Connor turned his head away from her sharply. One hand came up to his mouth.
“And it was Benners who put her to bed, wasn’t it?” Topaz went on. “You said so. And he wasn’t gone long.”
“No,” Connor said shortly.
“And you just chatted with Jojo, after that?” she said. Her eyes were on him intently. “That’s what you said, isn’t it? You didn’t try to follow—”
“Topaz,” he said sharply. And then he glanced over toward the window, where Lightman was watching. It felt to Lightman as though he and Connor were making eye contact for a moment, though he knew Connor could only see himself in the glass. And then Connor turned away again, and started to take short, erratic steps around the room.
Topaz watched him for a while, and then looked instead at her hands, her fingers picking at each other.
* * *
—
“SHE WAS CHECKING up on her husband,” Lightman said quietly, once Jonah had returned to the observation room. “There’s clearly doubt there. She’s not entirely sure that nothing happened between Connor and Aurora, or that he didn’t follow her away from the campfire.”
“I’m going to talk to them again. Come on in with me,” Jonah said.
“How do you want me to play it?”
“Cold.”
Connor, who was still pacing, swung round when they entered. Jonah found himself subjected to a piercing gaze, and knew that Connor was looking for signs that they’d been watched. Topaz simply stared at them, her gaze level.
Jonah sat down swiftly. “Sorry for the wait,” he said, deliberately brisk. “It’s been a busy morning.”
“Do you have a suspect?” Topaz asked immediately.
“We have leads. That’s all I can say right now.”
Jonah settled himself back and considered her for a moment. And then he said a little tersely, without turning his head, “If you wouldn’t mind sitting, Mr. Dooley.”
Connor approached grudgingly. He made a big deal of adjusting his chair until he was comfortable.
“It seems that parts of both your original statements were less than true,” Jonah said the moment Connor was still. “Both of you maintained that there were no occurrences of a sexual nature that evening. But we now have evidence that there were multiple instances.”
He saw Topaz’s cheek twitch. Connor cut his eyes sideways to his wife and then stared straight back at Jonah. Neither of them spoke.
“It seems that you had some involvement with Brett Parker that night,” he said to Topaz, “and left the campfire with him.”
Topaz’s color rose. Jonah was aware that she kept her gaze well away from Connor’s.
“Yes. Does it matter?”
“At the very least,” Jonah said, not bothering to pull his punches, “it tells us where you were, when, and with whom. Quite vital information in a missing-persons investigation. Why did you lie about it, consistently, at the time?”
Topaz gave him a slightly disbelieving stare. “We live in a small, gossip-manufacturing community. Do you think I wanted my parents knowing what I was doing? It’s bad enough that I didn’t look out for Aurora. How do you think they would have reacted to the fact that she went missing while I was having sex with the school jock?”
Jonah let his gaze slide over to Connor. “And it seems you slept with Jojo Magos that night.”
Connor held up a hand. “I didn’t even come close. Jojo comforted me when I got drunk and emotional, and she cuddled up next to me to sleep because she’s kind like that, but there was nothing sexual about it.”
“What did you get emotional about?” Jonah asked.
“Topaz,” Connor said shortly. “And Brett.”
Jonah let a long pause elapse. Connor held Jonah’s gaze, his chin slightly raised and his mouth hard.
“Ask Jojo,” Connor eventually said. “She’ll tell you exactly the same thing.”
Jonah gave a very slight lift of his shoulder, and shifted in his chair. “So you didn’t have any sexual interaction with anyone that night? Not with Coralie? Not with Aurora?”
“Of course not with Aurora!” Connor said aggressively. “And Coralie and I pretty much hated each other.”
“Nothing’s changed, has it?” Topaz broke in, in a high-pitched, bitter voice. “We’re right back where we were. The two of us being torn to shreds, and the police not looking anywhere else. Why didn’t that happen to any of the adults in her life? Like that creepy English teacher of hers? I told dozens of you that he was the one you should be asking. He was right there!”
Jonah was momentarily thrown off balance. “What do you mean by ‘right there’?”
“Seriously?” Topaz replied, lifting her hands. “You’ve read up on our sex lives, and missed the only significant thing I saw?” She leaned forward and spoke loudly, as if to an idiot. “Mr. Mackenzie. Her English teacher. The one who used to give her extra lessons. He was out camping in the woods, too. I spoke to him on the riverbank, and he said he had to walk another couple of miles. And then took a path straight past our stash.”
Jonah had nothing to say to this immediately. He recognized the name, and thought he could remember the man, but that was all.
“Jesus,” Topaz said, sitting back. “Have you even read what we said back then?”
“We’re wading through it,” Jonah said with a wry smile.
“He could easily have seen where the drugs were. Easily.”
“That’s useful,” Jonah said, rising. “Thank you. You’re both free to go for now.”
He paused outside the door to confer with Lightman. “Was there much in the statements about her teacher?” Jonah asked over his shoulder. “Mr. Mackenzie? Her English teacher?”
“I think Topaz asked if they’d talked to him,” Lightman said. “But nothing more concrete in the first few interviews.”
Jonah nodded, and now remembered what it was that rang a bell about Mackenzie. It had been Topaz, bursting into the old police station, almost hysterically.
“You’ve already asked me everything.” She had been almost shouting at the DC who was showing her up to CID. “You’ve asked me over and over and over. Why aren’t you asking Mr. fucking Mackenzie, hey? He’s been carrying on happily with his lessons. Why are the rest of us the ones suffering?”
He should have remembered this. He’d even gone and asked his patient DCI about it.