The Split

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘We ran Felicity’s prints through the system,’ she says, when she looks up. ‘We had them from the time of the break-in at her house. When she claimed she’d been attacked and then withdrew her statement.’

  ‘She was attacked,’ Joe says. ‘She refused to proceed because she was scared.’

  ‘There was no reason to run them before now,’ Delilah goes on. ‘We couldn’t investigate a break-in that might not have happened, but we kept them on file.’

  ‘So you ran them. What did you find?’

  ‘They match the ones found in your flat the night someone broke in.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ Joe says after a moment. ‘You told me someone called Shane broke into my flat.’

  Delilah looks at her colleague. ‘Show him,’ she says.

  The detective gets up, switches on the TV screen and presses several keys on his laptop. Joe watches as the screen springs to life, showing footage of the vehicular entrance to a car park. A male figure, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt walks at a side angle to the camera. He moves quickly, with the grace of the young. As he half turns, Joe can see the distinctive logo on the front of his hoody: a white circle around an offset triangle, surrounded by white lettering. There is a Nike tick logo on his right shoulder.

  ‘The writing on the chest says “Golden State Warriors”,’ the detective says. ‘It’s an item of clothing only available in the United States or over the internet. Not commonly found in the UK.’

  ‘This is the only video footage we have of Shane,’ Delilah says. ‘But he was spotted by a police car on the night of the ninth of July. He was pursued but got away, leaving a knife behind. The prints on that knife matched those found in your flat, remember?’

  Joe remembers. He also thinks he has never seen his mother looking this unhappy.

  ‘They’re Felicity’s prints, Joe,’ she says. ‘Felicity is Shane.’

  * * *

  Felicity’s front door is broken open and Tyvek-clad crime scene officers enter first. Joe and Delilah sit in her car, watching.

  ‘We don’t know for sure Dora died that night,’ Joe says.

  Delilah doesn’t respond.

  ‘There was still Saturday, Sunday and Monday before she was due to see me on Tuesday,’ he continues. ‘Just because we’ve no trace of Dora on those days, doesn’t mean she dead.’

  Still no reply.

  ‘Shane is a bloke.’ He tries a different tack. ‘Felicity is not. Trust me on that one.’

  ‘We assumed Shane was a male.’ Delilah speaks softly. ‘He’s tall enough to be one. He wears men’s clothes. No camera ever got a good picture of him and the people who saw him were out of their heads half the time. They assumed and we believed them.’

  ‘Felicity has been in my flat,’ he says. ‘Of course her fingerprints would be there.’

  ‘Has she been in your bedroom?’ his mum asks. ‘Has she ever climbed up your fire escape and slipped into your kitchen through a window?’

  This time, it is Joe who has nothing to say.

  ‘There have been no sightings of Shane since Felicity left Cambridge,’ Delilah says.

  ‘There were precious few before.’

  ‘She left in a hurry. Even you said as much. She must have thought we were on to her. She ran, Joe.’

  The head of the crime scene team is walking towards them. ‘You can come in now,’ he tells Delilah.

  Joe and Delilah squeeze themselves into protective suits and enter Felicity’s house.

  ‘She didn’t leave much behind,’ the crime scene manager tells them. ‘The whole place has been thoroughly cleaned.’

  ‘Any sign of the white dress?’ Delilah asks.

  The crime scene manager shakes his head. ‘We did find one thing,’ he goes on. ‘Downstairs.’

  Delilah and Joe follow him into the basement. Beneath the stairs is a cupboard, the twin of the one immediately above in which Felicity spent her more difficult nights. The padlock has been forced apart.

  ‘We had to break it open,’ the crime scene manager tells them. ‘Interesting collection of stuff inside.’

  Delilah peers into the cupboard and then steps back to let Joe see.

  Mainly, he sees clothes, but doesn’t recognise any of them. Some of them are men’s clothes, jeans and huge, baggy jackets. The dresses, though, are tight, short, made from shiny fabrics. He has never seen Felicity wearing any of them. There are sequined tops and tight Lycra leggings. High-heeled shoes. In one corner is a stack of DVDs. Horror and slasher films, judging by the titles on their spines. In the opposite corner is a similar stack of romantic comedies and Disney movies. He sees packs of cigarettes, bottles of whisky and the spectacles case he remembers from her living room, the one that she claimed not to own.

