by Gytha Lodge
Brett Parker seemed relieved to see him. He gave him a nod of greeting and a slight smile.
“We’re all ready to go, Mr. Parker,” Jonah said. “Thank you for coming in.”
He seated himself in the chair closest to the door, and let O’Malley take the other one.
“It’s all right. I’m happy to help.”
Jonah looked him over. He saw that there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and that his eyes looked dry and tired.
“Do you have any objection to us recording this interview?” Jonah asked him.
“Of course not. Of course not.”
Jonah inserted a fresh tape and clicked the recorder on.
“This is DCI Jonah Sheens, interviewing Mr. Brett Parker. Also present is DS Domnall O’Malley. Mr. Parker, I want you to take us over a few details.”
“Of course.” Brett leaned forward and rested his hands on the table.
“According to the original statements of Connor Dooley and Jojo Magos, Aurora did not remain at the campsite for the whole of the evening. She took herself for a swim while dinner was being set up and cooked.”
A distant look as Brett recalled. A thirty-year gap being traversed.
“Yes, I—I’m not sure when she went, but she did go swimming. We’d talked about it earlier and I think she got bored.”
“You didn’t go as well?” he asked.
“No. No, I didn’t see her go. She was alone.”
Jonah nodded. “Do you recall how long she was gone for?”
A pause, and then Brett shook his head slowly. “I really don’t…I might have remembered back then. Maybe look at my original statement?”
“Your original statement doesn’t mention it.”
Jonah waited, his face fixed in a neutral expression, while Brett thought this over.
“Oh…I—I don’t know why I didn’t think to say. I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine, thank you.” Jonah let his eyes wander around the room before coming back to Brett. “Do you remember that some of the group were concerned about her? That there was some upset over her disappearance?”
“I…suppose I do. It’s not the clearest thing in my mind from that night, but…yes. I think Topaz was a bit concerned. Yes, she was. Because she got a little angry with Aurora when she came back.”
“And you’re certain that she’d been swimming?” O’Malley asked.
“Yes.”
“How, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Well, her hair was wet,” Brett replied. “She was shivering.”
“Do you remember whether anyone went looking for her at that time?”
Brett shook his head. “No. I don’t think they did. I think we thought she’d be back any minute. And when you’re a little drunk, it’s…hard to keep track of time.”
“How drunk would you say you were?” Jonah asked.
“Christ,” Brett said with a short, nervous laugh. “That’s about one of the hardest questions…I don’t think I was rolling. I was talking and dancing and laughing, and I didn’t get anywhere near passing out.”
“What were you drinking?”
“Vodka, mostly.”
“Neat?”
“God, no,” Brett said, pulling a face. “With mixers. Tonic. A couple of orange juices.”
“Was that all?” Jonah asked, glancing at O’Malley’s scribbled note-taking.
“I think so,” Brett said. “Someone had some rum, I think, and I might have had one with some Coke. But it’s unbelievably sweet. Not my thing.”
“And you’re not a beer man?”
“No. I find it foul-tasting, and it’s wasted calories,” Brett said. “Which has always been awkward socially.”
O’Malley laughed. “Jesus. If you’d grown up in Kilkenny, you’d have been burned at the stake.”
“The others were largely drinking beer, though?” Jonah continued.
“Yes, they were,” Brett agreed. “Even Aurora, a little. Later on, though. She took some persuading.”
“Who persuaded her?” O’Malley asked.
“All of us, to a certain extent,” Brett said a little awkwardly. “It’s…For some reason, when you’re kicking back and having fun, having one person in the group who isn’t joining in is irritating. I think we peer-pressured her a little. We were teenagers. We thought she couldn’t be enjoying herself without alcohol in her.”
“You’d say she enjoyed herself, then?”
“Yes, I’d say so,” Brett replied. “She was a little quiet after she’d been swimming. I think she was probably cold more than anything, but the fire was going like crazy and she must have thawed out.”
“And then you all persuaded her to try a few beers,” O’Malley said. “Which helped.”
“Yes, I think it did,” Brett replied. He frowned slightly. “It can’t have been that easy for her. Everyone else liked their drink, and the others liked their drugs.”
“Not you?” O’Malley asked.
“No, not me. I did…I did try a very little. I felt like I looked stupid. But a fraction of what they were having, and I didn’t snort all of it up. I was too health-conscious. And if it had got out that I’d been taking drugs…my career would have been over before it had started.”
“So Aurora stood out,” Jonah went on.
“Yes. She’d clearly never drunk before. And she felt like an outsider, instinctively.”
“But you all put some effort into making her feel welcome?” O’Malley asked.
“Yes. Yes, I’d say so.” Brett nodded. “Perhaps not Coralie, who was never much good at getting on with people. And Topaz found her sister a little infuriating. But all of us talked to Aurora. She wasn’t left alone. It wasn’t…She didn’t wander off because we were ignoring her. There was nothing cruel or callous about that group. They’re nice people.” His eyes were slightly bright, and Jonah nodded.
“We spoke before about the drugs, which we know from several sources belonged to Daniel Benham,” Jonah said, changing tack. “Was there no discussion about going back for them? About retrieving them?”
