“But they let her go off to Knebworth, didn’t they?” I recalled the snapshots of Jennifer and Lisa by their tent.
“She never told them it was Knebworth. They thought the pair of them were camping in the Peak district. Girl Guide stuff.”
I nodded. I checked back over my notes to see if I’d missed anything. “Well, I think that’s about it. Thanks for seeing me.” I got to my feet.
“Have you seen Frances?”
“Tomorrow.”
“She never left Manchester, did her course there, got a job, then the wedding and started a family. Seems happy enough. And it’s Roger Pickering who wants you to find Jennifer?”
“Yes.”
“John and Roger were at school together,” she said, “he was always painfully shy. They say he’s doing quite well for himself now, in computers. Surprising really,” she blew her nose.
I waited to see if there was going to be any further significance to her mean little observations but she didn’t add anything. I didn’t feel any compunction to give any more away to Caroline. More grist for her gossip mill. Besides which Roger was my client and I had a duty to respect confidentiality in my work.
I said a brisk goodbye and she saw me out.
I stood by my car for a minute, let my eyes wander over the view, breathed in the cold air to take away the dirty feeling I’d picked up during the encounter.
Once I was back on the road heading for Snake Pass I felt as though I’d escaped from something. It was hard to imagine how Caroline and Lisa could have got along so well at school. Maybe Caroline’s insidious opinions hadn’t been formed back then, maybe she’d been corrupted at university, falling in with the wrong crowd, flirting with the fascists, learning to see everyone else as different, inferior, threatening. I wondered how she would judge the antics of the Brennans and the Whittakers. I thought she’d probably be appalled – not recognising that her own attitudes helped create a climate in which their violent racism could flourish.
I was up on the hilltops when my mobile rang. I pulled into a passing place and stopped the car to take the call.
“It’s Lisa MacNeice here, you said to ring if I thought of anything,” her voice was tinny on the phone.
“Yes?”
“Well, I remembered something, I’ve been thinking about it all since you came…I can’t see how it’ll help, though.”
“Go on.”
“It was on the phone, not long before Jenny went. She was upset, I thought it was about the pregnancy and everything but she kept calling her father a hypocrite, she wouldn’t say why. She was really angry.”
