More wine, and I realise I have stopped noticing the ship’s keel, which means either we are motionless on a millpond sea, or the lurching feeling in my brain is in perfect synch with the vessel’s slow rocking. Richard challenges everyone within earshot to break the world record for the most eclipse chasers ever in one photograph. As an eclipse virgin he is not eligible to take part, but he herds us into his viewfinder. There’s a Princess Celeste souvenir baseball cap lying on a table and, without asking whose it is, I pull it down over my eyes and stand at the back. I’m a black peak and a ginger beard. When he’s got his shot, Richard runs the end of a straw up and down his list, his lips moving as he does the mental arithmetic. ‘This picture,’ he says brandishing the image on his phone, ‘represents a total of 103 discrete total-eclipse-viewing experiences.’
‘If that’s not a practical use of mathematics I don’t know what is,’ I say, to laughter all round. Mac’s been telling me I’m not funny my whole life, and even Laura doesn’t get all my jokes, but tonight I realise I’ve been looking for appreciation in all the wrong places. Here, they love me. Everyone wants to hear my eclipse stories. I can talk freely about them for the first time since before Cornwall, because these people are so fluent in the technicalities of the experience that I can leave out everything else – the interruptions and aftermaths that would have soured even perfect conditions – and they will still be interested. My new friends hang on my every word. Tansy inches closer. I look at the wine glass in my hand only to find I’ve moved on to rum. Someone produces a selfie stick and there are more pictures, and I keep the cap on. I’m introduced to another man in a Chile ’91 T-shirt; naturally we embrace like long-lost brothers. I note with satisfaction that while his strains over a proud beer belly, mine still hangs more or less straight from my shoulders to my belt. No wonder Tansy finds me so irresistible. Conversations with my new friends repeat, circle and blur. I believe there is some singing and at one point I tell an amazing story, I think.
‘Maybe you should calm down a bit,’ says Richard, gently taking my glass from my hand and setting it down.
I am indignant. ‘Me and Tansy are just friends.’
‘What are you on about? Your bunk’s two feet away from mine. I don’t want to be woken up by a face full of your puke.’
I’m too drunk to stop drinking but still sober enough to know that fresh air is my friend. On the top deck, I thud on to a recliner and then I have a quick power nap. When I wake up, someone has covered me with a blanket. Below and around me, waves shatter against the sides of the boat. The wind has blown the clouds to one side and the moon is a thick waning crescent. There are more stars than blackness above us; multi-armed galaxies swirl before my naked eye and meteors are as frequent as London buses. I haven’t seen a firmament like this since Zambia. Laura’s absence is the only flaw in a perfect evening. I cannot remember the last time I felt so at home.
Chapter 21
LAURA
11 May 2000
‘If I were wrongly accused of a crime as heinous as rape, I’d stand my ground, but you ran away, didn’t you?’ said Nathaniel Polglase.
I held my breath as Jamie evenly returned his gaze. ‘As I said, I was just going to get rid of the drugs in my pocket.’
‘No. You ran away because you had been caught in the act of raping the complainant Miss Taylor, and you hoped to get away with it, didn’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Do you remember when you first approached the police, in their Portakabin cell?’
Jamie couldn’t hide a panicked glance at his counsel. Fiona Price’s nod was almost invisible. I wondered if Kit had seen it. I wondered if the jury had seen it.
‘Yes?’
Polglase looked solemn. ‘The jury has heard DS Kent describe Pip the drugs dog, but I will recap for their benefit as well as yours, Mr Balcombe. There were two police dogs on site at all times that weekend, including a four-year-old Alsatian called Pip, an incredibly sensitive, highly trained animal. To him, even residual traces of drugs are as obvious as a lit joint would be to the human eye. Where was Pip when you were questioned, Mr Balcombe?’
‘He was next to me,’ said Jamie. Kit and I sat up straighter. ‘He was in the corner of the room with his handler.’
Polglase pressed on. In cross-examination he finally seemed to be enjoying himself.
‘Did Pip go for you?’
Jamie’s face expressed exactly my feelings when I’d been cornered by Price.
‘You don’t remember Pip, because he didn’t go for you, did he? He did not smell the cannabis you claim you were so eager to get rid of.’
‘It was gone by then. And I’d had it in a little plastic bag.’
‘In those circumstances traces would still be detectable to a finely trained nose. Mr Balcombe!’ Polglase unveiled a rich tenor. Everyone in the courtroom rose an inch from their seats. ‘This joint never existed in the first place, did it?’
‘It did!’ I heard the little-boy whinge he’d used on Beth in the aftermath.
‘It’s a smokescreen, concocted after the event, something you thought up in the journey between the festival and Helston Police Station, isn’t it?’
‘No!’
‘How much did you have to smoke around the campfire?’ Jamie didn’t say anything. ‘Your statement is here if you need it,’ prompted Polglase. I knew from my own stint in the witness box that when counsel hold out your statement, they are handing you the rope for your own noose. I was glad now of the experience; it helped me understand Jamie’s present discomfort.
‘One puff,’ he admitted.
‘And did you like it?’
‘Not really.’
‘Why, then, did you go and buy some?’
Jamie cast his eyes to the ceiling, as though the right answer would be written there. The jurors wouldn’t have looked out of place with oversized soft drinks and cartons of popcorn.
‘You’re a cunning young man, aren’t you?’ said Polglase.
‘What?’
‘Isn’t it far better we condemn you for the lesser crime of possession than focus on your true transgression, the brutal rape of a vulnerable, lone female?’