A Shred of Evidence

by Jill McGown

Erica carried on making polite noises, finding out how Hannah took her tea, handing it to her.

  Hannah was the letter writer. She was the one who had arranged to meet Colin on the Green, not Natalie.

  “When you were on the Green on Tuesday evening,” she said. “You were waiting for Colin, weren’t you? Like you said you would, in that letter.”

  Hannah looked back at her, then nodded briefly.

  “And the other letters?” Erica went on. “You wrote them, too, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they true?”

  “No.” Hannah looked into her teacup.

  “Why, Hannah?” asked Erica. “Why did you do that?”

  Hannah drank some tea. “You opened his mail,” she said. “I’d seen you do it. I knew you’d see one of them, sooner or later.”

  Erica frowned. “Why did you want me to see them?” she asked.

  “Because he married you,” Hannah said. “He didn’t even say he was getting married. He just did it, when we were on the Easter break.” She looked up then. “I wanted to split you up,” she said. “I wanted you to believe them.”

  She had got her wish, thought Erica. She had split them up, even if it had taken Natalie’s murder to do it. She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

  Hannah looked away. “I know,” she said. “But I hated you. I really did. I …” She looked back at Erica. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And I’m really grateful to you for getting me away from Mr. Murray … bringing me here. I … I am sorry about the letters—especially the one arranging to meet Colin. It was stupid. He didn’t turn up, or anything,” she added. “Don’t think that.”

  “But why did you write the last one? The one he got this morning?” asked Erica, pouring her own tea, carefully, slowly, trying to keep her hand steady.

  Hannah had caused it all. Everything. Everything that had happened since March, everything that had happened on Tuesday night, everything that had happened since. She had blamed Natalie. But it was Hannah’s fault. And she had been there, on the Green. All the time.

  “I had to do something,” Hannah said. “I knew Colin hadn’t killed Natalie, because he wasn’t there.”

  Erica nodded slightly. “Why didn’t you just go to the police?” she asked, her voice light.

  “I couldn’t,” said Hannah. “I was afraid of what Mr. Murray would do.”

  Erica sprinkled milk on her tea, watching it swirl into the dark liquid as she stirred. “You should have gone to the police, Hannah,” she said. “You really should.” Her spoon slowly moved round and round in the teacup as she spoke. “And there was no need for you to be afraid of Mr. Murray,” she added. “Because he didn’t kill Natalie.”

  Colin had walked miles. Not running, not this time. Not any more. Just walking, enjoying the freedom from suspicion at last, trying to sort out his thoughts. His life. His feelings for Erica, his obsession with athletics. That was all it was, all it had ever been. But he had never been unfaithful to Erica, not since the day they had met. Not with a woman. But athletics had amounted to much the same thing. He was obsessed by something that meant more to him than anything—much more than she did, or ever would.

  And that was why he hadn’t been able to retire gracefully, to move into the comfortable world of TV celebrity, fleeting though it probably was, insubstantial though it doubtless was. It was pleasant, clean work with a pay-packet that so outweighed its responsibilities as to be laughable. But he hadn’t been able to let athletics go.

  Love wasn’t like that; if a loved partner died, the survivor mourned, then moved into the next phase of his life. Obsession was like that. Never letting go. And they had thought that he could have murdered a fifteen-year-old girl, because of this obsession. He had almost begun to believe that he had.

  He had gone home, then, not sure if Erica would want him back, not sure if he wanted to go back. He wasn’t going to turn into another person; he wasn’t going to stop being obsessive overnight. But now that he knew that he was, perhaps they could live with it. Or perhaps he could do something about it. Just facing it, on Tuesday night, when he had made himself ill, had helped.

  But Erica wasn’t there, even if he could have explained all that to her. The dog was; he was pleased to see Colin, and Colin had to admit that he was pleased to see him, because his presence meant that Erica was coming home. He wasn’t sure that what he and Erica had was love, but it deserved another chance, whatever it was.

