‘Thank you. And what happened next?’
‘We sat down to watch the movie. The opening sequence toChinatownis quite long, so Miles told me a little bit about his date, and then I told him to shut up once we got to the first scene. Miles passed out on the sofa after about half an hour. Eventually I did, too. I woke again a few hours later. Miles was still asleep, and I dragged myself off to bed, at about five in the morning, I think.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pritchard-Jones, you’ve been very helpful. Before I finish, I’d like to circle back to a very important point, if I may. You say Miles turned up at your flat just before twelve-thirty a.m. Are you quite certain about that?’
‘I am, yes.’
‘The reason I want to check is because the timing of this is quite a crucial detail. We know from Caira’s phone data that she and Miles arrived back at her flat at twelve minutes past midnight. That would mean Miles had a maximum of eighteen minutes to go into Caira’s home and then walk the eight hundred yards to your flat. Can you be absolutely sure that Miles arrived at your flat by twelve-thirty a.m.?’
Elis nodded firmly. ‘Yes. I clearly remember telling Miles how lucky he was to have turned up just in time to watch the greatest movie ever made. It was just before twelve-thirty.’
‘And you are one hundred per cent sure of that?’
‘Yes. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pritchard-Jones. No further questions, your ladyship.’
Chapter 16
Elis
It’s their first day proper in New Zealand and Elis is on a high – literally. He stands atop Bob’s Peak, on the shoulder of Ben Lomond, one of the area’s tallest mountains, and a cool wind feathers his face with alpine air, the clarity of which you only get at such an elevation. The sky is a thick blue, with furry claws of cirrus, and the sun has a burning intensity. It’s an improvement on yesterday;four seasons in one day, the hotel receptionist chirped when Elis returned from a walk soaked through from a sudden shower. After that he skulked back to his room to sleep off his jet lag and was out by six o’clock. They all were. And so, as expected, today got off to a very early start.
Elis woke at two in the morning to the sound of Reubyn snoring, and it was another hour or so before his roommates grunted into consciousness, and another three hours after that before the sun started to break slowly through the stubborn darkness. Elis felt like a small child at Christmas, waiting patiently for the day to begin, excited by what lay ahead. They met Miles downstairs for breakfast, and Elis pitched a plan to ride the gondola up the mountain, 1,500 feet above the lake, to the track for luge racing – downhill go-karting, basically – and for views across the region. George protested the idea, and for a heart-soaringmoment it seemed possible that he might not come, but alas, no such luck. The only person who stayed behind was Polly, who had already expressed a desire to get some work done that morning.
The luging wasn’t as exhilarating as he’d hoped. He thought there might’ve been an opportunity to have a proper race, a chance to leave George in a cloud of dust. But it was kids’ stuff, really. Every time he got up a head of speed in one of the rattly little karts, he had to brake to a stop because a member of some uncoordinated family had failed to take a bend. No one could knock the scenery, though. The vista from the viewing platform was epic; from there you could see the whole lake and deep into the wondrous landscape he’d read all about: to the east, the Remarkables, an enormous and nobbled alligator of mountains that dominated the horizon, and to the west, the magnificent Cecil Peak, rising ominously steep out of the water. This colossally ruptured, gloriously discordant corner of the Earth’s crust was bellowing a reminder, if they needed one, of just how much there was out there to explore. He stared at it, lost in all the possibilities, until George ushered them into the cafe where English canteen-style food was being kept warm under lights.
They had a high-carb lunch that hit none of Elis’s macros, and now, while they wait in a queue for a cable car to take them back down the mountain, he can feel his body tire as his digestive system works overtime to break down a gutful of refined fats and starch. They move forward on to the platform and wait as the group ahead of them boards a cable car and the next one trundles into position. It’s a delicate, glass-sided pod with benches at each end. They file in, sit down and off they go. Elis’s stomach drops as the ground slips away and they’re suspended, thinly encased and dangling, and the mountainside – a chaotic mix of rocky cliffs and dull grassy terrain – falls further below, almost impossibly steep. Reubyn has gone silent, staring at his feet, as he did on the way up.
Elis leans forward and puts a hand on Reubyn’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’
Reubyn remains silent, head bowed, refusing to look out of the windows. His vertigo came on gradually on the way up, but this time he’s started suffering immediately.
‘You don’t look too well, mate,’ George says. ‘How’s that fish and chips settling in your stomach?’ There’s no response, and George grins – a sure sign that he’s going to keep prodding. ‘Maybe you should do a food review for your channel,’ he says, and then, when Reubyn doesn’t reply, adds: ‘How would you rate the batter, out of ten? Was it greasy enough for you? It looked a bit oily to me.’
Reubyn still doesn’t respond. His skin gleams an unhealthy shade somewhere between grey and yellow, like a raw chicken breast on the turn; globules of sweat have formed between the sparse hairs on his crown.
‘You should’ve brought your selfie stick for this,’ George continues. ‘Sweaty Brit suffers vertigo-induced heart attack on cable car– that would get some views.’
‘Bugger off.’
Laughter echoes around the cabin.
‘I’m no engineer,’ George says, ‘but that cable doesn’t look very robust to me. And it sure is a long way down.’
They’re about halfway back now, but itisstill a long way down – both to the rocks directly below and to the base of the mountain.
After a brief silence, George smirks as if he’s thought of something clever. ‘You know, Reubs,’ he says, ‘New Zealand is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.’ He winks at Miles. ‘We’re right on a fault line here, and they have somerealbig ones. I wouldn’t want to be in one of these cable cars when the next big shake happens.’ He grabs hold of the bench and starts jerking forward and back,generating a slight rocking motion. ‘Do you feel that? I think the earth’s moving down there.’
Reubyn lifts his head a couple of inches and rolls his eyes to look at George. ‘Stop it!’
Cackles reverberate around the small space.
‘All right, all right,’ Miles says. ‘That’s enough.’
On his word, the cabin falls silent. Miles and George turn their attention to their phones as the cable car approaches the bottom of the mountain. Eventually they’re low enough that Reubyn raises his head and puffs out his cheeks.
Miles looks up, twists the corner of his mouth. ‘Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, have any of you ever heard the name Alex Burnfield?’
