“Labour had just won the election, and the whole issue of how the police dealt with gay rights had changed radically. They were in a deserted, lonely spot at night. Noah also looked shaken up and was very apologetic. If he’d been an arsehole about it or tried to use his clout as an MP, we’d have booked him and taken him down to the station.”
“Are you still in contact with this barman, George?” asked Tristan.
“I was never in contact with him—I used to see him around, but he went missing a few years later,” said Ade.
“What do you mean, missing?” asked Tristan.
“Vanished without a trace.”
“Were the police involved?”
“Oh, it was nothing like that. Some people thought he’d met a bloke with a bit of money and done a midnight flit. George was behind on his rent. Another rumor was that George turned a few tricks on the side—you know, the job called blow—but he hadn’t taken any money from Noah Huntley, or so he said.”
“Can you remember George’s second name?”
Ade took a sip of his drink and thought for a moment.
“No, he was George. He was Spanish, and he’d been living here for a few years, but I can’t remember his surname. I think I might have a photo of him somewhere at a fancy-dress party. It was before social media, and I’m not sure he even had a mobile phone. He was employed cash in hand at the bar, and I’d known quite a few young guys like him who’d done a midnight flit to avoid the rent.”
“Can you remember when he went missing?”
“Bloody hell. I know it was a while later, after the millennium, cos he was at all the parties . . . erm, maybe a year or two later, summer 2002.”
“Do you know if Noah Huntley was ever arrested or had a police record?” asked Tristan. Ade swilled the last dregs of his pint in the glass and downed it.
“Not when we caught him in 1997. I checked just after to see if he’d been caught cruising before. Do you think he had something to do with Joanna Dobson—”
“Joanna Duncan,” corrected Tristan.
“You think he had something to do with her going missing?”
“I don’t know. If she knew about him being in the closet. And knew he was using rent boys?” asked Tristan.
Ade shook his head.
“By the time Joanna Duncan went missing, being gay in government was no longer a sackable offense, and Noah Huntley had left politics. He was probably earning three times as much money as a well-paid consultant traveling around, able to have his pick of Spanish barmen. He didn’t have to worry about being exposed and then trotting out the wife, two kids, and the Labrador on his front lawn for a happy family photo shoot.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” said Tristan. “It would have been more believable if he’d made her vanish to bury the story.”
“What if that’s not the real story?” asked Ade.
9
After Tristan left, Kate was locking up the office when she remembered that a delivery of clean bedding was coming the next morning, and the case files were all over the office.
“Bloody hell,” said Kate. She’d been looking forward to sitting down with a cup of tea and egg on toast. She took the key from her pocket and unlocked the door.
It didn’t take long to move the boxes to one side. There was three months’ worth of bedding for the eight caravans coming, so she shifted the boxes against the right-hand wall, having to pile them three high. She was excited to see Jake when he finished university in two weeks. He’d be home for the whole summer and was coming back to help with running the caravan site, and he’d be able to deal with things like bed linen.
The last box that Kate moved was a blue one that had belonged to Joanna, and it held her paperwork and diaries from work. The box was from a stationery shop and made from a shiny blue cardboard. There were small steel brackets on each corner to help keep it from tearing. When Kate picked up the lid to put it back on, the bright fluorescent strip light from above bounced off the shiny surface of the cardboard inside the lid, and she noticed there was an impression of handwriting.
Kate studied it more closely, tilting it under the light, and saw there were three lines of writing. The box lid had been used as a writing surface, to hold a sheet of paper against. Kate turned the lid over and saw that the top of the box was a little battered and scuffed, but there was no writing. On the front of the box there was a small label in a metal frame that said Notes 6/2001–6/2002 in faded blue handwriting.
Kate carried the box lid over to the filing cabinets, where there was a bright lamp next to the long window. She switched it on, and as she tilted the box lid from side to side under the dazzling light, she could make out a few letters but nothing she could decipher. She’d recently bought an iPhone, and Jake had shown her how good its camera was at enhancing the light in photos. She put the box down on the desk and took some photos of the writing inside the lid.
When she enhanced the picture on her iPhone, it didn’t make a lot of difference. She opened her MacBook and transferred the photo over from her phone, then opened the iPhoto app and started to play with all the detailed picture settings, sharpening the contrast, increasing the definition, reducing the noise. She wasn’t sure what the latter two settings meant, but as she moved the slider back and forth, the shading and shadows in the picture altered, and the indented writing on the back of the box started to become clear.
“Bloody hell,” she said, feeling a tingle of excitement.
Pick up at 10am or later? Check
David Lamb
Gabe Kemp
Meet at the catering truck 07980746029
She saved the image, printed it off, and googled both of the names. There were scores of results for both on social media and LinkedIn.
It was just after seven thirty p.m., and Kate tried the phone number, which was a British mobile number, but it was out of service.
Kate hesitated and then phoned Bev. When she answered, her voice sounded thick with alcohol. Kate knew then that she was being impatient and should have waited until the next morning to ring.
“Oh, hello, Kate. Is everything all right?” asked Bev. She sounded like she was in a small, echoing room.
“Sorry to bother you at home,” said Kate. “I just wanted to ask you about a couple of names that have come up—David Lamb and Gabe Kemp. Do they ring a bell?”
There was a pause, and she heard water running. She wondered if she’d caught Bev when she was in the toilet. From the noise, she imagined some poky downstairs loo, but their house in Salcombe was palatial, all that marble and high ceilings.
“No, love, I’m sorry. I can’t remember Jo having any friends or colleagues with those names . . .”
“No. They’re written on the inside of the blue box that you gave us with the evidence. It was the box of Joanna’s paperwork. It looks like the same writing on the label on the front of the box.”
“Right,” said Bev, still sounding a bit confused.
“I’m thinking that Jo could have used the box to write on as a rest for a piece of paper. Although . . . the box has probably been with the police for years. If I text you a photo of it that I just took, can you just confirm it’s Joanna’s writing?”