I was having trouble sleeping, even when I got the opportunity. I often do, as I've said, but this was different: in those weeks I kept finding myself trapped in some twilight zone between sleep and waking, unable to force my way into either. "Look out!" voices said suddenly and loudly in my ear; or, "I can't hear you. What? What?" I half-dreamed dark intruders moving stealthily around the room, riffling through my work notes and fingering the shirts in my wardrobe; I knew they couldn't be real, but it took me a panicky eternity to drag myself awake to either confront or dispel them. Once I woke to find myself slumped against the wall by my bedroom door, pawing crazily at the light switch, my legs barely able to hold me up. My head was swimming and there was a muffled moaning sound coming from somewhere, and it was a long time before I realized that it was my voice. I turned on the light, and my desk lamp, and crawled back into bed, where I lay, too shaken to go back to sleep, until my alarm went off.
In this limbo I kept hearing children's voices, too. Not Peter's and Jamie's, or anything: this was a group of children a long way off, chanting playground rhymes that I didn't remember ever having known. Their voices were gay and uncaring and too pure to be human, and underneath them were the brisk expert rhythms of complicated hand-clapping.
Rosalind phoned my mobile that Saturday. I was in the incident room; Cassie had gone off to talk to Missing Persons; behind me, O'Gorman was bellowing about some guy who had failed to give him proper respect during the door-to-door. I had to press the phone to my ear to hear her. "Detective Ryan, it's Rosalind… I'm so sorry to bother you, but do you think you might have the time to come talk to Jessica?"
City noises in the background: cars, loud conversation, the frenetic beeping of a pedestrian signal. "Of course," I said. "Where are you?"
"We're in town. Could we meet you in the Central Hotel bar in, say, ten minutes? Jessica has something to tell you."
I dug out the main file and started flipping through it for Rosalind's date of birth: if I was going to talk to Jessica, I needed an "appropriate adult" present. "Are your parents with you?"
"No, I…no. I think Jessica might be more comfortable talking without them, if that's all right."
My antennae prickled. I had found the page of family stats: Rosalind was eighteen, and appropriate as far as I was concerned. "No problem," I said. "I'll see you there."
"Thank you, Detective Ryan, I knew I could come to you-I'm sorry to rush you, but we really should get home before-" A beep, and she was gone: either her battery or her credit had run out. I wrote Cassie a "Back soon" note and left.
Rosalind had good taste. The Central bar has a stubbornly old-fashioned feel-ceiling moldings, huge comfortable armchairs taking up inefficient quantities of space, shelves of weird old books in elegant bindings-that contrasts satisfyingly with the manic overdrive of the streets below. Sometimes I used to go there on Saturdays, have a glass of brandy and a cigar-this was before the smoking ban-and spend the afternoon reading the 1938
Rosalind and Jessica were at a table by the window. Rosalind's curls were caught up loosely and she was wearing a white outfit, long skirt and gauzy ruffled blouse, that blended perfectly with the surroundings; she looked as if she had just stepped in from some Edwardian garden party. She was leaning over to whisper in Jessica's ear, one hand stroking her hair in a slow, soothing rhythm.