  On the floor are two pairs of casual shoes, a pair of walking boots and some trainers. Delilah gets to her knees and examines the underside.

  ‘Size nine,’ she says.

  ‘The ones in the wardrobe upstairs are sevens,’ the crime scene manager tells her.

  ‘Hello.’ Delilah is feeling around the inside of a trainer. She pulls out a wad of newspaper from the toe.

  On a top shelf several sweaters and sweatshirts are folded neatly. One of them is black.

  ‘Bag,’ Delilah instructs. ‘Large one.’

  With gloved hands, she lifts down the black garment and holds it by the shoulders. It falls open to reveal the logo of the Golden State Warriors.

  62

  Joe

  Several hours later, Joe sits in the police meeting room wearing disposable gloves as he flicks through a wedding album found in a locked trunk in Felicity’s loft. Also on the table is the silver-framed photograph he stole from her bin but hasn’t examined properly before now. He doesn’t look up when the door opens but knows from her perfume that his mother has joined him.

  ‘This isn’t Felicity’s wedding.’ He turns to the second picture in the album, that of the bride leaving home on her father’s arm. The tall blonde-haired woman looks a lot like Felicity but the wedding car the pair are heading for is a black Mercedes from thirty years ago. The people watching in the street are wearing the fashions of the late 1980s. ‘I think this is her mother.’

  Delilah takes a seat beside him.

  ‘She found this photograph not long before she left.’ He holds up the silver-framed picture. ‘It was the only real evidence I saw that she was married, that Freddie existed. Turns out it isn’t even her wedding.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Delilah asks. ‘It’s an odd thing to do, get your parents’ wedding mixed up with your own.’

  Joe holds the framed photograph next to a similar one in the album. ‘Same dress, same groom, same guests, even the same bridesmaid.’ Joe turns the pages to find a picture of the tiny bridesmaid offering a lucky horseshoe up to the bride. He points a gloved finger to the little girl. ‘I think this is Felicity,’ he says.

  ‘So, what are you saying? That Freddie isn’t real?’

  Joe thinks back to his conversation with Felicity’s work colleague, to the attack at her house, to her genuine terror.

  ‘I have no idea who Freddie is,’ he says. ‘But I’m sure he’s real.’

  63

  Joe

  ‘I wish you’d let me drive.’ Joe is breathing heavily as they slow down outside the residential home on the banks of the River Bourne. Ever since Delilah took a police driving course in her forties, he’s been reluctant to get into a vehicle with her at the wheel. On the other hand, maybe the queasiness, the threatening headache, the shaking limbs, aren’t entirely down to his mother’s habit of fast acceleration and dramatic braking. He’s been feeling unwell since Dora’s body was found. Since Felicity became prime suspect, he’s been tormented by visions of her, kneeling over the lifeless bodies of Dora, Bella, even Ezzy, with blood-stained hands and dead eyes. He doesn’t think he’s slept more than an hour or two in one stretch.

  ‘If we need to park illegally,’ Delilah pulls up on yellow lin
es, ‘it’s easier to do it in my car.’ She opens her door and nearly knocks a cyclist off his bike.

  The residential home for the elderly is new, made of red brick with large windows and high gables. It sits on carefully tended lawns with neat flower beds.

  ‘We can’t be long,’ Delilah adds. ‘I want to be there if they find anything under Peterhouse.’

  The excavation of the collapsed drain where Dora was found is due to begin today.

  ‘How did you find her?’ Joe asks, as they walk towards the main door. ‘Her’ is an elderly former social worker called Margaret Jennings.

  ‘Request to Salisbury social services,’ Delilah replies. ‘They found Felicity’s case notes in the archives. Nobody still working there remembers it, but Mrs Jennings is still alive, compos mentis and willing to see us. We’re not often this lucky.’

  They are led to a room on the first floor. It might smell a little of urine, and a little more of disinfectant, but it is neat and bright and looks comfortable. The woman in the armchair is in her mid-eighties. She is tall, and robust still, but her hands shake with an uncontrollable tremor.

