‘You’ve met DS Maitland,’ DC Cooper said, taking a seat, and belatedly I realised it was the officer who had turned up at the shop. ‘He’s heading the investigation.’
A look passed between Sean and the detective sergeant, one of familiarity and mutual loathing. There seemed to be a warning delivered by both, that neither was to be pushed or tested. Sean’s reputation went before him, but I couldn’t have cared less what the police thought of him: if he could get me out of that place, I’d have done anything he told me to.
The DS pressed a button on the recording machine, taking a glance at the clock as he did so. ‘Interview commencing at thirteen thirty-five. Present are DS Maitland, DC Cooper and solicitor Sean Barrett.’ He stopped and looked at me, holding my gaze for longer than was comfortable. ‘Please could you confirm your name for the recording.’
‘Jenna Morgan.’
‘Mrs Morgan,’ DS Maitland said, ‘you’ve already been interviewed regarding an assault against Charlotte Copeland. As you’re aware, this morning a bloodied knife was found in the kitchen of the coffee shop you own.’ He produced an image of the offending item, though it was something I needed no reminding of. ‘Have you seen this knife before?’
I looked at it, bloodstained and incriminating. The thought that it had been in the kitchen while I’d been in the next room, oblivious, made my skin turn cold. I shook my head.
‘For the recording, please.’
‘No, I’ve never seen this knife before.’
‘Looks like a regular kitchen knife,’ DS Maitland said with a shrug. ‘How can you be sure it isn’t one of yours?’
I looked him in the eye. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’
‘Any idea how it might have ended up in your shop?’
‘No.’
‘How many people have been into the shop since Friday evening, Mrs Morgan?’
I shot him a look that was apparently unappreciated, his top lip curling as though he had caught the stench of something rotten in the air between us. Though I had only met this man hours earlier, I couldn’t help but hate him. He wasn’t going to listen to me; none of them were going to listen to me.
‘I have no idea,’ I told him. ‘Three staff members, but I couldn’t tell you how many customers. I booked this weekend off ages ago.’
‘Why was that?’
I knew what the look he was giving me meant. It said that my absence was convenient, as though all this had been planned somehow. And yet none of it made sense to me, so surely he must have seen the flaws in his logic. Why would I have hidden a weapon in my own place of work? Unless I’d wanted to incriminate someone I worked with, someone I knew, the idea of it was illogical.
I found myself missing the presence of DC Henderson. Though she was as stern as her male colleague, I had depended on her gender as a possible source of compassion and understanding of my circumstances, no matter how naive the hope might have been. Perhaps she too was a mother; perhaps she was able to comprehend how frightening all this was for me.
‘My daughter had a job interview to attend. I promised her I would take her.’
The detective eyed me coolly. ‘And how did that go?’
I looked to Sean, desperate for his input.
‘There is no evidence yet,’ he said, ‘that either Mrs Morgan’s fingerprints or the victim’s DNA have been identified on that knife. As such, am I right in thinking that the accusation made against my client is based on nothing more than assumption?’
‘I’m sure you’ll agree, Mr Barrett, that it all looks pretty damning so far. Mrs Morgan has been identified by the victim as her attacker. A bloodstained knife has been found on her work premises. It’s enough to bring forward a charge – you know that.’
His words seemed to echo around the tiny room. If I was charged, I knew there was a likelihood I would be refused bail. The thought of being stuck in this place – or worse, inside a prison – for an indefinite amount of time was enough to bring a string of bile to the back of my throat, and I spluttered awkwardly, choking on my fear.
‘Would you like a drink of water, Mrs Morgan?’ DC Cooper offered.
I nodded. ‘Please.’
We sat in silence until the officer returned, and I gulped down the water.
‘Are you ready to continue?’ asked DS Maitland.
I nodded.
‘For the tape, please.’
‘Sorry, yes. I’m ready to continue.’
‘You say you’ve never seen this knife before,’ DS Maitland said, gesturing again to the photograph, which stared at me accusingly. ‘And yet, as we know, it was found in the kitchen of the coffee shop you own and run. Do you have any idea how it might have come to be there?’
‘Of course not,’ I told him, trying to keep my voice calm. I had already answered the question once, and had no idea what he hoped to achieve by asking it for a second time.
‘You’re suggesting then that someone else put it there, is that right?’
I glanced at Sean. ‘Yes. I mean, I’ve never seen it, so that’s what must have happened.’
‘Someone with access to a key then?’ DC Cooper suggested. ‘Since there was no evidence of a break-in.’
I said nothing. I could see where they were going with this, and I didn’t like the direction the conversation was heading in.
‘You have three members of staff at the coffee shop, is that correct, Mrs Morgan?’ DS Maitland said, looking down at his notes. ‘Ffion Weston, who you employ full-time, and two part-time workers, Ellie Jones and Kirsten Howells.’
I nodded, and then, remembering that I would be reminded of the recording, said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Do all three women have a key to the property?’
I shook my head. ‘Only Ffion. On the occasions when neither Ffion nor I can be there for whatever reason, I loan one of the girls my spare key.’
