A Shred of Evidence

by Jill McGown

  Cochrane looked at him open-mouthed. “Perhaps?” he repeated. “Perhaps?”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  Patrick Murray had only just started at the school—a perfect hunting ground for a sex killer. Would Natalia have felt safe with him? Yes, probably. A teacher. Offered her a lift home, perhaps.

  Cochrane had slumped back down, elbows on the table, head in hands, because of Lloyd’s lack of enthusiasm, but Lloyd couldn’t afford any of that right now. They still had to prove it.

  “If Patrick Murray wasn’t driving my car,” Cochrane said, “then you’re all—every last one of you—all just part of Natalie’s fantasy.”

  Murray would have to be going some to beat Cochrane in the weirdo stakes, thought Lloyd.

  Cochrane looked up at him and gave him a half smile. “But I’m still just about sane enough,” he added, “to think that that isn’t very likely.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the girl at the other end of the line. “Mr. Cochrane isn’t in his room.”

  “It’s his wife,” said Erica, a little desperately.

  “Sorry,” she said. “He isn’t in the hotel at the moment.”

  “You mean he isn’t taking my calls,” said Erica.

  “He just isn’t—”

  Erica put the receiver back on the rest. Surely he wasn’t still with the police? He had gone there of his own accord—they couldn’t keep him all afternoon, surely? She would just have to go to the hotel, find out for herself. But … she sighed. She did have to talk to Patrick.

  She picked up the receiver again.

  Patrick shook his head as he read the paper over the shoulder of the teacher whose evening paper had caused the staff room to come to a standstill. No one was even answering the phone.

  The earwigging barman must have tipped off the reporter last night. And Colin had been getting drunk; this Will Marlow must have thought it was his birthday, with Colin slagging off the police to him. It would be in the nationals tomorrow, Patrick had no doubt.

  And he didn’t fancy Colin’s chances with the head once he saw the paper; he might be a bit vague and like everything to be frightfully friendly and informal, but he wasn’t going to take kindly to this.

  Good. Erica would suffer too, and he, Patrick, would be on hand to comfort her, to be a tower of strength, to be a friend in need. Things were working out just fine.

  Someone finally answered the phone, and called out Patrick’s name. He made his way through the crowded staff room, still buzzing as the evening paper was passed from hand to hand, no one going home in the middle of this juicy bit of scandal. No one could remember seeing Colin this afternoon; they were rather hoping to see what would almost certainly be a show-down between him and the head, but it looked as though they might be cheated of that.

  “Hello, yes?” he said, his finger in his ear.

  “Patrick, it’s Erica. I need to talk to you.”

  He smiled. This was perfect. Perfect. She was rattled by the newspaper report. She needed a friend, and he was it. “I’ll be down directly,” he said.

  He ran down the stairs through the reluctantly departing teachers, knocked on the office door and went in.

  She had been crying. “Close the door,” she said. “Lock it.”

  He nodded, and shut and locked the door. “Erica,” he said as he turned to face her. “It wasn’t really his fault. He was drunk—I think the barman at the hotel set him up.”

  She frowned. “What?” she said.

  “This stuff in the evening paper. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be a storm in a teacup. He was very down—this bloke Marlow just took advantage.”

  “I don’t want to talk about the evening paper,” she said, looking faintly puzzled.

  Patrick frowned. “Haven’t you seen it?” he asked. “Colin’s sounding off about the police questioning him.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it,” she said. “I’m not surprised—are you?”

  He closed his eyes briefly. This was not a moment of his choosing, but from her tone of voice it was the only one he was going to get.

  “It was you,” she said. “In Colin’s car. Wasn’t it?”

  What to do? Claim ignorance? Futile. She knew it was him. The question was clearly rhetorical. “Yes,” he said, and sat down opposite her. The Cochranes had clearly ignored his advice and had started communicating. It had always been a gamble. Where was Colin? Why weren’t they presenting a united front?

