Vilmos nods. He looks awkward. ‘Anyway – I see you tomorrow, Helen. Ten o’clock OK for you?’
‘Sure.’
When I hear the door close behind him, I put out a hand to steady myself against the hallway wall. My heart is pounding. Surely not, I think. It can’t be. It can’t be. And then I think about what Katie said. About seeing Rachel go down into the cellar.
KATIE
When he turns up at the pub, DCI Carter is in another one of his golf jumpers. I try to suppress a smile at its purple-and-green diamond pattern. He still has his bag of clubs over one shoulder. He looks like he’s gained a couple of pounds since I last saw him, the bags gone from his eyes.
‘I got you a coffee,’ I say. ‘It might be a bit cold.’
He sits down heavily in the leather booth, swinging his bag down next to him so that the clubs clatter together.
‘I wondered how long it would be before you dragged me out of my comfortable semi-retirement for something or other,’ he mutters. ‘I thought I might at least get a whole round of golf in.’
‘Sorry.’ I laugh nervously. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Yep, I’m a part-timer these days,’ he grins, stretching his arms. ‘Friday is my golf day.’
‘Apologies. Isn’t it a bit cold on the course today anyway?’ I had forgotten how it gets in Cambridge, the icy wind from the fens threatening to blow you over. Even inside, I am sitting on my hands to warm them up. Every time the pub door opens, a blast of freezing air rushes in.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Spit it out.’ He is looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and amusement, but his face changes when I begin.
‘It’s about Rachel Wells,’ I say. I unfold the old article and slide it across the table towards him. ‘I’m sure you remember her.’
It had been her all along. The victim in the boathouse rape. Just fifteen years old. I’d traced my fingers over the cuttings. The summer Helen, Rory and Daniel left. Then I thought again about what Helen had said. About Daniel not liking to talk about it. Even she had lied to me about it, at first. It couldn’t be just a coincidence. There must have been some connection, something that made Rachel seek them out. But what? What had she wanted from them, after all these years?
I’d stuffed the articles into my pocket, gone into the kitchen to find John. He had poured himself a whisky and was staring out at the garden. He hadn’t even replied when I said goodbye, thanked him for his time.
I had called Carter as I started the car. The icy roads had been dead, flurries of snow starting. It hadn’t taken me long to reach the pub.
DCI Carter looks at me, then the article, then to me again. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘you know I can’t discuss who this is. Doesn’t matter how long ago it was – it’s a section 18. Lifetime anonymity.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Come on, Katie. What are you playing at? You could get me into serious trouble.’
‘Did you not know she’s gone missing?’
I see the concern on his face instantly.
‘I heard something on the radio – didn’t catch the name – it’s not – the same Rachel …？’
‘Same one.’
DCI Carter puts his head in his hands.
‘I didn’t make the connection,’ he says quietly.
I take out the rest of the cuttings I took from John’s box, unfold them, place them on the table in front of us.
‘Look, I’m not asking you to disclose that she was the victim in this case – I know it was her already. Her dad told me, all right?’
He eyes me as if I am a dangerous animal that needs to be handled carefully.
‘This is more important than that, anyway. Homicide are on the case. They think she’s been murdered.’ Anonymity isn’t much good to her if she’s dead, I feel like saying. But I stop myself. I sense I’ve said enough.
He takes a deep breath in, then out. Starts to massage his forehead.
‘It’s to do with what happened to her before, in Cambridge. I know it is,’ I say. ‘I just don’t know how.’
DCI Carter looks up.
‘I need your help,’ I tell him. ‘Please.’
‘All right,’ he says eventually. He starts to pull his jacket off, one sleeve, then another. Sets it on the back of his chair. ‘But we’re talking completely off the record, here, Katie. Understood?’
I nod.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘You start. Tell me what you know about how she went missing.’