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.”“She keeps in touch with you, then?” asked Gibbons.“In a manner of speaking,” answered Rachel with a laugh.“Here, I’ll show you.”She let them into the front hall and led the way back to the kitchen.Just inside the door was a small drop-front desk, and above it hung a cork board filled with various notes, cards, and newspaper cuttings.Rachel reached up and unpinned a postcard from one corner and handed it to Gibbons.The picture was of a coastal village.On the reverse was scrawled: “R—I’m settled here at last and think I’ll stay the summer.Got an interesting job at the marina.You know how to reach me if you want to.Or I’ll turn up again.Love, yr.bp.”It was dated last April.Gibbons read it carefully with Bethancourt peering over his shoulder.“How did you reach her?” he asked, looking up.“Message on MySpace,” Rachel answered cheerfully.“Jody doesn’t always have a computer, but she finds a place somewhere to check my page once a week or so.”Gibbons looked hopeful.“Then she had an e-mail address? How about a MySpace page of her own?”“She’s got both,” Rachel confirmed.“But she doesn’t use either one much.She’s funny that way—doesn’t like to be tied down.” She shrugged.“She used to say she was an analog spirit living in a digital age.Really, she’s just eccentric.”Bethancourt was still looking at the postcard.“What’s ‘bp’?” he asked.“ ‘Bp’?” repeated Rachel, looking puzzled.“Yes, she signs herself here as ‘yr.bp.’ ”“Oh, that means ‘bad penny.’ You know, a reference to turning up again?”“Oh, yes, I see.”“And this card was the last you heard from her?” asked Gibbons, handing it back.“No,” answered Rachel, pinning it once again to the board and moving to deal with the bag of groceries Bethancourt had set on the counter.“She rang on my birthday in June.She was still in Port Isaac then.” She paused to face them, a jug of milk in her hand.“Has she got herself into trouble, then?” she asked, a worried frown on her face.“In a manner of speaking,” said Gibbons carefully.Bethancourt, who had come forward to help with the grocery unpacking, saw the expression in her eyes change.He reached out to take the jug of milk from her hand and said, “Yes, it’s bad news.Perhaps you’d like to sit down?”Numbly, she let him take the milk while she stared, frozen, at Gibbons.“Dead?” she asked at last.And when Gibbons nodded she turned away, putting her hands to her face.Gibbons gave her a moment while Bethancourt deposited the milk in the refrigerator, and then caught his friend’s eyes, jerking his head toward their witness.Bethancourt nodded and went to put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder.“Come and sit down,” he said, moving her gently to the kitchen table.“Would you like anything? A glass of water or some tea?”Rachel dragged a hand across her face, wiping away tears.“I think I’d rather have a drink,” she said.“There’s a bottle of Bell’s in that cupboard over there.”Bethancourt nodded and fetched it together with a glass from the dish drainer while Gibbons settled himself opposite Rachel at the table.She sniffed, took the drink Bethancourt handed her, and had a healthy swallow of it.“There,” she said, making an effort to pull herself together.“All right.Tell me what happened.”“Miss Farraday was killed on Christmas Eve,” said Gibbons.“But how?” asked Rachel.To Bethancourt’s ear, her tone betrayed bewilderment.He slid into the chair on the other side of her, leaning an elbow on the table so that he could see her face.“She was the victim of an attack,” replied Gibbons.“We believe she had an altercation with whomever she was meeting that night, during the course of which she was struck.The blow may or may not have knocked her out, but it disabled her enough for her attacker to strangle her.”While he spoke, Rachel’s hand sought her throat, and her eyes, now full of shock, brimmed with tears.“That’s horrible,” she whispered.“Poor Jody.”“Yes,” said Gibbons.“It was a very violent crime.Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm Miss Farraday?”Rachel shook her head at once.“Everyone always liked Jody,” she said.“There’s no denying she was an oddbod, but nobody ever seemed to mind.I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill her.It wasn’t,” she added, “just a mugging then?”“No, ma’am,” said Gibbons.“I’m afraid there’s no chance of that.”“How long had you known Miss Farraday?” asked Bethancourt.“Were the two of you close?”Rachel hesitated for a moment before replying, “I think, actually, I was her closest friend.At least I was the oldest—we met at school in Haxby when we were eight.”Gibbons raised an eyebrow.“At school?” he asked.“We understood from Mr.Rhys-Jones that Miss Farraday was homeschooled.”“Part of the time,” agreed Rachel.“Although I think that had more to do with where she and her mother found themselves—they moved around a lot.Anyway, she was only at my school for three years.But that’s an eternity when you’re eight.”“True,” said Bethancourt.“Still, it’s a long time to keep up with someone, particularly if you don’t live in the same place.” He was mentally riffling through a list of his acquaintances, but could not think of anyone from the second form with whom he still kept in touch.“Well, yes,” agreed Rachel slowly, as if she had never really thought about it before.Then she shrugged.“But things are never the way they usually are if Jody’s involved.It’s like she’s a jinx on anything normal.” She gave a half laugh, which turned into a hiccup, and she ended by sniffling and sipping the whisky Bethancourt had poured for her.“Being such an old friend,” said Gibbons, “would you know of any family Miss Farraday might have? I understand her mother passed on some years ago.”“Yes,” affirmed Rachel.“I went to the funeral.But there aren’t any other relatives—there never have been [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]