* * *
I stop for takeaway on the drive home because I have nothing in the fridge except leftovers that are covered in a greenish fur. I’ll need to cook proper meals when Evie arrives. The extra responsibility will be good for me. I’ll make shopping lists and eat better food. Healthy shit. I’ll drink less and won’t put my feet on the furniture or cut my toenails at the kitchen table. I’ll have to share the TV remote and listen to her music. What if Evie wants my favorite chair?
Maybe I haven’t thought this through. Then again, I’m too young to be set in my ways. I’ll learn things about myself. We’ll learn things together.
After rinsing my plate, I carry another beer to the library and search my desk drawer for a foolscap writing pad and a fountain pen. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a proper letter, on paper, with an envelope. I don’t know if this will ever reach Sacha Hopewell, but I have to try.
Dear Sacha,
I hope you don’t mind me using first names. I’m Cyrus, by the way. We haven’t met, but I asked your parents to pass this letter on to you. If you’re reading it, then I thank them.
I trust I didn’t frighten them when I visited. It wasn’t intended. Your parents tried to explain to me why you left home and keep moving place to place. I still don’t fully understand what happened, but I saw the depth of their pain and how much they were missing you.
I’m a psychologist working in Nottinghamshire. Several weeks ago, I met a young woman in council care. I can’t tell you her name because it’s the subject of a court order, but you’ll know exactly who I mean when I say that she was found hiding in a secret room in a house in north London six years ago. She is a remarkable young woman, but also a very troubled one. You appear to be one of the few people she has ever learned to trust, which is why I’m reaching out to you. I’m hoping you might talk to me about those early days with Angel Face. Did she mention having a family? Did she hint at memories of her childhood—a place or a favorite toy or siblings?
I know you’ve been asked these questions dozens of times before, but I’m hoping with the clarity of hindsight, you might have remembered something else.
I don’t have a phone number (it’s a long story), but I’m including my address and a pager number. I don’t need to know where you are or what you’re doing or why you’re staying away (unless you want to talk about those things).
Contact me. Please. I guarantee complete discretion.
Yours sincerely,
Cyrus Haven
25
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
“When are you leaving?” asks Davina, nudging my shoulder.
“Friday.”
“You excited?”
I don’t know what I am.
We’re setting up the tables for breakfast in the morning—one of my chores—putting out bowls and spoons and boxes of cereal, refilling sauce bottles and checking the salt and pepper shakers.
The dining room smells of chip fat, boiled cauliflower, and, for some inexplicable reason, carpet shampoo, even though the floor is tiled.
“Why him?” asks Davina.
“Who?”
“Dr. Haven. You ran away from all those other foster families, but this guy pops up and you say yes.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“He understands,” I say, which sounds lame. I don’t know the reason. Maybe I’ve grown up. Maybe I’m sick of this place. Maybe I’ll run the first chance I get.
“We’re going to miss you,” says Davina.
“Liar.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“People are allowed to tell lies, especially when they’re trying to be polite.”
I can see her point, but why change the habit of a lifetime?
I don’t mind doing kitchen duty. Whenever I get anxious, I get these bouts of OCD—although Guthrie calls them CDO, which is “just like OCD except in alphabetical order.” My compulsion is to clean and put things in order. I once broke into the pantry—not to steal food, but to check the use-by dates and arrange all the tins with their labels facing outwards. Nobody caught me. I did it again a few weeks later. I broke in, but the pantry was still so neat that I messed it up. I figured I could fix it the next night, but they caught me on the way out. Sod’s law.
Davina doesn’t mind my obsessions. She has a little boy at home. Oscar. He’s four. She talks about him a lot and has pictures on her phone. His dad looks after him when she’s working. I don’t think they’re rotten poor, but they don’t have much money. I keep telling Davina she should get her teeth straightened, but she says she can’t afford to look like a supermodel. That’s her idea of a joke.
Her partner is called Snowdon and he sometimes does odd jobs around Langford Hall because he’s good with his hands, particularly fixing motors, which is how he makes his living—doing up cars and flogging them. Every time they hire him, he makes sure the job lasts four hours, so he gets a full-day rate.
Terry Boland liked motors. He used to drive a limousine—one of those posh white ones that are stretched out. In the beginning he let me ride up front with him, but later when he had his shitty old Ford Escort I had to hide in the boot when we traveled.
He’d make me curl up in a long zip-up bag, which he slung over his shoulder and carried to the car. I was allowed to undo the zipper when the boot lid was closed. I lay curled up above the spare tire, smelling the diesel fumes and oil and hearing the sound of the road only inches from my face.
Terry sometimes took me out of an evening, but it was always in the bag. We’d drive for miles and stop at one of those motorway service centers with a McDonald’s or a KFC. He’d park in the darkest corner and let me out of the boot.
