by Jane Casey
He took off his coat and jacket and threw them over the back of a chair, then sat down opposite me, rolling up his shirtsleeves and drawing a blank piece of paper towards himself so he could take notes. ‘Start at the beginning, then, Maeve. And don’t leave anything out.’
‘OK. Well, as you know, when we looked at the crime scene we weren’t sure if Rebecca had been a victim of the Burning Man or not, because of the way her body was left. It was a by-the-numbers imitation of his manner of killing and disposal of the body, but it didn’t ring true. There was something tentative about it. It wasn’t him, but it was someone trying to be like him. And that person is Louise North.’
Godley didn’t so much as twitch a muscle, but I could sense doubt emanating from him and I went on quickly to explain what I had found out.
‘I couldn’t find any trace of Rebecca Haworth in the twenty-four hours before she died. No one saw her or spoke to her – not her neighbours, not her friends, not her family. She didn’t show up on any of the CCTV we checked. She didn’t use her oyster card on public transport. We got in touch with taxi firms all over the capital and no one recalled giving her a lift. In fact, the last trace of her that I could find was her mobile phone signal. It went off the air on the Thursday night by London Bridge, in the vicinity of her flat – so the phone was switched off or was destroyed then. But before that, it was in Fulham – within a hundred yards, give or take a few, of the mobile phone mast nearest Louise’s house.’
‘She could have been visiting her friend.’
I shook my head. ‘Louise said she hadn’t seen her for months.’
‘OK, she could have been visiting someone else.’
‘Who? She didn’t have any other friends in the local area, as far as I can tell. We can go door-to-door and see if anyone remembers seeing her in the neighbourhood on the Wednesday evening or the Thursday. But I think Louise lured her to her house on Wednesday night, with the intention of keeping her there until Thursday. I saw the lab reports; the body fluids that Dr Hanshaw sent for toxicology came back positive for sedatives. What if Louise kept her there, knowing that she probably wouldn’t be missed since she didn’t have a job or a flatmate or a boyfriend? What if she drugged her? And what if she killed her?’
‘Evidence, Maeve. Cell-site analysis isn’t going to be good enough in a built-up area. The signal bounces around from mast to mast; you can only narrow it down to a quarter-mile radius at best.’
‘Take it as an indication of where we should be looking, then. That’s not all.’ I quickly outlined how I’d found Louise’s car in the CCTV logs, and checked to see that she was driving it. ‘She had no reason to be there at that time of the morning. She didn’t mention being there to me, even when she heard where Rebecca’s body was found. I can’t believe that she wouldn’t have made some comment about the coincidence if it had been innocent. And since then, she’s got rid of her car and bought a new one. A present to herself, I believe. Maybe a reward for a job well done.’
‘OK. That’s better. I like that we can put her in the relevant location at the correct time. But if she’s got rid of the car, we’re not going to have any forensics.’
‘I imagine that was the idea. She left a few false trails for us here and there – she’d thought of leaving voicemail messages on Rebecca’s phone to make it look as if she was trying to get in touch with her after she was already dead. She even left one on Rebecca’s old work number. But Louise knew that Rebecca had left her job. She’d helped her to tidy out her desk. Rebecca’s assistant remembered the name when I rang her today and prompted her. Why would she call a number she knew wasn’t going to be answered unless she wanted to make us think she was out of touch with Rebecca? And don’t forget that she turned up in Rebecca’s flat when we went to check it out. She was tidying the place to make sure there were no tell-tale clues that she’d invited her to dinner the day before she died – no notes Rebecca had left that might give us a clue to her motive. She said that Rebecca was untidy in her personal habits. Everyone else I’ve spoken to has said how meticulous she was, how organised. I thought it was a sign of the strain Rebecca had been under, but if you turn it around and look at it the other way, Louise lied to us.’
‘You mentioned motive – what could hers be?’
‘I’m not sure. But maybe it’s as simple as finally getting fed up always being in Rebecca’s shadow. Though Louise was also there in Oxford when Adam Rowley died, and she didn’t like me asking about it. She got really uptight. I thought she was scared of Gil Maddick overhearing us, but now I think that perhaps she was worried for herself because I was getting too close for comfort.’
