I examine the chessboard on my table for a couple of moments before reaching out to move the black queen forward. The move ratchets up sudden pressure on the white king.
A brisk knock sounds at the door. I look up; it’s Hamish again with a large crease on his forehead. The size of his frown matches the one I’ve developed after my most recent incursion into Sophia’s diary.
“I tracked down a clerk at the admissions department of the university,” he says. “He was kind enough to go back to his Trumpington Street office to have a look at their alumni records, even though it’s a Saturday. Sophia Alyssa Ayling isn’t on the database. I made him check various permutations of her name, just to be sure. But he’s found nothing. He’s certain she was never a student.”
“Aha.”
“I also spoke to the forensics who have been examining Miss Ayling’s Fiat. They’ve found a few interesting things.”
Damn. My heart sinks to my Oxford brogues with a thud. Why is the forensic unit so hyperefficient today?
“The car’s boot is a little damp, they say. But that’s probably from the thunderstorm we had two mornings ago. They’ve found bits of grass in the backseat.”
“That’s not particularly interesting,” I say, struggling to keep my voice neutral. “There must be bits of grass in all cars in Cambridge.”
Hamish shrugs.
“They’ve also found several clumps of dirt on the driver’s seat and on the rubber mat below,” he adds. “Some are still a little sodden. Ayling must have been walking about in the rain.”
“Hmm.…”
“No clear fingerprint samples, I’m afraid. But they did find a couple of long hairs in the boot. Both were dyed blond and had dark brown roots. The DNA matches Ayling’s.”
“So she is who we think she is,” I say.
“Indeed.”
“I need two more things from you, then. First, could you track down the whereabouts of a Duo named Anna May Winchester? A Lucy Cavendish alumna who disappeared for nineteen days in 1995 before resurfacing. I wish to know what’s become of her. If she’s changed her name, in particular.”
“Okay.”
“Second, could you exert pressure on Marge to get her postmortem report to us as soon as possible? We desperately need something before the end of the day.”
“Why are you so eager to solve the case before the end of the day?” Hamish narrows his eyes at me. “You’ve been banging on about this all day long.”
“Because…”
Damn. My mind’s a sudden blank.
Hamish is staring at me. Damn. I’m taking too long to come up with an answer. I need to say something. Anything.
“Because I have…er…a reputation to uphold.”
He whips an eyebrow up at me.
“If you’ve given a murderer a day to flee, then you’ve given them two,” I continue, trying to inject confidence into my voice. “And if so, they will never be caught.”
“Ah,” says Hamish with a nod. Yet I can’t help but notice that a dangerous-looking curl is playing at the corner of his lips.
“You must have surely written these facts down somewhere.”
“Of…course.”
He disappears through the door, lips still in a skeptical curl.
Damn. Damn. Damn. This is going from bad to worse. Two near slipups within two days may well equal career suicide. Hamish did look suspicious when he left my office. Or am I imagining it?
I walk back to my chessboard and make four fairly random moves in an attempt to calm down. I should stop fretting about Hamish, although it’s tempting to wallow in justifiable paranoia. Perhaps I should think about what he just said.
I wrench my mind back to the case.
A pattern is indeed emerging. Official records of a woman named Sophia Alyssa Ayling are few and far between. The admissions department at Cambridge claims never to have heard of her. Neither have the General Register Office, the Home Office, and the local Electoral Registration Office. Even the Ministry of Memory and the Department of Duos have nothing on her. The only two organizations that possess records of Sophia’s existence are the DVLA and Barclays. I suppose I could ask my Bermudan counterparts if she exists in their files. If she was born on the island and has a Bermudan passport. But I suspect I will draw a miserable blank there, too. Anyway, it’ll take ages for the Bermudans to get back to me.
I work on a different clock.
Who the hell is Sophia Ayling, then?
My gaze falls on the photo album at the end of my desk. The one containing numerous photographs of a Cambridge student in her twenties. A gawky, bespectacled girl with slightly protruding ears. Who on earth is this brunette? And who the hell was the blonde we plucked from the river this morning? Could Sophia Alyssa Ayling be a fake identity? Or an altered identity? Like, say, a new identity for someone once named Anna May Winchester? Did that flat-chested brunette transform herself into a curvy blonde after emerging from St. Augustine’s? And then somehow get herself killed by Mark Evans?
I sigh.
The white king is definitely in a precarious position. I nudge a knight forward to defend it. Two cheerful taps sound on my door. I look up; Toby is back again.
“You may be interested in what we’ve found, sir,” he says, marching in with a wide grin on his face.
I raise a hopeful eyebrow.
“I had to move heaven and earth to get the person’s name,” he says. “The one responsible for the transfers to Ayling’s Barclays account. If not for your Swiss contact, I would have got nowhere. Heinz applied pressure on—”
“And the name is?”
“The trust fund was set up by a Duo named Alan Charles Winchester. A bank tycoon of British-Bermudan origin.”
I freeze.
“Thought you would like more information about the man,” continues Toby with a grin. “So I looked him up. Some of it is online, anyway. Alan married a Portuguese-Bermudan Duo named Lily Ferreira in 1967. They decided to move from Bermuda to England in 1981. Bought a large country house near the village of Coton, three miles outside Cambridge, at 288 Brook Lane.”
He pauses for breath.
“Go on.”
“Alan and Lily were involved in a terrible car accident on the M11 motorway in 1983 while driving back to Coton from a performance of La Traviata at the Royal Opera House. Alan got away with a broken arm, but Lily suffered multiple injuries and was proclaimed dead at the scene. Alan remarried in 1994, taking a Mono Belarusan dancer named Agnessa Ivanova as his second wife. He eventually died of a heart attack in 2008…”
Toby emits a sudden chuckle.
“…while having sex with his personal assistant, Nola Barr, at the Ritz hotel. But what might interest you, sir, is this: Alan Winchester had a daughter with Lily Ferreira. She was born in 1970. Her name is Anna May.”
“Dear Lord.”
“I also called St. Augustine’s back,” he says. “Pretending to be an accountant at Swiss Inheritance Services. Said I was going through some old accounts and found a discrepancy in payments. Probably due to confusion over the actual period of Ayling’s residence. I asked them to confirm the precise dates of her treatment there. Guess what?”
Triumph spreads over his face.