by Gytha Lodge
They also hadn’t mentioned Daniel or Brett, or Coralie or Jojo. Even though Topaz was burning with curiosity to know what the others were doing, and how they were holding up.
And she wanted to talk to them, too. To Daniel, maybe, who would be sympathetic. To Brett, who would just listen without judgment. Or even to Jojo, who would probably make them both laugh in spite of everything.
Connor finished the coffee, and nodded to her before heading out. He usually kissed her before leaving. But for some reason she wasn’t sure she even wanted him to. She couldn’t help thinking about Aurora, and her own fractured memories of that night.
It was almost a relief once Connor was gone, but the moment she was alone with her mother she regretted it. She found the pretense of caring about her friend’s new dog, or the shop parking, infuriating. There was such restless frustration in her that she felt raw.
Eventually, she excused herself from the kitchen for a short while on the pretext of making a work call, even though it was still early, and she’d told them she was taking time off. She climbed the poorly lit stairs and headed up onto the landing, and then she saw Aurora’s bedroom door move slightly in the breeze from the open window.
She faltered, remembering in a vivid rush an early morning when she’d crept back in from a night out with Coralie and some of the sixth-formers. It had been dim and grayish just like this, and Topaz had felt suddenly empty and worthless and used. She had been aware of shame-filled tears building somewhere in her as she climbed the stairs.
And then Aurora’s door had opened, and Topaz had flinched. Her sister was standing there in her nightdress, a gauzy, floaty thing made out of purple lace that had become too short for her once she’d grown. But for a moment, in the half-light, she’d looked ethereal and beautiful, her eyes big and luminous in the light.
“Glad you’re all right,” Aurora had whispered. “I couldn’t sleep. Do you want tea? I can do it in a pan on the hob. It won’t wake anyone.”
Topaz had studied her sister’s face, expecting to see some kind of judgment there. But there was none. There was just a patient offer.
The wholesomeness of her sister, and that offer of a homely, pure comfort, had the strangest effect on her. She felt like she could walk away from the shame, and be like Aurora somehow.
She’d never in her life wanted to be like her sister before.
“Thanks,” she’d said, trying not to let her voice crack with emotion. “I’d love a tea.”
In the end, they’d sat at each side of the kitchen table and talked about some of their teachers, and rolled their eyes about their parents.
Topaz wasn’t sure if she’d ever thanked Aurora for that night. She thought not. By morning, the drive to be desirable had become too strong once again, and her younger sister had been returned to her place as an embarrassment in Topaz’s life.
It was a strange time to really realize that her sister was gone. She’d known it for years. But seeing that landing now, empty of Aurora, and knowing that it wasn’t her opening the door, drove the truth of it into her.
She walked slowly to Aurora’s door and pushed it open. The butterflies and the flowers and the riotous colors no longer seemed claustrophobic. There was something glorious about them. She walked around the room, running her fingers across gauze wings and painted designs on the walls.
And then she climbed onto Aurora’s bed, and curled up round the unchanged pillow.
* * *
—
THE PRESS HAD been unusually placid this morning. The most challenging question had been whether the case was being treated as a murder. He’d answered readily.
“We can’t rule anything in or out at this stage,” he said calmly. “Any other questions?”
There were none. They were too young, these journalists. They didn’t know who Aurora had been. He stepped down from the small stage carefully, and could already see some of them with their smartphones out, googling Aurora Jackson. Working out how big this was.
Wilkinson was waiting at the back of the room, his small, stocky frame plainclothed and unobtrusive. He gave a little jerk of his head that asked Jonah to follow.
He went after him dutifully enough. It was generally good to have the detective chief superintendent’s input, even if he wasn’t involved.
Wilkinson swiped his card at the door to CID and then waited, holding it open. “How’s the new constable getting on?” he asked quietly.
“Good, I think,” Jonah replied. “Waiting to see how she handles a murder.”
Wilkinson kept walking through the half-occupied office, nodding to a few of the officers who attempted a greeting. He occasionally offered a quiet, slightly somber, “Good morning.”
He paused outside his office, hand on the glass door, and gave Jonah a slightly sympathetic look. “When have you got interviews starting?”
“Nine.”
Wilkinson lifted his wrist to look at his watch. He shrugged. “Lightman and your new constable are here. They can hold the fort. Come and give me a rundown.”
Jonah let himself be herded in.
“It’s somewhat unexpected, isn’t it?” Wilkinson said. “This all coming back to bite us thirty years later.”
“Yes,” Jonah said, wondering whether the past was having the same effect on the DCS. He’d been, what? An inspector back then? Jonah hadn’t known him all that well. It had taken some time for the two of them to become direct colleagues and then friends. It had been an unlikely friendship, the traveler’s son and the private-school boy.
Wilkinson turned in his chair and cast his gaze over the retail-unit view beyond the window. “So, a group of kids and a stash of Dexedrine. Are we thinking they buried her together?”
