Connor was already in his jogging kit, and seemed unfazed by the persistent rain and the increasing muddy puddles. He was drinking coffee in little gulps, and she found herself watching him while her mother clattered around making breakfast.
They’d barely talked about Aurora since they’d left Edinburgh. For most of the flight they’d made nothing but stilted, facile conversation about practicalities. About getting shopping in for her parents on the way from the airport, and about whether they’d decamp to a hotel for the next night.
They also hadn’t mentioned Daniel or Brett, or Coralie or Jojo. Even though Topaz was burning with curiosity to know what the others were doing, and how they were holding up.
And she wanted to talk to them, too. To Daniel, maybe, who would be sympathetic. To Brett, who would just listen without judgment. Or even to Jojo, who would probably make them both laugh in spite of everything.
Connor finished the coffee, and nodded to her before heading out. He usually kissed her before leaving. But for some reason she wasn’t sure she even wanted him to. She couldn’t help thinking about Aurora, and her own fractured memories of that night.
It was almost a relief once Connor was gone, but the moment she was alone with her mother she regretted it. She found the pretense of caring about her friend’s new dog, or the shop parking, infuriating. There was such restless frustration in her that she felt raw.
Eventually, she excused herself from the kitchen for a short while on the pretext of making a work call, even though it was still early, and she’d told them she was taking time off. She climbed the poorly lit stairs and headed up onto the landing, and then she saw Aurora’s bedroom door move slightly in the breeze from the open window.
She faltered, remembering in a vivid rush an early morning when she’d crept back in from a night out with Coralie and some of the sixth-formers. It had been dim and grayish just like this, and Topaz had felt suddenly empty and worthless and used. She had been aware of shame-filled tears building somewhere in her as she climbed the stairs.
And then Aurora’s door had opened, and Topaz had flinched. Her sister was standing there in her nightdress, a gauzy, floaty thing made out of purple lace that had become too short for her once she’d grown. But for a moment, in the half-light, she’d looked ethereal and beautiful, her eyes big and luminous in the light.
“Glad you’re all right,” Aurora had whispered. “I couldn’t sleep. Do you want tea? I can do it in a pan on the hob. It won’t wake anyone.”
Topaz had studied her sister’s face, expecting to see some kind of judgment there. But there was none. There was just a patient offer.
The wholesomeness of her sister, and that offer of a homely, pure comfort, had the strangest effect on her. She felt like she could walk away from the shame, and be like Aurora somehow.
She’d never in her life wanted to be like her sister before.
“Thanks,” she’d said, trying not to let her voice crack with emotion. “I’d love a tea.”
In the end, they’d sat at each side of the kitchen table and talked about some of their teachers, and rolled their eyes about their parents.
Topaz wasn’t sure if she’d ever thanked Aurora for that night. She thought not. By morning, the drive to be desirable had become too strong once again, and her younger sister had been returned to her place as an embarrassment in Topaz’s life.
It was a strange time to really realize that her sister was gone. She’d known it for years. But seeing that landing now, empty of Aurora, and knowing that it wasn’t her opening the door, drove the truth of it into her.
She walked slowly to Aurora’s door and pushed it open. The butterflies and the flowers and the riotous colors no longer seemed claustrophobic. There was something glorious about them. She walked around the room, running her fingers across gauze wings and painted designs on the walls.
And then she climbed onto Aurora’s bed, and curled up round the unchanged pillow.
* * *
—
THE PRESS HAD been unusually placid this morning. The most challenging question had been whether the case was being treated as a murder. He’d answered readily.
“We can’t rule anything in or out at this stage,” he said calmly. “Any other questions?”
There were none. They were too young, these journalists. They didn’t know who Aurora had been. He stepped down from the small stage carefully, and could already see some of them with their smartphones out, googling Aurora Jackson. Working out how big this was.
Wilkinson was waiting at the back of the room, his small, stocky frame plainclothed and unobtrusive. He gave a little jerk of his head that asked Jonah to follow.
He went after him dutifully enough. It was generally good to have the detective chief superintendent’s input, even if he wasn’t involved.
Wilkinson swiped his card at the door to CID and then waited, holding it open. “How’s the new constable getting on?” he asked quietly.
“Good, I think,” Jonah replied. “Waiting to see how she handles a murder.”
Wilkinson kept walking through the half-occupied office, nodding to a few of the officers who attempted a greeting. He occasionally offered a quiet, slightly somber, “Good morning.”
He paused outside his office, hand on the glass door, and gave Jonah a slightly sympathetic look. “When have you got interviews starting?”
“Nine.”
Wilkinson lifted his wrist to look at his watch. He shrugged. “Lightman and your new constable are here. They can hold the fort. Come and give me a rundown.”
Jonah let himself be herded in.
“It’s somewhat unexpected, isn’t it?” Wilkinson said. “This all coming back to bite us thirty years later.”
“Yes,” Jonah said, wondering whether the past was having the same effect on the DCS. He’d been, what? An inspector back then? Jonah hadn’t known him all that well. It had taken some time for the two of them to become direct colleagues and then friends. It had been an unlikely friendship, the traveler’s son and the private-school boy.
Wilkinson turned in his chair and cast his gaze over the retail-unit view beyond the window. “So, a group of kids and a stash of Dexedrine. Are we thinking they buried her together?”
Jonah had been through this thinking before. He had little to offer against it except gut feeling. The way they had each reacted. Perhaps one of them could have pretended to be shocked, but not all of them.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” he said noncommittally. “I want the tox report back before I look at any one theory. I’d also like to see phone records for the group.”