Emily Barr - The Sleeper

I was surprised by his businesslike tone. ‘Right,’ I said, taken aback. ‘Well. I’ve lived in Cornwall, just outside Falmouth, for nearly five years.’

He took an iPhone out of his inside pocket.

‘Just outside Falmouth? Where, specifically?’

‘Near Budock. It’s a village, but a big one, and you can walk to the edge of Falmouth easily from it. I’m outside the village, though. Pretty remote, but it doesn’t take long to get to places.’

He was locating my house on Google Earth. I directed him to it, and then he passed the phone over.

‘So you live here? Alone?’

There was our house. It was my house.

Laurie’s ghost might still be around: he had been there so long that he could not evaporate, just like that. I wondered if, when I went back, I would feel his lingering presence, even for a fraction of a second. I hoped I would. I would cling to the last vestiges of him, if I could.

I missed my wood burner and my cats and my static life away from the world. I missed Laurie more than I had ever missed anything.

‘Yes,’ I managed to say. ‘I live there. Alone.’

‘OK. And you know Lara how?’

‘We met on a ferry. I was going across to St Mawes for no particular reason, and she was doing the same thing.’ I told him the story. ‘We kept in touch. I went to her house for tea one afternoon. While I was there, she got a phone call which turned out to be someone offering her the job in London.’

He smiled a tiny smile. ‘That would have been me.’

‘She wanted to talk to Sam about it, I could see that, so I left. I saw her in town after she started working up here, but really her weekends were for Sam. She came to my house on Christmas Eve and we had mince pies. I had no idea she was having an affair or anything like that.’ I carried on talking, setting out my credentials in an eager way that made me hate myself.

‘So when she went missing …’

‘I turned up at their house that Saturday morning, just because I wanted to see her. In fact, I …’ I trailed off, not wanting to say too much about myself. He gave me a kind, questioning look, and I carried on, telling him about my lottery win and my increasing feeling that I needed to do something.

‘I moved to Cornwall for a particular reason,’ I said, hoping that my tone was firm enough. ‘And I was thinking, actually it’s time to move on.’

I paused for a moment. Breathe, I told myself. Go on. Breathe in and out. You need to be able to say this. The wave of grief engulfed me as it had five years ago, and this time I was not going to be able to hide from it.

Leon took a perfectly ironed handkerchief out of an inside pocket and handed it to me.

‘Thank you.’

I made an enormous effort and spoke through my tears. ‘I wanted to talk to Lara because she’s the only person I know down there who’d have been able to advise me.’ I got that far, and blew my nose messily into the handkerchief. ‘Sorry,’ I added.

‘That’s quite all right. And I’m sorry. For whatever your trouble was, and for making you relive it. Take your time.’

‘Thanks. So I rang the bell, and Sam answered, and …’ I talked him through that day, and the police, the phone call about Guy being killed, the police taking Sam away for questioning. ‘And I knew she hadn’t done it,’ I finished. ‘I know she didn’t.’

‘Yes. So you’ve unearthed a little of the Asia fiasco?’ His voice was unexpectedly warm. ‘You’ve turned Miss Marple?’

‘If you want to put it that way,’ I said, wiping my face again, ‘sure. If I was a bloke you wouldn’t be so dismissive. Laugh at Miss Marple, fine. I decided to come back to London, which incidentally is an enormous and massively difficult thing for me, and to see if I could work out what might really have happened. But you can belittle that, if you want. Lara wouldn’t.’

‘Sherlock Holmes, then. A female Sherlock. You could use Sherlock as a female name. It would be quite enticing. Apologies if I was sexist. Sincerely, I didn’t mean to belittle you. I’m impressed by you, Ms Roebuck. And when you got here, you went to see Olivia.’

‘She was lovely.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Olivia?’

‘Yes, actually. I was prepared to hate her, but I don’t. I like her. She and Lara had a terrible relationship, but I think Olivia’s had a bit of a raw deal.’

‘Interesting that you say that. OK. You tried the Wilberforces?’

‘I didn’t get very far. Lara’s mum – Victoria? – she would have let me in. But her dad shut the door in my face. I don’t blame him. Obviously.’

There was a tap at the door, and it swung open before Leon could respond. Annie put the coffee tray on the low table beside us and left without a word.

‘Thanks, Annie. Look, Iris. I’m sorry. I really am. I know why Bernie shut the door on you, and it’s the same reason why I had to put you through your paces. I loathe the media and at first you seemed likely to be a journalist. I believe you, as I did from the moment I actually saw you, though I didn’t when you called me. If you’d been a hack, you would have fallen apart when I was finding your so-called house on Google Earth. You wouldn’t have been able to give a convincing cover story. I’m half tempted to call Sam and check who was with him that dreadful morning, but to be honest I can’t face the ensuing conversation. In fact. Annie?’

He had barely raised his voice, but she was back in the room almost instantly.

‘Annie, can you do me a favour? Could you bear to give Sam Finch a call and find out who was with him on the morning of Saturday the fifteenth?’

She didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘I’ll do it now.’

He turned back to me. ‘This has been horrific. A living nightmare. I’m trying to tell myself she’ll turn up safe and well. Of course she didn’t kill Guy Thomas. Of course. She wouldn’t be capable of such a thing. And, as you say, she went through an enormous trauma in Thailand which she always thought would catch up with her. I used to tell her it wouldn’t, that it was over, but she never could quite forget.

‘I mentioned it to the police as an urgent line of inquiry, but they weren’t interested, because as far as they were concerned the case was closed and all they need to do is to find her body. Which of course they haven’t done, because she’s still using it. Or so I very much hope.’

I thought of Alex. I thought of the diary, but decided not to mention it until I had read it.

‘Yes. I’ve spoken to the police too, but they weren’t really into looking at Asia either. Look, I’m thinking I might go out there and find her myself.’

He sighed, suddenly looking older and weaker.

‘But Iris. If I may call you Iris?’

‘Of course.’

‘Iris. If she’d flown anywhere, or left the country by any means, there would be a record. And there isn’t. There just isn’t. That’s the one thing that makes me fear for her safety. Lara is a resourceful young lady – I’ve known her all her life. But even she cannot vanish without leaving a trace.’

‘Leon,’ I said. ‘Right. Well, here’s the thing.’

As I was about to tell him about the passport, Annie came back into the room with an apologetic smile.

‘Sorry to interrupt again. I spoke to him. He was initially hostile, but in the end he said he spent that day with Mrs Finch’s friend Iris, and he described Ms Roebuck,’ she nodded to me with a little smile, ‘exactly. She turned up on a bicycle, with two-tone hair. He was grateful for the support. He said he spoke to you this morning.’

‘He did,’ I agreed.

‘Thank you, Annie. Right. Again, apologies, Iris, for the paranoia.’

‘That’s fine. Understandable. Good to be thorough.’ And I told him about the passport, and about the flight to Bangkok.