Trust Me

by T. M. Logan

  ‘Love your perfume, by the way,’ he says. ‘You smell amazing.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I shift back a little in my seat.

  ‘So, Ellen Devlin,’ he says. ‘If I give you their address, what’s in it for me?’

  51

  ‘How about if I said I had a story for you?’ I say. ‘A great story, an incredible one.’

  ‘About the Ghost?’

  ‘I can’t tell you right now, but I promise you it will be worth it. Soon.’

  Simms lifts his glass to his lips. He’s well into his second pint now and I can sense the alcohol starting to kick in, the gentle loosening of his shoulders, a relaxation in his jaw. He glances at the bar, where a crumpled middle-aged man is hunched alone on a stool, nursing a pint of his own. The guy looks at Simms, then at me, then at Simms again, before going back to his own drink with an envious shake of his head. Simms notices it too and smiles, returning his attention to me. He takes another sip of beer, puts the glass down so close next to mine that our hands almost touch.

  ‘All right, if you mention this to anyone, I will deny ever having this conversation. I will deny ever meeting you.’

  ‘Understood. But I won’t say a word, I swear.’

  He checks that no one is in earshot before leaning forward again.

  ‘The third victim was Zoe Clifton, eldest daughter of Gerald and Angela Clifton.’ He picks up his phone, scrolls through a few screens, lays it face down on the table and pulls a pen from his jacket pocket, scribbling on the edge of his beer mat. ‘That’s where you’ll find them.’

  I turn it around, study what is written there and tuck it into my handbag.

  ‘Thanks, Matt. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘So, this great story – give me a clue,’ he says. ‘A starter for ten.’

  I lace my fingers together on the table in front of me. ‘In your piece, it doesn’t mention if there was a . . . sexual element to the attacks.’

  He frowns at me over the top of his glass. ‘Because there wasn’t. According to the police, anyway.’

  ‘But you would have included that? I mean there wouldn’t have been a reason to leave it out of the story, would there?’

  ‘God yes, I would have included it,’ he says. ‘Absolutely. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Tara said victims of sexual offences get lifetime anonymity. So I assumed that because victim number three wasn’t named in the media, she had—’

  ‘No, the granting of anonymity was a police decision, because of the circumstances of the case and the nature of the attack, she was deemed to be an especially vulnerable witness. The Met line was that putting her ID out there would jeopardise her safety, and therefore jeopardise their ability to bring her attacker to justice.’

  ‘Because the Ghost might come for her again?’

  ‘If he knew where to find her. The family got an injunction as well, preventing her from being named in the media. Belt and braces job, kind of overkill really. Excuse the pun.’

  ‘Do you know much about the women he attacked?’

  ‘Well, victims one and two were street prostitutes working in and around Uxbridge. Both involved with drugs, both users, and Louise Taggart had been nicked a couple of times for low-level supplying as well. I was never able to nail much down about Zoe Clifton, but she had a flat in the same area. Some suggestions she was also on the fringes of sex work, but I couldn’t stand that angle up. Family never wanted to talk, but let’s just say it had the makings of a cracking story for us.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Clifton are loaded – their house is like something out of Country Life. It’s the kind of story my editor loves: pretty, posh, privately-educated girl, the apple of her parents’ eye, drawn into a life of vice. A shame the parents never wanted to play ball on an exclusive – fully anonymised, of course. Thought I’d wear them down eventually but they blanked me every single time. Thankfully, no one else got the story either.’

  I take a small diary out of my handbag, flip to a blank page at the back and write the words UXBRIDGE FLAT? in capitals.

  ‘Was there ever a suggestion that the Ghost was linked to any other attacks?’ I say. ‘Any other murders?’

  ‘We had a couple of sniffs here and there but never anything definite. Nothing the cops would even go near confirming.’

  ‘Not even off the record?’

  Simms gives a definitive shake of his head. ‘Nope. Not even then.’

  ‘So, this guy, this Ghost, he attacks three women in the space of a few months, and then stops? Does that make sense?’

  ‘I think the third one might have freaked him out. The first two, he kills them. Then for whatever reason he messes it up with victim number three. She survives. And knowing she was out there, knowing there was a living witness, he just wanted to crawl back under his rock. That’s my theory, anyway.’

  ‘Didn’t the police ever make any arrests?’

  He takes another swallow of his pint of bitter, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘They pulled a few guys in. But the investigation had a weird feel to it, like it never really got off the ground, you know? Like they were late to the party and never caught up. Zoe’s estranged husband was arrested and it seemed like they were pretty sure he was their man. I mean, ninety per cent of the time it’s the partner, right? Or the ex.’