‘Maddick.’ Godley pulled a face. ‘That’s part of the problem for me. I don’t see how you’ve gone from thinking she’s a potential victim to being sure she’s the killer.’
‘I was supposed to see her as a victim. And I was so busy thinking of her in that light, I forgot to consider her as a suspect. That was the plan. She’s been pushing me towards Gil Maddick all along – he’s the ex-boyfriend, he has a history of violence towards his girlfriends and his break-up with Rebecca seemed to act as the starting gun for her decline into catastrophic personal circumstances, including the loss of her job and the intensification of her drug use and eating disorder. Louise wasn’t the only one of Rebecca’s friends to tell me that Maddick was possessive. It seems as if he tried to keep her away from them – that’s classic controlling behaviour. But it’s not proof that he wanted her dead. I can’t find any evidence of them being in touch before she died – no emails, no phone calls, no texts. I honestly think he’d moved on.’
‘But you were absolutely sure he was guilty, Maeve.’ Godley’s voice was gentle. ‘That’s hard to explain away now that you’re equally sure about Louise.’
‘I thought he was an abuser who resented his ex starting a new life, but that just didn’t fit in with the facts. He’s in line to get her life insurance money, but he’s wealthy anyway, and I don’t think he had the least idea he was the named beneficiary. Then I thought he might have been looking to get revenge on Rebecca – he does bear a startling resemblance to the boy who died in Oxford, the one Rebecca felt so guilty about. But I think that’s truly a coincidence. It’s not really a surprise that she’d find the same things attractive in another man; she was obsessed with Adam Rowley.’
‘How does Rowley’s death fit in?’
‘I’m not sure about that either,’ I confessed. I had called DCI Garland before Godley arrived. He had been in a pub but if he’d been drinking, it hadn’t dulled his edge in the slightest.
‘I was wondering if I’d ever hear from you again. What did you make of it? Get any closer to working out who did it?’
‘I don’t think you’d ever be able to get enough evidence for a charge – not at this stage, anyway – but I do have some idea as to what happened to Adam Rowley, yes.’
‘Go on, my love. I’m listening.’
I had told him my suspicions: that Rebecca and Louise had known more than they’d let on about Rowley’s death. Either Rebecca had killed him herself and Louise had helped her to cover it up, or Louise had played some part in his death with Rebecca’s support and connivance. Louise had been able to cope with the pressure of the subsequent investigation but Rebecca had cracked. That was why they had fallen out.
‘Louise was in a good position to know that Adam was very drunk and vulnerable because she had been serving him all night in the bar. Either of them could have given him a nudge and sent him into the river.’
From the other end of the line, there came a long, low chuckle.
‘Well done, girly. That was where I ended up too, a long time ago, but I didn’t have a hope of getting the CPS to take it any further. I was always wary of Louise North. Cold, she was. I couldn’t fluster her, and believe me, I tried.’
‘Interesting that DCI Garland didn’t like her,’ Godley commented when I recounted our conversation. ‘But he didn’t find any evidence to li
nk her with the boy’s death, did he?’
‘No, but he didn’t get a chance to treat it as a murder enquiry once the coroner had ruled the death accidental. There was a possibility Adam had been drugged without his knowledge so that he was somewhat incapacitated. But he could have taken the pills voluntarily. There was an abrasion on the back of his head that might have been caused by a blow, but it was also consistent with drowning. He didn’t seem to struggle when he fell into the water – he was a young, fit, healthy man and he made no attempt to climb back out onto the bank. He was drunk at the time, but I still think it’s strange he didn’t try to save himself. I think whatever happened that night it gives Louise a major motive to want Rebecca dead, though.’
‘Go on.’
‘Rebecca’s life was teetering on the edge of disaster at the time she died – she had lost a job that she was desperate to keep, so desperate that she offered to sleep with her boss to convince him to change his mind, and if you’d seen him, you’d know that was not the easy way out. She was trying to hide the fact that she was unemployed from her family and friends, so kept on her very expensive flat and tried to maintain her lifestyle. She had a ruinously expensive drug addiction to manage and her romantic relationships were complicated to say the least. We know that she blackmailed one lover, getting ten grand for promising not to tell his wife what he’d been up to. I can’t say he didn’t deserve it, and worse, but I wonder if Louise got a fright when she heard what Rebecca had done. She couldn’t take the risk that Rebecca would think of blackmailing her.’
