‘Did you ever find out what about?’
‘He said it was about Olivia. Apparently Tamzin didn’t approve.’ She pushes her glasses back onto her nose and offers me another croissant and I take a chocolate one this time.
‘I wonder why Olivia would want to go out with someone who had so obviously been hung up on her friend,’ I say, breaking up my croissant.
‘Yes, we found that odd too. But they’re still together all these years later.’
‘What? They’re married?’
Brenda shakes her head. Her hair doesn’t move. ‘No. They never got married. Olivia still lives at home helping her mum run the riding stables. And Wesley lives in a studio flat above Madame Tovey’s. But they’re still a couple.’
‘Wow.’ This is a surprise. Olivia is around my age and she still lives at home. In a town where it sounds like she’s viewed with suspicion. ‘Why would she want to stay?’
Brenda shrugs. ‘It’s not that unusual. A lot of folk stay in this town.’ She chuckles. ‘Me included. Stafferbury born and bred. I doubt I’ll leave now.’ She casts her eye around her conservatory. ‘It suits me here. I’m bedded in, a bit like the weeds in my back garden.’ She twinkles at me. I realize I like her. I like the solidness of her, the no-nonsense attitude. She reminds me of my mum.
‘But did you ever seriously think Wesley Tucker had anything to do with it?’
‘We couldn’t prove anything about him or Ralph Middleton. And there are a lot of folk around here who believe that this town is cursed. Olivia Rutherford’s friends aren’t the first to disappear from here. Over two hundred years ago a similar thing happened – if you can believe the reports.’
‘What? Really?’
‘Three local farm girls went missing back in 1750 or something. I think it was believed they were sacrificed. The stones can attract cults and paganists. Especially back then.’ She folds her arms. ‘Not that I know much about the history of the stones although historians do think they were built in line with the sun and moon, and that human sacrifices were made there. The night the girls disappeared, apparently the sun and moon were in the right alignment with the stones.’
I suddenly feel sick, remembering the film The Wicker Man I saw years ago with Gavin mainly because he had a teenage crush on Britt Ekland. ‘You don’t believe they were sacrificed, though, do you?’
‘No, of course not.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘There was another thing … about Olivia’s accident.’
‘What was that?’
‘Well, in a statement from her hospital bed Olivia said she’d thought she was being followed in the days leading up to the accident.’
‘What?’ This hasn’t been in any press cutting I’ve read. ‘Did you find out who?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. It was followed up, of course, but nobody fitting the description was ever found. The best thing to do would be to speak to my colleague, DS Dale Crawford.’
‘Okay.’ I reach forward and turn off the recording. ‘Would he be willing to speak to me?’
‘Sure. He’s great, is Dale. He was only a young whippersnapper when I was in the force twelve or so years ago, but he’s around your age now and specializes in cold cases. A bit of a hot shot. He rang me last week to tell me that his team will be picking up the Olivia Rutherford case again.’
‘Why is that? Has there been some new information?’
She eyes me without speaking for several seconds, and then says, ‘I think it’s best you speak to him about it.’ She bends down to pat Seamus who’s collapsed at her feet, his chin resting on one of her moccasin slippers. And then she stands up. I do the same, gathering up my equipment, then follow her to the front door, my mind whirling.
As we pass the side table in the hallway she stops to pick up a card and presses it into my hand. DS Crawford’s contact details. ‘Dale is brilliant,’ she says, as she opens the door and I step out into the cold air. ‘But he’s a police officer at the end of the day. There might be things he won’t be willing to share. So if you have any questions after speaking to him don’t hesitate to ring me, okay? I’m happy to tell you anything you need to know from when I was covering the case. Also, I’ll dig out some of my old paperwork. On the QT like. I did end up photocopying some statements, though Dale wouldn’t approve. These days everything is done much more by the book.’ Her eyes glint with naughtiness and I can’t help but laugh. Then she grows serious again. ‘And don’t be fobbed off, Jenna. Because I don’t doubt for a second that someone in this town knows what’s happened to those girls and has kept quiet about it for twenty years. It’s time to spook them into revealing themselves.’
8
Olivia
Olivia wheels the pile of horse manure onto the dung heap and watches as the steam rises into the grey skies. She used to stand in it during the winter when she was a teenager to keep her feet warm. She’s mucked out three of the horses already, between trying to get hold of Wesley. And each time it goes straight to voicemail.
After waking to find him gone last night she’d eventually fallen into a fitful and restless sleep. When her alarm went off at 6 a.m. and she saw the bed beside her still empty the strange unhappy feeling settled itself around her, as though she was being suffocated by her heavy duvet, making her doubts resurface as to what he’s hiding. He’s been so distant these last few months. Longer, really, if she’s honest with herself. Maybe it’s been a gradual thing over the years, the gentle eroding of their love, like seawater over a pebble, but in the beginning he was so attentive to her. She relied on him emotionally and physically. He was the one who carried her from her bed to the wheelchair when she had to sleep downstairs, kipping in a sleeping-bag on the floor just in case she needed to go to the loo in the night. He was the one who sat with her, holding her when she woke terrified from a nightmare, imagining that she was still trapped in the car. She can’t even pinpoint the exact moment it changed. But it seems the stronger she gets the weaker their relationship becomes.
She’d mentioned her worries over breakfast. Her mother was busy flitting about the kitchen in that hyperactive way she had when Olivia plonked herself at the table.
‘Do you want eggs?’ she’d asked, when Olivia admitted she was worried about Wesley. Eggs, it seemed, were the answer to everything: lack of energy, depressed thoughts, missing boyfriend.
‘No, thanks, I can’t face eggs this morning,’ Olivia replied, her stomach a choppy sea of unhappiness.
‘Oh, he’ll be okay,’ her mum said dismissively, scooping a poached egg onto Olivia’s plate ignoring her refusal. ‘He’s a grown man. Wesley’s always struck me as a very independent soul. You can’t pin a man like that down, love, and don’t even try.’
She’d never known her mother to have a boyfriend, even though she suspected she must have. When Olivia was a child her mother would sometimes leave her with her grandparents to go away for the odd weekend. Olivia often wondered if she had been meeting a man. But even if she had her mother wouldn’t tell her. But that was her all over. She liked to compartmentalize her life.