The Suspect

by Fiona Barton

  “Mama, she knows,” she heard Rosie say as she marched off.

  FORTY-FOUR

  The Detective

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

  Mags Harding rang that morning.

  “I need to talk to someone about Alex O’Connor and Rosie Shaw,” she told the switchboard operator, her voice shaking. “I’ve just seen the news on the television.”

  “All right, let’s slow down a bit. How do you know Alex and Rosie?” the operator asked gently. “Let’s start there.”

  Minutes later the teenager’s call was put through to DS Salmond, who listened carefully, then pitched up at Sparkes’s office door.

  “We’ve had a call in about the girls, sir,” she said.

  “That was quick. What are they saying? Anything about Jake Waters?”

  “Yes, in a way, sir. It’s about what was going on before the girls died. What was really going on. The caller says that Alex was her best friend and wrote her e-mails about how things had gone wrong pretty much from the beginning. There were all sorts of problems and fights.”

  “Really? What about?”

  “Sex and drugs and rock and roll, it seems. According to the e-mails, Rosie and Alex were arguing over Jake Waters.”

  “Were they? So they definitely knew him. He was there.”

  “Oh yes. And there’s much more. Rosie had got herself into trouble with a con man. And in her last e-mail Alex said she had caught her stealing her money. Oh, and that Rosie had blackmailed her father into giving her the money to go to Thailand.”

  “Bloody hell! But why didn’t our tech genius DC Collins see these e-mails on his trawl?”

  “She used a different e-mail account. One we didn’t know about. She used it for private stuff, according to her best friend.”

  “So, who is the best friend? I thought that was Rosie.”

  “Apparently not. Call in was from Margaret Harding—known as Mags. She was the girl who was due to go to Thailand with Alex and dropped out.”

  “Oh yes, Rosie was a late substitute.”

  “Alex was e-mailing her friend Mags the whole time, apparently. The last message was on August the twelfth—more than forty-eight hours after the parents got their final one. These e-mails paint a very different picture from the one we’ve seen on social media. The ‘bezzies on tour’ was a bit of fiction, it appears. Alex told Mags that she hated Rosie.”

  “Why didn’t she get in touch sooner, when the girls were first reported missing?”

  “She’d been sworn to secrecy by Alex and she didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. The e-mails Mags Harding has forwarded to me are pretty explicit—not parent reading material. And, like everyone else, she thought the girls would turn up. And then when they did, she thought their deaths were an accident and no one needed to know about the e-mails. But they might now. Now it’s a murder inquiry.”

  “Right. Let’s have a look, then—and get Collins onto it.”

  The e-mails—sometimes three a day—cataloged the growing tension between the two girls in Bangkok, the fights, the silences, the anger, and the theft.

  Sparkes started reading them out at random. “‘Rosie is completely out of it tonight. Can’t get any sense out of her.’”

  “‘Rosie is legless and sleeping her way through the boys in the guesthouse. This isn’t why I came to Thailand. She’s ruining everything.’”

  “‘Another row with Rosie. Had enough.’”

  “‘Rosie is hitting on Jake. UNBELIEVABLE!’”

  “Why didn’t we know any of this before?” he said. “We were told they were having a great time.”

  Salmond got up Alex’s Facebook page. “Because that’s what Alex wanted us to think. Look, for example, on August the second. When she told Mags that Rosie was sleeping her way through the blokes, she posted a photo here on Facebook of the two of them clinking glasses. ‘Living the dream with my roomie,’ it says here.”

  “Why would she pretend to be having a good time?”

  Salmond looked at him. “Because that’s what she wants her ‘friends’ to think. This is her public profile. It has nothing to do with what’s really going on in her life.”

  “Public profile?” Sparkes said. “She was a schoolgirl from Winchester, not on I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here.”

  “Ah, but we are all stars of our own reality shows now, sir. Didn’t you know?”

  “Shut up, Zara. What a load of bollocks. Whereas, these”—he waved at the screen—“raise some bloody serious questions about what was really going on on this trip.”

  The drugs, the casual sex, the stealing. The high-risk behavior. Was this why they died?

  “We need a statement from Mags Harding asap and full access to her e-mails from Alex.”

  “She’s on her way in and bringing her phone so we can check it.”

  “Right. Call me when she gets here—I want to be there for the interview. I suppose I ought to call Bangkok with this, for appearance’s sake . . .”

  “I’ll talk to the Thais,” Salmond said. “The big question is, do we share this with the families?”

  Sparkes scrolled back through the e-mails, giving himself time to think. “I think we have to. If we are passing them on to the Thai police, they may leak. I don’t know how secure they’ll be and it will be a hundred times worse if they see them in the press first.”

  “Do you want me to do it?”

  “No, I will. Tell the Family Liaison Officer I need to see them at midday, after we’ve interviewed Mags Harding. I’ll go to them. I’m going to tell Mike Shaw first as he’s the star turn in these. He might clam up in front of the others. Then his ex-wife and the O’Connors. Don’t imagine that’s going to be pretty.”

