Page 10

2019

Agatha has left Alex in a cabin up at Lodge. She’d phoned ahead earlier and Harry promised he’d organise a nice one. Even though it’s Christmas, the Lodge has space. December prices are astronomical; most tourists try to have their Santa experience in November or even January, when everything is that little bit more affordable. Then the locals get some respite, until the schools start to take their midterms in February and families from the rest of the country head north for winter fun.

For now, Lodge is crowded but not as crowded as it can get. Not as full as it was when Vicky Evans went missing.

Agatha knows Alex needs to do this for himself and his family; come to Vicky’s workplace, ask her friends what they know and size them up. Agatha would do exactly the same. She understands that Alex is driven by guilt– guilt because he couldn’t save Vicky, guilt at not giving her his phone number, at not having even thought about his sister until he realised she was dead.

And guilt is an emotion Agatha understands very well.

But the police chief in her knows he has now become a problem she has to contain. Family members are always a difficulty in murder investigations. At best, a hindrance, at worst, capable of destroying a whole case.

She has to keep him happy, though. Perhaps if he feels he’s conducted his own little investigation he’ll go back to England and leave Agatha to do her job, instead of complaining to the Met and trying to get them involved.

And he might actually be of use. From the soft interviews they conducted with Vicky’s colleagues when it was indicated the woman might have gone missing, and then the formal interviews when her body was discovered, they’ve learned little of note. Everybody liked Vicky, allegedly. Nobody had reason to attack her.

Agatha knows it takes a while before the mud-slinging starts in murder cases, especially mud aimed at the victim, but so far there’s no inkling of anything being amiss.

It could have been a random attack. That would make Agatha’s job very difficult.

But there’s that little piece of information she’s held back from Alex which makes her think otherwise, which makes her think Vicky’s killer was somebody who knew her, even temporarily. She will tell Alex what it is, if he doesn’t find out for himself first, but for the moment she’s trying not to overburden him. The last thing she needs is him seeing every person in the Lodge as a potential murderer.

She’s just let herself in the door when Patric appears in the hallway, tea towel slung over his shoulder. He has completed most of the housework while he was watching the children, even though Agatha keeps telling him there’s no need. Patric is retired now, or supposed to be, but he’s one of those men who needs to be busy. He still gets up early in the morning and he always has a list of jobs to do, but he’s also always willing to help Agatha when she asks. Mainly with the children. She does ask for advice about cases, but they’ve both erected a Chinese wall of sorts. She needs to prove she can do the job without the old chief watching over her shoulder. He wants to show he trusts her.

‘You have a visitor,’ Patric says, as Agatha kicks off her snow boots.

‘Oh?’

‘In the kitchen. Agitated.’

Agatha’s stomach clenches and it must show on her face because Patric quickly adds:

‘A visitor from the Lodge.’

‘Ah. Okay. The kids were all right last night?’

‘Emilia did her essay, Olavi played Xbox and Onni built something very impressive with your cushions and bedspread. We had pizza. And they all slept through the night and got off to school fine this morning.’

‘You are so good to us, Patric.’

‘You lot keep me young.’

Agatha kisses Patric on the cheek– the strands of his straggly white beard tickle her– and thinks, I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.

Then she walks through to the kitchen.

Niamh Doyle is there, pacing. She doesn’t see Agatha immediately, and Agatha watches her for a few moments.

If handed a box of colours and told to draw an Irish person, this is the version that Agatha would sketch. Red hair, green eyes, a smattering of orange freckles across her nose. Agatha’s never been to Ireland. She can’t imagine they all look like this, no more than everybody in Lapland fits the Hollywood-projected Sami look. But she does think the Irish tourist board could get good use out of Niamh Doyle.

As she paces, Niamh lifts the end of her hair and sticks it in her mouth, chewing the strands. Agatha winces. It reminds her of Olavi and his many, many anxious habits.

‘Hi,’ Agatha says.

Niamh stops pacing and drops her hair.

‘You’re back.’

‘We made good time. What can I help you with?’

Niamh stares at her like it’s obvious.

‘What did they say in Rovaniemi? What happened to Vicky?’

Agatha takes a deep breath.

‘I can’t discuss this with you, Niamh.’

