The Cameron Dance Academy was above a video shop in Stillorgan. On the street outside, three kids in baggy trousers were flipping skateboards on and off a low wall and yelling. The assistant teacher-an extremely pretty young woman called Louise, in a black leotard and black pointe shoes and a full, calf-length black skirt; Cassie gave me an amused look as we followed her up the stairs-let us in and told us Simone Cameron was just finishing up a class, so we waited on the landing.
Cassie drifted over to a cork notice-board on the wall, and I looked around. There were two dance studios, with little round windows in the doors: in one, Louise was showing a bunch of toddlers how to be butterflies or birds or something; in the other, a dozen little girls in white leotards and pink tights were crossing the floor in pairs, in a series of jumps and twirls, to the "Valse des Fleurs" on an old scratchy record player. As far as I could tell there was, to put it mildly, a wide range of ability. The woman teaching them had white hair pulled back in a tight bun, but her body was as spare and straight as a young athlete's; she was wearing the same black outfit as Louise and holding a pointer, tapping at the girls' ankles and shoulders and calling instructions.
"Look at this," Cassie said quietly.
The poster showed Katy Devlin, though it took me a second to recognize her. She was wearing a gauzy white smock and had one leg raised behind her in an effortless, impossible arc. Below her it said, in a large font, "Send Katy to the Royal Ballet School! Help Her Make Us Proud!" and gave the details of the fund-raiser: St. Alban's Parish Hall, 20 June, 7:00 p.m., An Evening of Dance with the Pupils of the Cameron Dance Academy. Tickets a10/a7. All Proceeds will Go to Pay Katy's Fees. I wondered what would happen to the money now.
Under the poster was a newspaper clipping, with an arty soft-focus shot of Katy at the barre; her eyes, in the mirror, gazed out at the photographer with an ageless, intent gravity. DUBLIN'S TINY DANCER TAKES WING,
The studio door opened and a flood of matching little girls streamed past us, all chattering and shoving and shrieking at once. "Can I help you?" Simone Cameron asked, in the doorway.
She had a beautiful voice, deep as a man's without being in the least mannish, and she was older than I had thought: her face was bony and deeply, intricately lined. I realized that she probably took us for parents coming to ask about dance classes for our daughter, and for a moment I had a wild impulse to play along with it, ask about fees and schedules and go away, leave her her illusion and her star pupil a little longer.
"Ms. Cameron?"
"Simone, please," she said. She had extraordinary eyes, almost golden, huge and heavy-lidded.
"I'm Detective Ryan, and this is Detective Maddox," I said for the thousandth time that day. "Could we speak to you for a few minutes?"
She brought us into the studio and set out three chairs in a corner. A mirror took up the whole of one long wall, three barres running along it at different heights, and I kept catching my own movements out of the corner of my eye. I angled my chair so I couldn't see it.
I told Simone about Katy-it was definitely my turn to do this part. I had expected her to cry, I think, but she didn't: her head went back a little and the lines in her face seemed to get even deeper, but that was all.
"You saw Katy in class on Monday evening, didn't you?" I said. "How did she seem?"
Very few people can hold a silence, but Simone Cameron was unusual: she waited, not moving, one arm thrown over the back of her chair, until she was ready to speak. After a long time she said, "Very much as usual. Slightly overexcited-it was a few minutes before she could settle and concentrate-but this was natural: she was to leave for the Royal Ballet School in a few weeks. She'd been growing more and more excited about it all summer." She turned her head away, very slightly. "She missed her class yesterday evening, but I simply assumed she was ill again. If I had rung her parents…"
"By yesterday evening she was dead," Cassie said gently. "There was nothing you could have done."
"Ill again?" I asked. "Had she been ill recently?"