“Remember our story,” he’d say. “You’re my daughter. We’re driving to Liverpool to see your grandparents. Your name is Sarah. I’m Peter.”
“What’s our last name?”
“Jones.”
“Where do I go to school?”
“It doesn’t matter. Stay close to me. Don’t make eye contact with anyone. Don’t start a conversation.”
I nodded and took deep breaths, enjoying the fresh air. I remember looking up one night, but I couldn’t see the stars. I thought they might have all fallen and other people had made wishes, but Terry told me that you don’t see stars when you live in London because of all the other lights.
He held my hand as we walked into the brightly lit food hall, passing racks of glossy magazines, most of which had Kate Middleton on the cover. She’d married William by then and people were on “baby watch.” Terry let me watch the wedding on TV because there “was nothing else on.” When Kate said, “I do,” I wanted the camera to zoom up close on her face, so I’d know if she was lying or thinking, “What am I doing?”
Normally, I ordered a cheeseburger because I ate meat back then, and I liked the way the fat coated my tongue. I also had french fries and a chocolate shake. One night I threw up on the way home, which made Terry angry because he had to wash the mats and the bag. It wasn’t my fault. It was the fumes.
He didn’t take me out again for a long time. And the next time he gave me drugs to make me sleep. When I’m anxious or nervous, I think of that zip-up bag, because it was somewhere soft and secret and safe.
Davina touches my shoulder. I pull away.
“Penny for your thoughts,” she says, laughing.
“They’ll cost you more than that.”
26
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Slipping the first of the disks into a DVD player, I fast-forward through the early minutes until Craig Farley appears on-screen. He’s sitting at a familiar table in the interview suite at West Bridgford Police Station. Anxious, yet eager to please, he sits up straight, occasionally sipping from a can of soft drink.
Two detectives are seated opposite him—Prime Time and Edgar. Edgar is closer in age to Farl
ey and they soon discover a shared interest in football, discussing favorite players and Premiership results from the weekend. The conversation moves on to pubs and the best ones for “pulling a bird.”
Farley begins to relax because he’s not being asked about Jodie Sheehan. He even banters with the detectives, telling a blonde joke that is older than the Bible. The detectives laugh, letting him feel like he’s not so different from them.
“You must meet a lot of women at the hospital,” says Edgar. “All those nurses.”
“Yeah, nothing beats a woman in uniform, eh?” echoes Prime Time.
Farley grins and nods enthusiastically. “Some of them are OK—the young ones, before they get too old and cranky.”
“Yeah, the young ones,” says Prime Time. “You must get plenty of action.”
“A bit.”
“Only a bit?”
“Some of them are pretty stuck-up, you know. All fur coat and no knickers.”
“What sort do you like, Craig?” asks Edgar, dropping his voice to a whisper, as though they’re sharing a secret.
“I don’t like ’em too fat,” says Farley. “Some meat on the bone is OK, you know. And I don’t like ’em to be too mouthy or loud.”
“How do you meet them?” asks Edgar.
Farley perks up. “I got Clancy trained.”
“What?”
“My dog. I got her trained. She goes up to them in the street and they start patting her and we get chatting and next thing . . .”
“What?”
“You know.”
“Is that how you met Jodie?”
Farley hesitates.
“Come on, Craig, you must have seen her around. Everybody seemed to know Jodie. She was a champion skater.”
Again nothing.
“Where did you see her? Waiting at the tram stop? Walking to school? In the park?”
“I never met her.”
“We found your semen in her hair.”
Farley shakes his head, as though refusing to listen to what’s being said.
“You know about DNA, don’t you, Craig? You might as well have written your name and address on a Post-it Note and stuck it on her forehead.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Maybe it was an accident,” says Prime Time.
“How could it be an accident?” scoffs Edgar.
“Maybe she tripped over. Hit her head. Was it an accident?” asks Prime Time.
“It wasn’t me.”
“Who then?”
“How would I know?”
“Maybe you and your mate decided to double-team Jodie and now you’re in the shit,” says Prime Time.
“No.”
“It’s only a matter of time before we catch your mate, Craig, and I’m betting he’s going to sing like Susan Boyle, saying it was your idea to follow Jodie, to knock her unconscious and take off her clothes.”
Farley doesn’t know what to say. He’s leaning farther away from the table, expanding the space between them, going all silent and choked.
Edgar and Prime Time ease off, letting him recover before starting again.
I move through the rest of the interviews, making myself coffee to stay awake. As the hours pass, I see a different man at the table. At first Farley backtracks, refining his answers, adding extra details or discarding those that haven’t served him well so far. But slowly he is worn down and his attitude changes. I hear the tension in his voice and see how his lips narrow into bloodless lines when he’s caught lying. Eventually he stops striving to please his interrogators. He switches to defiance, remonstrating about the wrongness of his arrest or the unfairness of the questions.