‘I was there when they pulled her out! I told you she’d gone missing, didn’t I? I said, she wouldn’t just go off like that, she’d have been in touch by now. Nobody believed me!’

‘After two weeks,’ Agatha reminds her. ‘You didn’t report her missing for two weeks.’

Niamh flinches.

‘I wanted to before but. . . I didn’t want to be alarmist.’

Agatha knows, from the inflection on the word, that somebody put ‘alarmist’ in Niamh’s vocabulary. Niamh didn’t think she was being alarmist in the slightest until somebody told her she was.

I wonder who, Agatha ponders.

‘I have a right to know,’ Niamh says. ‘She was my friend.’

‘Technically, you don’t have any rights,’ Agatha replies. ‘Only her family do.’

It’s unkind, but it’s true.

Niamh’s face falls. Her lip trembles.

‘Please,’ she says, in a small voice. ‘She looked so. . . I can’t stop thinking about her. I’ve been on the lake almost every single day since she vanished. All that time, her body. . .’

Niamh trails off.

Agatha hesitates. Everybody will find out anyway, she reasons. Especially with Alex staying up in the Lodge.

‘It wasn’t an accident,’ she says.

Niamh looks like she’s going to faint again. Agatha watches the various reactions flash across her face. Shock, denial, a hint of begrudging acceptance, because it had already crossed Niamh’s mind.

‘She was one of the safest guides,’ Niamh says, shaking her head. ‘I knew something was wrong. From that very first morning. We were both on early shifts and I should have seen her out and about. I didn’t, none of us did, and I thought, maybe she’s ill, or hungover, but. . .’

Niamh’s features contort, like she’s swallowing bile.

‘But everybody told me I was overreacting,’ she says. ‘Because of what we found in the cabin.’

‘Because of the cabin,’ Agatha echoes.

The thing that seemed so innocuous but is now so very important.

It was less what they’d found and more what they hadn’t found.

Vicky’s cabin was spotlessly clean. All her belongings were gone. Had been since the morning she vanished. To Harry, the Lodge manager, the cleared-out cabin had seemed evidence of an errant employee who’d upped and left without even handing in notice. To Niamh, it had always felt off, and she said her concern had only grown as the weeks passed, which contributed to her arrival at Agatha’s station to report Vicky missing. Followed by Harry, who reluctantly admitted that he too had grown concerned because Vicky was still owed wages and hadn’t come looking for them, a reference, anything.

The empty cabin had caused a problem for Agatha. If Vicky’s place had been abandoned, all of her belongings in situ, she’d have been a lot more concerned.

But now, Agatha knows that the likely explanation is that somebody killed Vicky and got rid of her belongings, including her laptop and phone, to make it look like Vicky had left, something that indicates a very malicious level of planning.

‘Who did it?’ Niamh asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Agatha says.

Niamh sinks into a chair.

‘Her brother is here,’ Agatha tells her. ‘He’s staying in the Lodge. He wants to talk to the people who lived with her. He hadn’t seen her in a while.’

‘I. . . of course. I’ll talk to him.’

Niamh is still staring at the floor, trying to process what she’s learned.

‘Are you going to question him ?’ Niamh asks.

‘Her brother?’

Niamh meets her eye.

‘Not her brother, for fuck’s sake. You know who.’

Agatha takes a deep breath.

‘I will be questioning everybody of relevance,’ she says.

‘That’s not what I asked!’

Niamh crosses her arms and glares at Agatha.

‘If Vicky was murdered. . . we all know who did it. I was only here a few days and people were warning me about him. Don’t you think something should have been done by now? If he’s killed again . . .’

Agatha flinches.

This is her greatest fear. Everybody jumping to conclusions. It’s the last thing she needs. People acting as judge and jury. Small town like this. Tempers and emotions running high.

It can lead to bad places.

‘We don’t know who did it,’ she says. But even to her, it sounds weak.

She’s going to have to sound a whole lot stronger to convince a town that already suspects the local bogeyman and is baying for blood.

Alex’s meagre assortment of belongings disappear in the large drawers in his new living quarters. It’s a luxurious affair: log walls and wooden-beamed high ceilings; a dining area with high-backed, brown leather chairs flanking a large fireplace; a king-sized bed placed in a glass dome extension so he can watch the stars at night. He reckons it probably costs close to a thousand a night to stay here, but they’re rolling out the full dead-sister treatment.

