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Chapters (59)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for I Know What I Saw
  3. By the Same Author
  4. Dedication Page
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  54. Now read on for a preview
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  59. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACTON CEMETERY.

28

Tuesday

I don’t get on with cemeteries. The ghost of Rory lingers around every hallowed space. He is hard enough to escape on good days when I am busy surviving. Even on those days he comes through, snaking in through cracked veins. And when he does it takes all my effort to shut him out.

But here, he flies straight at me from every corner. He is everywhere. Smiling. Reproachful.

The ghosts press hard against the shell of my skull but I push myself ahead. Ebadi is hunched uncertainly against the cold, but there’s no uncertainty in his route. He skirts the old chapel at the foot of the path and then makes straight for the field of graves. He weaves through the headstones, picking over the uneven ground. The wind bites as I go, forcing my face down.

Ebadi is heavier-set than I remember, but he moves smoothly despite his weight. I pause to watch where he goes and as soon as I do, he stops too.

As the wind cuts through me, he plunges his hands into his pockets to bring out fistfuls of petals. The wind carries them away to land on broken ground. As he releases the last of his confetti and touches his hand to chest, I realise something with a jolt. Maybe he has buried her here. Maybe he’s managed to remove her body to this graveyard. What better place for a decomposing dead body? A sanctified space for a woman he no doubt loved. Of course, when I think of it now, in this cold light, he couldn’t have, wouldn’t have simply dumped her in a river or some waste ground. He would have wanted to be able to commune with her. He would have needed a place to exorcise his grief and beg for redemption. Or at least to hide her in plain sight.

I fix my eyes on the gravestone. From this distance it looks smooth like marble, similar to the marble that now paves his hallway. The coincidence begins a furious sadness in my chest. Even in death she couldn’t avoid being possessed by him. Ebadi looks up to the sky and then makes his way back to the path. I look past him, feigning a casual glance before heading off at a tangent. I circle round behind him so I can watch his back receding towards the exit. I keep looking until he is just a dot and has passed through the gates. Then I make immediately for the smooth gravestone.

What am I expecting to see engraved there? Her name? Would he be that bold? And then other questions begin to rain down around me. How did he get a space here? Would there have been a death certificate? What about a ceremony? A service of some kind? Immediately behind me I feel the weight of a person, not quite pressing, but following. There is no sense in turning around.