“Well, they weren’t ours,” Brett pointed out. “Daniel said he’d take care of it, when the time came. But I suppose he never got round to it.” He gave a slight shrug.
At that point, a knock came at the door, and Hanson appeared round it, on cue. “Sir?”
Jonah rose. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute.”
He left, and closed the door carefully behind him. Hanson was frowning at him, but Lightman’s eyes were on the interview room.
“Are we agreeing with the statements so far?” Jonah asked.
“Some variations,” Lightman answered. “Topaz, Benners, and Coralie all insisted that Aurora didn’t drink at all. Jojo also said, at one point in her statement, that Aurora went to bed before the rest of them because she felt lonely.”
“So we’re getting a rose-tinted, all-nice-people memory from Brett, and a different vision on the drink.” He glanced over at Hanson, who had watched the exchange with an expression of slight concern. “Any thoughts, Juliette?”
“I wondered…Well, I don’t think his answers about the swimming were that satisfactory. He remembers that she had wet hair and was shivering, but not how long she might have been gone for. His body language said otherwise, in my opinion. I think he did know how long that interval was. And he didn’t confirm that he stayed at the campsite while she was away, even if he didn’t go with her at the time. Was he definitely there with the group the whole time? Or had he followed her and had some kind of encounter with her?”
“Good questions, Juliette,” Jonah agreed. “To be asked in good time.”
“You’re not going after him now?” she asked, looking between him and Lightman.
“No,” Jonah said. “W
e’ve got Daniel Benham to see in five minutes. I’m going to give Brett a little time to consider. He isn’t going anywhere.”
Hanson nodded, and gave him a slight smile. “OK.”
He ducked back inside the interview room. “I’ll have to be a short while, I’m afraid,” he said with regret. “I’m sorry to leave you hanging around. Can we get you a coffee? A tea?”
“Yes,” Brett said with a slight smile. “Yes, a tea would be enormously appreciated.”
“Sergeant, could you do the honors? And then I’ll need a few minutes of your time.”
14
Aurora
Friday, July 22, 1983, 10:45 P.M.
Benners was already snorting a line by quarter to eleven. Topaz was leaning over him, one hand on his shoulder, to say, “Go on. Cut me one.”
Aurora sat farther away from Benners, next to a banked-up pile of leaves at the edge of the fire. She felt a surge of disappointment in him, though she’d known the drugs were his. This was what he’d come to do.
There was a sudden boom of sound from Connor’s portable stereo. A fuzzy bass line Aurora didn’t recognize. Over the top of it an electronic sound, and a cracked, hoarse melody.
And then there was a sudden sound next to her, a rustling in the pile of leaves, and Aurora gasped and scuttled backward.
Jojo, squatting close to her with a beer bottle dangling from one hand, stood quickly. “What is it?”
“There’s…” Aurora pointed to the moving leaves, and Jojo moved forward instead of away. She picked up one of the sticks she’d been using to prod the fire, and lifted some of the leaves carefully. And then she grinned.
“It’s a hedgehog,” she said. “Look.”
The ungainly, backside-heavy shape was suddenly uncovered as it shuffled away from the campfire. Aurora watched it waddle off into the darkness, her heart pounding.
“You OK?” Jojo asked.
“Yes, sorry,” Aurora said, trying to laugh as she pulled herself slowly back to where she’d been sitting. She was overwhelmingly glad that the music and the drug taking had covered up her embarrassing response. “I was just being stupid.”
“You weren’t. Fear is a natural reaction. You need it sometimes. To tell you when something’s really wrong and you should be afraid. Imagine if that had been an adder in there. If you hadn’t moved quickly, it could have bitten you.” Jojo squatted back down. “That’s what fear is for.”
She’d stopped looking at Aurora. She seemed to be talking about something else entirely.
“Jojo!” Benners called. “Come on!”
Jojo rose. She walked round the fire to Benners. She bent low over the top of the stove and inhaled through Benners’s rolled-up note. Brett was right behind her, laughing as he brushed powder from Topaz’s nose.
Aurora felt a twinge of fear. They were all going to do it. They would be something other than themselves from now on. Not only drunk, but wired. High. Different.
The music changed, becoming faster. Upbeat and catchy.
Benners straightened up from the tin with a shout of “Great track!”
He bounced on his heels and then held a hand out to Topaz. Aurora watched her sister shake her head, smiling slyly, and take Coralie’s hand instead. The two of them pressed themselves up against each other, their bodies moving over each other in a well-practiced routine. Topaz turned her back and shifted her hips from side to side. She bent her knees to lower herself with each swing, and then raised herself back up again in stages. It was as if she were hearing a different music. A slower and more sensual melody.
Aurora saw Brett’s expression. She watched him watching them. She realized that Connor was frozen in place, too. The show wasn’t aimed at him, but his reaction was the same. And then she grew tired of that hungry look they all had, and went to find the marshmallows from the food bags.
15
Hanson was absent from the corridor when Jonah reemerged.
“Has Juliette got bored of my interviewing techniques already?” he asked.