Jonah had been through this thinking before. He had little to offer against it except gut feeling. The way they had each reacted. Perhaps one of them could have pretended to be shocked, but not all of them.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he said noncommittally. “I want the tox report back before I look at any one theory. I’d also like to see phone records for the group.”
“They stuck together pretty well, those kids,” Wilkinson went on, brooding. “It was a united front. Which in itself might be quite damning.”
Jonah didn’t argue, but he was thinking that there might be other things to hide than murder. Things that even thirty years on could be damaging. And the thought gave him another small twinge of anxiety.
He could almost hear the DCS thinking through the idea of accessing the phone records. It was his job to make sure that his department acted lawfully and justly, and stood up to external scrutiny. He would do everything he could to aid his investigators within that remit, but he would clamp down on anything that looked wrong to him.
“OK. I think phone records are justified. You won’t get anything from the time, but if there’s collusion going on now, you might see it.”
“Thank you,” Jonah said.
“Gut feeling so far?” the DCS asked.
“That it could take a while to untangle,” Jonah said with a half smile. “I can’t be any more specific at present.”
“Sitting on the fence, of course,” Wilkinson said, and added: “You’d probably better shelve your work with Portsmouth International for now. Unless anything happens, this is going to be our priority for the foreseeable.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied, thinking of the weeks his team had put into the dockside investigation. But his heart was no longer in it anyway. He’d been drawn back into the enigma that was Aurora. He let himself out into the increasing buzz of CID.
* * *
—
TOPAZ’S PHONE RANG while she was still lying on Aurora’s bed. She saw that it was Coralie calling her, and considered ignoring it. But Coralie could be persistent. It was often easier just to get it over with.
She picked up the call, and said, “Hi, lovely,” in as normal a voice as she could manage.
“I’ve booked a train to Southampton,” Coralie said, as if this were a greeting. Her voice was tauter than usual. She sounded unhappy.
“Oh, really?”
“I’m going to stay at the Regent. Daddy often uses the suite there.”
Of course she was. It was in Coralie’s nature to choose the most of everything: the most expensive, the most extravagant, the greatest status. All of it enabled by her father, who was still Daddy even when he was eighty-five.
“What time do you get in? Connor and I can come and have a drink with you later, if you like,” she offered. At least she would be out of the house that way.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Coralie asked, ignoring the suggestion.
“What, lovely?”
“About Aurora being found.” There was a hint of hurt in Coralie’s voice.
“I’m sorry,” Topaz answered. She couldn’t seem to get any real emotion into her voice. “I hadn’t really stopped and thought yet….”
“But I could have come down last night,” Coralie said. “I could have been there to support you.”
“Yes, I know. I wish you had been.” There was a slight pause. “Have you talked to any of the others?”
“Yeah, I rang Benners.” Coralie let out a small sigh. “He kept saying he couldn’t talk about it. He sounded stressed out. I think the police are giving him a hard time.”
“God, not again,” Topaz said. “I’m just waiting for them to tear into Connor.”
“He’s the big professor now. They’ll be nice to him.”
“But they’ll be judging him on who he was, not who he is,” Topaz argued.
“Well, I guess he should have been less aggressive.”
“Coralie!” Topaz said sharply.
“You think I’m harsh with him,” she said, a little breathlessly. “But you know what he was like. You know. And he was obsessed with you.”
“No, he loved me,” Topaz said firmly.
“We all loved you!” Coralie countered. “And the rest of us used to matter. Now it’s all just him, always.”
“You all still matter,” Topaz replied. “If you feel like I’ve let you down, then I’m sorry. But talking about it now is not a good idea.”
The numbness was going, to be replaced by anger. Why was Coralie choosing now to say this? It was as if she had an instinct for Topaz’s most fragile time, and chose to attack.
“What is it he has over you?” Coralie asked, ignoring her response. “Why did it all change that night? Was there something that happened after we’d gone to sleep?”
“Fuck you, Coralie,” Topaz said, shaking with fury. “How fucking dare you? You…No, you know what? I’m done.”
She ended the call, and then hurled her phone at the wall. It bounced and landed on the pastel carpet, apparently unharmed.
“Fuck you!” she repeated. And then, as much out of fury as out of grief, she gave in to sobs that moved her whole body.
She heard someone walking up the stairs and down the landing to her room. She hoped they’d leave her to it.
But then there were steps toward the door, and her father’s voice outside it. “Topaz? Are you in there?”
He must have known she was. The noise of her crying would have been pretty audible.
When she said nothing, the door opened slowly.
“Go away,” she said, and turned away from him.
“Sorry,” Tom said, but he didn’t go straight away. He took a few steps, and put a hand briefly on her shoulder. “I’m here if you…if you need to talk. OK?”
Topaz kept her face away, but she nodded.
Tom left a few moments later. She heard him close the door, and only then did she crumple back onto the bed and bury her head in the pillow again.