  He foolishly imagined that it would be Erica when he heard the doorbell, but she would have her key, of course. He opened the door to Inspector Hill and Sergeant Finch, and thought for one ghastly moment that he was being sucked back into the fantasy.

  Not Natalie’s fantasy; he knew that now. Someone else’s. Natalie had just got sucked in too, and she had died for it. And he still didn’t know whose fantasy it was.

  “Mr. Cochrane, is your wife here?” the inspector asked.

  “Erica? No,” he said. “What do you want with Erica?”

  “Do you know where she is? It’s very important.”

  He frowned. “Not for certain,” he said.

  “If you know where she might be, then tell us,” said Finch.

  Colin shook his head. “I want to know why you’re looking for her,” he said.

  “We just want to speak to her,” said Inspector Hill.

  Colin’s mouth fell open, and he stared at them. They didn’t just want to speak to her. They were looking for her. Urgently. “Erica?” he said. “You think Erica had something to do with …?”

  “Just tell us where she is, Mr. Cochrane—please,” said Inspector Hill. “Before the situation gets any worse than it is.”

  Worse? There couldn’t be a worse. But … she had been so certain that he had been with Natalie. So totally unprepared to believe his protestations. Oh, dear God. What had she done?

  “I think she might be at her flat,” he said. “It’s been on the market for months, but … she goes there sometimes.”

  He gave them the address in a daze, listened as Finch relayed the information on his radio, watched them walk down the path, get into their car and go.

  He would never have believed that the nightmare could reach such depths.

  Hannah could hear the frantic banging on the door echoing through the almost-empty flat, hear her own name being called, Mrs. Cochrane’s name being called, as the nylon knot was pulled tighter and tighter round her neck. Her oxygen-starved brain could barely take in what was happening, but they were there, outside the door. The police were there, and she summoned all her strength for one last desperate effort before consciousness finally ebbed.

  Then faraway voices. Just voices. She couldn’t see.

  “She’s alive. What about the other one?”

  “Just. Ambulance required at …”

  In and out of consciousness then, as more people arrived, more voices.

  “She’s coming to. You’ll be all right, love, don’t try to move.”

  Dim shapes. Someone comforting her, someone examining her head.

  “I don’t think the head injury’s too bad.”

  A stretcher.

  “She … she tried to …” It hurt to talk. Her throat hurt. Her voice sounded odd. But she had to tell them.

  “Don’t talk, love. You’ll be all right, don’t worry.”

  The ambulance. Now she was fully conscious, fully aware. She tried to tell them, but they told her not to talk. It didn’t hurt so much now; she wanted to talk.

  She had a lot to say.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Colin sat in the waiting area, alone now that the doctor had left.

  They were operating, but the doctor’s prognosis had been less than optimistic. Erica had lost a great deal of blood; in her weakened condition the operation itself might kill her, if that girl hadn’t already done the job.

  The doctor could, and had tried to, explain the medical problem, but no one could begin to make him
understand, or believe, the circumstances. The police had said that the girl had also been admitted; Colin didn’t even know her name to ask about her, but he gathered that it was whoever had been writing those letters, and that they thought Erica had tried to harm her in some way.

  The police had been at the hospital, leaving only when it had become clear that Erica was on the critical list, and they were in no danger of her giving them the slip.

  She might, one of them had said guardedly, have to face charges, and Colin was only too well aware of what charges he had meant. It was obvious; they thought she had killed Natalie, and then tried to kill this girl.

  He had brought a nightie and dressing-gown, but they had said she wouldn’t be needing them yet. The “yet” had come a heartbeat too late.

  He saw the doctor walking towards him, his face serious. And Erica wouldn’t after all be facing charges.

  Morning. Patrick opened his eyes to the new day, and reviewed his situation.

  They were preparing a case against him for the Crown Prosecution Service, he had been told last night. He had been charged, and eventually he would know whether or not he would go to court to answer that charge.

