Claudia didn’t have an answer to that, nor did she need one. All she had to do was hold her nerve. In a few short weeks, the findings would be published and, whatever the outcome, Phillipa wasn’t going to come back from this. Claudia would be free to start her new life with a clean slate, which was all she had ever wanted.

16

Sitting cross-legged on the futon with her laptop resting on a cushion, Leanne closed her eyes and listened to the gentle lap of water hitting the sides of the boat. She was entering her third week of enforced leave and was getting nowhere fast. She hadn’t been ashore for days, and spent most of her time surfing the internet. Today’s session had drawn another blank, and there wasn’t a YouTube video, witness account, or committee report left that she hadn’t dissected and devoured.

When she slammed her laptop shut, a chorus of quacks rose up nearby. The resident family of ducks had wrongly assumed that the noise heralded an appearance on deck, but the container of oats and seeds that Lois had kept to feed her feathered friends was empty, and had been for some time.

Rearranging her work environment without getting up, Leanne shoved her laptop between a cereal bowl plastered with the dried-up remnants of breakfast, and a buttery plate from last night’s supper. From beneath some clean, or possibly dirty laundry, she retrieved a file that had grown at the same rate as her frustration. It contained a typed transcript of the exchange between Claudia and Amelia on the night of the anniversary, and the notes that Leanne had put together from all her other interviews, including the most recent ones.

Leanne had managed to track down the paramedic, but she had nothing new to add. Apparently, her speech had been vetted by Justin, and everything else would remain confidential. Reading between the lines, there was nothing more anyway.

Rex Russell, meanwhile, was happy to talk to Leanne, but it had reached the point where, if someone wanted to suggest that Amelia’s rescuer had been walking around in a Donald Duck outfit, he would happily agree. As leads went, it was a dead end.

Leafing through her accumulated evidence, she picked up a child’s drawing of a torch. It was the sketch Amelia had promised her, but it lacked any real detail, even for a ten-year-old. The schoolgirl could remember the light, but distinctly less about the item that had produced it, and her depiction was based almost entirely on its shape and touch as she clenched it in her fist. It wasn’t much, but it was all Leanne had.