Her phone buzzed once a little while later. She knew it was Coralie messaging. Topaz had a violent wish to have been harsher to her former friend. To have hurt her more. Coralie was probably apologizing, which was how it worked with Coralie. Her moments of angst never lasted.
Topaz picked up the phone to read her message.
It wasn’t an apology.
I’m going to talk to the police once I arrive. I think there are a lot of things they’d be interested to know.
She wanted to fling the phone away again, but instead she typed a message back with shaking hands.
You can say whatever you want. I don’t give a shit. They won’t believe your psycho stories.
They were brave words, and probably stupid ones. She wished they were actually true.
* * *
—
LIGHTMAN WAS AT his elbow before he’d had a chance to close Wilkinson’s door behind him. Jonah took in the notebook and pen. He wondered what time Lightman had arrived. He looked immaculate and refreshed, as always.
“Brett Parker is here already. I’ve put him in Room Four.”
“Thanks.”
“Before you go in, I have a few notes on the case reports. I’ve worked through the initial interviews in the first three days after the missing-persons report went in. And there are a couple of interesting points in the transcripts, which haven’t been flagged by previous investigating officers.”
“Hit me.”
“Connor Dooley and Jojo Magos each made a reference to Aurora going off swimming for a while during the evening. Jojo’s statement makes it sound like a fairly run-of-the-mill thing, but Connor later in his statement mentioned Aurora’s sister being ‘still angry with her for taking herself off swimming.’ None of the others specifically referenced it, but Daniel Benham mentioned them all worrying about her and trying to look after her. He stated, ‘We got a bit edgy if she was even out of sight. I don’t understand how we can have let this happen.’ ”
Jonah smiled. This was classic Lightman work. Rigorous, careful cross-checking, stage by stage. A level of detailed analysis unmatched among his colleagues.
“So,” he summarized, making his way toward the interview suite, “she took herself off for a while and worried them all. We don’t know what she was up to, or if any of them had followed her. And not a lot was done to follow up on that back in ’83.”
“I think it’s worth asking them about,” Lightman said.
“Anything else?”
“A couple of other related queries for now. Topaz Jackson and Coralie Ribbans left the campsite after an argument with Daniel Benham and Connor Dooley.”
“Left in what sense?”
“They went off into the woods for a while.”
Jonah nodded. “What was the argument about? Any details?”
“Yes. They both, independently, attributed it to Connor and Daniel not really wanting Brett there. But Daniel Benham, in his statement, downplayed it and said it had hardly been an argument. I’d want to know more about that disagreement. And also, Topaz Jackson ended up alone. Coralie came away from her to ‘let her have a little time to herself,’ according to her testimony. It looks like this coincided with Aurora swimming. I’d be interested to know if she, in fact, met and argued with her sister.”
Lightman stopped at his own desk, and Jonah stopped with him. He was mentally putting these statements together. He was wondering what could have happened to a fourteen-year-old girl out in the woods that might have precipitated her death.
Hanson’s bag was looped over her chair, though the chair itself was empty. O’Malley was sitting amidst his scattered paperwork on the next desk along. He looked up to give Jonah a nod, and then returned to his reading, with the preoccupation of a man who was building something.
“Thank you,” Jonah said to Lightman, taking a printout from him. “Who’s going to do a round of coffee?”
Lightman nodde
d and turned away while O’Malley called out, “I want sugar today. At least two.”
“You’re not allowed sugar,” Lightman called back.
O’Malley shook his head. “Thank you, Mummy.”
Hanson reappeared, her expression enthusiastic.
“Juliette,” Jonah said. “I’m about to talk to Brett Parker. Domnall’s coming in with me, and I’d like you to come and watch from outside. Observe, and see what you think.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her eager expression.
“Yes, sir.”
Jonah hovered next to O’Malley for a moment. “What are you in the middle of?”
O’Malley looked up at him. “Ah, I’m not sure I’ve got anything yet. I can come and grill Brett Parker, sure.”
“OK. That’s good. Ben, I’d like you in the observation room, too.”
Hanson was back moments later, and Jonah led the three of them toward the interview suite. He was well aware that Wilkinson hated this kind of use of resources. Four police officers for one interview. But the DCS’s grumbles never meant much. When it came to it, Wilkinson wanted the right conclusion. He generally left Jonah to get on with it.
“Ready?” Jonah asked O’Malley, glancing in at where Brett Parker was waiting. He wore a pale-gray suit today, and a white shirt with no tie. He was tanned enough to look healthy even under the artificial lights. His expression was bland, but one heel tapped the floor rhythmically.
“Do you have something in mind for me to ask?” the sergeant said.
“Anything that occurs to you,” Jonah said. “Though keep it light, for now.” He glanced at Hanson. “Juliette, I’d like you to give it ten minutes, and then come and get me. Just say I’m needed.”
Hanson gave him a quizzical look. “OK.” She nodded. “Ten minutes.”
Jonah opened the door and let himself in, leaving O’Malley to follow.