“Topaz Jackson and Connor Dooley arrived,” Lightman answered. “She’s gone to talk to them. You might have a timing issue coming up. Topaz Jackson wants to know what’s going on, according to the duty sergeant.”
Jonah glanced at his watch. Three minutes until the next interview was due to start.
“Is Daniel Benham here yet?”
“Not yet.”
Jonah hesitated momentarily before deciding to move on with the interviewees who were here.
“I’ll see Topaz and Connor now,” he told Lightman. “We might need to separate them out if they’re giving us the outrage treatment, but I’m not giving them suspect status straightaway. Can you meet Benham when he comes in? Make him coffee?”
“Sir.”
“And then come and loiter in the observation room again while I talk to Topaz and Connor. I’ll put them in One if it’s free.”
He felt more than a little curious as he emerged into CID and saw three figures through the glass wall of his office. He hadn’t laid eyes on Topaz or Connor in fifteen or more years. He knew that Connor had become respectable, his scattered tattoos hidden from the world under shirts and academic gowns. He also knew that Topaz had surprised all of her frustrated teachers by becoming hugely focused and driven. She had ultimately gone into management, and excelled at it.
It occurred to him now that they had all of them gone on to be successful. Brett in the most obvious way, but the others as well. With the exception of Jojo all of them had jobs with inherent status: Olympian, executive, professor, politician…and what was it Coralie did now? Media? Something fashion-related, he thought.
He wasn’t sure why he found their successes so surprising. Perhaps because loss was a sort of damage you carried for life, and yet Topaz and Benners had both gone from lazy students to driven ones; from antiestablishment to firmly pro. Which set Jonah to wondering whether a desire for status was really a sign of health, or was, in fact, the damage he had been looking for.
* * *
—
“WHAT DO YOU think of him?” O’Malley asked.
Hanson glanced in at Brett, who was fiddling with his phone.
“Hard to tell so far. I think he’s not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth…but then, most people don’t.”
O’Malley laughed. “I meant what you thought of the chief, so.”
“Oh!” Hanson found herself blushing very slightly. “He seems great. And smart, too. I hope I’m going down OK with him.”
“Ah, you’re doing fine.” O’Malley gave her a nod. “Just go on paying attention and you’ll be grand.”
Hanson gave him an awkward smile, and headed back into CID. She switched on the screen of her desktop PC with a sigh. None of them had given her anything in particular to do. Which meant she’d better start looking at paperwork.
* * *
—
IT WAS HARD to look away from Topaz. In part, it was a game of memory. Jonah traced in her only slight changes from that intoxicating fifteen-year-old who had dangled half the boys in their school. The long, dark, glossy hair was much the same. The huge light-blue eyes barely touched by lines; the prominent lips. And her figure looked like a schoolgirl’s, too. Her bare legs were still tanned and smooth, her stomach flat under her white figure-hugging dress. Only her expression had changed. She’d lost the openly flirtatious, knowing glance. She was more brittle and less certain now.
Connor was almost unrecognizable. His skinny frame had bulked out to become stocky. He had grown his buzz-cut hair into a side-parted mane, and the slight waves of it were almost all gray. He had added a short, clipped beard, and with his navy-blue jacket the whole appearance was of privilege and education. Not a trace of that volatile, angry kid whose dad was known to bash him about every so often.
Jon
ah settled himself in the larger interview room. O’Malley came in a moment later, and pulled up the other chair.
“I’m sorry that the eventual news of Aurora was so sad,” Jonah began. “It wasn’t the news any of us wanted.”
“Can we stop being sorry?” Topaz asked, her voice clipped. “We’ve had fifteen minutes of sorry. I want to know what’s happening. Have you found out how she died yet? Was it murder?”
Jonah shook his head gently. Tried to soothe. “We don’t know the answer to that yet. I hoped that the two of you might be able to help us.”
Topaz gave a slightly twisted smile. “More than we did thirty years ago? When we were dragged in for interview after interview and nothing ever came of it?”
“We have more to go on now,” Jonah told her quietly. He glanced at the tape machine. “Are you happy for me to record this interview?”
Topaz frowned. “I’m not sure I like the implication.”
Connor leaned forward and put a hand on hers. “It’s OK by me,” Connor said. His voice was perhaps the greatest surprise. No trace of his family’s Irish-by-way-of-Southampton. He sounded pure upper-class Edinburgh.
Topaz’s mouth moved as she thought. She tucked her lip behind her upper teeth, and then gave a brief sigh. “All right. You can record it.”
She sat rigidly while the tape was started, and through the introductions made for its benefit. And then she said quickly, “Tell me what’s going on.”
Jonah glanced down at his hands, then nodded. He decided that shock might be their friend here.
“Aurora was found buried in a drug cache you all knew about. Cause of death is currently unconfirmed.”
There was a pause, and then Topaz said sharply, “What was she doing in there? What happened to her?”
Jonah found his eyes traveling to Connor. He wondered about him, this changed man. Jonah had been wary of Connor at school thanks to his sudden fits of violence, but he’d also known him as a firm protector of the girls in his group. He was almost old-fashioned in his beliefs. All about virtue, honor, and female frailty. Which were in some ways the same tenets Jonah’s bastard of a father had held.