Little Girl Gone: The can’t-put-it-down psychological thriller. Alexandra Burt

      ‘Did he call you at all since he’d left New York?’

      ‘Yes, we talked. Not at length, no, just how are you, how’s the baby, everything okay, how’s the house coming along, that sort of thing.’

      ‘Tell us why you bleached your entire house.’

      I bleached my house? Oh, yeah, that. I remember the bleach. The acid burning in my nose and eyes, struggling to breathe as if someone had his hands around my lungs, squeezing them, my wheezing and coughing. When I returned to North Dandry, after I left the precinct, a stench hit me, a fusion of coffee grounds and dead air behind windows that had gone unopened for days, maybe even weeks. And then I saw the filth; the grimy drain and the moldy ring around the faucet. I went to work among buckets, rags and steel wool, when one toothbrush wore down, I got another from the bathroom drawer. I dipped the bristles in bleach and scoured the grout between the floor tiles, ran ice cubes through the disposal. I moved from room to room, removing objects from shelves, mopping, wiping, scouring. As my hands started to burn and my cuticles all but dissolved, I realized that this sense of mission was designed to make something right, something that I wasn’t sure I had wronged to begin with.

      I cleaned with bleach, yes I did. Detective Wilczek wants to know why, and who could blame him, I know what he is insinuating. All I remember is that I didn’t want to leave a mess behind, but I don’t know why. And I recall that by the time I was done, the sun had gone down twice and come up once.

      I look out the window as if to find the answer in the distance. The detective waits for me to answer but I have no logical explanation for him and so I remain quiet. He seems oddly content with my silence and just moves on as if he didn’t expect a coherent answer to begin with.

      ‘I need you to explain why you left the precinct without reporting the disappearance. Picking up the phone and then not reporting her missing after you realize her things have disappeared is one thing. But then you decide you need to talk to the police after all. You walk to the station but you don’t ask for help. You must understand that this doesn’t make sense. There’s no intruder, no break-in. Just a missing baby and a mother who can’t remember anything.’