I stumble to the table, open my handbag, and pull out the contents of the “Summer Term 1995” folder I’d removed from Mark’s study. It didn’t take me too long to find that particular file, thanks to Mark’s obsessive habit of putting everything in chronological order.
I riffle through the yellowing papers before me, trying not to choke at the mottled dust particles rising from their surfaces. The stack consists of miscellaneous receipts and correspondence. I flick past several planning sheets relating to May Week performances of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the ADC Theatre, a production Mark must have been involved in. I pause at a letter from the Trinity bursar. It confirms Mark’s fellowship allowance (￡975 for the summer term) and his dining rights (three meals per day, including High Table).
I pull out the stub of his ticket for the May Ball.
“Strictly white tie,” it says. “Survivors photo: 7:00. Carriages: 7:30.”
A folded page from the Times lies behind the ticket stub. I unfold the sheet, spreading out the stubborn creases with my hands. It’s dated 15 June 1995.
I gasp. The date coincides with the twelve missing days in my head.
DUO BOY, 5, FOUND ALIVE AFTER CORNWALL AIR CRASH KILLS HIS PARENTS, the largest headline says. I skim through the story, but I’m unable to see the relevance of its contents. Why did Mark retain page 11 of the Times in his file folder? I scan the other stories. My gaze settles on a small column at the bottom of the page.
FEMALE STUDENT MISSING, the title says. The accompanying text reads:
The police have appealed for help in finding a Duo female who has been missing since the evening hours of 12 June. Anna May Winchester, 24, a graduate of Lucy Cavendish College, was last seen by her housemate dressing up for the Trinity May Ball. The police were notified after Miss Winchester failed to show up at the event. She is white, slim, about 5 feet 7 inches tall, and has dark brown hair and hazel eyes. She was last seen wearing a peach-colored ball gown and elbow-length white gloves.
I freeze. Didn’t my diary entry for 12 June 1995, say that I saw Mark holding the hand of a girl in a “stunning peach dress and white gloves”? I riffle through the remaining papers in the pile before pulling out two more folded newspaper articles. The first is page 3 of the Cambridge Evening News dated 17 June 1995. The main headline reads: WORRY GROWS FOR MISSING CAMBRIDGE ALUMNA. The text is flanked by a photo of a thin brunette with laughing eyes.
Was she the girl I saw holding Mark’s hand all those years ago? I clutch the page, my knuckles turning white, before devouring the accompanying passage:
Fears are increasing for a Lucy Cavendish alumna who has gone missing in the Chesterton area during the evening hours of 12 June.
Duo Anna May Winchester, 24, was last seen in her room on George Street. She had been planning to attend the Trinity May Ball that evening with her friends. Miss Winchester completed a postgraduate degree in art history last year and has been undertaking an internship at the Fitzwilliam Museum since January.
Miss Winchester’s Duo ex-classmate Laura Patterson has expressed deep concern for her friend’s welfare.
“I don’t understand why Anna is missing,” she says. “It doesn’t feel real at all. She was supposed to arrive at the ball by 22:00. We’d agreed to meet at the Trinity Bridge at 22:45 so we could watch the fireworks together. But Anna never came. We are all desperately hoping she’s safe. She’s loved by so many people.”
DC Hans Richardson, of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, says: “Anna’s parents are distressed by her disappearance, as it’s out of character for her. If anyone knows anything, please come forward.”
My mouth has run dry. Hans Richardson? Isn’t he the gray-haired detective who showed up in my garden this morning and turned my life upside down?
I set the article aside and pick up the third folded page. It’s also from the Cambridge Evening News, the issue dated 18 June 1995. Now I know what I’m looking for. My eyes settle on the bottommost piece, entitled MISSING GIRL’S HANDBAG FOUND. The text reads:
A diamanté-encrusted Chanel handbag belonging to missing Duo Anna May Winchester has been located at the piling of a pedestrian bridge over the River Cam, next to the Fort St. George pub on Midsummer Common. It was found by Duo undergraduate James Tempest-Stewart of the Peterhouse Boat Club during a training session.
“My mates and I had just set out for Baits Bite Lock when we saw something floating in the river,” he says. “We rowed over for a closer look. It turned out to be a lady’s handbag. Its strap was impaled on a steel spike on one of the bridge pilings.”
DC Hans Richardson, of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, confirms that the handbag contains a Trinity May Ball ticket in Miss Winchester’s name. Anyone with information as to her whereabouts is urged to call 999 at once.
Multiple questions surge through my head. Why did I fail to learn twelve days’ worth of entries from that post–May Ball period? And why did I cut out those pages from my diary? Was I traumatized by the discovery that Mark had been sleeping with another girl merely days after he took my virginity? Was I heartbroken to discover that he had merely pursued me for sex? Or was there more to my desire to forget? Something more sinister? Perhaps a missing twenty-four-year-old girl named Anna May Winchester?
First a dead woman. And now a missing woman.
But perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into matters. Maybe Anna was merely Mark’s friend. After all, they both went to Cambridge. I would be alarmed if a friend of mine disappeared into the blue. That must be why Mark kept these newspaper articles. Granted, I did see him with a girl in a pretty peach dress and white gloves on the night of the May Ball. But this must have been coincidental. Two other balls took place in Cambridge that evening. There must have been at least a dozen girls roaming around town in peach dresses and white gloves.
Anna May Winchester cannot be the girl I saw that evening. The one holding Mark’s hand. The girl he slept with.
Or could she?
Another disquieting possibility strikes me. If Anna was indeed the girl Mark slept with, her housemate was not the last person to have seen her that evening. I, Claire Evans—Claire Bushey back then—saw her on her way to the ball. Holding Mark’s hand and fighting with him minutes later.
In which case, Mark must have been the last person to see Anna that evening.