So it was a serious relationship, I think, as I sip my coffee. Vince and I had spent only last Christmas together, because I would have been on my own otherwise. My heart contracts and I try to concentrate on what Peter is saying.
‘Jemima could be like that. Sometimes she went off the radar for weeks. She liked to do her own thing. So I wasn’t too worried at first. But when she didn’t call on Christmas Day, or the week after, I started to stress about it. I tried the McKenzies. I spoke to a woman called Kathryn.’
‘Elspeth McKenzie’s daughter.’
‘She said that Jemima had left out of the blue. That there had been a bit of a disagreement and she’d taken all her things and cleared out. But she wouldn’t have done that without ringing me. She had nowhere else to go.’
The coffee curdles in my stomach. A bit of a disagreement. I didn’t know that.
By now we’ve reached the end of the bridge where the railings give way to a walled terrace. Peter steps forward and looks down onto the water and the thicket of bushes. ‘This must have been where she jumped. Apparently she was found down there.’ He points to the wild undergrowth. It’s exactly where I thought it must have happened. ‘Nobody noticed her body for nearly a month.’ His voice breaks.
I don’t know what to say. ‘What do you think really happened?’ I ask eventually.
He sniffs, and I can tell he’s concentrating hard on not crying in front of me. He stares straight ahead at the view of the gorge. ‘I think someone pushed her. She was scared of heights. She wasn’t depressed. The McKenzies …’ He swallows his emotion. ‘They know more than they’re letting on. I’m certain of it.’
‘You don’t think they hurt her?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What about this boyfriend? Maybe it was him. Or maybe he knows more about it.’
He turns his head to look at me. ‘I’ve told the police about him. But I didn’t even know his name. Do you think you could find out? Ask the family? They might know something. I came here today to ask Mrs McKenzie. But Kathryn was so cold on the phone. It was like she didn’t care about Jemima at all.’
I promise him that I’ll try, and we swap numbers.
‘Where does this lead?’ he asks, pointing towards the area where the bridge ends.
‘Leigh Woods.’
‘Woods?’ He chews his lips. ‘That’s interesting.’
I don’t really know what to say so I remain silent and we walk back across the bridge.
When we’ve reached Sion Hill he pauses at the bin on the green and drops his coffee cup into it.
‘I’ve just remembered something,’ I say. ‘I found a necklace when I first moved in. A locket. I gave it to Kathryn. She said it was Jemima’s and that she would post it on. She made it sound like she had a forwarding address.’
I sense Peter freeze beside me. ‘What? When I spoke to her she told me she didn’t know where Jemima had gone.’
By the look on his face I can tell we’ve had the same thought. Why would Kathryn lie?
16
Kathryn
‘She keeps asking questions,’ says Elspeth, as they leave the gallery. They’d spent a good couple of hours with Fleur Honeywell, a willowy whimsical woman about Kathryn’s age. Kathryn had liked her a lot, but her mother had been less keen, her eyes glazing over when Fleur talked. She could tell Fleur’s paintings weren’t to Elspeth’s taste either – too bold and colourful. Her mother preferred pictures as delicate as everything else she admired. Still, Kathryn knew she had a better eye for what sold than her mother did. Kathryn disliked her job most of the time, mainly because there was a lot of waiting around, but she knew she was good at it.
‘Who? Fleur?’
Her mother tsks. ‘No. Una.’
She has to suppress a shiver and pulls the scarf further up her throat. It’s getting dark now, and the streetlamps have come on, giving the cobbled street a ghostly, almost Victorian glow. ‘What about?’ she asks, trying to sound nonchalant as she helps her mother over the cobbles, Elspeth gripping her arm too tightly. Maybe her mother won’t be enraptured by Una, after all. The right looks but the wrong personality. Too nosy by the sound of it.
‘About Viola. Aggie told her.’
‘Has Aggie been gossiping again? For crying out loud, Mother, why don’t you say something to her?’
Elspeth looks appalled. ‘Aggie has been part of this family for over thirty years.’