going, to be replaced by anger. Why was Coralie choosing now to say this? It was as if she had an instinct for Topaz’s most fragile time, and chose to attack.
“What is it he has over you?” Coralie asked, ignoring her response. “Why did it all change that night? Was there something that happened after we’d gone to sleep?”
“Fuck you, Coralie,” Topaz said, shaking with fury. “How fucking dare you? You…No, you know what? I’m done.”
She ended the call, and then hurled her phone at the wall. It bounced and landed on the pastel carpet, apparently unharmed.
“Fuck you!” she repeated. And then, as much out of fury as out of grief, she gave in to sobs that moved her whole body.
She heard someone walking up the stairs and down the landing to her room. She hoped they’d leave her to it.
But then there were steps toward the door, and her father’s voice outside it. “Topaz? Are you in there?”
He must have known she was. The noise of her crying would have been pretty audible.
When she said nothing, the door opened slowly.
“Go away,” she said, and turned away from him.
“Sorry,” Tom said, but he didn’t go straight away. He took a few steps, and put a hand briefly on her shoulder. “I’m here if you…if you need to talk. OK?”
Topaz kept her face away, but she nodded.
Tom left a few moments later. She heard him close the door, and only then did she crumple back onto the bed and bury her head in the pillow again.
Her phone buzzed once a little while later. She knew it was Coralie messaging. Topaz had a violent wish to have been harsher to her former friend. To have hurt her more. Coralie was probably apologizing, which was how it worked with Coralie. Her moments of angst never lasted.
Topaz picked up the phone to read her message.
It wasn’t an apology.
I’m going to talk to the police once I arrive. I think there are a lot of things they’d be interested to know.
She wanted to fling the phone away again, but instead she typed a message back with shaking hands.
You can say whatever you want. I don’t give a shit. They won’t believe your psycho stories.
They were brave words, and probably stupid ones. She wished they were actually true.
* * *
—
LIGHTMAN WAS AT his elbow before he’d had a chance to close Wilkinson’s door behind him. Jonah took in the notebook and pen. He wondered what time Lightman had arrived. He looked immaculate and refreshed, as always.
“Brett Parker is here already. I’ve put him in Room Four.”
“Thanks.”
“Before you go in, I have a few notes on the case reports. I’ve worked through the initial interviews in the first three days after the missing-persons report went in. And there are a couple of interesting points in the transcripts, which haven’t been flagged by previous investigating officers.”
“Hit me.”
“Connor Dooley and Jojo Magos each made a reference to Aurora going off swimming for a while during the evening. Jojo’s statement makes it sound like a fairly run-of-the-mill thing, but Connor later in his statement mentioned Aurora’s sister being ‘still angry with her for taking herself off swimming.’ None of the others specifically referenced it, but Daniel Benham mentioned them all worrying about her and trying to look after her. He stated, ‘We got a bit edgy if she was even out of sight. I don’t understand how we can have let this happen.’ ”
Jonah smiled. This was classic Lightman work. Rigorous, careful cross-checking, stage by stage. A level of detailed analysis unmatched among his colleagues.
“So,” he summarized, making his way toward the interview suite, “she took herself off for a while and worried them all. We don’t know what she was up to, or if any of them had followed her. And not a lot was done to follow up on that back in ’83.”
“I think it’s worth asking them about,” Lightman said.
“Anything else?”
“A couple of other related queries for now. Topaz Jackson and Coralie Ribbans left the campsite after an argument with Daniel Benham and Connor Dooley.”
“Left in what sense?”
“They went off into the woods for a while.”
Jonah nodded. “What was the argument about? Any details?”
“Yes. They both, independently, attributed it to Connor and Daniel not really wanting Brett there. But Daniel Benham, in his statement, downplayed it and said it had hardly been an argument. I’d want to know more about that disagreement. And also, Topaz Jackson ended up alone. Coralie came away from