BD: But how many people knew that – that she was supposed to be at Wittenham?
AB: She’d arranged to do an interview at the site. There was a BBC crew. A number of people must have known.
BD: But this man Harper. At Frampton Road. The one you think killed her. How did he know?
AB: I’m afraid I’m not able to comment on the current investigation.
BD: But Rob knew, didn’t he? He knew where she was going. And it’d make more sense that Toby was there, if it was Rob.
AB: I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to tell me, Miss Dyer. Are you suggesting that Mr Gardiner killed his wife and abandoned his two-year-old son alone up there –?
BD: [becoming agitated]
Look, there’s something I didn’t tell you at the time. A couple of weeks before it happened I saw Hannah. She had a mark on her face. A bruise. She had make-up on it but I could still see.
AB: Did you ask her how she got it?
BD: She said it was Toby. That he was getting to be a handful and had caught her face with a toy car by accident.
AB: Did that seem feasible to you?
BD: I suppose it could have happened like that. Toby was a bit hyperactive – I thought he might be ADHD but she told me I was being ridiculous. But she had definitely been preoccupied those last few weeks. I’m sure she was worried about something. And she was very guarded about Rob that day. I think they were having problems. I do know she wanted another child but he wasn’t keen.
AB: Why didn’t you tell us this two years ago, Miss Dyer?
BD: The press kept saying that you had that other suspect - the one who was at the camp. And there were all those people who saw her there – so I thought it couldn’t be Rob. But when you didn’t charge that man, I thought –
AB: Yes?
BD: Well, to be honest I thought she might just have left him. Rob, I mean. Made it look like she was dead just to get away. So no one would look for her. I saw a TV programme like that once. One of those crime things. And her parents live in Spain so I thought she might have gone there.
AB: That strikes me as highly unlikely, Miss Dyer. Abandoning her child. No passport, no documents –
BD: I know. It sounds crazy.
AB: And wouldn’t she have got in contact with you? If not immediately, then some time later, when the dust had settled?
BD: [pause]
AB: After all, you were her best friend, weren’t you? Or have I got that wrong?
BD: [silence]
AB: Miss Dyer?
BD: Look, if you must know, we didn’t part on the best of terms. That time I told you about – it wasn’t the last time I saw her. We had a row after that. She claimed I was after Rob. That I’d been flirting with him at her birthday party.
AB: Was that true?
BD: He was flirting with me. Of course he told her it was the other way round – well, he would, wouldn’t he. But it wasn’t. And in any case nothing happened. Even if he’d – even if –
[pause]
Look, I wouldn’t have done that to Hannah. OK?
AB: I see.
BD: And all these years you never found a body. I suppose I just wanted to believe that meant she was alive somewhere. But now I can’t. Because now I know she’s dead and I can’t get rid of the feeling that he had something to do with it.
***
If there’s one thing I loathe it’s watching myself on TV. Even now, after half a dozen appeals, I still can’t stand it. So when the rest of the team gather to watch the news I make my excuses and head for the coffee shop on St Aldate’s. It’s like the answer to one of those linear programming things I was so crap at in schooclass="underline" large enough that you usually get a seat, far enough from the main tourist drag that the big chains haven’t snapped it up. Which is why it amuses me, momentarily, to see a snake of Chinese tourists coming down the pavement towards me, following a woman holding high a bright red umbrella, marching confidently in entirely the wrong direction. Because whatever architectural masterpiece they’ve been promised, they aren’t going to find it down the Abingdon Road.
I’m at the counter when my phone goes. Challow.
‘You want the news or the good news?’
I swear silently as I hand over a fiver to the barista; I’m not in the mood for Challow’s mind games.
‘Don’t tell me. The DNA results.’
‘Sorry. Still waiting.’
‘So I assume that’s the news, rather than the good news?’
‘Can’t you tell?’
‘Look, just tell me, can’t you.’
Challow laughs drily. ‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself?’
***
‘Adam? Is that you?’ The voice on the speaker is breaking up, but I recognize it straight away.
‘Hold on a minute, Dad. I’m driving.’
I pull over to the side of the road and pick up the handset.
‘I’m here. Is there something wrong?’
I can hear him huffing slightly. ‘Why do you always assume there must be something wrong?’
‘Sorry, it’s just that –’
‘We saw you on the news, your mother and I.’
‘Oh, OK. Right.’
‘You were very good.’
Somehow or other, he always rubs me up the wrong way.
‘It’s not some sort of “appearance”, Dad – it’s not about me.’
‘I know that, Adam,’ he replies. He sounds as tetchy as I do. ‘What I meant was that you came over very well. Calm. Authoritative.’
And now I feel like a shit. As usual.
‘I know you don’t think we’re proud of you, son, but we are. The police force wouldn’t have been our first choice for you, but you’ve managed to make a creditable career of it.’
That’s an evil little word – ‘managed’. And then I tell myself that I’m imagining it – that I need to stop seizing on every possible negative inference. I’m not even sure he meant it that way.
‘Look, Dad. It was great of you to call, but I have to go. I’m on my way to the lab.’
‘Your mother says hello and she’s looking forward to seeing you. And Alex, of course.’
And then the line goes dead.
***
As the day wears on the clouds gather and by mid-afternoon the sky is as dark as November. Slow summer rain patters in the trees in the centre of Crescent Square. Two squirrels chase each other across the grass.
In the flat, Pippa is curled up on the sofa, playing Candy Crush on her phone. She can hear Rob talking in the other room. It’s Hannah’s parents. She’s never met them but she knows exactly what they’re like. Gervase and Cassandra – even their names are up themselves.
The door to the study opens and Rob appears in the doorway. He’s dressed for work, but perhaps she can change his mind. She stretches out her legs and flexes her bare feet.
‘The office called,’ he says, ignoring her. ‘Some sort of crisis. I don’t mind going in. It’ll help take my mind off things.’
‘How did it go – on the phone?’
A flicker of irritation at that. ‘Well, what do you expect? It’s hardly a social call, is it, “How’s the weather, oh and by the way they found your daughter buried in some old pervert’s shed.”’
He walks over to pick up his car keys. ‘I don’t know what time I’ll be back.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Well, it’ll have to wait,’ he says, moving towards the door. ‘I said I’d be there by four.’
‘I’m pregnant.’
He turns. Looks at her. She still has the phone in her hand.