I stop and put the book into my pocket and pick my way towards Seb until I’m next to him, staring down where he is. There is the trunk. I had forgotten it until now. There’d been an old pine trunk outside the house when I’d come by with the cash. It was Seb and Nina’s coffee table. One of the sides had developed a crack which was enough for Nina to throw it out. When we took the money into the loft, I remembered it.

‘Sure,’ Seb had said when I suggested using it to put the money in. I’d dragged it up the ladder and we’d put the bags into it. Seb had locked it with a padlock he had found and given me the key.

Now looking at it I see there’s a layer of dust over the top, thinner than I expected. I bend to open it just before reminding myself again that it is locked and I don’t have the key. Did I keep the key? Have it once? There’s a memory there, but it’s too muddy to reach.

Immediately my brain begins to filter what I know about picking locks once again. This lock is a simple one. The principles are similar, I think, and I rummage around in my head for what I need. Something thin and metal like a pen clip. I hold the lock to examine the mechanism and see something that confuses me. It’s in the open position. Unlocked.

I look for Seb to show him the lock but he’s busy picking up things that have been knocked over in the search. ‘Seb,’ I say, showing him the lock.

He stops scrabbling around on the boards and sees the lock. He frowns momentarily before turning a little pale.

‘What the—’ he says.

I lift the lid slowly and stand up.

Seb and I stare at each other. The trunk is empty.

34

Wednesday

‘The police,’ I say. ‘The police have been up there. They must have taken it.’

Seb stops to consider this. ‘No. They were here but they didn’t take the cash. Whatever they took they put into clear bags and made me sign for.’

We make our way down the ladder. I turn over the possibilities.

‘Unless the police came back,’ he says, pushing the loft hatch shut, ‘and took it.’

I unpack this as he clicks the latch into place. ‘Wouldn’t they have to leave something to say they’d been? A notice or something?’

‘Yes, I suppose.’ He makes his way to the kitchen.

‘Who else had access to it?’ I follow him into the kitchen and catch my reflection in the black of the windows.

Seb puts the kettle on to boil but then stalls. ‘Nina. Could be her. Can’t be anyone else in fact. Nobody else has been up there.’