Alex takes a deep breath. Every time he thinks of his sister as dead, it hits him anew.

He wants to examine her stuff. The police probably have her laptop, and he knows her phone is missing but he wants to see those call records; he wants to find out if she needed to tell him anything before she died. If there’s some clue to what happened to her.

He opens his own phone and his email. He searches for the last email from the address she kept and used solely to wind him up.

There’s nothing there since earlier in the year, when she’d sent him a singing happy birthday card.

Nothing from her regular, respectable email either.

He’ll have to tell Agatha about the second address. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t yet, only that it has something to do with him not fully trusting her. For Alex, people have to earn that. He doesn’t just give it, even to those in authority. Especially to those in authority. When you work in a job like his and you’ve seen behind the curtain the way Alex has. . .

Alex shakes his head and puts his phone down. He’s going around in circles.

He imagines for a moment how the police chief must see him. Impulsive. Foolish. Na?ve. All the things he’s not, all the things he’s so carefully ironed out of his character. Alex is a cynic now. Life, his job, and, quite possibly, Ed made him that way. Ed is cynical. About government, about the system, even about the machinations within his local union branch. He’s had good reason to be, most of the time. Alex has never met a union man who couldn’t be turned by a promotion and a bonus, or by the massive skeleton in his cupboard.

He bundles up in his new warm clothes and leaves the cabin. He glances at the little push-sleigh beside his door. Even as he’s wondering why they’ve left him a kid’s toy, an elderly couple pass by; the old lady is sitting in the sleigh, the husband is pushing it. The pair of them living their best lives in bright red snowsuits.

Alex steps off the cabin’s porch and his new boots sink into the foot of snow that’s collected there. He trudges in the direction of Vicky’s workplace, taking giant, moon-landing-spaced steps to try to make progress.

He passes children building the biggest snowman he’s ever seen, rolling the two separate body parts with enviable focus. Their cheeks are flushed, their eyes glistening with excitement, and Alex feels a pang of envy for their unencumbered lives. A few days ago, his biggest worry had been trying to worm out of Christmas dinner with his family. What a problem to have.

He rounds a tall mound of snow and, out of the corner of his eye, spots something that brings him up short.

People are running down a long wooden deck, some naked, some in swimsuits, to climb down into a large open hole in the otherwise frozen lake, steam erupting from their bodies as they hit the water. They’re shrieking with laughter, their skin is mottled pink, their breath forms clouds in the air.

He shakes his head and continues to the main building. It stands like a black oasis in the middle of a white desert; a log cabin constructed of burnt teak, with a church-like roof and large glass windows through which Alex can see holidaymakers in various colourful wool sweaters.

Once inside, it’s all hustle and bustle. The bar and restaurant on the left provide a symphony of clinking glasses and delicious aromas. To the right, there’s the hum of conversation in the lobby area, where more tourists are toasting their Christmas breaks with glasses of white wine and tall beers.

Passages lead off to various parts of the building, all of them posted with ‘North Pole’-type signs. Ski gear is one way; horse-riding this way; snowmobile and ice activities another.

Alex stands on one of the giant mats inside the front door, an attempt to soak up the water trailed in by people’s boots. As soon as he’s partially dry, he moves to the reception counter and waits behind a small group of Americans, all wearing bright blue overalls and helmets, as the man at the desk tells them their guide will meet them at the snowmobile shed.

‘Is this dangerous?’ one of the group members asks. ‘Are you sure the teenagers are okay doing it?’

Some chuckles from the adults and embarrassed groans from the teenagers.

‘It’s perfectly safe,’ the receptionist replies, in what Alex thinks is a German accent. ‘If you fall, the kill switch will stop the machine, and remember, you’ll only hit snow. The guide will explain. But make sure not to go off the track. We’ve had one machine go underwater already this year. They are very expensive pieces of equipment. And be careful on the turns to not follow your instinct. Lean against the turn. And don’t put your leg down to stop the vehicle. They’re heavy and the metal at the side will slice right through if it falls on you. Even bone.’

There’s deathly silence from the American tourists, until one of them breaks it with a nervous laugh. The German receptionist smiles, but Alex knows he isn’t joking.