  “How could you do that?” she asked.

  “Which?” he asked in return. “I’ve lost count of the terrible things I’ve done this last two days.”

  “How could you let Colin take the blame?”

  “Ah, no,” said Patrick. “No, I didn’t do that—I wouldn’t. When Victoria said the police had taken him in, I thought they must know about the car, and I’d have to tell them it was me driving it, not him.”

  Erica looked more than a little sceptical. “I didn’t see you rushing off to confess,” she said.

  “But they didn’t know about the car,” Patrick said. “You hadn’t even told him what you’d seen, not then.”

  She gave a short sigh. “I still haven’t,” she said.

  Hope. Hope was creeping through his soul again. If the police didn’t know yet, there might still be a chance.

  “They are going to be told,” she warned him, seeing his relief. “I just wanted to talk to you first.”

  Patrick nodded. “It’s more than I deserve,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “But I couldn’t just—tell them. Not without warning you.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She looked at him, her head shaking. “I can’t believe you took Colin’s car to have sex with a fifteen-year-old girl,” she said.

  “No, no—no. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t have sex with her?” she asked sharply. “Because I heard what was going on, Patrick.”

  “No. I did have … I did.”

  “And you used Colin’s car! Because you didn’t want to risk picking up an under-age girl in your own car? It would be better if Colin got the blame for it?”

  “No. It’s not the way you think it was.” Patrick had to try to explain to her. To both of them. Why was Colin letting Erica do this on her own? “Where is Colin?” he asked.

  “For all I know, he’s still with the police!”

  Patrick’s hopes nose-dived. “He’s where?” he said.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Patrick,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcastic concern. “Colin doesn’t know either.”

  Patrick blew out his cheeks. There really was hope, if he just played it right. That was all he had to do, and he could be home free. He leant on the table. “Erica,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could possibly think again about telling the police?”

  Her mouth fell open. “This has been a nightmare for Colin,” she said. “And it’s still going on!”

  Patrick licked his lips. “I know, I know,” he said. “But he knows they’ve got the wrong man. They’re doing a DNA test—you know? Genetic fingerprinting?”

  She nodded. “I know,” she said.

  “By next week they’ll know they’ve got the wrong man too,” said Patrick desperately.

  Erica blinked at him in disbelief. “Another week of this? That’ll seem like a lifetime to Colin! They suspect him, Patrick—don’t you understand what you’ve done?”

  “Yes,” said Patrick desperately. “But hear me out, Erica, please. Everything they’ve done—taking away his clothes, taking a blood sample—don’t you see? That will go to prove he wasn’t there. Because he wasn’t.”

  “So what?” she cried. “The only reason he doesn’t know the truth now is that he keeps avoiding me! Do you seriously think I’m going to let this situation go on? I’m telling the police, Patrick, make no mistake about that. I just haven’t told them yet because you—” She broke off and looked at him, some of the anger going as she saw his stricken face. �
��You’ve been very kind to me,” she said. “And I’m … very fond of you. I felt I had to tell you first.”

  Kind to her. Fond of him. That was good, that was good. “No,” he said. “I’ve caused you nothing but trouble. You didn’t have to do anything for me.”

  “You’ve caused plenty of trouble now,” she said. “But that doesn’t alter the fact that you were around when I needed you, and you didn’t put any pressure on me when … well, when it would have worked.” She shook her head. “But you knew what I must have thought when I saw the car!” she said. “You knew, and you said nothing, Patrick! You let me go on thinking that Colin was there with her!”

  “Yes,” he said, sitting forward. “It was wrong of me. But I was there, Erica. Anything that they’ve found there will point to me. A DNA test would prove that I was with her. They’ll charge me if they find out.”

  “They will find out,” she said.

  “But it doesn’t have to happen,” said Patrick.

  “It does, Patrick.”

  Patrick sat back and ran his hands down his face, parting them to look at Erica. “You know I didn’t kill her,” he said. “Because you saw me leave, and you saw her alive and well.”