  He tried to imagine Jenny Shaw’s reaction when he told her. Disbelief, probably. No one wants to hear that their child has a dark side. Especially when she’s dead.

  And the last line Alex had written to Mags was ricocheting round his skull. It said simply:

  “I hate Rosie. I could kill her.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  The Reporter

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

  I’ve watched the press conference three times already, the highlights playing on a loop and on the ticker tape running underneath the perky Sky News presenter. Each time they use the photo of Jake I gave them, I close my eyes as if it is too bright to look at directly. I know it’s coming—it’s in exactly the same slot in the report—but it shakes me each time. Closes me down.

  I’d decided to go into work this morning, but Steve was horrified at the idea.

  “Why would you?” he’d said.

  “Why wouldn’t I? You are,” I’d snarled.

  “That’s different, isn’t it?”

  He’d wanted to say his was a proper job that mattered. That people’s lives depended on him. But he held himself back. Probably telling himself that now wasn’t the time.

  But I didn’t let him get away with it. Why should I?

  “What? What were you going to say? That my job isn’t as important as yours?”

  “Stop it, Katie. I wasn’t going to say anything about your job. Look, neither of us has slept. We are both horribly stressed and you’ve been told to stay at home. I’m going to be late for my first patient. I’ve got to go. Go back to bed.”

  I’d let him kiss me good-bye and continued our row in my head while the kettle boiled. I won. I think I did. I wasn’t going back to bed. I’d get on with something—keep busy.

  But here I am instead, sitting and watching the rolling news and closing my eyes every fifteen minutes.

  It is Joe who breaks the gogglebox spell. I’ve put my phone on silent and left it on the hall table to avoid talking to reporters. I hear it buzzing on the polished wood and turn up the telly. But Joe comes to my door and knocks. Rap-rap
-rappity-rap. I’ve taught him well. I pull aside the net curtains and see him, in shirt and tie, looking at my flowers.

  “I know, they need watering,” I say when I open the door. “Come in quick. Is anyone else out there?”

  “No, I did a recce before I knocked. Golden rule number hundred and twenty, isn’t it?”

  “Shut up. Coffee?”

  “Go on, then. It’ll be my third this morning. I’ll be flying when I leave here.”

  “Why are you here, anyway? Why aren’t you with the parents? Does Terry know?”

  “Not exactly. I’ve filed the presser and they’ve sent Gail from features down to do the big interview.”

  Should have been me, I think, like the abandoned girlfriend at the back of the church. But Gail will do a lovely job.

  “I told Terry I’m meeting a contact. Well, I am, really. You’re my best contact.”

  “That, Joe, is tragic. Contacts are people who can tell you things—people who know stuff. Like coppers and politicians.”

  “Like you,” he says. And he’s right. I know the stuff he wants.

  “So, big brownie points from Terry for the scoop last night, I imagine.” I veer away from me.

  He grins. A look of pure happiness. “He said, ‘Fuck!’ Terry’s never said that before about any of my stories.”

  “I’m happy for you. Now sit down and I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We’ve made a list. I like a list. A tiny piece of order in a chaotic world. We’re going to find the other witnesses, but we need more info to stand any chance of tracking anyone down.

  “What have we got?” Joe says.

  “I’ve rung Ross in Bangkok. Jake’s friend. He says there were a couple of Dutch boys at the guesthouse. He thinks one might be called Lars.”

  “Well, we’re halfway there, then . . .”

  “Sarcasm is banned from this desk,” I say, banging the kitchen table. “Okay, where is the information we need?”

  “Internet. Traveler forums. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter,” Joe says, his fingers twitching to get started.

  “Yes, yes, but what about the actual people who know?”

  “Well, Jake, obviously.”

  I shoot him a look. We’ve already had the “He had nothing to do with the death of those two girls” conversation.

  “And Rosie and Alex,” I say.

  Joe looks confused.

  “They were writing home, weren’t they? Well, Alex was. Rosie seems to have left it to her to pass on their news. Alex can’t have been texting and e-mailing just the parents. She was all over social media, so there might be other e-mails. We need to see them. She’ll have dropped in all sorts of little bits and pieces of gossip about the others in that godforsaken hostel.”

  Joe lifts his head and looks at me. He raises his eyebrows and I nod.

  “Yes, there may be stuff about Jake, too. But it could be information that could help him.”

  “I’ll call DS Salmond. I’m ringing her every day, anyway. She’s too busy to talk usually, but she might help.”

  “You need to work at it, Joe, to get her onside. Chat to her about the case, about the hours she’s working, about police pay. About other stuff. You need to build a connection. Show her you’re a reporter she can trust.”

  “Sounds a bit touchy-feely to me.”

  “Being a reporter is touchy-feely, you idiot. We’re not here to observe the news happening through a telescope—or Google. You’ve got to plunge yourself into this job so you can feel things, see things up close, understand them. You’ve got to get your hands dirty. Right up to the elbows.”

  “All right. I’ve got it. Do I need to write it down?”

  I go to swipe him with my notebook and laugh. I could hug him for making me laugh today.