The group moves off and Alex approaches.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

Alex thinks the fresh-looking face and tight blond crew cut is familiar, and then he looks at the man’s badge. Florian. One of Vicky’s friends.

‘I’m Alex Evans. I’m here to. . .’

The man in front of him, already pale in skin tone, whitens.

‘ Gott . Yes. Vicky’s brother. We heard you were coming.’

‘Yes. Thanks for the cabin. I don’t know how long I’ll be here. . .’

The Florian guy is staring at him, opening and closing his mouth, trying to figure out what to say next.

‘We’re, uh, we are all so sorry for your loss.’ Florian has landed on the typical response. ‘We cannot believe it. Vicky was very dear to us.’

‘Strange, nobody reported her missing for a while,’ Alex says and then bites his tongue as the man in front of him visibly wilts. ‘Sorry,’ Alex says. ‘I’m still tired from travelling and it’s been a terrible shock. Is there any chance I can see where she stayed? If it’s still empty? I don’t know if the police have all her belongings. . .’

It might be Alex’s imagination but he thinks Florian’s blinks are slower and his cheeks have coloured. The man is either thinking of a way to break something to Alex, or to keep something from him.

‘Perhaps you would like to meet some of her friends first?’ he says.

A delaying tactic, Alex thinks. But, fine. He does want to meet Vicky’s co-workers.

‘Sure,’ he says.

Florian steps into a back room and says something to somebody partially hidden behind the door. Another man emerges. Mid-forties, handsome in a Nordic-giant type way, wavy blond hair, high cheekbones. He frowns at Alex before walking to the far end of the reception desk, as Florian comes out from behind it.

Not a friendly guy, Alex thinks, but it’s strange he wouldn’t at least acknowledge Alex and his loss, if he works here, too.

Florian leads Alex through the bar. They pass a giant, fragrant Christmas tree and arrive at a snug by a roaring fire. Several people are huddled in a circle by the grate, all of them holding glasses filled with a honey-coloured liquid. They’re all youngish, twenties, and wearing a uniform of black waterproof trousers and khaki-green polo shirts. Their heads are bowed but their glasses are raised.

They look up at Florian, then see Alex behind him.

‘This is Vicky’s brother,’ Florian says and before anyone can say a word, Alex realises he’s arrived in the middle of a toast to his sister. One of the women shoots up and approaches him, her arms outstretched. Alex flinches as she envelops him, her thick blonde hair swishing against his face, the overpowering smell of Chanel tickling his nostrils.

‘We are all so sorry,’ she says, another German accent. ‘We just heard. We thought she’d moved on to another resort. She was such a good friend.’

Alex pulls away. He doesn’t recognise this woman from Vicky’s photographs. Her name tag says Beatrice and he doesn’t recognise that either.

He scans the crowd, looking for any faces that might be familiar. A guy by the fireplace meets his eye and stands. I know him, Alex thinks. Nicolas. Brown hair, glasses, looks like a Calvin Klein model dressing down. He had his arm around Vicky’s shoulders in one of the pictures and Alex wondered if they’d a thing going on.

Nicolas offers his hand to Alex and Alex shakes it, wondering if that hand played a part in killing his sister.

‘Hey, man,’ Nicolas says. He could be Finnish or from any of the Nordic countries. He sounds like a European who learned English in America. ‘Sorry for your loss. Vicky was. . . she was special.’

Alex nods, embarrassed at being the focal point of their outpourings.

‘Have the police told you anything?’ Florian asks. In an instant, the atmosphere changes from polite condolences to barely concealed morbid curiosity.

‘Just that she was murdered,’ Alex says, and he can feel the group recoil at hearing it spoken aloud so bluntly. ‘They won’t be releasing her body for a little while so I’m going to stay a bit. It would be nice to see where she lived and know what her life was like here. If that’s okay.’

‘Anything we can do,’ Nicolas says, stiffly. ‘We let her down.’

Alex meets the other man’s eye again. He thinks he can identify genuine pain. It’s like looking in the mirror. But is it regret or remorse on Nicolas’ face?

Alex glances around.

‘Is Niamh here?’ he asks.

Florian is about to answer, but Alex realises somebody has just approached from behind and turns to see the red-haired woman from Vicky’s photos, the one who reported her missing.

