pretty crap to everyone.”
“Would you say Aurora had been driven to despair?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t think she was on the verge of doing something stupid?”
“No, it was nothing like that.” Becky gave a half laugh. “Actually, it’d got a bit better. Topaz’d had words with them.”
Jonah was taken aback. He couldn’t remember Topaz ever sticking up for her sister.
“What did Topaz say?” he asked.
“She saw them pushing Aurora and me around in the middle of the schoolyard, and she stormed over,” Becky said, and he could hear a little note of worship in her voice even after thirty years. “She said to get their fucking hands off us, and if they touched us again, Connor would beat the life out of them.”
Jonah found himself smiling. That was a little typical of Topaz, to use her hanger-on to her advantage. But she’d gone to Aurora’s aid when she needed it, despite her embarrassment at her spacey sister. He wondered whether she would still have done that when drunk or high, and if the person threatening her sister had been someone she was interested in.
“Sorry, I don’t think this is very…I probably don’t know anything that helpful,” Becky said uncertainly, smoothing down her skirt.
“It’s helping me understand Aurora better,” Jonah reassured her. “What about boyfriends?”
“Who? Aurora?”
“Yes.”
“No. Neither of us was…She didn’t have anyone.”
He caught something in her expression. For the first time, someone wasn’t laughing at the idea of Aurora dating.
“Had she had someone before?”
“Not…not exactly.” There was a momentary pause, and then she said, “Sorry. I need my inhaler.”
She scrabbled under the counter and came up with a blue Ventolin inhaler.
“Asthma?” Jonah asked. “That’s a pain.”
She took a puff, held her breath, and then nodded. “Always had it,” she said, once she’d breathed it out. There was a slight breathlessness to her voice. Jonah knew to be patient, even when he was itching for her to continue.
“So was there some kind of complicated situation? Someone who pursued Aurora, maybe?”
“It…it wasn’t…it was someone she liked.”
Jonah waited, beginning to suspect that he knew what she was going to say.
“She was totally in love with our English teacher, Mr. Mackenzie. I mean, we all were a bit. But Aurora could hardly talk about anything else. And she was always going to see him about stuff, having extra lessons with him….”
“He gave her extra lessons?” Jonah asked. “Outside school?”
“Yeah. He was helping her with a competition she was entering, and she’d written a book, and she wanted him to read it.”
“So would you say…that he might have encouraged her a bit?”
There was a very brief silence. “I don’t know. Maybe. She was always telling me how he looked at her, and there was this thing between them. I guess part of me believed her and part of me thought it was all in her head.”
“She didn’t mention him touching her? Kissing her?”
“No.” Becky seemed positive about that. “I think she would have told me. If she was all excited about a nice comment on her work, she would have told me if something had actually happened, wouldn’t she?”
Jonah made a noncommittal noise of agreement, thinking that that might not be true, if the teacher in question had warned her not to tell anyone.
“What about the week before she went missing?” he went on. “You can’t think of anything between them then?”
“No,” Becky said hesitantly. “No, but I was angry with him in a weird way. She only agreed to go camping because she thought it’d impress him. It was the kind of thing he always talked about doing. Big long walks, and camping in the wild…It wasn’t Aurora’s thing at all. She liked her room and her books.”
Jonah felt a flicker of unease. “Did she tell him she was going?”
There was another brief pause. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I remember she was terrified of the summer vacation coming up and not seeing him for six weeks. And she was a bit obvious about stuff like that…Yeah, I think she said it in front of the whole class, actually.”
Jonah was very aware of his heartbeat as he wound down the conversation, and thanked Becky for her help. She apologized for not having more to tell him. As far as Jonah was concerned, she’d told him plenty.
* * *
—
HE FOUND ALL three of his team at their desks when he returned. O’Malley looked up, and immediately said, “Ooh, look who’s got something to say….”
Jonah couldn’t help grinning, in spite of the slightly sick