When I knocked on Holly’s door, she yelled, “Go away!” Holly’s bedroom is the only place in that house where you can still see that I exist: in among the pink and frillies are stuffed toys I bought her, bad cartoons I drew for her, funny postcards I sent her for no special occasion. She was facedown on the bed, with a pillow pulled over her head.
I said, “Hi, baby.”
A furious wriggle, and she pulled the pillow tighter over her ears, but that was it. I said, “I owe you an apology.”
After a moment, a muffled voice said, “Three apologies.”
“How’s that?”
“You brought me back to Mum, and you said you’d pick me up later but you didn’t, and you said you’d come get me yesterday but you didn’t.”
Straight for the jugular. “You’re right, of course,” I said. “And if you come out here to me, I’ll apologize three times to your face. But I’m not saying sorry to a pillow.”
I could feel her deciding whether to keep punishing me, but Holly isn’t a sulker; five minutes is about her max. “I owe you an explanation, too,” I added, just for good measure.
Curiosity did it; after a second the pillow slid back a few inches and a suspicious little face poked out. I said, “I apologize. I apologize double. And I apologize triple, from the heart, with a cherry on top.”
Holly sighed and sat up, pushing bits of hair off her face. She still wasn’t looking at me. “What happened?”
“You remember I told you your auntie Jackie had a problem?”
“Yeah.”
“Someone died, baby. Someone we used to know, a long time ago.”
“Who?”
“A girl called Rosie.”
“Why did she die?”
“We don’t know. She died way back before you were born, but we just found out about it Friday night. Everyone was pretty upset. Do you see why I needed to go find Auntie Jackie?”
A small, one-shouldered shrug. “I guess.”
“And does that mean we can go have a nice time with what’s left of the weekend?”
Holly said, “I was going to go over to Sarah’s house. Instead.”
“Chickadee,” I said. “I’m asking you a favor here. It would mean an awful lot to me if we could start this weekend over again. Go back to where we left off, on Friday evening, and fit in as much good stuff as we can before I have to bring you home tonight. Pretend everything in between never happened.” I saw her eyelashes flick as she snatched a quick sideways glance at me, but she didn’t say anything. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and I know I might not deserve it, but every now and then people have to cut each other a little slack. That’s the only way we all make it through the day. Could you do that for me?”
She thought it over. “Are you going to have to go back if something else happens?”
“No, sweetheart. We’ve got a couple of other detectives looking after all that now. No matter what happens, they’re the ones who’ll get called in to deal with it. It’s not my problem any more. OK?”
After a moment Holly rubbed her head quickly up against my arm, like a cat. “Daddy,” she said. “I’m sorry your friend died.”
I ran a hand over her hair. “Thanks, baby. I’m not going to lie to you: it’s been a pretty crap weekend. It’s starting to look up, though.”
Downstairs, the doorbell rang. I asked, “Expecting someone?”
Holly shrugged, and I rearranged my face ready to give Dermo a scare, but it was a woman’s voice. Jackie: “Ah, howya, Olivia, isn’t it terrible cold out?” A low, hurried interruption from Liv; a pause, and then the kitchen door shutting quietly, and then a tumble of undertones as they filled each other in on all the news.
“Auntie Jackie! Can she come with us?”
“Sure,” I said. I went to lift Holly off the bed, but she ducked under my elbow and made a dive for her wardrobe, where she started rooting through layers of pastel fuzz on a hunt for the exact cardigan she had in mind.
Jackie and Holly get on like a house on fire. Unexpectedly, and a little disturbingly, so do Jackie and Liv-no man wants the women in his life to be too close, in case they start swapping notes. It took me a long time after I met Liv to introduce them; I’m not sure which one I was ashamed of, or afraid of, but it did occur to me that I would feel a lot safer if Jackie took against my new middle-class associations and flounced right back out of my life. Jackie is one of my favorite people, but I’ve always had a knack for spotting Achilles’ heels, and that includes my own.
