‘Wedgeley.’
‘That’s quite a big place. Can’t you be a bit more exact?’
‘Wedgeley Down. It’s a village.’ Lisa opened the till, got out a fifty-pence piece and put it on the counter. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m waiting to close.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
But I wasn’t, really. I’d narrowed down the area where I might find Dawn’s parents. And I’d confirmed the impression I’d gained when I last spoke to Lisa. She really did not want to talk about the fire, or Dawn, and not, I thought, just because it brought back traumatic memories. It was almost as if she was afraid. Lisa knew something, I was certain of it, but getting her to tell me what it was would be like getting blood out of the proverbial stone. She was even closing the café in the middle of the afternoon to avoid talking to me, if I was not much mistaken.
Clutching the paper bag, through which a film of grease from the cake was already spreading, I left the café. Behind me, the bolts were shot, and when I glanced around the sign on the door had been turned over to ‘Closed’.
I glanced at my watch. Time to make my way to the Gazette office for my appointment with Belinda Jones.
Tara was, as usual, sitting behind the reception desk, and before I could say a word she was reassuring me that she had left a message on Josh’s mobile for him to contact me. He hadn’t picked up when she called him, it seemed. That concerned me a bit – I hated that I hadn’t yet been able to tell him I needed to change our date – but Belinda Jones was at the door of her little partitioned-off domain beckoning to me, and there was no time to worry about that now.
The chief reporter was a slightly built woman in her mid-forties, I judged, smartly but not ostentatiously dressed in the perennial uniform of a journalist – well-cut slacks and a sweater. A matching jacket was draped across the back of her chair. Her hair, dark with a few silver streaks, was cut into a sharp bob, and her eyes, also dark, flicked over me, summing me up.
‘So you’re Sally,’ she said.
‘Yes. And as you so rightly guessed, I’m not actually a mature student writing a thesis,’ I felt obliged to admit.
‘We all do what we have to do sometimes.’ She smiled, a little tightly, but the connection had been made. Belinda and I understood one another.
‘So, you are interested in the fire, and in Dawn Burridge,’ she said briskly, gesturing for me to take a seat on one of the two chairs. ‘How much do you actually know about it?’
‘Really, just the basic facts. Nobody seems to want to talk about what happened.’
She nodded, eyes narrowing in what might have been agreement.
‘And what about Dawn herself?’
‘Again – nothing beyond that she was very attractive, and possibly not very well liked. I haven’t been able to find out anything about any relationships she might have had, and that’s something I’m especially interested in.’
‘OK, let’s start with Dawn then . . . Oh, would you like a tea, or coffee? Sorry, I should have asked before.’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks. Unless you’re having one.’
‘I drink far too much coffee. Let’s just crack on. I have to go out for an appointment at four . . .’ She rescued a stray paper-clip that I hadn’t even noticed lying beside the stack of wire trays, and dropped it into a desk tidy. ‘As you so rightly say, Dawn Burridge was a very attractive young lady. As for not being liked, I really couldn’t say. I always found her perfectly pleasant, but then, perhaps I only saw her best side. She wouldn’t have wanted to alienate me for fear I’d write something less than flattering about her. But in my experience, when you look as good as Dawn did, it’s bound to invite jealousy of the ‘who does she think she is’ kind. She was talented, too, she had a great stage presence and a nice singing voice. I think she put a few noses out of joint at the dramatic society when she arrived on the scene, especially Amanda Fricker’s. Amanda had been principal girl in their panto since she was about fourteen or fifteen, and thought she had a divine right to the part. Then along comes Dawn and snatches it from under her nose.’
Amanda Fricker. I didn’t remember anyone of that name from the meeting, but then again, I had been pretty overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar faces. I made a mental note to look out for her next time.
‘So how long ago was that?’ I asked.
‘Maybe . . . the year before the fire? I’d have to check. But Dawn wasn’t here that long.’
‘Do you know why she chose to come here?’ I asked. ‘It’s not the sort of place I’d expect to attract a girl who’s looking to move away from home. Surely she could have got something in her line of work somewhere with a lot more life than Stoke Compton.’