I recite these discoveries to my Dictaphone before settling down on the armchair next to the bed, album in hand. I study the face of the brunette in the photographs, taking in her high-bridged nose and slightly protruding ears. Her long hair, curling below her shoulders. Her flat-chested body, painfully angled and emaciated in some places. She bears little resemblance to the curvaceous blonde we extracted from the Cam this morning. But she must definitely be a younger, pre-plastic-surgery version of Sophia Ayling. Perhaps even a bulimia-fraught incarnation, as her diary implies. She is, after all, as thin as a cop’s baton in these photographs.
I flip through the album once more, studying the girl’s appearance. Her eyes are bright, sparkling with the dewy exuberance of youth. Her face sizzles with vivacious energy. She’s grinning in many of the pictures, although the camera occasionally catches a more pensive side to her profile. Her smiles are wide, almost always reaching her eyes. It is the face of a young girl relishing her time as a student in Cambridge.
Not the look of a person who writes tortured, twisted diary entries about redemption and revenge.
But as I stare at the photo album, an insistent murmur in my head tells me that I should perhaps go over Sophia’s diary again. Something drastic must have happened to her since these photos were taken. A ghastly journey that caused her cosmetically enhanced body to wash up against a tree this morning. If I hope to pin down her murderer, I ought to work out all the cryptic turns of her life’s recent trajectory. And precisely how Mark Henry Evans fits into them.
I close the album with a loud snap. It’s coming back with me to the police station, along with Ayling’s copy of On Death’s Door. (Fact: I read Evans’s novel when it was first published in hardcover, but it’s good to refresh one’s mind.) Plus the tantalizing-looking wooden box, of course.
It takes Sergeant Donald Angus only thirty seconds to break the latch on Sophia’s box after I get back to Parkside. He grins and gives me the thumbs-up sign before lifting its lid.
“What the hell?” he says, peering down at its contents.
He lifts a giant stack of papers out of the box and begins riffling through them. They are mostly newspaper clippings. A 144-GB memory stick occupies a corner of the box.
“She was obsessed with him,” he says moments later, bushy eyebrows curling upwards.
“This we already know,” I say, peering over his shoulder and realizing that the articles are arranged in chronological order. The first piece is from the Arts and Literature section of the Times, dated 17 January 2012. It is accompanied by a photograph of Mark Henry Evans at a book signing. His wife, Claire, is hovering behind him, her face a little blurred. ON DEATH’S DOOR TOPS THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST, the headline says. The subhead reads: PROVING THAT AUTHORS CAN GET AWAY WITH NOVELS THAT TAKE AT LEAST FOUR HOURS TO READ.
Sophia mentioned in her diary that she saw Mark Evans grinning from the pages of a newspaper.
“But why?” asks Donald, frowning.
“This I do not know.” I shake my head.
“Maybe Evans was telling us the truth.”
I shrug.
“I didn’t realize the man has such lofty aspirations,” he says moments later, waving another clipping at me. I catch the headline before Donald returns it to the pile. It states: DUO AUTHOR WITH MONO WIFE EYES SOUTH CAMBRIDGESHIRE SEAT. The article features a photograph of Mark Henry Evans at a political convention, his wife hanging on to his arm. The subhead is a rhetorical question: ARE INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES FINALLY HAVING THEIR DAY IN THE SUN?
“Hmm…” I say as a possibility strikes me. “Could we have a look at the last article in the pile, please?”
Donald riffles through to the final clipping, dated only six days ago. It features a photograph of a blue-eyed blonde frolicking on a yacht with a hairy-chested male companion. The accompanying headline screams: NOT A TAXING DECISION: JUSTIN AND CHANTELLE TO WED SOON.
I snatch the Daily Mail article from Donald’s hands. It reads:
Justin Winward, Britain’s most eligible Duo singer-songwriter, will wed Mono model Chantelle Huston in September. Friends close to the couple say that Winward presented the blond bombshell with a four-carat diamond ring after his sellout concert at the O2 Arena last night.
This will be Winward’s second marriage after divorcing Duo actress Gwyneth Langley last October. The singer-songwriter, 32, is number 137 on Forbes’s list of the richest men in Britain, with an estimated net worth of ￡75 million. Huston, 22, first shot to fame in Big Brother two years ago, and is known for her 36DD cups and her onscreen fling with the footballer Harold Dwight.
This high-profile Mono-Duo pairing has delighted supporters of the Mixed Marriage Act, due for royal assent on Friday. “Mixed unions work,” says the Duo novelist Mark Henry Evans, an independent MP candidate for South Cambridgeshire. “My Mono wife, Claire, and I have been together for twenty years. Justin and Chantelle have every chance of succeeding as a married couple.”
But one of Winward’s close Duo friends, who declined to be named, hinted that the singer-songwriter is aware of the generous tax breaks promised to those entering Mono-Duo unions. “Justin’s shrewd,” he says. “He knows a thing or two about taxes and realities. Those 36DD cups will not blind him to the importance of a prenuptial agreement.”
I look up at Donald and chuckle; something has just clicked in my head.
“Sophia Ayling was obsessed with Mark Evans,” I say. “But she became equally preoccupied by someone else. A woman who had all the physical attributes she lacked during her younger days. Blond hair, blue eyes, and large boobs.”
“Who?” Donald lifts an eyebrow.
I smile before replying.
“Claire Evans.”
The Economist
Apple Unveils the iDiary
27 January 1998 | San Francisco
Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, is a scrupulous diary writer. He also has a reputation for claiming to go where no Duo has gone before. At last week’s launch of the iDiary, Apple’s latest portable creation, he did not disappoint.
In his presentation, Mr. Jobs made his views of the iDiary's world-historical significance clear. Paper-and-ink diaries are the last bastions of the analog era, he said, and diaries are now entering the electronic age.
This is what Jobs hopes to achieve with his iDiary. It measures six inches (15.24 centimeters) diagonally and weighs just twenty-five ounces (0.7 kilograms). It features a touch screen and a full keyboard with a thumbwheel. It has an LED indicator that flashes electric purple each morning to remind users to learn the previous nights’ entries. Its software includes a nifty search function (thereby making it easier to retrieve facts), a to-do list, a daily planner, and an appointments calendar. Entries may be edited or erased with ease. The device is priced at ￡79 for the basic version and ￡99 for one with literally more memory, thus bringing it within the reach of the masses.
But the security features of the iDiary are perhaps its unique selling point. It self-locks after two minutes of inactivity and only unlocks upon recognizing the fingerprint of its user. Users may also deploy an additional layer of password protection. After several high-profile diary thefts over the past year, Apple’s investors are salivating over the iDiary’s market potential. Within three days of the device’s launch, the company’s share price reached an all-time high.
Chapter Seven
Claire