‘So they’ve both had opportunities to get copies cut?’ DC Cooper said.
I shook my head again. ‘They wouldn’t. If you’re suggesting that one of them put the knife there, that’s just madness. I’ve known them for years, I trust them. None of this makes sense – why would any of them want to frame me for a crime like this? And it could just have easily been someone without a key, couldn’t it? Customers come and go; one of them could have got into the kitchen somehow, when there wasn’t anyone there to see—’
Sean coughed, interrupting me from what was about to become an unhelpful display of panic. I reminded myself what he had told me, about sticking to the facts and not becoming overly emotional, but it was difficult to remain calm when it seemed everything and everyone was against me.
DS Maitland cast him a cold glare. ‘We’ve seen the layout of the shop. It seems unlikely a customer would be able to enter the kitchen without a member of staff noticing. The only other keys then would be the ones you keep at home, is that right? The ones you use day to day, and the spare set that you mentioned.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘In which case, what you’re suggesting is that the only other people who had an opportunity to hide that knife in the coffee shop are those who live in your home, correct? Your family?’
I looked at Sean again, unsettled by where this was heading. I wasn’t going to incriminate one of my own family, and the suggestion that any of them might have been involved was ludicrous.
‘My client has already made it clear, twice now, that she isn’t aware of how that knife came to be in the coffee shop. Isn’t it your job to find out how it ended up there, Detective Sergeant?’
DS Maitland held Sean’s eye, and I felt the temperature in the room cool by several degrees. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Barrett. We intend to do just that.’ He shifted his attention back to me. ‘You have CCTV at the shop, don’t you, Mrs Morgan?’
I nodded. ‘At the front and round the back.’
He nodded. ‘We’ve taken the tapes, and officers are checking through them.’
I nodded as he held my gaze. H
e was waiting for me to say something, as though knowing that I might be caught on camera would force me into an early confession. If the footage did show anything, then good – it would prove who was responsible for planting that knife in my shop. But then another thought struck me. The cameras would only show who had gone in and out of the place; nothing of what had happened inside the building would have been captured.
‘They won’t prove anything. They only show who comes in and who goes out.’ The detective eyed me silently, as though still waiting for me to incriminate myself.
‘Why did you come to the shop today?’ I asked, another thought occurring to me for the first time. ‘You must have had a tip-off.’
DS Maitland studied me in silence. His lack of response told me what I needed to know. Someone had told them to go there, someone who had known what they would find. I just needed to find out who it was and why they were doing this to me.
‘Whoever it was, it was probably the same person who put the knife there. What do you think I was doing on Friday night – hiding a knife up my dress while I was giving my statement to that officer? Or perhaps I hid it before you lot turned up?’
I felt Sean’s eyes on the side of my face and stopped talking. As difficult as it was, I was going to have to let him do his job, and hope that it would be enough to get me out of the mess I had found myself in.
DC Cooper brought the interview to an end, and within moments Sean and I were left alone in the room.
‘I need to see that footage,’ I said. ‘Can we get it back somehow?’
Sean nodded. ‘Do you have other copies?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. Ffion was much better with technology than I was, and I had been grateful when she’d offered to take responsibility for the CCTV. I would need to ask her about it.
‘It’s not going to prove anything anyway,’ I told him. ‘I told you, the cameras only pick up who goes in and out. Whoever took that knife in there, it won’t show them leaving it, not unless they wandered in waving it around in full view of the street.’
Despite my words, I wanted to see the recordings for myself. Someone was trying to frame me, and if I could see who had been inside the coffee shop then perhaps I might start to understand why all this was happening to me. Perhaps I might see someone I recognised, someone who wouldn’t usually have been there.
‘I know it isn’t easy, but you need to calm down. Outbursts like the one you had back there aren’t going to help – they’ll use it to make you look unbalanced, as though you’re unstable in some way. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?’
It was easy for him to sit there, calm and self-assured, when it wasn’t his life about to be blown to pieces. I was convinced by this point that I was going to be charged with attempted murder – at the least, wounding with intent – and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it happening. The truth, though he didn’t want to admit it, was that there was nothing he could do to stop it happening either.
‘Have the police spoken to Charlotte Copeland again?’ I asked, clinging desperately to the hope that the woman would come to her senses and realise the error she had made in her claim against me. I had reasoned with myself that if she was able to recall the night’s events with clearer accuracy, perhaps she might be able to identify her true attacker. If she could do that, maybe I stood a chance of finding out why this currently unknown person was trying to frame me.
‘Of course. But they’re not going to share the details. All we know is that she hasn’t retracted her accusation.’
I couldn’t understand it. Surely her memory wasn’t so impaired that she still thought I had attacked her? If not, it meant she was lying on purpose… but why?
‘I’m not going to get bail, am I? Not if they accuse me of attempted murder.’
‘It’s obviously trickier,’ Sean said, ‘but it’s not impossible. If the magistrates’ court rejects it, which is likely, I’ll make an application to the crown court. The quicker I get it done, the better chance we stand. You’ve got no previous record, so that goes some way towards helping. There’s a possibility they’ll impose some restrictions – you might have to agree to sign in at the station every couple of days or so. But look… the results of the forensic testing on that knife need to come back first. You haven’t been charged yet.’
