morning not far from where she went missing.”
In Mackenzie, the reaction was as much in his body as his face. A downward slump of his torso, the slipping of one of his arms away from the other before he made an effort to return it.
Jonah waited for him to speak, but Mackenzie said nothing but “Right. Aurora.” He breathed in more heavily and exhaled several times, and then turned away from them to look out the window.
“This is clearly something of a shock,” Jonah offered. “But we need to ask you about Aurora herself, and about that evening. As much as you can recall.” He gave a shrug. “Obviously she was one of many students, so I don’t expect a detailed portrait.”
“She was nothing like my other students,” Mackenzie said, a roughness to his voice that took Jonah aback. He fixed that flat gaze on Jonah, and for the first time he became aware of Mackenzie’s age. Of the lines and the tiredness. “She was nothing like them. And not just because she vanished, but because I thought I was looking at the next Márquez or Woolf or Faulkner. It was a god-awful waste. The worst possible waste.”
Jonah could sense Lightman beside him, his body absolutely still. He could tell that the intensity of Mackenzie’s reaction had surprised him, too.
“You’ve not felt that any of your other students since were a match for her?”
Mackenzie shook his head. And then shrugged with one shoulder. “I’ve had bright sparks every other year. There have been lots I would have tipped to become successful, and most of them have. I’ve had only a few writers or essayists or journalists out of a lifetime of teaching. But none of them…I don’t know. None of them was original like she was. Or seemed to catch on to an idea as quickly. But maybe I’ve got a skewed memory of her because of what happened….”
Lightman asked neutrally whether he’d known Aurora personally.
Mackenzie snorted. “As much as you ever know any student personally. I was shit-scared of one of the girls misinterpreting any encouragement. I’d only had two proper girlfriends and I didn’t have a clue how to go about rebutting unwanted attention. I remember a sixth-former turning up at my classroom late on a Friday when I was marking, and I pretty much shouted her out of the place. Poor thing was probably only after some extra help, but I was paranoid about being on my own in a room with her.”
“So there was never anything at all beyond the usual student-teacher relationship?” Lightman continued.
“Of course there wasn’t,” he said, and sounded more disappointed in Lightman than anything. “You get excited about students. About their abilities, and where they’ll go in life, and how you can help them. You might like or dislike them as people, but you try not to let that affect you. I’ve had smart kids who I’ve thought were absolute shits before, but it didn’t mean I didn’t bend over backward to help them.”
“Thank you,” Jonah said. “We also need to know about that night. When Aurora disappeared. We think you saw at least one of the group at the campsite. Were you aware that there were others?”
“I saw Topaz,” he said, nodding. “Aurora’s sister. I have to say that it never occurred to me that Aurora would be there. They didn’t really spend time together at school. Topaz was a very different person. She was smart, too, but she was obsessed with self-image. I assumed Topaz was with her usual crowd. Benners and…Jesus. I’ve…Connor, that was it. And Jojo. And Topaz’s little shadow…What was she called?”
“Coralie? She wasn’t with her at the time?” Jonah queried.
“No, it was just Topaz. Wandering along the riverbank. I’d joined the path there for a while and I think I scared her.”
“What was she doing?” This from Lightman.
Mackenzie gave him a blank look. He made a considering sound. “Well, she had a bag. She’d been walking the other way. I suppose she might have been going for a swim.”
“You didn’t see where she’d come from?” Jonah asked.
“No,” Mackenzie said, shaking his head and glancing between them. “Look, I…I know Topaz could be a bit of a cow to her sister, but I don’t think she had anything to do with her death. She was devastated after Aurora disappeared.”
“That’s useful, thank you,” Jonah said. “You didn’t see anything later in the evening?”
Mackenzie shook his head. “I was somewhere between two and three miles further on