  ‘You’re here about Felicity Lloyd,’ the old lady says when they are both seated. They have already been warned that she is rather deaf. She is certainly rather loud.

  ‘We’re worried about her,’ Joe replies. ‘We think she may be at risk.’

  His mother snorts quietly.

  ‘So, anything you can tell us would be very helpful.’ Joe glares at Delilah.

  ‘She was allocated to me in her mid-teens.’ Mrs Jennings puts a hand to her chest and holds the other up in a give-me-a-moment gesture.

  Delilah checks her phone.

  ‘Her behaviour changed, almost overnight,’ Mrs Jennings says when she has got her breath back. ‘She went from being a normal, happy young girl’ – another pause, another chance to recover – ‘to someone who was, well, quite the opposite. Eventually she ran away. She missed a year of school.’

  The old lady reaches a trembling hand towards a glass of water on the table by her side. ‘She’d been living on the streets,’ she adds. ‘In London, we think, although she never told us much about it.’

  Joe thinks back to his first session with Felicity. She’d mentioned a friend, who’d been homeless.

  ‘Do you know what triggered the change?’ Joe asks.

  Mrs Jennings nods for several seconds. ‘Her grandmother died, which would have been unsettling in itself. It left Felicity in the care of the local authority. The real problem though was that she got a letter from her father.’

  Joe and Delilah exchange a look.

  ‘Her father is dead,’ Joe says. ‘He killed himself when she was tiny.’

  Mrs Jennings pulls a face. ‘Did Felicity tell you that?’

  ‘She says he died when she was young. A neighbour told me he’d killed himself and his wife.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just nonsense invented by the people who sell ghost tours in Salisbury. Felicity’s mother was killed, and her father went after the men who did it. Killed all three of them in cold blood. He got life.’

  Joe hears his mother breathe out a long, tired sigh as he thinks, The men who did it? The ‘bad men’?

  ‘So, he’s not dead?’

  ‘Who knows? It was a long time ago. He could have died in prison.’

  Joe thinks back. Felicity definitely told him her father was dead.

  ‘Felicity was taken completely by surprise,’ Margaret Jennings says. ‘Her grandmother had told her nothing about what happened when she was so young, about her mother’s death, what her father did. I’m sure her father had written before and the grandmother kept the letters from her.’

  ‘So, the news came as a shock?’ Delilah asks. ‘To Felicity, I mean?’

  Mrs Jennings takes her time. ‘She reacted badly,’ she says eventually. ‘Went off the rails. Started skipping school, hanging around with other troubled kids; under-age drinking, shoplifting, usual stuff.’

  ‘We see it a lot.’ Delilah has a sympathetic smile on her face. Joe isn’t fooled. His mother’s tapping foot is a sure sign of her impatience. And her phone has been quietly beeping away for several minutes.

  ‘Felicity was terrified at the thought of seeing her father again,’ Mrs Jennings says. ‘She exhibited an unusual and completely irrational fear of him. He’d done a terrible thing, no one’s saying he hadn’t, but he hadn’t hurt Felicity herself.’

  He’s opening the door. He’s opening the door. No, no, no, Daddy, don’t give me to the bad men.

  Joe says, ‘During hypnotherapy, Felicity regressed to being a very young child and she was frightened of someone she called “Daddy”.’

  ‘Memories from when we’re very young are notoriously unreliable,’ Mrs Jennings says. ‘If she associated her father with her mother’s killers, even on some deep level that she couldn’t bring to mind, it would help to account for her terror of him.’

  Delilah sighs. Joe deliberately turns his back on his mother. ‘And her confusion could have led to her irrational and uncharacteristic behaviour. Were you able to reassure her at all?’

  ‘I think so. We told her he wouldn’t know her new address, that we wouldn’t forward any more correspondence without her permission and that there was no possibility of him getting out for years. If ever.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Yes, it did. She settled down and got a place at Cambridge. She even started volunteering with the homeless. She was a bright girl. One of our success stories.’

  Delilah doesn’t look impressed. ‘We need to get back. Thanks for your time, Mrs Jennings.’