  “Right. Lecture over. So don’t barge in today with a request to see the e-mails. She’ll say no and put everyone on their guard. Who else has got the e-mails?”

  “Mum and Dad?”

  “I saw the ones they got when I did the first interview. They were pretty tame stuff about temples and tuk-tuks. We need to find the friends the girls confided in.”

  “I’m all over it,” Joe says, bending over his screen, not speaking, scribbling notes before he burrows his way into the ether.

  FORTY-SIX

  The Mother

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

  She’d watched the press conference too many times. So many times that she caught herself mouthing the words of DI Sparkes along with him while she waited for the photo of Alex and Rosie to pop onto the screen just after the headline.

  And the photo of Jake Waters. She’d taped the whole segment and frozen the frame with his face staring out of the screen. Not the horrible photo on the beach, where he looked like the devil, but a new one where he looked like someone’s son. He had glasses on and had wavy hair and a lopsided smile.

  “Did you do this?” she asked the face. “Could you have done it?” She tried to imagine her own son hurting someone, but the image wouldn’t come. Not her boy, then. But could someone else’s? Could Kate’s?

  She looked up, startled, when Malcolm appeared at the door.

  “Stop torturing yourself.” He sighed.

  “I keep looking for some sign in his face, Mal. What do people who strangle girls look like? Do they look like that? Normal?”

  “I don’t know, love. The police know about this sort of stuff, not me. I can’t bear to keep going over and over what happened. I feel so terrible that I couldn’t stop it.” He sat down and cried silently, his shoulders heaving with the effort. Lesley looked at him and then back at the screen. She hit the rewind button and play, focusing on Bob Sparkes’s face.

  She’d boiled two eggs for breakfast and then lost heart, leaving them to harden and turn gray in the cooling water. Malcolm had still been sitting, white-faced, in the front room. She’d draped a throw from Alex’s bed round his shoulders without saying a word, leaving him to his grief. She couldn’t take his on as well. Not today.

  * * *

  • • •

  Wendy Turner rang at ten. “Wendy? Is there any news? Has someone phoned in? Have they found Jake Waters?”

  “Hello, Lesley. I see you were bothered by a reporter last night. You could have called me—that’s what I’m here for.”

  “It was very late. I didn’t want to bother you, and Joe Jackson already had the information anyway. We couldn’t stop him writing it, could we?”

  “No, I suppose not. Anyway, I’m calling to arrange a meeting with DI Sparkes. He wants to see you all to talk through some things. Can he come at midday?”

  “Yes, of course. He can come earlier if he wants. What is this about?”

  “No, midday is what he said. Let’s wait until he gets there, okay?”

  It wasn’t, but nothing was within her control anymore. She’d have to bear the wait.

  “How are you doing, Lesley?” Wendy asked her.

  “Terrible. Malcolm has shut down completely and I’m just going through the motions.”

  “It might be worth talking to the doctor about getting something to help you cope.”

  “We don’t need pills. We just need to find out who killed Alex.”

  “I know. But pills might help you get through this period of uncertainty.”

  Period of uncertainty. A new euphemism to add to the lexicon, Lesley thought. This difficult time, your sadness, your grieving. No one has said, “While we find your daughter’s murderer,” yet. I wonder how long it will be before they do.

  “Thanks, Wendy. I’ll talk to Mal about it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  She sat holding the phone in her hand, staring into space. This stasis was killing her. She dialed Kate Wat
ers.

  “Where is he?” she screeched. “Where is your murderer son?”

  “Who is this?” Kate whispered, shock muting her voice.

  “Lesley. It’s Lesley. Did you know what he’d done? When you were pretending to be so concerned about us?”

  “Of course I didn’t. What is the matter with you? You are talking about my child. My son hasn’t murdered anyone. The press and the police have got it completely wrong.”

  “That isn’t what they’re telling us.”

  “What are they telling you? Look, I understand how distraught you are. But my son had nothing to do with your daughter’s death. Please believe me.”

  “You can’t possibly be sure. You weren’t there. And he was a druggie when he was at school—before he got chucked out. You said you didn’t know about that either. So really, you don’t much about him, do you?”

  Kate put the phone down. Lesley tried to feel a moment of triumph, but she felt as dead as the line.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The Detective

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

  Sparkes cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry you were bothered by the media last night,” he said, his nervous energy making his coffee cup ring like a bell as he stirred it.

  “Bloody reporters,” Jenny snapped. “Who told Joe Jackson about the postmortem results? We certainly didn’t.”

  The others shook their heads firmly. They were crammed into Jenny’s tiny kitchen this time: him, Wendy Turner, and the O’Connors. He looked at their tense faces and was quietly glad Mike Shaw wasn’t there.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sparkes had gone to see him first, at the carpet showroom. Shaw had looked sweaty and ill sitting in his office-cum-stockroom. He’d moved some flooring samples from a chair for the detective and they’d sat, knees almost touching.

  “How are you bearing up?” Sparkes had said. They were so close, he could smell the saccharine notes of chewing gum on Shaw’s breath and the stale cigarette smoke beneath. He’d sat back an inch, trying to find some personal space.