The interview teams change regularly, taking Farley back over his answers, pointing out the discrepancies. They work together but often sit apart, making Farley swing his head from side to side as though he’s watching a tennis match. Questions are fired quickly, giving him less time to react. His body bends under the weight of the accusations, slouching lower in his chair as he grows more and more despondent.
“Come on, Craig. Don’t treat us like idiots,” says Lenny.
“I’m not.”
“Sure you are. Your mate is going to say that you followed Jodie, that you knocked her unconscious, that you pulled down her jeans—”
“That’s all I did.”
“What?”
“I pulled down her jeans.”
The detectives exchange a glance, trying not to reveal their excitement.
Lenny clarifies. “So you’re saying you followed Jodie along the footpath?”
“No.”
“Where did you first see her?”
“By the pond.”
“What was she doing?”
“She was lying on the ground next to the pond. I thought she might be drunk.”
“Where were you?”
“On the footpath.”
“What did you do?”
“I wanted to make sure she was OK, you know.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She was coughing. I must have frightened her because she tried to run.”
“You chased her.”
“No. I mean, I was worried about her.”
“Who brought the condom?”
“What?”
“You used a condom.”
“No. I tried to help her.”
“By raping her?”
“By keeping her warm.”
“Your semen was found in her hair.”
Farley’s face crumples and locks in a long grimace.
“You have to speak, Craig . . . for the tape.”
He mumbles.
“Speak up.”
“I didn’t mean . . .”
“What didn’t you mean?”
“To touch her,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “I wanted to help her . . . I did . . . she was on the ground . . .”
“You pulled down her jeans?”
“I wish I could . . . I didn’t mean to . . .”
His voice breaks and he sobs, rocking in his chair, snot bubbling in his nostrils.
As I watch his capitulation, a shape begins to form in my mind. Not a shape—a weight. No, not a weight—a shadow that emerges from the murkiness of the detail. It’s as though Craig Farley has fallen into step beside me and I am seeing the world as he does, feeling the earth beneath his shoes—a lonely inept young man; the slow kid at school, the last one picked for teams, the butt of jokes, the one too stupid to realize he was being teased. Socially anxious, clumsy, tongue-tied, yet longing to be included.
Some boys like this grow more confident with age, or befriend other outsiders, or muddle through life as an afterthought. A few of them suffer depression, sliding into alcohol or drug abuse, hoping stimulants can conquer their low self-esteem. Occasionally, one will develop a pathological desire for perfectionism, losing weight, pumping iron, and growing to hate their former selves for being weak and pathetic. If the rejections and isolation continue, they may grow angry, blaming others for their failures. It’s not their fault if they don’t have a girlfriend or a good job or a nice car or are still living at home with their parents.
All of this I can see, yet I cannot see a killer. Jodie ran from someone but had no defense wounds. Most likely she was unconscious when Farley removed her jeans, yet she was conscious when she had intercourse. There were no signs of forced penetration.
The sequence of events is the key and I can’t make the facts fit the timeline. Unless. Unless . . . Even as the thought occurs to me, I want to dismiss the idea as being too far-fetched. I know what Lenny Parvel will say. She’ll laugh and refuse to listen. I have to at least try.
I punch out her number. She doesn’t answer. It goes to her messages.
Beep!
“We need to talk.”
27
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Lenny Parvel is walking uphill, going
nowhere. Strands of hair are plastered on her forehead and sweat drips from her nose, landing on the treadmill. Mirrors are everywhere, reflecting her back to me from several different angles, in a room that looks more like a dance studio than a gymnasium.
Dressed in silver boxing trunks and an oversized T-shirt, Lenny isn’t trying to fit in among the gym junkies in their Lycra leggings and brand-name tops. Maybe she doesn’t care about fitting in or what others see when they look at her. I wish I had that confidence. I’ve been stared at too often. Pointed out. Talked about.
“You’re not serious,” says Lenny, looking at me incredulously.
“I know everything points to Farley, but what if Jodie was already dead or dying? What if she was semiconscious when he stumbled across her body?”
Her face has turned to stone. “No, no, no.”
“Hear me out, please. Normally in a case like this, we’d see signs of control and dominance. The perpetrator becomes sexually aroused. He follows a woman, he abducts her, he instills fear. He rapes. He silences. That’s not the right order for this crime.”
Lenny presses the stop button and jumps off the ramp, striding away from me. I hurry to keep up.
“I know it sounds—”
“Far-fetched? Absurd?”
“Unusual.”
“Do you know the chances of a sexual predator happening to stumble across a dead or dying teenager?” she asks. “The chief constable will laugh me out of his office.”
“Tell him about Violet Jessop.”
“Who?”
“In 1911 Violet Jessop was working as a stewardess on RMS Olympic when it collided with a British warship and almost sank in the Solent. She survived. A year later she was working on the Titanic when it sank in the Atlantic. Again, she survived.”
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