18. Norah

Detective Hando, to Norah's delight, was a dog person. He had four dogs at home—one more than was legally allowed in his inner-city dwelling: a German shepherd called Roger, a Staffy named Ian, a beagle cross called Martha, and a terrier with one eye called Boris Johnson. Norah had already offered to take one of them, which of course would be one more than she was legally allowed to have, but like Hando, she cared not for silly dog rules.

After ten minutes of them sharing photos of their dogs on their phones, Hando glanced at his watch and suggested ruefully that it might be time for Norah to make her statement.

"Fine," Norah said, sitting back and crossing her arms. "If we must."

He pressed record on the device, then proceeded to state their names, the date and some file numbers corresponding to a manila envelope that was sitting on the coffee table.

"Right," he began. "I want you to tell me about your life at Wild Meadows, starting with how you came to be there."

"I was booted from my previous placement for kicking someone in the balls."

Hando blinked. "May I ask why you were in foster care? Where were your parents?"

"My mother was a drug addict," she said.

Hando made a sympathetic face, but life with her mum wasn't so bad. Norah had liked the predictability of it. The two of them had a routine. Her mother took drugs before she went out for the evening. She arrived home as the sun came up, then slept all day, waking up around the time that Norah got home from school. After dinner, she took drugs again. Rinse and repeat.

It was all fine until the day when Norah got home from school and found her mother still asleep. She was so still, and so pale, that Norah began shaking her.

"What are you doing?" her mum asked groggily.

"Just making sure you're not dead."

"Hold my hand, then," she said, closing her eyes and holding out her hand.

Though she scorned herself for it later, at the time Norah had interpreted her mother's comment to mean that if Norah was holding her hand, she couldn't die. Norah took her side of the bargain very seriously. She sat beside her mother's bed and gripped her hand tightly.

Three hours later, when her mother's boyfriend arrived with a couple of friends, Norah's mum was still asleep. He tried to wake her, even slapping her face, but her mother didn't stir.

"Norah, get out of there. I need to call an ambulance."

But Norah sat holding her mother's hand, even as the paramedics ran into the room, tailed by police. When one of the cops tried to prise Norah away, she went ballistic.

"No," she screeched. The strength of her voice surprised her. "I have to hold her hand."

"Honey, we need to help your mother," the police officer said. His eyes were bright with urgency. "I'm going to take you back to the cop car, okay? Have you been in a police car before?"

He started tugging Norah away from her mother, but she wouldn't release her mother's hand.

"You need to let go, honey," said the police officer.

"I can't," Norah cried.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You have to."

The cop gave a final tug, and her mum's hand slid from her grasp.

"I'm sorry about your mother," Hando said again.

Norah shrugged.

"What about your dad?"

"Already dead by then."

"Oh."

Through the window, Norah saw a man in a baseball cap walking toward the door of the police station. There was something familiar about him, the way he walked as if his feet were glued to the ground. Underneath the baseball cap, his hair was red.

"I know this is difficult," Hando said, "but I promise it's incredibly helpful to our investigation."

"If you say so. But I don't see how telling you about my childhood has anything to do with it. You'd be better off asking who the bones belonged to."

Hando sat up straight. "Do you know who the bones belong to?"

"No."

He looked so disappointed, Norah felt bad. She considered making a guess, but before she could, he said, "In that case, talking about your childhood is all we've got."

Bugger.

"Perhaps you can tell me how you felt about Miss Fairchild?" the detective suggested. "Did you like her?"

"No. She was awful."

"Awful how?" Hando asked. "Violent?"

"Depends on your definition of violence."

"What do you mean by that?"

Norah sat forward in her chair and rubbed the belly that Converse had exposed tellingly. "Let's just say she found more interesting ways to hurt people."