  It had been late before they had finally let him go; Victoria had been in bed by the time he had got home. He glanced over at her as she slept. Soon she would be awake, and wanting an explanation of where he had been.

  He would have to tell her. Whatever happened, what he had been doing on Tuesday night was going to come out. He had known from the moment he had seen Hannah standing there that damage limitation was the best he could hope for, but he had never dreamed of anything like this.

  He had thought that she must have seen Natalie, minus her shoes, complaining about being abandoned like she had. And that even if Natalie hadn’t shopped him, Hannah had seen him, large as life, holding the shoes, and would surely have put two and two together.

  He had thought she might tell someone—the head, Victoria—someone. He had hoped she wouldn’t, of course, but he had known in his water that his unwitting dalliance with a schoolgirl wasn’t going to have a happy ending.

  But this? Natalie murdered? When the shock of hearing that had worn off, he had just been waiting for the knock on the door. But Hannah hadn’t gone running to the police with her story, and … well, it had seemed just possible that he had got away with it.

  He would have to tell the head. He would have to give evidence in the murder trial, even if he wasn’t charged with his own offence.

  Doomsday scenario? He would lose his job, his wife, and he would go to prison.

  Damage limitation? Stay out of prison, because Kim could prove that Natalie hadn’t been straight with him in the first place, and he really hadn’t known that he was committing an offence, not until that last time. He had told them about her attempted blackmail. They had laughed; said that a guilty conscience did some funny things. It seemed that she had merely been seeking his advice after all.

  But that made it more likely that she would tell the truth about what Natalie had said to her, and while his conduct on Tuesday night could by no stretch of the imagination be considered gentlemanly, he could hardly have foreseen that it would result in Natalie’s death. It really was quite likely that he would not be charged with the sex offence.

  But he would have to give evidence at Erica Cochrane’s trial, obviously, and it would all come out then anyway. It was just possible that he could hang on to Victoria, somehow, like he had before. There was no way he could salvage his job.

  And right now, he had to tell Victoria everything, before she found out some other way. He owed her the truth, anyway.

  “Where were you this time?” she asked, as soon as she opened her eyes.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t credit it,” he said.

  She sat up sleepily. “I don’t suppose I will,” she said. “But try me, anyway.”

  “The head only called a staff meeting about the uniforms,” he said. “What did we think about the students not having to wear them during the heatwave? It went on for hours.”

  She gave him a heavy-lidded look of disbelief.

  “Then we all went to the pub. Mind you,” he added, “do you blame us?”

  “I suppose not,” she said, her voice resigned.

  Lies were so much easier. People almost always believed him when he was telling lies. He smiled at her as she closed her eyes again.

  Well … perhaps he wasn’t exactly being believed. But what he had said had been accepted. And he could hardly hit her with all this when she was still half asleep, could he?

  He showered and shaved, skipped breakfast and went to school, where a second and more profound shock awaited him.

  Erica was dead. At first, the words meant nothing; he couldn’t take them in. Erica? The head asked him to keep it quiet—he was telling the staff, but not the students.

  Erica was dead—killed, the rumor had it, in self-defence. First Natalie, and now Erica. The two people he had got close to—in very different ways—since his arrival in Stansfield, were dead. Sudden, violent deaths that made no sense at all. He sat in the head’s office and stared into space, trying to come to terms with it.

  “Are you all right?” asked the head.

  Patrick nodded. Yes, he thought. Yes. And if a thought crept into his mind through the numbing blow of that news about the luck of the Irish, about the fact that dead women didn’t come to trial … well, it was only human, wasn’t it?

  Judy sat in the Walterses’ living room, with Kim, Mrs. Walters and Kim’s aunt. Mrs. Walters had packed her son off to school, untouched as he was by the events of the last two days, but she had kept Kim at home.

  Kim sat on the big, comfortable sofa, between her mother and her aunt, her face unhappy, but surrounded by support and love and prepared to answer still more questions if she had to.

