‘Yes. For eighteen years.’ Anastacia crosses her arms.
She’s still standing in the doorway and the icy air weaves around my ankles. Something about this doesn’t add up. ‘I thought John-Paul was imprisoned for possession and smuggling drugs,’ I say.
I can feel Olivia’s eyes boring into me but I don’t look at her. Instead I concentrate on the woman in the doorway.
‘Well, you heard wrong.’ But she averts her gaze as she says it.
‘Mum,’ Olivia says, and I turn in her direction. She looks small and scared behind the desk. ‘It sounds like John-Paul … my father … came looking for me in 1998. But where has he been since? Did he go back to prison?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Olivia’s mother, irritably. ‘He came and then he disappeared again. I can’t be answering all these questions now. I don’t know much more than you. And you, Jenna,’ she fixes her grey eyes on me, ‘I’ve already said too much. You’d better go.’
I glance at Olivia and she inclines her head. I bend down, grab my bag and leave, while they watch me in a tense silence.
As I walk back to my car I’m certain of one thing.
Anastacia Rutherford is lying.
I get behind the wheel, check my mobile and see I have two missed calls and a voicemail from a number I don’t recognize. I listen to the message, pleased when I discover it’s from Izzy Thorne: ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t called before. But I wanted to talk to my mum about it first before getting in touch. She’d like to speak to you too. I know it’s short notice but it’s my day off so if you’re free we’d love you to come over.’ She reels off an address and then the message ends. I stare at my phone in surprise. With everything that’s happened over the last few days I’d almost forgotten I’d passed my number to Izzy. And her mum wants to talk too. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
I call back to tell Izzy I’m on my way, then drive straight to the address. Five minutes later I’ve pulled up outside a 1980s detached house with a double garage at the front. I’m still thinking of Anastacia Rutherford and the inconsistency in her story. Why would she tell me that John-Paul had killed some guy called Derreck in 1980 when that was the year he’d gone to prison for possession of drugs? Not for murder. And if she’s lying about it, then why?
I knock at number five and an attractive woman with sharp cheekbones and deep-set dark eyes answers. She must be in her sixties and is slim in dark jeans and a long-sleeved navy and white Breton top. She’s an older version of Izzy. And Sally, I think.
‘You must be Jenna,’ she says warmly, shaking my hand. ‘Izzy told me all about you and your podcast.’
Izzy appears behind her mother holding a large fluffy cat, which leaps from her arms and runs upstairs. ‘She’s not very friendly.’ Izzy laughs. ‘Come through.’
I go into the living room at the front of the house. It’s large and chintzy with pale blue linen sofas, lemon walls and plush curtains at the window. The mantelpiece is crowded with framed photographs of Izzy, when she was younger, and Sally. Izzy’s mum sees me looking and picks one up: a photo of teenage Sally with Izzy aged four or five. Izzy has pudgy arms firmly planted around the neck of a giggling Sally. They look so happy. ‘This is my favourite,’ she says, smiling sadly at the photograph.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, feeling choked.
She shakes her head, her eyes bright with tears. She has a grey streak at the front of her dark hair, like Mrs Robinson in The Graduate. She replaces the photo and takes a seat next to a cross-legged Izzy on the sofa by the window. I sit in the armchair by the door.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she says, about to get up again.
‘No, thank you. I’ve drunk so much today already. Do you mind if I record you for the podcast?’
Mrs Thorne nods. ‘Of course not. Go ahead.’
I set up my phone on the coffee-table, then dump my bag by my feet.
Mrs Thorne begins to talk in her slow, deliberate way as though she doesn’t want to waste any words and her eyes keep flicking to my phone as though she’s self-conscious. I hope she’ll forget it’s there after a while and be more natural. Izzy sits beside her, listening quietly and nodding every now and again. Mrs Thorne talks about Sally, what she was like, how funny she was, how studious. ‘She would never have run off without telling us where she was going,’ she says adamantly. ‘Tamzin, maybe. But not Katie and definitely not my Sally.’
‘What do you think happened to them?’ I ask gently.
Mrs Thorne presses a tissue to her eyes and Izzy reaches over and squeezes her mum’s hand. ‘I think something bad must have happened. It’s just been so long now without a word. But, also, there’s that little bit of hope, you know? We’ve kept her bedroom the same. All her …’ her voice catches ‘… all her things are still there.’
‘I go in there sometimes,’ says Izzy. ‘I can pretend I’m eight again and that my big sister is just out for the evening.’
A beat of silence before I ask, ‘Does the name John-Paul Molina mean anything to you?’
Mrs Thorne frowns. ‘Gosh, I haven’t heard that name in years. He used to go out with Olivia’s mum.’
‘Do you know what happened to him?’
‘Why are you asking?’ She doesn’t sound angry, more intrigued.
I explain everything that Dale told me, plus my conversation with Anastacia and Olivia.
She exhales. ‘So John-Paul is back in town? After all these years?’
‘It sounds like it. When was the last time you saw him?’
‘In Thailand in early 1980.’
46
I stare at Mrs Thorne in surprise. ‘In Thailand?’
‘Yes. January 1980. We were all on holiday as a group.’
I shift in my seat. ‘The holiday where Anastacia met Derreck?’
‘Yes.’ She tucks a lock of hair behind an ear. ‘We all went to stay with him, although we hardly knew him, but things weren’t great between Anastacia and John-Paul. They were already having problems and Derreck was so charming. So handsome. That hair. Like a young Robert Redford. Stace – that’s what we all called her – fell hard for him. Poor John-Paul didn’t stand a chance. I did feel sorry for him. And then there was that whole horrendous business at the airport on the way home.’
‘Is that where John-Paul got arrested?’
She nods and glances at her daughter. Izzy is staring at her mother as though she’s never heard this story before – she probably hasn’t. It happened long before she was born. ‘He tried to smuggle drugs out of the country. It was such a stupid, stupid thing to do.’
I flinch when I imagine John-Paul getting arrested and having to spend eighteen years in a Thai jail. ‘Anastacia said something strange to me. She didn’t say John-Paul went to prison for drugs. She said he’d killed someone.’
Mrs Thorne looks puzzled, but then it seems to dawn on her. ‘Ah, yes, there was a bit of bad business. I remember Stace telling me on the plane home. Apparently John-Paul had caused the death of one of his friends while he was travelling in Goa by selling him a dodgy batch of drugs. He used to be a bit of a dealer, although obviously we didn’t know that at the time. But,’ she pulls a confused face, ‘as far as I was aware he never went to prison for that.’