Page 26

Her student pad was as small and unassuming as the building indicated, though there were signs of her family’s money here even so.

She’d illuminated the gloom with two beautiful lamps and replaced what had presumably been a bare overhead light with a giant, gold-tinted bulb with a spiral filament.

There was a painting on one wall, too, and photographs on others, along with a framed quote in blocky stamped ink that read happiness is only a choice if you can afford to pay for the freedom to choose .

Reid smiled at that, and then found his eyes drawn to a collage of pictures in a big black frame. Each one portrayed Cordelia with a girl he realised must be Holly Moore. She was recognisable from the photographs that had been used after her death.

Tracking through, he could see the two of them ageing up through school and then into university.

At times there were other girls with them.

He recognised Esther Thomas from the Instagram photos he’d looked at on his way over.

She was impossibly glamorous in all of them and seemed to have the most curated of pouts for the camera no matter where it captured her.

In contrast, Holly seemed full of warmth. Open and caring. And although Cordelia had chosen these photos he felt as though the love between the two friends was clear as day, too.

He could sense Cordelia watching him keenly still, her body tense despite her casual sports gear. It seemed there was something she wanted to say but perhaps was wary of telling him.

‘Why are you looking for Anna?’ she suddenly asked, as if she couldn’t wait any longer.

‘I’m a little bit worried about her,’ he told her, quietly. ‘Her dad got in touch because she missed lunch today. He told me you’d been helping her, and I thought you might know more than anyone else.’

There was a momentary pause, and then Cordelia asked, with a trace of tension, ‘When you say she missed lunch, you think she’s missing?’

Reid gave her a nod and a sympathetic grimace. ‘I was hoping she’d turn up somewhere unexpected, but she isn’t answering her phone, and nobody’s seen her since last night. Which is…’

‘Since the ball ?’ Cordelia’s words were sharp.

‘Yes, exactly,’ Reid agreed.

‘When?’ she asked, her gaze harder now.

‘The last sighting we have of her was at around eleven. After the fireworks. I’m in the process of checking CCTV.’

He saw Cordelia put a hand out to the desk. He wondered if she was feeling dizzy; whether this had hit her almost as hard as the news about her best friend only a year before.

‘She didn’t…’ Cordelia’s throat seemed to tighten on her, and she stopped, swallowed and tried again. ‘Did anything happen?’

‘Someone allegedly saw her leaving with a man, but not someone known to the group.’

It clearly took Cordelia a moment to process this, but then she asked, ‘Was she with Kit? Before?’

‘It seems as though she left Kit Frankland’s group and exited the ball with this other man,’ Reid told her.

There was another moment’s silence, and then Cordelia rose and said, explosively, ‘For fuck’s sake.

What was she thinking? And why are you only coming to talk to me now?

She’s been gone almost twenty-four hours!

Anything could have happened to her. Did it really take you that long to get over yourself and help? ’

She was almost squaring up to him, her eyes very wide and very slightly over-bright, and it gave Reid a strange pang of guilt.

He supposed he should have expected something like this.

Anna was by nature an open person, and it made sense that she would have shared some of her history with Cordelia Wynn.

But he’d been thinking of her as a confidant about professional business: about Holly Moore and her investigations.

He’d gone in unprepared for anything more personal, and felt like he’d taken a hit to an unshielded part of himself.

He took a breath and tried to strike a professional tone. ‘I’m afraid Mr Laws only told me about the situation a few hours ago. I’ve been trying all her usual contacts since. Work, her flat, hospitals…’

‘She’s not in a fucking hospital, is she?’ Cordelia snapped. ‘Someone’s grabbed her.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Reid said, trying to calm her. ‘Could you tell me more about what was going on? I know she went to Cambridge to look into Holly Moore’s death.’

Cordelia slightly surprised him by giving a sharp laugh. ‘She may have looked into it, but that’s not why she went .’

Reid stared at her for a moment, his mind spinning. ‘Sorry,’ he said with a half-formed idea that he might not want to hear what she had to say. ‘Why else would she have been there?’

‘Because she was still trying to find out how your sister died,’ Cordelia told him, her arms folded.

‘She became convinced Holly died because she knew too much about Tanya. She’d never given up on all of that, and when I realised she cared more about your sister than she did about Holly, I nearly blew her cover myself. ’