Bright Air - Barry Maitland [24]
She looked at me in surprise. ‘You don’t want to do that.’
‘Yes I do. We can work on your statistics.’
She laughed. ‘All right. I’ll speak to Suzi.’ Then she slipped away, giving me a beautiful smile as she disappeared through the door.
Memories of those times came painfully back to me when I finally sat down on the terrace with a stiff whisky to read Detective Senior Constable Maddox’s weighty report. He had been sent out to Lord Howe on the third of October, the day following Luce’s disappearance, to support the sole police officer on the island, Constable Grant Campbell. Together they had examined the scene of the accident and taken statements from just about everyone who had had contact with Luce during her month there. There are some three hundred and thirty permanent residents on the island, and visitor numbers are restricted to about four hundred. At that time of the year, mid-spring, Maddox reckoned there were three hundred and twenty visitors, their numbers boosted a few days before by the arrival of a dozen yachts taking part in the annual Sydney to Lord Howe Island race.
Maddox paid closest attention, naturally enough, to those nearest to Luce, the group from Sydney, interviewing each of them several times. They began by expressing their shock at what had happened and their dismay at the loss of such a wonderful friend. Their accounts of the accident were consistent, and they described the relationships within the scientific study team as harmonious and Luce’s mood as happy. However, a shadow was cast over this rather bland and comforting story by some of the other people that the police spoke to. A young woman, Sophie Kalajzich, a temporary resident on the island working as a waitress and cleaner on a twelve-month contract, had become friends with Luce, and described her as being withdrawn and depressed on occasions, especially towards the end of her stay. She also said that Luce had referred to some disagreement among the research team, and that she felt that Luce had seemed isolated and marginalised as the only woman in the group. She mentioned that Luce had been to see the island’s doctor several times. Dr Richard Passlow confirmed that he had seen her twice, treating her for diarrhoea, nausea and insomnia. He described her mood as subdued rather than depressed.
Faced with these comments, the others in her party modified their statements. Luce had seemed a bit down lately, Curtis said, and Owen agreed that she hadn’t been her usual cheerful self, though they denied there had been a disagreement with her. Curtis put it down to the time of the month. Finally Damien, no doubt sensing the way things were going, came out with the fact that she had broken up with her boyfriend shortly before coming on the trip, and he attributed her moodiness to that. Maddox had added a note in his report that the boyfriend, Joshua Ambler, had moved to the United Kingdom and he had been unable to contact him at the London address provided. But when Maddox bluntly asked them if Luce might have taken risks on those cliffs, or even deliberately jumped, they were all adamant that that was impossible.
As I read through these statements I felt I saw Luce emerge as if through a mist, vague and unfamiliar at first, then in sharper focus, a sadder, darker version of the woman I’d known. This glimpse of her, over the gap of four years, made me feel terrible, and for a while I pushed the report away and couldn’t go on with it.
My eyes strayed to the morning newspaper on the table at my elbow, folded to an article on the sentencing of the double-murderer on the train. Rory had sent him down for thirty-four years. It struck me as an odd figure—why not a nice round thirty-five?—until I realised that the victims had been aged sixteen and eighteen. Also, the murderer was aged thirty-three