‘There’s no evidence that she did, is there?’
‘No. If she did give her money, it was cash. And I seriously doubt she could afford to pay her off, unlike the other victim, because even though she’s well paid, she’s got a mortgage to pay on an expensive house. Besides, there’s the threat to her reputation to consider. Louise has worked very hard to get to where she is now. I don’t think she’d be too pleased about seeing it all disappear because her best friend is an unemployed cokehead.’
‘So you think they entered into a pact together to murder Adam Rowley, which we can’t prove. And we don’t know why. You think Louise was afraid of being blackmailed about it, which, again, we can’t prove. You think Louise drugged Rebecca, hid her away for twenty-four hours, murdered her and dumped her, on the strength of some CCTV and mobile phone cell-site analysis, and we might be able to prove some of it, but she’s had enough of a head start to get rid of most of the evidence.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
The superintendent sat for a long moment, his eyes hooded, and I began to wonder if I had fouled up spectacularly, if I had missed something obvious and embarrassed myself beyond redemption. I knew I had little evidence to prove my theory, and what there was was circumstantial. Just as the silence was becoming unbearable, he looked up, his eyes very blue, and smiled.
‘It’s patchy. But there’s something there. And I don’t want to see her get away with it if you’re right.’ He stood up and pulled on his jacket. ‘Are you fit to come with me? I want a council of war. We’ll see if we can’t find a way to out-think Ms North once and for all.’
I said yes, of course; even if I felt wobbly and exhausted, I wasn’t going to miss out. Godley drove back to the nick in what had to be record time, having phoned Judd and told him to round up a few of the key members of the team.
We were just coming into central London when my mobile phone rang. I looked at the screen and froze.
‘Boss, it’s Louise. Why would she be ringing my phone?’
Godley frowned. ‘Don’t answer it. If she leaves a message, we can all listen to it.’
It felt like hours until the ringing stopped. A few seconds later there was a beep: new voicemail message. I let out the breath I hadn’t realised I was holding and put the playback on speakerphone.
‘DC Kerrigan – Maeve? I just wanted to let you know that I’ve broken up with Gil. I saw on the news that you’d been injured … and I know you’ve been in hospital so I’m sure you don’t care too much, but I wanted to tell you.’ She sounded more hesitant than usual. ‘I wanted to say … I just thought you should know, when I tidied up Rebecca’s flat, I found a pen on the coffee table. It had Gil’s initials on it – GKM. It made me wonder if he’d been there, before she died. He said he hadn’t, but …’ There was a pause, and then a sigh. ‘I just don’t know what to think any more.’ Click.
I looked at Godley, my eyebrows raised. ‘What do you think?’
He was concentrating on the road. ‘I think you’re an excellent police officer and your instincts are sound.’
‘You’re not convinced that we should go and arrest Gil Maddick?’
‘Are you?’
‘No.’ I was definite about it. ‘This just makes me more confident that she’s guilty.’
‘Then let’s work out how to catch her.’
Before we could do that, Godley had to convince a room full of highly sceptical policemen that we would be able to construct a legitimate case against Louise North. It was easier said than done. As the superintendent explained what we were doing there, I looked around the table, all too aware of the fact that I was in jeans and a jumper rather than my usual suit, and that my face was still bruised from my encounter with Selvaggi. DI Judd was sitting beside Godley and looked tired, but not hostile, which was more than could be said for Peter Belcott. Rob was there too, sitting down at the end of the table, with an encouraging expression on his face. After my first glance in his direction I didn’t dare look at him again in case I got distracted. Ben Dornton and Chris Pettifer were there because they were the team’s expert interviewers; Sam, Kev Cox and Colin Vale made up the remainder of the group. And none of them seemed completely convinced as Godley finished explaining what we knew, what we thought and what we needed to find out before handing over to me.
‘Is that it?’ Peter Belcott’s upper lip was drawn back in a sneer that revealed his abnormally long incisors.
