‘These things happen,’ the older detective murmured. The younger-looking detective, quite out of his depth, tried to look busy, scribbling into his notepad.
He motioned to me to sit, saying he had a few questions.
He questioned me about small details. Anything you can remember, no matter how small, he kept saying. He asked the same questions many times over, but in different ways. He asked if I’d seen anything unusual and then he asked if I’d seen anybody talking to Elise just before my mother and I realised she was not with us.
I answered the questions truthfully, but the truth was slippery. I thought about the perfect moment. It was Bernadette’s fault. I thought about how wrong that moment was. It was my fault. No, it was my mother’s fault for not paying attention. No, it was Sunita’s
