Llewellyn sagged against his posh golf stick.
“Oh, you’re here about Amy. I don’t know what more I can tell you.”
“I appreciate that it can be frustrating having to keep going over the same things again, but it’s really very useful for us to develop as clear a picture, as possible.” Phillips made sure that his voice transmitted just the right amount of deference. He had seen Llewellyn’s temper the previous day and had no desire to stoke the embers of it.
“Could you tell me about the last time that you saw Amy alive?”
“Look, I’ve given a number of statements about it.”
“Humour me,” Phillips replied dogmatically.
Llewellyn sighed.
“The last time I saw my daughter was about two months before she went missing. She came over to the house for dinner, we ate, we discussed university and then she left.”
“Two months seems like a long time, given that she lived in the same city,” Phillips commented.
“She led a busy life at university,” Llewellyn’s eyes skirted away and Phillips knew that he was avoiding the truth.
“Sir, it would really help us to know as much as possible about her comings and goings, if we’re going to find out who killed her.”
“I’ve told you all I know,” Llewellyn insisted. “She had been unhappy at university. She came round to the house, moping about it, or about some bloke or another. I told her to buck her ideas up and that I wasn’t throwing money down the drain. She didn’t like it, she stormed off and we never saw her again. I know that Rose always blamed me for that.”
There was more truth in that, Phillips thought, but still not all of it.
“You say there might have been a man in Amy’s life? You didn’t mention that in any of your statements ten years ago.”
“I was upset! We were all upset. It’s perfectly possible that I forgot to mention it.”
Possible, Phillips agreed, but not probable, since Llewellyn had given six statements in total, none of which mentioned the existence of a man in Amy’s life. It had been a major stumbling block in building a case against Keir Edwards, having no supportive statements from family or friends to corroborate a relationship between the two of them. Without a confession, or any forensic evidence, all they had was a photograph. Now, her father seemed to have changed his tune and it made the skin on the back of Phillips’ neck itch.
“Do you know his name?”
“Obviously, after the photograph of Amy was found, I realise that it must have been Edwards that she was worrying about.”
“Did she name him, specifically?”
Llewellyn seemed to struggle with himself.
“N-o … I can’t say that she ever told us his name.” It obviously pained him to tell the truth.
“Did she tell you anything about this man?”
“She said that he was a bit older. I can tell you, that didn’t sit well with us. She didn’t go into any details; we didn’t have that kind of relationship.”
“Did this discussion happen at your last meeting with Amy?”
“She told us about there being somebody earlier than that; maybe around the February before she went missing in June. I seem to remember her mooning about going on some Valentine’s date with Prince Charming. When I saw her in April … that was the last time,” Llewellyn swallowed a knot in his throat and battled through the memory. “She said she was planning to end things. Not before time, we thought. She hadn’t been herself for a while.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police about this, back in 2005?”
“I honestly didn’t remember all of it until sometime after. When the photograph emerged, I didn’t like to think of what she had been doing with that … that man.”
Llewellyn looked as if he wanted to spit out the foul flavour in his mouth and Phillips could understand that. No father wanted to dwell on the facts surrounding his own daughter’s death, particularly where sex was involved.
“Do you know when Amy’s remains will be released?”
“I would think in the next few days,” Phillips replied. “But the departmental liaison will be in touch with you about arrangements.”
“Thank you,” Llewellyn murmured. “It’s time we gave her a proper burial.”
Phillips left him to his golf, and his memories.
When MacKenzie stepped out onto the street again after her discussion with Claire Burns’ landlady, she took out her mobile phone and dialled Ryan’s number. It was bad luck that, at that precise moment, he was in an elevator heading down to the deep storage unit housed in the basement of CID Headquarters. The unit was surrounded by concrete, which was a barrier to mobile phone reception. Stumped, MacKenzie then punched in the number for Phillips, which also carried a vacant dial tone while he stomped the long journey back across the golf course after his discussion with Amy Llewellyn’s father. Naturally, there had been no golf buggies available for a hardworking officer of the law.