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Test results on Red Mount Street bones.
Tanya makes good time on her journey to London. Unlike Nelson, she does not believe in exceeding the speed limit but, as she drives a hybrid, there’s a certain satisfaction in cruising along at sixty without wasting any battery power. She’s listening to Alanis Morissette, a distinctly private pleasure because Petra does not share her taste for emotional mezzo-contralto voices.
‘You, you, you oughta know. . .’ sings Tanya, as she turns onto the London Road. Tom and Amber Westbourne live in Highbury, a highly desirable area by the looks of it. Tanya and Petra finally moved into their dream home in February, but Tanya is still addicted to the property sites. A four-bedroom house in Canonbury Park costs well over two million pounds.
Tom and Amber’s place looks like it’s worth every penny of that. It’s in a brick terrace, all hanging baskets and sash windows. Amber, who opens the door, is smart-casual in jeans and a stripy top. Tanya, who has only seen pictures of Amber at twenty, wouldn’t have recognised her. The lank, shoulder-length brown hair is now a chic crop with bronze and gold streaks. As Amber ascends the stairs in front of her, Tanya guesses that the woman weighs two stone less than she did in 2002.
Tom and Amber have taken the morning off work. They mention this as if to show how helpful they are but also to make Tanya feel slightly guilty. She doesn’t, though. The couple are both lawyers. Tom is a barrister, Amber a solicitor specialising in family law.
Tom, too, bears little resemblance to the gawky student with glasses and messy hair. Now his blond quiff looks suspiciously gelled and he’s either wearing contacts or has had laser treatment.
‘I left Cambridge after. . . what happened,’ says Tom. ‘Read history at Edinburgh. Amber and I met again doing the law conversion course in London.’
‘Did you keep on with archaeology at St Jude’s?’ Tanya asks Amber.
‘Yes,’ she says, somewhat defiantly. ‘It was hard. . . after Emily. . . but it was my passion. There’s no money in it, though.’
She smiles as if this is a joke but Tanya, looking around the room, thinks that money is very important to Amber Westbourne (née Fletcher-Ellis). She wonders what it must have been like to continue the same course, presumably still taught by Leo Ballard, with Emily missing, presumed dead.
‘Can you tell me what you remember of the day Emily disappeared?’ she says. ‘I know you must have been through it countless times before but sometimes buried memories do surface, years after the event.’ This is a pet theory of Judy’s. Tanya is never sure about it but her words seem to reassure the couple.
‘It was Monday morning,’ says Tom. ‘We took down the tents and put them in Mark’s camper van. Leo drove Emily to the station. Emad and I went in the van with Mark. He drove us back to Cambridge. Neither of us went home for Easter.’
‘I left early,’ says Amber. ‘My parents live in Durham so I had a long way to go. Leo took me to the station.’
Leo was apparently happy to be a taxi service that day, thinks Tanya. But only for the women students. She thinks of Alice Ballard saying, ‘They all merge into one after a while.’
‘What about Cathbad?’ she asks. It still seems odd to think that he was there that day. She doesn’t know Judy’s partner that well but he’s part of the scenery at Lynn station. It had been terrifying last year when he got ill.
‘He didn’t stay the night,’ says Tom. ‘I think he was a postman and needed to get up early.’
‘How did Emily seem that morning?’ asks Tanya.
‘I didn’t really talk to her,’ says Tom. ‘We were all busy packing up– well, Emad and I were– making sure the fire was out, that sort of thing. I last saw Emily sitting in Leo’s car. I waved and she waved back.’
‘Weren’t you in a relationship with Emily?’ says Tanya.
Tom answers without embarrassment. Tanya supposes he’s used to answering this question. And Tom and Amber have been married fifteen years and have two children, their pictures scattered artfully around the room. Presumably any awkwardness and jealousy is long gone.
‘We were in an on-off sexual relationship,’ says Tom. ‘It wasn’t that serious. We were friends. We were all friends.’
‘Tell me about the sleeping arrangements at the camp,’ says Tanya.
Tom and Amber exchange a look. ‘Emad and I shared one tent,’ says Tom. ‘Emily and Amber another. Leo had his own tent and Mark slept in the van. He had his dog with him. Leo insisted that men and women had separate quarters.’
‘He said we had to remain pure,’ says Amber, her voice flat. ‘It was one of his things.’
‘Sacred rituals,’ says Tom breezily. ‘You know.’
Tanya doesn’t know but she very much wants to find out.
‘It’s like only virgins can find unicorns?’ says Amber, her voice rising like a teenager’s. ‘Not that we were all virgins but Leo thought we had to remain pure to commune with the spirits at Grime’s Graves. We went down into one of the mines. It was like an initiation ceremony, Leo said.’
‘In what way?’ asks Tanya.
‘Well, we had to fast beforehand,’ says Tom, once again sounding as if he wants to get this part of the story over with as quickly as possible. ‘No wonder we were all so hungry at the barbecue.’
