d been about to launch into her own telling of her childhood when Alix put her hand up to stop her.