  “I know you didn’t kill her,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Please—think about it, Erica. Colin is going to be cleared. You know he had nothing to do with Natalie, and in a few days the police will know he had nothing to do with Natalie, then everyone will know. His life will go on as normal.”

  Erica was shaking her head in disbelief. “Normal?” she said. “I accused him of having sex with a minor,” she said. “The police thought he’d murdered her, for God’s sake! Look at the paper! Look what you did to him! Normal? He’s not even living with me now! Do you think his life is going to be normal once the dailies get hold of this?”

  Patrick shook his head. That was a tough one. “No,” he said. “Right. But … he’s going to be cleared—that’s probably money in the bank to him. He can sell his story.”

  “Don’t you dare be flippant about this!” she said.

  “No. I wasn’t … I just meant that it won’t harm him professionally—not once people know the facts.”

  “What I did can’t be undone,” she said.

  Patrick was losing; he fought desperately to regain ground. “It’s not like you accused him of …” he said, deliberately shying away from the word. “Natalie wasn’t a child, you know.”

  “Oh,” she said, sitting back a little. “I wondered when Natalie would get the blame.”

  Miscalling Natalie wasn’t going to work. He had to retrieve the situation somehow.

  “And whatever she was like, it’s still a crime,” she said. “And I accused him of it.”

  “Yes. Right. But …” Patrick sat forward again, and kept his voice low. “If you tell the police about me, then I lose my job, my wife, and my liberty as likely as not.”

  “You went cruising in Colin’s car, picked up one of your own pupils from a bus stop, and seduced her! You deserve whatever you get!”

  Patrick shook his head. “It wasn’t like that,” he said. It wasn’t. He had to make her understand.

  “I don’t care what it was like!”

  “Just—” Patrick held up a hand. “Just listen, please. I didn’t pick her up from a bus stop. Well—yes, I did, but not the way you mean. I already knew her.” He paused before the make-or-break statement that would seal his fate. “I’d been seeing her since the beginning of June,” he said.

  Erica stared at him. “What?” she said. “She only turned fifteen last month!”

  “I didn’t know how young she was. I didn’t know she was still at school.” The truth. The truth. He, Patrick Murray, was having to rely on the truth to get him out of trouble. “And I didn’t find out until Tuesday morning when I took the register. I swear, Erica, I didn’t know.”

  She had gone silent. He plunged on.

  “On Tuesday evening I saw her by chance, and I only picked her up to tell her that it was impossible for us to go on seeing one another.”

  “Oh, that’s what you were doing, was it?” said Erica. “At the council depot? Explaining to her how impossible it all was?”

  “No,” sighed Patrick. “That was what I meant to do, and I tried to, but …”

  “But? You knew how old she was then!”

  Patrick hung his head. “I know,” he said. “I know it was wrong.”

  “And then you left her there—you just drove off and left her there!”

  He looked up. “Yes, I did,” he said. “And now she’s dead. I have to live with that, Erica. But if you tell the police they’ll charge me, and I’ll go to prison for sure because of what happened afterwards. And that had nothing to do with me. You know it had nothing to do with me.”

  Erica closed her eyes.

  Patrick got up and walked slowly round the desk, crouching down beside her, moving in for the final assault. “Erica,” he said. “What’s happened to Colin has happened. And it didn’t happen because of what I did, however wrong that was, because you’re the only person who saw the car, and you haven’t told anyone. It would have happened anyway, and it won’t change what’s happened if you tell them about me. It’ll just finish me. Is that what you want?”

  “She wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t left her there,” said Erica. her eyes still tight shut. “Why shouldn’t you be finished?”

  Now. Now was his chance, his only chance. “Because I didn’t hurt her, Erica,” he said. “I just made love to her, that’s all. It was wrong, I know. But I’d been seeing her all summer, and it … it just happened. I just made love to her, that’s all. like I’d done a dozen times before.”