‘I’m Niamh,’ she says.

She looks as shaken as Alex feels.

‘Um, you’ve met everybody?’ she asks. ‘Florian, Nicolas, Beatrice.’

She points at the ones standing, then to the ones still sitting.

‘And this is Leon, Melanie and Liz. There are more of us and everyone knew Vicky, but we still have to work. We have about twenty guides here at any given time.’

‘Are you the manager?’ Alex asks. She looks young but she speaks with such authority, he can believe she is.

‘No. That’s Harry. He’s on reception, you must have seen him when you came in? Big blond.’

Alex frowns. Why didn’t the manager make it his business to greet him? And he wonders why Niamh utters Harry’s name in a tone she hasn’t applied to the others. There’s history in that name. For her, anyway.

‘Alex, we’re going to have proper drinks for Vicky tonight,’ Florian says, his voice full of apology. ‘Later, when we’re all finished work. You’re very welcome to join us?’

The others nod eagerly and Alex doesn’t say no, though he can’t quite say yes.

Niamh puts her hand on Alex’s back and guides him away from the group at the fireplace. It’s proprietorial but it doesn’t bother him. He needs some time to try to come to terms with how many people Vicky would have been in contact with.

Niamh walks him to the bar where she gets two cups and fills them with coffee.

‘I’ll show you Vicky’s cabin after we’ve had these,’ Niamh says.

Alex nods.

She hands him the cup. He sees her hands are trembling.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t report her missing straight away,’ she says. ‘It’s just, it was the perfect storm. We were on different shifts for a few weeks and I guess it was so busy here, we weren’t checking in with each other much. Then, well, it did look like she’d simply decided to leave. . . I was worried, but I was more hurt she hadn’t told me she was going, to be honest.’

Alex realises, in that moment, what’s been niggling at him.

‘What about all her stuff?’ he says. ‘If she was murdered, all her things must have still been here, right?’

Niamh looks at him blankly.

‘Didn’t Chief Koskinen tell you? Vicky’s cabin was empty. None of her things were there.’

Alex tries to absorb this.

‘What do you mean, empty? Where are her things?’

‘We don’t know.’

Alex closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.

‘Hold on,’ he says, when he opens them. ‘If she was murdered, and her stuff is gone, does that mean whoever did it came here and. . .’

He trails off.

‘She might have met somebody, packed and left?’ Niamh suggests, sounding completely unconvinced.

Alex raises his eyebrows.

‘You were friends, weren’t you?’ he says. ‘Why would you even think she’d go without telling you?’

Niamh shrugs, helplessly.

‘Why would I think anything else?’ she says. ‘Her stuff was gone and. . . it’s not the first place your head goes, is it? To thinking that somebody has been murdered.’

Alex looks over at the group sitting by the fireplace. Vicky’s work colleagues. People who’d have had access to her cabin, he presumes.

‘Alex,’ Niamh says, and he has to lean in to hear her. ‘Will we find out who did this?’

He nods.

‘Good,’ she says. She takes another sip of the coffee. When she places it down, she grips his arm. Her hand is small but her grip tight.

‘Whatever you do, don’t wait for the police to solve it, do you understand?’ she whispers. ‘This isn’t like home. Up here. . . some people are untouchable.’

She finishes the last sentence with a shudder.

Alex is about to ask her more but she puts a finger to her mouth, releases his arm and turns towards the bar counter.

Alex looks behind him to see what made her fall quiet.

Harry, the manager, is approaching the group gathered by the fireplace.

He glances over at Alex and Niamh.

Alex senses something from him.

Hostility.

And he wonders where that comes from.

Alex is able to walk to the local police station using Google Maps on his phone. He can’t understand why 4G in the Arctic Circle is so damn good and yet half of Yorkshire struggles to get decent broadband. He’s wearing all his thermals but the cold still bites at his exposed cheeks and the part of his forehead not covered by his hat.

How, he wonders, can anybody live, let alone thrive, in this sub-zero climate?

He suspects the beauty of the place has a lot to do with it.

It doesn’t mean a lot to him– this is where his sister was murdered, after all– but even he can see that is Christmas-card pretty. White houses striped with black wooden beams, topped with Toblerone roofs; lamps in windows already glowing against the dark; snow falling gently on to windowsills and porches. Alex checks his phone. It’s 4 p.m. but already it feels like deep night.

