Rain lashes the arched window of the headmaster’s study, a rhythmic drumming that fills the silence between them. Cathy stands on the heavy Persian rug, her mackintosh still damp, watching the silver-haired man behind the teak desk. He doesn't look up immediately. He is busy with the Friday payroll, his gold signet ring catching the amber glow of the desk lamp as he slides a slip of paper toward her.
She takes the slip, her eyes falling to the bottom line. The signature is precise, elegant, and utterly familiar. Donald Cleary. The name hits her like a physical blow, a ghost rising from a cold file she carried for three years and never closed. She remembers that hand writing the same name on a witness statement in 1998, just days after his wife, Marian, walked out of their house and vanished into the Glasgow fog.
Cleary leans back, his watchful blue eyes narrowing behind tinted reading glasses. He does not seem to recognize the retired detective in the pastoral-care lead standing before him. Without a word, he opens the heavy top drawer of his desk. He moves past the modern stationery toward a faded blue folder that Cathy recognizes from twenty-eight years ago. Cleary reaches for the faded blue folder, his fingers brushing the frayed edge.