  * * *

  ‘We’re talking about when she was fifteen,’ Delilah says when they are back in the car. ‘It doesn’t help us now.’ She flicks through her phone messages.

  ‘It establishes a pattern,’ Joe says. ‘When Felicity feels threatened, she acts out of character. She becomes someone else. Oh—’

  Is it possible? He starts going through Felicity’s symptoms in his head.

  ‘Damn,’ Delilah’s expletive disrupts his train of thought.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘The excavation at Silver Street has stopped. Some twat wittering on about the tomb of one of the founders.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  She bangs a hand down on the steering wheel in frustration. ‘It means we can’t dig out the rest of the drain until the Indiana Jones squad have been through it. It could take weeks.’

  Months, Joe thinks. ‘You found Dora,’ he says. ‘That’s the important thing.’

  Delilah snorts as she scrolls through her messages. ‘Oh, that’s a bit more like it. ‘Her face brightens. ‘We’ve had a call from a businessman in Strasbourg. He was staying in the Hilton by Silver Street towards the end of July. His room overlooked the river and he thinks he saw the old dear the night she died.’

  While his mother is reading the message in full, Joe thinks back to Felicity’s symptoms. Fugue states. Amnesia. Hearing voices. The belief that she was being stalked. He remembers how she changed under hypnosis and again, when the two of them met in the restaurant. He remembers a phrase in her journal. The others.

  Delilah looks up. ‘He’ll be back in the UK in a few days,’ she says. ‘We need to talk to him properly.’

  He can’t say anything yet. He needs to be sure. He needs to talk to Torquil.

  Delilah puts her phone away. ‘He also mentions seeing a young woman in a white dress.’

  Joe wonders when the bad news will stop coming. Even so, if he’s right …

  ‘Mum, things are becoming a bit clearer,’ he says. ‘Felicity is a very damaged woman, but the damage is buried so deep even she doesn’t know it’s there most of the time. The important thing is, she can be cured.’

  His mother starts the car. ‘She’s a killer, Joe. You can cure her in prison.’

  64

  Joe

  Joe and his supervisor are the last to be shown into the meet
ing room at the police station. It is a large, low-ceilinged room, with windows running the length of one wall. Seven people are sitting around a table. The room smells of coffee but most of the cups he can see are empty. These people have been here for some time.

  A man in uniform introduces himself as Assistant Chief Constable Elton Downey and runs through the introductions at speed. Delilah catches Joe’s eye and gives him a tight-lipped smile that could either be meant to convey reassurance, or warn him to behave.

  ‘To sum up where we are.’ Downey remains standing after Joe and Torquil have taken their chairs. ‘Dr Felicity Lloyd, currently living on the island of South Georgia, is our prime suspect in the murders of Dora Hardwick and Bella Barnes last summer. Our initial suspect was a person known as Shane. DI Jones, can you remind us why Shane was wanted in connection with the murders?’

  Delilah taps her pen on the notebook in front of her, a sure sign that she is nervous.

  ‘Bella Barnes was sleeping alone in the Grand Arcade car park on the night she was killed,’ she says. ‘Round about the estimated time of death, we have CCTV footage of a person leaving the car park, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with a distinctive logo. Other homeless people identified this individual as a man they knew as Shane. No one knew much about him, and efforts to track him down came to nothing, but he remained someone we very much wanted to speak to.’

  ‘If I remember correctly, your experts confirmed that Shane was male,’ Joe interrupts. ‘He walked like a man, stood like a man, carried himself like a man.’

  ‘He was believed at that time to be male, yes,’ Delilah confirms. ‘You yourself, Joe said the other rough sleepers were afraid of him. They thought him creepy, that he watched them while they were asleep. They believed him to have murdered Bella.’

  Joe can remember saying exactly this to his mum.

  ‘Time went by, and we couldn’t find him,’ Delilah goes on. ‘Then, on the thirtieth of June, someone broke into my son’s flat. Fingerprints on and around the fire escape suggested an intruder, but they didn’t match any we had on the system. His identity remained a mystery. Joe installed extra security and nothing else happened.