Under street lanterns, he passes brightly dressed tourists carrying ski equipment. They seem unaffected by the freezing weather; their cheeks are pink from the cold but they’re all chatting animatedly about their day on the slopes. A door opens to his left and he smells beer and charred steak and glimpses revellers already warming up after a day outdoors.

An older man greets him in the reception area of the police station, which is in one of the chocolate-box houses but with a plaque outside announcing it as police headquarters.

The officer is bald but has a thick grey moustache. He looks reassuringly in charge. Alex knows the thought that pops into his head is misogynistic but he wonders why this guy is on reception and Agatha is the boss.

There’s a little kid sitting behind the counter, maybe five, staring at Alex with uncensored curiosity. Alex thinks he recognises him from the keyring in Agatha’s car.

‘You’re the Brit,’ the kid says in perfect English.

‘Deputy Onni, get the chief,’ the policeman says.

The kid gets up and runs down a corridor.

Alex waits, staring at the officer, who stares back.

Agatha arrives and lifts up part of the reception counter for Alex to walk through.

‘Thank you, Jonas,’ she says to the older man, as she sees Alex through to the corridor. ‘You’re okay to watch Onni some more?’

The kid has appeared again, staring up at Alex, all big eyes and perfect baby teeth.

Jonas grunts and Agatha leads Alex on.

They enter an office and Agatha closes the door.

Alex hasn’t seen a single other officer in the place.

‘Does he ever shut up?’ Alex says, nodding back over his shoulder to indicate he means Jonas.

Agatha snorts.

‘You’re settled in?’ she asks.

‘I’ve been to Vicky’s cabin,’ Alex cuts her off.

Niamh had taken him there after their coffee.

Alex hadn’t been able to get to the police station quick enough. . . once he’d seen it.

‘Ah,’ Agatha says.

She sits in the chair behind her desk. Alex takes the seat facing it.

‘You didn’t tell me all her belongings are gone,’ he says. ‘That’s why you didn’t take it seriously, when she was first reported missing.’

She nods, purses her lips.

‘I was still concerned,’ she says. ‘But yes, it was difficult to look beyond that fact.’

‘Have you found her things?’

‘No.’ Agatha frowns.

‘But you’ve examined the cabin again.’

‘As soon as we found her. Jonas printed it. It was still empty.’

‘Did you find anything?’

He can sense her hesitation, but she continues to answer his questions.

‘Nothing unexpected, though the lab in Rovaniemi is running all the fingerprints. Vicky had a few parties in her cabin so we picked up a lot of sets. Which means most of her colleagues will appear in the results.’

‘Blood?’

‘Nothing more than trace in the bathroom. Could be from anything. Nicking her leg when shaving, a paper cut. . . The cabin hadn’t been cleaned. It meant there was no dilution but, still, we didn’t pick up on anything. She wasn’t killed there.’

Alex sits back.

‘And you didn’t discover anything interviewing her co-workers?’ he asks.

‘Nothing of note,’ Agatha says. ‘We did initial interviews when Niamh reported her missing. And more since she was found, of course. We will do repeat interviews. You needn’t worry about that.’

There’s something she’s not telling him. Alex can practically feel it vibrating between them. It dawns on him, suddenly, what it is.

‘You already suspect somebody,’ he says.

Agatha draws her lips into a tight line. Alex watches as she deliberates whether she should be forthcoming. He decides to throw all his cards on the table.

‘The best way to stop me causing a ruckus here is just to keep me in the loop,’ he says, hoping that does the job he intends and doesn’t, instead, just piss her off.

Agatha raises her eyebrows and says nothing for a few seconds. He starts to wonder if she’s decided to clam up.

‘A name has been mentioned, in relation to the night before she went missing,’ she says.

Alex sits up.

‘Mentioned in what capacity?’

‘She was seen in the company of an American tourist who was staying at the Lodge. They spent some time together and on that last night they were at a bar in town before returning to the Lodge bar. They were with a group, but then the two of them went back to her cabin.’

‘Who is he? Have you arrested him?’

She says nothing. Alex’s stomach knots.

