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‘Yes?’ prompts Bradley, as Mark seems to have gone off into a trance.
‘While we were singing, this figure appeared. It just emerged out of the wood, wearing a mask. And, this sounds crazy I know, but it seemed to have horns.’
‘Horns?’ Oldbury is right: it does sound crazy.
‘That could just have been my memory playing tricks on me. Anyway, I do remember that it danced around us waving a stick. We were all terrified. Cathbad and I chased after it, but it got away.’
‘Who do you think it was?’ says Bradley. He notes the use of ‘it’.
‘I’ve thought about it over the years and I’ve sometimes wondered if it was one of Leo’s students. Leo was always going on about Grim, the masked one. Maybe someone thought it was funny to dress up as him.’
‘Do you have anyone in mind?’
‘Not really. Leo always got close to his tutees. I should know, I was one of them. There was a lot of jealousy. Maybe one of his ex-students decided to break up the party.’
Bradley taps a note into his phone,Check other LB students. ‘Did anything else happen that night?’ he asks.
He doesn’t really expect anything– after all, one mysterious masked figure is enough for any camping trip– but Mark says, after only a slight hesitation, ‘Yes.’
‘Really? What?’
‘I had to get up at night to let Odin, my dog, out for a pee. The fire was almost burnt out but I saw two people sitting beside it. They were kissing.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Leo and Emily,’ says Mark.
Tanya interviews Emad Hussein in his office. Looking out over the London skyline, framed by floor-to-ceiling windows, she notes that Emad is another one who has done very well since leaving St Jude’s. He’s an accountant, a partner in his own company.
‘How does an archaeologist become an accountant?’ she asks.
‘Anyone can become an accountant,’ says Emad, with a grin. ‘I applied for a graduate trainee scheme after university and got in. I remember being told that my excavation skills would be useful. They weren’t wrong.’
Unlike Tom and Amber, Emad is still recognisable from his college photos. He’s tall with dark hair that once flopped over his face but is now cut very short. His beaky nose and lopsided smile are the same, though. He says that it was ‘tough’ continuing to study with Leo after Emily’s disappearance but he never thought the tutor had anything to do with it. ‘He was devastated. We all were.’
Emad describes the camp fire and the masked figure emerging from the woods. ‘I didn’t chase after it,’ he says. ‘I was too scared. Failed the macho test. Not for the first time.’
‘Did anything else happen that night?’ says Tanya. ‘You were sharing a tent with Thomas, weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ says Emad. ‘Part of Leo’s “stay pure so you can see the visions” strategy.’ His voice is dry.
‘Well, you did see visions,’ says Tanya. ‘Apparently.’
‘Believe me,’ says Emad. ‘That was a distinctly human apparition. That’s why I was so scared.’
This is interesting, after Tom and Amber’s talk of a ‘creature’.
‘Did you have any idea who it was?’ says Tanya.
‘No,’ says Emad. ‘But I had a feeling that the figure was female.’
Chapter 18
Friday 18 June
‘Female?’ says Nelson, as if he has never heard the word before.
‘Yes,’ says Tanya, with what sounds like exaggerated patience. ‘Emad Hussein thought the figure was female.’
