“When exactly was this, can you remember?”
“Yes, it was right before I left the UK and came back home, which would have made it . . . end of August 2002.”
Kate and Tristan exchanged a look. This felt like a real breakthrough.
“What did you talk about with Joanna when you met?” asked Kate.
“She said she was working on a story about Noah Huntley. She said that he’d been using rent boys for many years, and the commune had come up in conversation with more than one of the young guys he’d slept with there. She said that she was following up on a story that he’d used his parliamentary expenses account to pay for rent boys and the hotels where he entertained them . . . I got the impression that she wanted to sell a big story. She said she needed to get as many guys on the record as possible so her editor wouldn’t kill the story. She was ambitious. She also stole negatives from me.”
“Negatives?”
“Photo negatives. I think she went through photos I kept in a box under my bed, when I was in the kitchen . . . When I was packing up the next week to leave, every single set of negatives in my photos was gone. No one else had been round.”
“How many sets of photos?”
“Quite a few. It was all the negatives from all my photos. They were in those paper packets of twenty-four you used to get when you had film processed.”
“Do you still have the photos?”
He laughed.
“I’ve no idea. I’d have to check. It was a very long time ago,” he said.
“What were the photos of?”
“All the time I’d spent in the UK, friends, places I’d been, my time in the commune. I lived in the UK from early 1996 to end of August 2002.”
Kate and Tristan exchanged a glance.
“Is there any way you could find these photos for us?” she asked.
“Listen, I’m very busy . . .” He sighed. “I’ll have a think where they are.”
“Thank you. Why did you leave England?”
“At this point, I was done with England. I’d been there for too long and fallen into being this promiscuous party boy, and everyone I hung around with thought that of me. It gave me a low opinion of myself. I wanted to do more with my life, and I missed home. I booked myself a flight back to Barcelona. I didn’t tell anyone I was going. No one knew my address. I got rid of my phone. I came back to my parents’ house in the country and spent a few months being normal, and then I enrolled in university and studied politics. I graduated in 2007. I worked for a European lobby group for a year and then ran as a European member of Parliament. I was as shocked as anyone that I got elected, but I love it . . .”
“Congratulations,” said Kate. “We’re just so happy to know that you’re not . . .”
“Dead?”
“Yes. Did you know that Joanna Duncan went missing a few weeks after you left to go home?” asked Kate.
“Yeah, I saw something a few years later, but the media presented it as an abduction.”
“Do you think Noah Huntley was capable of making Joanna disappear?” Kate was annoyed at herself for asking such a leading question, but she was worried his window of candor might close and he’d hang up.
“Of abducting her?”
“Yes. If Noah Huntley had been found guilty of misusing his parliamentary privilege, then he could have gone to prison.”
“Do you want to know my honest, off-the-record opinion?” asked Jorge.
“Yes,” said Kate.
“Noah Huntley was too good looking to have to pay for sex, and he was smart enough to fiddle his way around parliamentary expenses. Do you know how many young guys threw themselves at him back in the day? Lots. He was in his midthirties, he had money, and he was very good in bed. One of the reasons I didn’t take Joanna Duncan seriously was that I thought she had an ax to grind. She wanted to bring him down, and this was after her story had been in the newspaper and he lost his seat. It felt vindictive.”
“Thank you for talking to us,” said Kate. “Please can you let me know if you find those photos? They could really help our investigation, and we’d keep your name confidential.”
“I will have a look. But you need to understand, I want to keep this part of my life in the past,” he said, and then abruptly, he hung up.
31
When Kate and Tristan turned the corner onto Kate’s road, the sun was high in the sky above the sea, and the temperature was nudging eighty-two degrees.
Kate felt hot and thirsty after their journey. Jake was coming down the stairs from the campsite, leading a group of five young women and two young men. Jake was shirtless and wore a pair of board shorts. He’d caught the sun, and with his long hair and beard, he looked like a carefree hippie. The two other young guys wore shorts and sleeveless T-shirts, and the girls had short dresses on over lurid fluorescent pink and yellow bikinis. They were a good-looking bunch and reminded Kate of those reality shows where sexy young people are all sent to a far-flung island. Tristan slowed the car and pulled up next to Jake.