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Nelson is about to dismiss this– Cathbad has always been odd– but then he thinks of the walk on the beach, Cathbad saying that there wasn’t much time left. ‘In what way?’ he asks.
‘He made us go to mass last Sunday. Said he wanted to pray for Emily.’
Praying for the dead is something Nelson’s mother would do. It doesn’t sound wildly out of character for Cathbad, though. He says so.
‘I don’t know,’ says Judy. ‘Finding Emily’s remains seems to have shaken Cathbad somehow. I think he was really fond of her and this has brought it all back.’
Nelson wonders how to put the next question. Cathbad said he was going to tell Judy that he had sex with Emily. Has he done so? Judy rescues him.
‘Cathbad told me about Emily. About sleeping with her that time. He still feels bad about it. One-night stands are not really Cathbad’s thing. He’s a romantic.’
‘Maybe they were Emily’s thing?’
‘Maybe but that seems such a misogynistic way of thinking. Blame the girl. Paint her as a femme fatale. She was only twenty. Cathbad was in his thirties. Ballard even older, if Ballard did have a relationship with her. And, you know, when I look at pictures of Emily, I don’t see femme fatale. I see an innocent young girl with her whole life ahead of her.’
Nelson thinks of Cathbad saying:I can see her now, walking towards me. He says, ‘When I saw her picture for the first time, I thought she looked like you.’
‘Really?’ says Judy. ‘I can’t see that at all.’
‘I suppose you weren’t much older than Emily when I first met you.’
‘I feel a hundred now,’ says Judy although, to Nelson, she looks the same. She’s in her mid-forties, he thinks, but her face is still smooth and her hair untouched by grey. Nelson is mostly grey now and even Ruth has several streaks which, typically, she doesn’t bother to dye.
‘I think Cathbad was quite lost when he knew Emily,’ says Judy. ‘He’d split up with Delilah and was living in a commune and working as a postman. Emily and co must have seemed like a surrogate family.’
‘Do you think his disappearance is linked to the case somehow? Could he be off on some crazy trail of his own?’
‘That’s exactly what I think,’ says Judy.
Tanya leaves a message for Sophie Strachan, née Pickering, and the doctor calls her when she comes off shift. Tanya apologises for disturbing her.
‘That’s OK,’ says Sophie. ‘I thought you might get in contact. What with the case being reopened and everything.’
‘The case’ sounds rather cold. After all, they are talking about the death of Sophie’s sister. The funeral is set for Tuesday next week.
‘As I’m sure your parents have told you,’ says Tanya, ‘we’re talking to everyone who was with Emily that last weekend.’
‘Did you talk to Leo Ballard?’
‘Yes,’ says Tanya. She assumes that Sophie, like her parents, still suspects the lecturer.
But she’s wrong.
‘He didn’t do it, you know,’ says Sophie, her voice suddenly sounding much younger. ‘Mum and Dad were obsessed. It was part of the reason why I had to get away. But Leo didn’t do it. He loved Emily. And she loved him.’
So did you, thinks Tanya.
Ruth is surprised to find Cathbad’s front door opened by Nelson. He explains, in his best police officer voice, that Cathbad is missing.
‘He’s left his phone here. We’ve checked and there are no accident reports. Let’s hope he’s just wandering around somewhere in some strange druid trance.’
‘Oh my God! Judy must be so worried.’
‘She is. I’ve been trying to tell her that he’s probably just gone walkabout.’
Is this a racist term? Ruth suspects it might be. ‘If he was going on a walk,’ she says, ‘he would have taken Thing.’
She can see the dog at the foot of the stairs. Is it her imagination, or does he look slightly worried?
