Lost by Michael Robotham Page B

conveyor belt. Then I pick up the magazines from the floor and find a packet of biscuits tucked into the waistband of her jeans.
    “She was trying to steal those,” protests the guard.
    “She was holding them. Take your hands off her.”
    “And who the fuck are you?”
    My badge flips open. “I'm the guy who's going to charge you with assault if you don't let her go.”
    Sarah reaches inside her coat and takes a box of tea bags from an inner pocket. Then she waits while the cashier scans each item and packs them into a plastic bag.
    I take hold of the shopping bag and she fol ows me through the automatic doors. The manager intercepts us. “She's not welcome here. I don't want her coming back.”
    “She pays, she comes,” I say, as I pass him and walk into the bright sunshine.
    For a fleeting moment I think Sarah might run, but instead she turns and holds out her hand for her groceries.
    “Not so fast.”
    She shrugs off her overcoat revealing khaki jeans and a T-shirt.
    “It's a bit of a giveaway.” I motion to the coat.
    “Thanks for the advice.” Her voice is ful of fake toughness.
    “You want a cold drink?”
    She balks. She's waiting for a lecture on the evils of shoplifting.
    I hold up the shopping bag. “You want this stuff, you have a cold drink.”
    We go to a juice bar on the corner and take a table outside. Sarah orders a banana smoothie before eyeing up the muffins. I get hungry watching her eat.

    “You saw me a few weeks ago.”
    She nods.
    “What did we talk about?”
    She gives me an odd look.
    “I had an accident. I've forgotten a few things. I was hoping you could help me remember them.”
    Sarah glances at my leg. “You mean like amnesia?”
    “Something like that.”
    She takes another mouthful of muffin.
    “Why did I come and see you?”
    “You wanted to know if I ever cut Mickey's hair or counted the coins in her money box.”
    “Did I say why?”
    “No.”
    “What else did we talk about?”
    “I dunno. Stuff, I guess.”
    Sarah glances down at her shoes, stubbing the toe against the legs of the chair. The sun is pitched high and sharp, like the last hurrah before winter.
    “Do you ever think about Mickey?” I ask.
    “Sometimes.”
    “So do I. I guess you have lots of new friends now.”
    “Yeah, some, but Mickey was different. She was like an . . . a . . . a . . . appendix.”
    “You mean appendage.”
    “Yeah—like a heart.”
    “That's not real y an appendage.”
    “OK, like an arm, real important.” She drains her smoothie.
    “You ever see Mrs. Carlyle?”
    Sarah runs her fingers around the rim of her glass, col ecting froth. “She stil lives in the same place. My mum says it'd give her the creeps living where someone got kil ed but I reckon Mrs. Carlyle stays for a reason.”
    “Why's that?”
    “She's waiting for Mickey. I'm not saying that Mickey is gonna come home, you know. I just figure Mrs. Carlyle wants to know where she is. That's why she goes to prison every month and visits him.”
    “Visits who?”
    “Mr. Wavel .”
    “She visits him!”
    “Every month. My mum says there's something sick about that. Gives her the creeps.”
    Sarah reaches across the table and turns my wrist so she can read the time. “I'm in heaps of trouble. Can I have my stuff now?” I hand her the plastic shopping bag and a ten-quid note. “If I catch you shoplifting again, I'l make you mop supermarket floors for a month.” She rol s her eyes and is gone, pedal ing furiously on her bicycle, carrying her coat, the bag of groceries and my frozen chicken korma.

    The idea of Rachel Carlyle visiting Howard Wavel in prison sends chil s through me. A grooming pedophile and a grieving parent—it's wrong, it's sick, but I know what she's doing.
    Rachel wants to find Mickey. She wants to bring her home.
    I remember something she said to me a long while ago. Her fingers were tumbling over and over in her lap as she described a little routine she had with Mickey. “Even to the post