The word ‘yet’ bounced around us, echoing from the walls. He may as well have told me that a charge against me was an inevitability, regardless of the results of the forensic testing.
I didn’t care about having to sign in at the station; I didn’t care that my name would be dragged through the local press until all thoughts of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ had been abandoned by a community who would come to hate me. All I cared about was getting out of that place so I could prove that I’d done nothing wrong. I needed to find out more about Charlotte and track down the person who had attacked her. Someone was trying to set me up, but I had no idea who or why. No one had broken into the coffee shop, so the knife had been planted there by someone who had access to a key. In many ways, this was the worst thought of all: that whoever was trying to frame me for attempted murder was someone I knew. Someone I trusted.
Thirteen
My life in Llangovney had been shaped by the monotony of routine: work, childcare, housework. The noise of the washing machine contributed to the soundtrack of my days, and by the time I remembered that the note with the phone number had been in the pocket of my trousers, it had been going for over half an hour. I switched it off mid cycle and pulled them, soaking, from the tangle of clothes, desperately rummaging for the right pocket. The paper was there, soggy and still folded, but when I opened it out, the words and digits were gone, leaving nothing but smudges of blurred ink.
I sat back on my heels in front of the washing machine and tried not to let disappointment flood me. For the first time in a long time, I had allowed myself to consider the possibility of another person in my life, someone I might be able to talk to beyond the limitations of Peppa Pig and the fairy tales that I read on repeat to Lily before she fell asleep at night. With little else to do, I put what remained of the note in with the rubbish, feeling my heart ache a little as I closed the bin lid. I washed the dishes that had been left from earlier that afternoon, set out clothes for Lily and myself for the following day and then curled up on the bed beside her, holding her warm little body against mine as though we were the only people left in the world.
Over the next few weeks, our lives repeated their pattern, and I decided to feel grateful for their predictability. It was sometimes a tedious, lonely existence, but when I looked at Lily, I was reminded that I had everything I needed. When I considered where my life had gone wrong – when I lingered for too long on the mistakes I had made – I realised that it was wanting something that had always been my downfall, and yet, try as I might, I couldn’t help myself from craving more than I had, some little slice of the happiness that had shone so briefly in front of me before its light had been diminished.
And then the light found me again. I was crouched behind the bar at the pub, stocking the fridge with bottles of lager, when I heard his voice. It had been over a month since the Ironman event, and I had done what I needed to put the brief memory of him to the back of my mind, leaving it there with all the other impossible might-have-beens I had managed to collect during my short life.
‘You probably see enough drink in this place. Maybe I should have suggested the cinema instead?’
I turned, looked up, and instantly felt my face flush. I can’t remember what I said, only that it probably sounded stupid, but whatever it was, he smiled.
‘Don’t tell me… the dog ate it.’
‘I don’t have a dog.’ I remember saying that much, at least. Then I told him about Lily’s sickness bug, the vomit-splattered clothes, the note that went into the washing machine, and all the while I was thinking: there, he knows I have a child now, he won’t be interested after this.
He
sat at the end of the bar and chatted to me when the pub became quieter, and when my shift ended and it was time for me to collect Lily, he wrote his number on the back of my hand.
‘Don’t wash,’ he told me. ‘Not until you’ve written it somewhere you won’t lose it.’
Lily was asleep when I picked her up, and I carried her down the road in her pyjamas, a blanket wrapped around her to keep off the nip of the night air. I tucked her up in bed, then stored Damien’s number in my phone before writing it in a notebook that I kept in the top drawer of my bedside table. Then I texted him, thanking him for coming to see me and saying I hoped we would see each other again soon. By the time I had showered and dressed for bed, I had a text back.
Next weekend? X
He was true to his word, and the following Saturday we met at a café in the nearest town. I hadn’t wanted him to come to the flat – it seemed too soon, and I had to remind myself that I barely knew him – but there was no chance of my going to see him without Lily. I didn’t want to introduce her to someone who might leave her life as soon as he’d arrived, yet it also seemed to make sense that he meet her sooner rather than later. Were he to decide that a woman with a child was someone he wasn’t interested in, I wanted to find out before he had a chance to break either of our hearts. And yet something in me already knew that Damien wasn’t that type of man, and I allowed myself to believe that for once, things might be different.
Over those next couple of months, we met up once a week. We took Lily to the park, to the library, to the beach; we ate ice creams together though it was November and the temperature was near freezing, and on his sixth visit I invited him to the flat, watching at the kitchen window while I waited for the kettle to boil as he played outside with Lily, jumping in the dry leaves that had fallen from the tree at the end of the garden. I knew so much more about him by then – that he was a firefighter, that he had a close relationship with his mother, that his father had died when he was a teenager – but the more I found out, the closer I felt myself growing to him, and my feelings sometimes scared me with the knowledge that wanting to be with this man would change everything my life had become.
The Accusation: An addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Page 8
