Juliet sighed deeply as she put down her phone after fielding a long succession of calls. She was kneeling on the hearthrug in Katrin’s living room with the files from Silverdale Farm spread around her. Katrin was sitting on the sofa, trawling reports of missing persons and unsolved murders on her laptop. She could see that Juliet’s nerves were getting frayed and decided against making vacuous comments about the number of interruptions they’d had since they’d started work after supper. It was almost 9pm.
‘More coffee?’
Juliet looked at her watch.
‘I ought to be going soon. Sorry: this evening’s been a bit of a wash-out.’
‘Well, I’m not going to stop work yet. I don’t normally go to bed until about eleven. I’ll probably carry on for another couple of hours. You’re welcome to stay. Stay the night if you like. You don’t have to keep on working. Help yourself to a drink – there’s wine in the fridge, or maybe you’d like a gin and tonic? And it hasn’t been a wash-out for me: I’m glad of the company.’
‘Thanks. I won’t stay the night, though – I don’t want to intrude too much on you and Tim and, besides, I ought to get back to my flat. I’ve hardly been there since Monday. But you have spurred me on to work a bit longer.’
Juliet returned to the file she’d been working on. All the Silverdale Farm files were overstuffed with papers, making it hard to turn the pages without removing them from the binder rings. She was therefore lifting the documents out of each file, turning them over so that the one dated latest was at the bottom of the pile and then replacing them in order after she’d examined them. As she’d predicted, the task was mind-bogglingly dull. Someone had meticulously filed the bills of sale, petrol receipts, service documents and repair dockets for all the Fovargue vehicles, using date sequences rather than devoting sections of the files to each vehicle. It was not the first set of business records she’d had to plough through and she recognised these were an accountant’s dream: they were almost too perfectly kept. Perhaps she was barking up the wrong tree. She eyed the seven unexamined files with distaste. Was she wasting her time on this when perhaps she could be helping Tim to make a more crucial breakthrough?
Katrin set down a mug of coffee beside her, standing it on the hearth. She looked over Juliet’s shoulder.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘What’s what?’
Katrin bent to point to a large piece of buff card that had been stuck to the back board of the file Juliet had just emptied. ‘It’s a pocket for loose papers – like the ones they put in posh notebooks and organisers.’
‘Like Moleskines, you mean?’
‘Yes. I haven’t seen cardboard pockets in files like this before, but each of the files has one. Must be the way this make of file is designed. They haven’t been used much – I think they’re meant to hold receipts and other small documents that aren’t easy to punch holes in, but whoever kept the accounts stapled all the receipts to sheets of paper. There were far too many to make use of the wallets.’
‘I think I can see something in that one, though.’
Juliet looked again at the wallet. She could see now that it wasn’t lying entirely flat. She nipped at its edges to open it up and withdrew a yellowed sheet of newspaper which had been neatly folded into eight. She spread it out carefully on the hearthrug, trying to smooth the folds without damaging it. It had been torn from a tabloid and its condition was fragile.
‘It’s just an old advert for agricultural vehicles.’
‘I suppose that figures. Disappointing!’
‘What were you hoping for? A signed confession?’
Katrin laughed.
‘There’s no need to mock. It’s worth taking a look at the other side, though. Just to see if someone had a reason for keeping it.’
‘Other than fancying a new tractor, you mean?’
Juliet turned over the sheet of paper.
‘Looks like a digest of the news in other parts of the country,’ she said. ‘It’s a local paper – it only deigns to give the national news one page.’ She lifted the sheet of paper carefully and passed it to Katrin. ‘Have a read if you’re interested. I was going to say be careful, as it’s in danger of disintegrating, but I don’t suppose anyone is going to bring a charge against us for damage to a fragment of old newspaper.’
Katrin sat down again.
‘God,’ she said. ‘13th May 2010. David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the rose garden at Downing Street. That seems a long time ago. Iraqi insurgents kill 100 people and injure 200 others. Amazing how these local rags devote the front page to the opening of a new factory out in the sticks or some minor royal attending a village garden party and relegate stuff like this to a few paragraphs hidden among the adverts.’
‘You don’t know what was on the front page of this issue. It could have been…’
‘Aaagh!’
‘Katrin? Are you all right?’
Katrin sprang up from the sofa.
‘Juliet, listen to this. “Police investigating the disappearance of fifteen-year-old paper girl Debbie Wicks have held a press briefing where they issued a statement saying there are no further leads to explain what has happened to Debbie or where she is now. It is three days since Debbie vanished while completing her paper round in Smethwick. Her bicycle was found in the grounds of Brooks’ paint factory, site of her last delivery. There was no sign of Debbie or the canvas bag in which she carried the newspapers. Speaking at the briefing, DI Ron Blackman said that there were now grave concerns for Debbie’s safety and appealed to anyone who might have information regarding her movements, however trivial it might seem, to contact the police on…” and it gives the number.’
‘Is Debbie Wicks the girl in the Midlands you told me about? One of the cases you’re trying to find lookalikes for?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was quite a long time ago – longer than I realised. Are you saying this is the copycat, or the original murder?’
‘Does it matter? The fact is that someone at Silverdale Farm kept this cutting…’
‘…and they could have kept it because they were interested in tractors, or David Cameron in the rose garden, or what was going on in Iraq.’
‘Yes, but you don’t really believe that, do you?’
‘I’m going to keep an open mind. This may be significant, but we shouldn’t get carried away. The first thing I’m going to do is check the rest of these brown cardboard pouches, see if I can find anything else in them. But thanks for some great work, Katrin – I’d certainly have missed that cutting. What did I say about getting bogged down in the detail?’
‘I can’t remember, but how about changing your mind about the gin and tonic?’
‘Okay. Let’s take a break. There’s something else I want to run past you. Do you remember the disappearance of a Polish woman just outside Cambridge a few years ago?’