‘He’s not here, is he?’ he says, quietly. ‘This is what you meant when you said whoever did it could be long gone.’

‘He returned to the United States before we started our inquiries. Alex, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to pursue the matter. If he was involved, his leaving the jurisdiction makes this harder, but it won’t protect him. And he is also just one avenue of investigation.’

Alex is filled with a feeling of frustration unlike anything he’s experienced in a very long time. It courses through him; even his ears are tingling.

‘What’s his name?’ he says.

‘I can’t tell you that.’

Agatha’s posture is tenser now. Perhaps she can sense how dangerous he’s become, armed with this little bit of knowledge. Alex feels it himself. He knows, without a shadow of a doubt, if that guy was standing in front of him now, he’d beat him to a pulp to get to the truth.

Before Alex can push further, Agatha places a sheaf of A4 pages in front of him.

‘Vicky’s phone records,’ she says. ‘Can you tell me which of those is your old mobile number?’

Alex swallows and looks down at the first page. The records show calls as far back as June. He sees his number printed on the tenth of that month. He remembers the call. Vicky had phoned looking for a loan.

And again on the fifteenth. Because she needed more money than she thought.

Then, on the first of July, she’d phoned to talk about their parents’ anniversary.

His last call with her.

Something had changed in those two weeks. She’d gone from asking to borrow money to suggesting they both spend a lot on a present.

He goes through the records wordlessly until he gets to the days before Vicky died.

She didn’t try to phone him in August or September.

But then. . .

There it is.

His number. He blinks.

Agatha is watching him, waiting.

‘That’s my number,’ Alex manages to choke out. ‘She did try to get in touch.’

Three times, in the last week of October, the week before she went missing.

This number is no longer in service .

Agatha turns the pages around to face her, but not before Alex spots something else.

Another number.

His heart slows.

‘I wouldn’t read too much into it,’ Agatha says, in a tone that tells him this is just to placate him. But he can hear the concerned note underneath. Why did Vicky not bother trying to contact Alex for months and then make a sudden flurry of calls a week before she died?

‘She might have just wanted to say hi,’ Agatha continues. ‘Would, um, three times in a week be normal for her if she was trying to get hold of you? Had she done something like that before?’

‘She’d ring plenty, if she needed something,’ Alex says, his voice small.

Agatha looks at him.

‘Maybe she just wanted another loan. It might not be related to what happened to her, at all. Wouldn’t she have rung your parents to get your new number if she really needed you?’

Alex hesitates.

‘No,’ he says, sighing heavily. ‘Like I said, she didn’t like to bother them. And she especially wouldn’t have wanted them to know I’d changed my number and not given her the new one. They already knew, though. I’d told them. I told them if she rang looking for me to tell her to piss off.’

Agatha looks down at the desk. Which is just as well because Alex can’t meet her eyes.

‘Tomorrow,’ he says, ‘I want to see where she was found.’

Agatha doesn’t answer immediately. He knows she could tell him she’s too busy to chauffeur him around on the murder trail of his sister but he suspects that she’ll keep extending the hand. And he’s right. She nods.

He stands up and moves to her office door.

‘Wouldn’t it be convenient,’ he says, ‘if it transpires it was an American tourist?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What you said, about tourism. If it was an American who killed a British tour guide, well, that stops from being tarnished, doesn’t it? It’s still a safe place to holiday.’

Agatha’s face creases in anger and it’s the first time he’s seen her look really unhappy with him.

‘I’ve already told you, whether Vicky was killed by an American or a local is irrelevant. When people come here, we need them to know they have nothing to fear. Not through crime, anyhow.’

‘Right,’ Alex says. He studies her for another few seconds, then leaves.

She seems sincere, he thinks.

But Niamh’s warning about the effectiveness of the local police is still ringing in his ears.

Outside, Alex breathes in the ridiculously cold air until his lungs sting.

Vicky might have just been ringing for money. Or maybe she wanted to make up and had been pissed when she finally realised that Alex must have changed his number.

But, she would have known she’d see him at Christmas. She could have had it out with him then.

There’s no way she’d have rung his office to have a fight with him.

She knew how professional he was in work.

And yet, that’s exactly what Vicky had done a couple of days before she’d died.

She’d phoned the offices of TM&S.