  “Love!” she said, her voice full of contempt.

  “Yes,” said Patrick, seizing his chance. “Love. I loved her, Erica.”

  “You were trying to pull me all the time you were seeing her,” she said, opening her eyes but looking out of the window, away from him. “You tried to get me into bed last night! Love? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I was flirting with you before, that’s all,” he said, his voice low. “It’s my nature to flirt. And it was only because I knew you wouldn’t have any of it. I loved her, Erica, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

  She still wouldn’t look at him, but he was getting through to her now that he was lying in his teeth. He was.

  “And last night was different,” he said. “We were both hurting … I just thought we’d be good for one another, that we both needed a bit of comfort, that was all. Not because I didn’t love Natalie.”

  “I don’t think you’re capable of love, Patrick,” she said.

  “I can understand that,” he said. “But I did truly love her. I was … devastated when they told me what had happened. A moment’s panic—and God knows what I left her to face. I don’t know who killed her,” he went on, desperately. “But throwing me into the ring is just going to make it take even longer to find him.”

  He had never worked so hard in his life. Sweat trickled down from his hairline and settled uncomfortably in his collar. “I was a coward,” he said. “And a fool. But don’t tell them,” he pleaded. “Please.”

  “I’ll have to tell Colin,” she said.

  “But he’ll tell the police,” said Patrick. “You know he will.” He caught her chair and swivelled it round so that she was looking at him. “Erica,” he said, suitably on his knees. “Ask yourself what good it would do to destroy me. It won’t bring Natalie back. It won’t change anything that’s happened. Colin’s going to be in the clear any day now. And it’s not all my fault, Erica—not all of it.”

  She looked down at him. “Oh, Patrick,” she said.

  “I made a stupid mistake,” he said. “One stupid mistake. I’ve already paid for it by losing Natalie—don’t make me pay for it again with everything I’ve got left.”

  She closed her eyes again and sighed. There was an eternity before she spoke.

  �
�I won’t tell anyone,” she said, quietly, tiredly, reluctantly.

  But she had said it, she had said it. Patrick resisted the impulse to kiss her. He didn’t imagine that would go down too well. But he was safe, he thought, as he left her and went back up to the now deserted staff room.

  He settled down to do what he always did after school; preparing lessons that he hoped his students would find diverting and amusing, and not just educational. He possibly liked this bit better than anything else about teaching.

  He thought he heard someone at the staff room door, and lifted his head to listen. He could feel rather than hear someone on the other side. “Yes?” he said. “Is someone there?”

  The door opened slowly, hesitantly, and Kim, the girl who had been Natalie’s best friend, put her head round.

  “Hello, Kim,” he said. “Do you want me?” He smiled. “How long have you been out there?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer, didn’t come any further in.

  “I know,” he said. “You collect door numbers. Fascinating hobby.”

  She smiled, which was a start. “Could I talk to you?” she asked, in a voice so quiet that he had a job hearing it though she was only ten feet away.

  “You can,” he said. “But if you want me to hear what you’re saying you’d better come further in.” He got up and pulled a chair round to face his.

  She sat down, he sat down, but she was looking at her feet, slightly pink, tongue-tied.

  “Right,” he said, realizing that he was going to have to open the conversation, or they would be here all night. “I won’t ask what’s wrong, because I know what’s wrong. This whole dreadful business.”

  She nodded. “The police have been questioning Mr. Cochrane,” she said.

  Patrick shook his head, smiling. “Don’t jump to conclusions, Kim,” he said. “Everyone wants whoever did that to Natalie found—the police have got to ask questions. They spoke to you too, remember. Don’t take any notice of what it says in the paper.”

  “They think he killed her,” said Kim.

  Oh, God. Half the girls in the school were in love with Colin. He wanted to reassure her; he took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. It’s just that they think … well, I’ll tell you something,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t, but it might set your mind at rest. They’re questioning him because they think Natalie had a … sort of crush on him.”