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‘He did the work himself, too,’ says Tony. ‘I asked and Freya said that her father was keen on DIY. She also said her father adored Emily. I couldn’t work out if she realised how creepy it sounded. He took this picture.’
Tony produces the photocopy with a flourish. The team crowd round, all distancing forgotten.
Emily Pickering stares out from the grainy photocopy. Judy goes closer. Does she see the resemblance that’s so obvious to Nelson? Emily, with her springy hair and wide-apart eyes, looks like a younger Judy. She looks, in fact, very like the young DC that Nelson first met in 2007. Is this why Judy is looking so intently at the snapshot? Or is she looking at Cathbad? He hasn’t changed much, although his beard and shoulder-length hair are still black in the photograph. He looks happy and rather piratical, but this could be because he is wearing a hoop earring in one ear. Are Cathbad’s ears still pierced? Nelson can’t remember, which shows what a lousy witness he’d make.
‘Is that Freya?’ Tanya points at the figure standing in the background.
‘Yes,’ says Tony. ‘She was waitressing at the café. She left home in 2002 to move in with a boyfriend. It didn’t work out. She married someone else and they had two children but she’s divorced now.’
Tony always gets the personal stuff, thinks Nelson. It’s one area where his relentless sociability pays off.
‘Do you think Freya suspected that her dad might have had something to do with Emily’s disappearance?’ asks Nelson.
‘I don’t know,’ says Tony. ‘She talked quite openly about the Folklore Fridays and all that. I think she really admired Emily and felt quite hurt that she didn’t notice her more. She said that Emily thought of her as a waitress. Freya got a degree later and said that she hoped Emily would be proud of her.’
‘Might be worth talking to Freya again,’ says Nelson. ‘You seem to have built up a rapport with her, Tony. We need to trace the other daughter too. Didn’t Freya have an address for her?’
‘She said not,’ said Tony. ‘Claimed they weren’t in contact.’
‘That’s interesting in itself,’ says Nelson. He can’t imagine losing contact with his sisters, infuriating though they often are. ‘What was the sister’s name?’
‘Gaia,’ says Tony. ‘I looked it up and it means “Goddess of the Earth”. Freya said that her father was very interested in earth magic.’
‘That doesn’t automatically make him a murderer,’ says Judy.
‘No, but he owned the house where the body was found,’ says Nelson. ‘He built the wall that hid it. If Peter Webster wasn’t dead, we’d be questioning him under caution now.’
‘What about a séance?’ says Tony brightly.
Nelson ignores this. ‘What about Webster’s wife?’ he says. ‘What did Freya say about her mum?’
‘‘Freya said that she doesn’t really recognise anyone any more. I didn’t get the impression that she visited the home much. Freya said that her mum didn’t have much to do with the café anyway. She was busy with her own work. I think she was a secretary.’
‘I still think Leo Ballard might have had something to do with it,’ says Tanya. ‘I thought he was very creepy. And Emily’s parents suspected him at the time.’
‘I can see why,’ says Nelson, ‘but it’s hard to see how Leo could have concealed Emily’s body at the café. As far as we know, he never went there and didn’t know Peter Webster. It was Peter Webster who built the wall. We don’t know exactly when Emily’s body was hidden there or where it was in the intervening nine months. Ruth doesn’t think that it was buried, or left in the open. She also thinks her bones were wrapped in a blanket or rug. Forensics might get something from that.’
‘Why were Emily’s parents so convinced that Leo was involved?’ asks Judy.
‘They said he was obsessed with Emily and behaved oddly during the investigation. I’ve looked back at the transcripts and Leo does come across as a bit of a. . . a bit odd, quoting Latin and talking about mythology. But he had a solid alibi for the day Emily disappeared. He was with friends all day. And he always swore there was nothing inappropriate in his relationship with Emily. It was normal for a tutor to be close to his students, he said.’
‘He said something similar to us,’ says Tanya. ‘I thought it sounded very dodgy.’
‘Let’s keep close to Ballard. Is he married?’
‘Yes,’ says Tanya. ‘And he was very sexist about his wife.’
‘Talk to her,’ says Nelson. ‘If Ballard is a male chauvinist pig, she might be willing to dish the dirt.’
‘Probably under his thumb,’ says Tanya. ‘I can see Ballard as a gaslighter.’
Nelson knows what this means. He attended an online course about coercive control earlier that year. It was at his own request, something which might have surprised Tanya.
‘Go and see her all the same. And we need to talk to Emily’s parents again. The family liaison officer was with them today. It’s an emotional time for them. But I think we need to take a closer look at them too. Cathbad said that he thought things were difficult for Emily at home. The original investigation didn’t uncover anything untoward but maybe they didn’t ask the right questions. After all, we only have her parents’ word for it that Emily didn’t return home that Monday.’
‘You really think they could have killed their own child?’ Sometimes Tony sounds too naive to be a police officer.
‘It happens,’ says Nelson. ‘As we all know. We still don’t know why Emily was in Ely that day either.’