‘I can’t see there’s any other explanation for this footage. Louise North drives a very smart BMW sportscar, bought the week Rebecca died. She traded in her old car, a car she told me was a fourteen-year-old blue Peugeot that had seen better days.’
I picked up a remote control and pointed it at the DVD player behind me. I had cued the disk to start in the right place.
‘This is two hundred yards from where Rebecca Haworth’s body was found. These images were recorded at two fifty-seven on the morning of Friday the twenty-sixth of November. This’ – I pointed – ‘is a blue Peugeot with one occupant, a female, driving towards the waste ground where Rebecca’s body was dumped. You can see the side of her face.’ I stopped the DVD and moved forward to the view from a different camera taken around a minute later, showing the back of the car as it braked at traffic lights. The driver was just a silhouette, unidentifiable. ‘Here it is again. You can get a partial on the registration number in this image though the car behind blocks some of it. I’ve checked Louise’s old car registration and it matches the partial plate here.’ I skipped forward again. ‘This is twenty minutes later, footage from the second camera. The car is coming back from the direction of the body dump. This time, we can see the driver quite clearly.’ I paused it, letting everyone look at the slightly blurred but completely identifiable image of Louise North. ‘If you were wondering, she lives in Fulham. She told me the first time I met her that she had been at home the night of Rebecca’s murder. She certainly didn’t mention a walk on the wild side south of the river in the middle of the night.’
Colin Vale was shaking his head. ‘It didn’t fit the profile. If I’d known …’
‘You had no reason to look at this car and think anything of it,’ I said comfortingly. ‘I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen it in your log. And I was looking for a different car at the time. It just so happened that Louise told me about changing her car and mentioned what make and model it was, and I happened to spot it.’
&n
bsp; ‘It was lucky,’ Godley said from the head of the table, causing everyone’s heads to turn towards him like compass needles swinging to the north. ‘But it was also good police work. And as Maeve has pointed out, if it hadn’t been noted in the first place, we’d have missed it.’
‘We could examine those images,’ Colin said. ‘See if the car is more heavily laden going in the direction of the body dump.’
‘Yeah. That’s all we can do, I’m afraid, because according to Louise, the car was scrapped.’
‘Well, that’s something else we could do,’ Kev Cox observed. ‘Trace the car. Find out where it went and where it is now. We might still be able to recover trace from it, even if it’s been compressed.’
‘That’s a long shot,’ Judd said. ‘And the defence would have a field day pointing out how the evidence might have been compromised.’
‘In the absence of a better idea, let’s try it anyway,’ Godley ordered. ‘Colin, that sounds like a job for you.’
The cadaverous detective nodded. He didn’t look excited at the prospect, which was fair enough. It would be a tedious job to do, especially when the chances of recovering anything were so slim.
‘What were you looking for when you noticed her car in the logs?’ DI Judd was frowning.
‘When Rebecca was a student, she had an inappropriate relationship with her tutor. It started up again a few months ago, but this time she blackmailed him.’
‘Academics don’t have any money,’ Judd pointed out.
‘This one does. Caspian Faraday.’
‘I’ve got his books. I’ve watched him on TV.’ Colin Vale sounded shocked. It wasn’t often that I got to witness the fall of an idol and I felt a twinge of sympathy for him.
‘He’s married to an heiress, Delia Waynflete. I got the distinct impression that his priority in life is to maintain his relationship with his wife – I don’t want to accuse him of seeing her as his meal ticket, but she definitely makes a big difference to his standard of living. I could imagine him deciding that he couldn’t stand to live with the fear of his wife discovering his extra-marital affair. I could also imagine him staging Rebecca’s murder. I couldn’t quite see him killing her, but in the right circumstances, maybe he would have found some reserves of brutality within himself. His wife, however, would have the funds to hire someone to kill a rival even if she didn’t do it with her own hands. And Faraday himself seems to have had some doubts about it; their lawyer lied to me when I asked if she’d been in the country at the time of Rebecca’s death. DC Belcott did some digging and found agency pictures of her at a charity ball in London the night before Rebecca died, and at an art gallery the day after the body was found. I was looking for her car, or her husband’s.’
