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‘No. She was out with her boyfriend.’ The woman snorted, as if this was some deliberate oversight.
‘Rebecca was very shaken up by it, obviously,’ said Ian. ‘She left Haiti within the week and came home.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Stella glance at her.
‘I’d like to speak to Rebecca if I could. Does she live in Edinburgh?’
‘She did,’ said Ian. ‘But I don’t think she’s here now.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because she didn’t come to the funeral,’ said Callie, her voice still terse.
‘Do you have a contact number for her?’
‘You won’t get through. We tried to ca
ll her before the funeral, but the number appears to be disconnected. Her parents said Becky had gone up north and wanted some alone time.’
Lara saw Ian look across at his wife.
‘If you think it would be helpful to speak to her, I think I know where she is,’ he said.
‘Ian, please.’
Mr Groves turned towards her, a flash of anger finally showing through. ‘No, Callie. I’ve checked up on Miss Stone. She’s a good journalist, fair. I think she can help us.’
Callie stood up and clattered the tea things onto the tray. They all sat in silence until she carried it out to the kitchen. The tension felt so out of place in this neat, homely space.
Undeterred, Ian went to a desk at the far end of the room and took an envelope from a drawer. When he returned he handed it to Lara.
‘Becky sent a card. It’s got an Ullapool postmark.’
Lara looked up.
‘You think that’s where she is?’
Ian Groves nodded.
‘Becky’s aunt has a rental cottage up there. The girls went a couple of summers ago.’
‘Do you have the address?’
‘Got a phone number, but I can’t guarantee she’ll be there. Or if she’ll talk to you.’
Lara stood up and tried to give him a smile.
‘I think it’s worth the risk, don’t you?’
Chapter 23
Ullapool was a long way in the rain. It was a long way whatever the weather – the hire car’s sat-nav had reckoned over four hours non-stop driving on a good day – but it seemed even further with the grey clouds sitting right on top of the road. The drizzle leaving Edinburgh had been steady up until the Cairngorms, then it had really started coming down. The windscreen wipers had been on ‘full’ since Aviemore and they had been crawling along, terrified of meeting a tractor coming at them around a blind bend. That, or finding a herd of shaggy Highland cattle sitting in the middle of the road. But then every half an hour or so, the rain would stop as if someone had flipped a switch and the wind would swirl the fog away and they would find themselves descending into a gorgeous valley rich with heather or travelling along the edge of a gorse-trimmed loch. Lara would slam on the brakes and they would gaze in genuine wonder, feeling tiny in the midst of such beauty – then all too soon, mother nature would drop the blinds and they would be back in the murk, the windscreen thick with rain.
‘Have you got any signal?’ asked Stella. Every now and then a bar would pop onto a phone and they would scrabble to send or receive a message.
‘Nothing,’ said Lara. ‘Not since I heard from Marion.’ Sandrine’s parents had returned to Corsica, but had kept Lara up to date on the plans for the funeral. They were being kind, of course, keeping Lara involved, but with each missive it became more real. One day soon, she was going to have to accept the idea that Sandrine wasn’t coming back. But not yet.
‘Are you sure we’re close?’ said Lara. She was sitting so far forward over the steering wheel, her forehead was practically touching the glass.