  Judy’s night had been spent largely at Barton General, where she had waited until the medical staff had allowed her three minutes with Hannah; she had gone home then and fallen into bed to be awakened by the call that had informed her of Erica Cochrane’s death. She hadn’t gone back to sleep.

  “It’s dreadful,” Mrs. Walters said, taking her arm from Kim’s shoulders, only to allow her sister to take over. “It’s just dreadful. When I think …” She looked up at Judy. “Something like this—you think it’s bound to be a man, don’t you? You think you’re safe with a woman. Kim thought Hannah was safe.”

  “I know, Mrs. Walters,” Judy said, and leant over, putting her own hand over Mrs. Walters’, as they were clasped and unclasped in helpless agitation. “Please don’t distress yourself,” she said. “Hannah really is going to be all right.”

  “But she had to …” Mrs. Walters looked at Kim, then back at Judy. “Hannah’s mother said that Hannah had to defend herself with a knife,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “And that woman’s dead—what’s that going to do to poor little Hannah?”

  The enormity of what she had done might well hit Hannah at some point, but she had seemed entirely under control when Judy had seen her. In much better shape than either Kim or her mother. “Well, we don’t know exactly what happened yet, Mrs. Walters,” she said. “We haven’t spoken to Hannah in any detail—that’s why I just want to go over a few things again with Kim.”

  Kim put her arm round her mother, her aunt’s arm still round her. Holding on to one another, now acutely aware of how suddenly people could be taken away.

  Judy took out her notebook. “Kim,” she said gently, trying not to make the child feel any worse than she already did. “When you looked out of the window, after Mr. Murray had gone down to talk to Hannah, you said that she was cycling away, looking over her shoulder.”

  Kim nodded.

  “And that she seemed very frightened? Is that what you told my colleagues?”

  “Yes,” she said, in a small voice. “I thought she was trying to get away from Mr. Murray, but it must have been …”

  Judy could see the tears
coming as she spoke, and waited until she had got herself under control again before she carried on.

  “You’ve been very helpful to us, Kim,” she said. “I know how difficult all this has been for you—please don’t worry about these questions. I just want to get things clear.”

  Kim nodded again, manfully holding herself together, and Judy moved on to the difficult part. “Now—there isn’t a right answer to this next question,” she said. “I just want your impression of what happened next—after you saw Hannah cycle away.”

  “Mrs. Cochrane’s car hit Hannah’s bike,” Kim said. “But Hannah sort of threw herself off before it did.”

  Judy nodded, writing that down. “Do you think Hannah cycled into Mrs. Cochrane’s car because she wasn’t looking where she was going, or that Mrs. Cochrane’s car reversed into Hannah’s bicycle?” she asked.

  Kim closed her eyes. “Mrs. Cochrane’s car reversed into Hannah’s path,” she said, after a moment. “I think.” She opened her eyes and looked a little uncomfortable. “But I could see the accident was going to happen,” she said. “I probably closed my eyes. I always do that, like when you drop a plate or something, and you know it’s going to break.”

  Judy smiled. “I think everyone does,” she said.

  “But I did see what was going to happen, so I suppose Hannah would have seen Mrs. Cochrane’s car, if she had been looking where she was going,” Kim went on. “And Mrs. Cochrane should have seen Hannah. It was a bit of both,” she said.

  Judy smiled again at the desperately honest assessment of the situation. “That’s fine,” she said. “Then what happened?”

  “Mrs. Cochrane got out, and helped Hannah up.”

  “Did Hannah still seem frightened?”

  Kim nodded.

  “Then she got into Mrs. Cochrane’s car,” Judy said. “Did she get in by herself? Or did Mrs. Cochrane help her in?”

  “I … I don’t—” Kim swallowed hard to try to stop the tears. “She … Mrs. Cochrane … she had her arm round her, but … I don’t know!” she almost shouted, in the end.

  “Who opened the passenger door?” asked Judy, changing tack slightly.