The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham

planning to stay but one suitcase would never be enough.
    “Your father was cleaning out the attic,” she explains.
    “Why?”
    “Because he has nothing else to do.” She sounds exasperated.
    My father has retired after thirty-five years driving mainline trains and is stil making the adjustment. Last week he went through my pantry checking use-by dates and putting them in order.
    Mama opens the suitcase. Lying neatly across the top is my old Oaklands school uniform. I feel a stab of recognition and remember Cate. I should phone the hospital for an update on her condition.
    “I didn’t want to throw things away without asking you,” she explains. There are scarves, scrapbooks, photo albums, diaries and running trophies. “I had no idea you had a crush on Mr.
    El iot.”
    “You read my diary!”
    “It fel open.”
    Matricide is a possibility.
    She changes the subject. “Now you’re coming early on Sunday to help us cook. Make sure Hari wears something nice. His ivory shirt.” My father is having his sixty-fifth birthday and the party has been planned for months. It wil include at least, one eligible Sikh bachelor, no doubt. My parents want me to marry a good Sikh boy, bearded of course; not one of those clean-shaven Indians who thinks he’s a Bol ywood film star. This ignores the fact that al my brothers cut their hair, apart from Prabakar, the eldest, who is the family’s moral guardian.
    I know that al parents are considered eccentric by their children, but mine are particularly embarrassing. My father, for example, is a stickler for conserving energy. He studies the electricity bil every quarter and compares it to previous quarters and previous years.
    Mama crosses entire weeks off the calendar in advance so that she “doesn’t forget.”
    “But how wil you know what day it is?” I once asked her.
    “Everyone knows what day it is,” she replied.
    You cannot argue with logic like that.
    “By the way, your phone is fixed,” she announces. “A nice man came this afternoon.”
    “I didn’t report a problem.”
    “Wel , he came to fix it.”
    A chil travels across my skin as if someone has left a door open. I fire off questions: What did he look like? What was he wearing? Did he have identification? Mama looks concerned and then frightened.
    “He had a clipboard and a box of tools.”
    “But no ID.”
    “I didn’t ask.”
    “He should have shown it to you. Did you leave him alone?”
    “I was cleaning.”
    My eyes dart from one object to the next, taking an inventory. Moving upstairs, I search my wardrobes and drawers. None of my jewelry is missing. My bank statements, passport and spare set of keys are stil in the drawer. Careful y, I count the pages of my checkbook.
    “Perhaps Hari reported the fault,” she says.
    I cal him on his mobile. The pub is so noisy he can barely hear me.
    “Did you report a problem with the phone?”
    “What?”
    “Did you cal British Telecom?”
    “No. Was I supposed to?”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    My mother rocks her head from side to side and makes concerned noises. “Should we cal the police?”
    The question had already occurred to me. What would I report? There was no break-in. Nothing has been taken as far as I can tel . It is either the perfect crime or no crime at al .
    “Don’t worry about it, Mama.”
    “But the man—”
    “He was just fixing the telephone.”

    I don’t want her worrying. She spends enough time here already.
    Mama looks at her watch. If she doesn’t leave now she won’t be home for dinner. I offer to drive her and she smiles. It is the widest, most radiant smile ever created. No wonder people do as she says—they want to see her smile.
    On the bedside table is a book that I started reading last night. The bookmark is in the wrong place—twenty pages forward. Perhaps I moved it inadvertently. Paranoia is not reality on a finer scale; it is a foolish reaction to unanswered questions.

    7
    On her very last day of being