Helen Callaghan - Dear Amy

I stifled a little laugh. ‘Indeed.’

‘So we do the work, write a report, send it off, and governments and others use the report to justify spending money.’ He shrugged. ‘Or not spending money, as is more often the case.’

I waited, perplexed. ‘I still don’t…’

He cocked his head at me with taciturn sympathy, as though he understood my bemusement.

‘It’s like this. That’s what we normally do. But we don’t always work on big projects. Sometimes we’ll do a little project – for instance, what happens to a sample of secondary school-age girls known to social services in the East Anglia area between 2001 and 2007 – it’s literally a little project for a local care trust we hand off to a PhD student to work up for us – and then our student comes back with something interesting. For instance, she finds out a few of these girls have been misplaced over the years.’ He leaned back into his seat and his eyes flicked out towards the street again. ‘Misplaced in similar ways.’

Suddenly I thought I was beginning to get it.

‘You discovered a pattern.’

He gave the tiniest acknowledging nod. ‘Well, my student discovered an anomaly, in the first instance, so credit to her. The team worked up the pattern.’

I pondered this. ‘2001, you say? But Bethan went missing in 1998…’

‘Yes, that’s right. Bethan Avery was not the girl we first became curious about.’

‘I don’t-’

‘Do you follow the news, Margot?’

I shrugged, a little apologetically. ‘Not as much as I should, I daresay.’

‘I daresay not.’

Something in his tone made me go still.

‘What? What is it?’

‘Believe it or not, you are not the first person to bring up the subject of Bethan Avery recently.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, here’s the thing. Nobody ever found who killed her. They found bloodstained clothes, but no body. There was an enormous manhunt and nothing ever turned up.’ He leaned forward. ‘But now this other girl has gone missing…’

‘You’re talking about Katie Browne,’ I breathed, realization dawning.

‘So you knew Katie?’

‘She was a student at my school.’ A beat, then I corrected myself. ‘Is, I hope.’

‘Most people think she just ran away,’ he said. ‘Problem child, and…’

‘I know.’

‘But not you,’ he said, as though appraising me. ‘Why is that?’

I felt there was something I wanted to say, but then I had the peculiar realization that I didn’t quite know what it was yet. There was something about Katie, something about the way she had disappeared, but…

‘You think it’s the same man.’ I thought hard. ‘That’s what this is about. But there’s nearly twenty years between them.’

He winced a little. ‘We identified some similarities. And let’s just say, we know a lot more about this type of criminal than we did then. Once is never enough.’

‘But if it is the same man,’ I said urgently, ‘it would make more sense that Bethan is writing now. She must know that someone else has been kidnapped, perhaps to replace her. She…’

‘Then why doesn’t she say that in the letters?’ he asked. ‘If it is her at all?’

‘I don’t know, yet, but…’

‘You need to realize that we have a different sense of scale here, Margot. You think this might be the second time this has happened.’ He motioned at the waitress as she passed. ‘But there is a growing body of opinion that this has happened at least six times since 1998.’

‘What?’ I could feel the blood draining from my face.

‘At least six. That we know of.’

‘What do you mean?’ I blinked. ‘And who is we ?’

‘We…’ he said, casting a sideways glance at the woman reading Camus, who, though her eyes were still fixed on her open book, was clearly no longer reading. ‘You know what? Maybe we’d be better drinking up here and heading back to my office. Somewhere more private.’

Corpus Christi is literally a two-minute walk from the Copper Kettle. It’s a tiny but ancient college, its inner jewel-green sward of lawn penned in on all sides by a beautiful sandstone quadrangle that does what it can to keep the town out on the busiest tourist route in Cambridge. To pass through its gate is to go from King’s Parade with its fudge shops and whirring cameras and brash young men cheerfully touting for business for punt tours and to enter into a semi-monastic hush that has hung over that space for the best part of a thousand years.

Except when the balls are on or the bar is open, of course. I have very happy memories of Corpus, if rather mixed memories of Hans, the Classics postgrad I was dating at the time and who finished with me on Christmas Eve and then wanted to get back together on New Year’s Day. I suspect there was another woman involved in that case, too, but I never got to the bottom of it, preferring instead to not return his phone calls or emails.

Christmas Eve, I ask you.

In any case, it wasn’t Hans on my mind as I drifted along after Martin Forrester into the college, too deeply shocked to think straight.

The porters nodded polite greetings as he led me through the gate, and then across New Court and up the wooden staircase to his office, the steps creaking beneath our feet. The staircase itself was chill, the air still. From far away I could hear voices in the court below making arrangements to meet in Hall for lunch.

As we crested the final flight, with its quartet of doors, the names of the dons inhabiting them painted neatly on the walls next to them, I saw that there was a pair of chairs on the landing and that one of them was occupied by a lanky, dark, curly-headed youth I recognized.

‘Daniel!’ I burst out, pleased and surprised.

‘Miss Bellamy!’ He stood up, grinning though nervous, and we went through that strange moment when one of your old pupils realizes they are now expected to greet you as an adult. I decided to make it easier for him, and swooped in to shake his hand, but instead I found myself, with surprise bordering on almost-alarm, clasped in a hug.

It was proving to be a very strange day.

‘It’s awesome to see you!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I…’ I stammered for a moment, lost for an easy way to explain my errand, and touched by his enthusiasm. ‘I’m taking some advice for a column I write.’

‘Wicked,’ he replied affably. With a start I realized I hadn’t seen him since he’d left St Hilda’s three years ago and that he was now at least five inches taller than me.

‘Enjoying uni?’ I asked.

His gaze slipped uneasily from mine to Martin Forrester’s.

‘Yes,’ said Forrester drily. He did not smile. ‘Mr Collier is enjoying uni enormously, possibly a little too much. Are you here about your missing essay on penal theory, by any chance?’

Daniel blushed. ‘I just need another day; it will be in your inbox first thing tomorrow – I swear, Martin. I won’t let you down again.’

Forrester frowned at him, his sharp dark brows contorting, his face like granite, and for a second I was worried for Daniel. ‘All right. Count yourself lucky I have more interesting visitors today. That essay needs to be in my inbox when I switch on my computer tomorrow or I won’t read it. Now bugger off.’

‘Thanks, Martin, you’re a star. Bye for now, Miss Bellamy!’ He bounded off down the stairs with a wave.

I smiled after him, bemused but pleased, while Martin Forrester unlocked his office door. When I turned back to him, he was observing me with a hidden, calculating expression.

‘Is something the matter?’

‘ Miss Bellamy , he said. You didn’t correct that boy.’