Just Like the Other Girls - Claire Douglas Page 0,46

through my body. ‘Then what do you think happened?’

‘I don’t know. I spoke to her only a few days before she died.’

I wait, biting my tongue to prevent myself asking any questions. Sometimes it’s better to let the other person tell you things in their own time. I’m learning that, thanks to Elspeth.

‘She sounded happy. She’d met someone, she said.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. He worked for Mrs McKenzie apparently. She seemed smitten.’

Could it have been Lewis? Was he working for Elspeth last month? Aggie said that the gardeners never lasted long as Elspeth always found fault with them, but I’m sure Lewis had implied he’d been employed by the McKenzies for several months.

‘She was excited about Christmas. She wanted me to meet this guy.’

‘Did she say what his name was?’

He shakes his head, a lock of white-blond hair falling into his eyes. He brushes it away with one hand. The gesture is endearing and my heart goes out to him. I want to help him, this man who wears his grief like a shroud.

‘I called her once a week. I was her older brother. I felt responsible for her. I spoke to her on the fifteenth of December. I wasn’t able to see her on Christmas Day as I was working – I’m a firefighter,’ he explains, his voice dipping, and I regard him over my coffee with renewed interest. ‘But she was okay with it. She said she was spending it with him. When I rang her on Christmas Eve her mobile went straight to voicemail.’

So it was a serious relationship, I think, as I sip my coffee. Vince and I had spent only last Christmas together, because I would have been on my own otherwise. My heart contracts and I try to concentrate on what Peter is saying.

‘Jemima could be like that. Sometimes she went off the radar for weeks. She liked to do her own thing. So I wasn’t too worried at first. But when she didn’t call on Christmas Day, or the week after, I started to stress about it. I tried the McKenzies. I spoke to a woman called Kathryn.’

‘Elspeth McKenzie’s daughter.’

‘She said that Jemima had left out of the blue. That there had been a bit of a disagreement and she’d taken all her things and cleared out. But she wouldn’t have done that without ringing me. She had nowhere else to go.’

The coffee curdles in my stomach. A bit of a disagreement. I didn’t know that.

By now we’ve reached the end of the bridge where the railings give way to a walled terrace. Peter steps forward and looks down onto the water and the thicket of bushes. ‘This must have been where she jumped. Apparently she was found down there.’ He points to the wild undergrowth. It’s exactly where I thought it must have happened. ‘Nobody noticed her body for nearly a month.’ His voice breaks.

I don’t know what to say. ‘What do you think really happened?’ I ask eventually.

He sniffs, and I can tell he’s concentrating hard on not crying in front of me. He stares straight ahead at the view of the gorge. ‘I think someone pushed her. She was scared of heights. She wasn’t depressed. The McKenzies …’ He swallows his emotion. ‘They know more than they’re letting on. I’m certain of it.’

‘You don’t think they hurt her?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What about this boyfriend? Maybe it was him. Or maybe he knows more about it.’

He turns his head to look at me. ‘I’ve told the police about him. But I didn’t even know his name. Do you think you could find out? Ask the family? They might know something. I came here today to ask Mrs McKenzie. But Kathryn was so cold on the phone. It was like she didn’t care about Jemima at all.’

I promise him that I’ll try, and we swap numbers.

‘Where does this lead?’ he asks, pointing towards the area where the bridge ends.

‘Leigh Woods.’

‘Woods?’ He chews his lips. ‘That’s interesting.’

I don’t really know what to say so I remain silent and we walk back across the bridge.

When we’ve reached Sion Hill he pauses at the bin on the green and drops his coffee cup into it.

‘I’ve just remembered something,’ I say. ‘I found a necklace when I first moved in. A locket. I gave it to Kathryn. She said it was Jemima’s and that she would post it on. She made it sound like she had a forwarding address.’

I sense Peter freeze beside me. ‘What? When I spoke to her