  ‘So what happened with him?’

  ‘He looked guilty as sin – at least on the circumstantial evidence – but they never charged him.’ Simms grins at me. ‘Poor old Dominic had the media camped on his front lawn for a fortnight, lost his job into the bargain. Then his house. Ruined the bloke.’

  My glass is frozen in mid-air, an inch from my lips. Very slowly, I put it back down on the table.

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘He lost his job, he was freelance and all his clients dropped him when he was linked to—’

  ‘Not that bit.’ I hold a hand up, unsure whether I’ve misheard him. ‘Dominic Church?’

  He nods.

  ‘The police thought he was the Ghost?’

  ‘Still do, I think. They had a theory that he wanted revenge on his ex, but to cover his tracks he made it look like she’d been the victim of some random serial attacker. The cops couldn’t make it stick, though – some sort of balls-up with the evidence, a technicality. They never had enough to charge him.’

  I sit back on the bench seat, staring at a point over his shoulder. ‘My God.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ he says.

  ‘Dominic Church was Zoe Clifton’s estranged husband?’

  ‘They’d split up about six months before she was attacked. There was another theory that Zoe was in a relationship with the Ghost – that he was a new boyfriend – and when she found out what he’d done, he tried to kill her. That in fact the Ghost knew all three victims personally, and they weren’t random at all. But the police never found any new boyfriend and we couldn’t stand that line up.’

  ‘Where did the boyfriend theory come from?’

  ‘A few of the cops. The family.’

  I sit for a moment, trying to process what this means, taking a gulp of the tonic water and wishing there was gin in the glass too.

  ‘What about Leon Markovitz?’ I say. ‘You know he was arrested too?’

  Simms gives me a twisted smile. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Someone who knows. You’ve heard of him, though?’

  ‘Everyone in the industry’s heard of him: Leon’s a walking, talking cautionary tale. Total fruit loop.’ He took another pull on his beer, index finger raised in admonition. ‘You want to stay well away from him.’

  ‘You’re not the first person to tell me that. Did you work with him?’

  Simms frowns in mock offence. ‘Him? God no. Heard some pretty scary stories about him on the grapevine. We never crossed paths though, he was News of the World, then Sunday People. Went off the deep end when he got banged up.’ He tapped a finger against his temple. ‘Sev
eral screws loose, that bloke.’

  I indicate his almost-empty pint glass. ‘Can I get you another?’

  ‘Anyone would think you were trying to get me drunk.’ He raises an eyebrow, reaches into his jacket and hands over a business card embossed with the black and white crest of the Daily Mail, just a mobile number and email, no landline. Matthew Simms, Crime Correspondent. ‘Unfortunately, I have to get back to the grindstone before my news editor starts jumping up and down. Give me your number and I’ll drop you a message if anything else comes up.’

  We both stand up and I type his number into my phone to send him a blank message. I get the feeling he’s about to lean in for a peck on the cheek, Parisian style. But I pocket his business card and hold out a hand instead.

  ‘It was good to meet you, Matt.’ We shake hands, his skin clammy in my palm. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  52

  I stop outside High Street Kensington tube station and take the beer mat out of my handbag. An HP16 postcode is scribbled in biro in one corner. I put it into Google Maps and it zooms to a location east of Prestwood Ash, maybe half a mile out of the village. But it looks as if there’s nothing there, just green space on the computer image. I zoom out and back in again. Nothing. It occurs to me that Matt Simms might be a world-class bullshitter who has spun me a line just to get me off his back. He wouldn’t be the first tabloid journalist to have a tenuous relationship with the truth. I replay our conversation in my head, sifting through it, trying to judge the truth of his words.

  Switching to satellite view, I catch my breath and say a silent apology to the reporter. Because it’s there: a single large house, set in its own grounds with a long driveway curving away from the road, the faint outline of a wall surrounding the entire property. I can see why Gilbourne wasn’t worried about me stumbling on their house through blind luck when I was in the village yesterday, why he didn’t push harder for me to stop what I was doing. This house is not even in the village, it’s in between Prestwood Ash and the next one down the road, St Leonard’s. Out on a limb. Private. Isolated.

  I walk down the steps into the bowels of High Street Kensington tube station, heading for the northbound platform.

  *

  When I arrive, the wrought iron gates are shut. I pull off the little hedge-lined country road into a gravel driveway, the tall black gates topped with a row of spearpoints and recessed into a high stone wall set back from the side of the road. A large marble panel tastefully engraved with two words: THE GRANGE. A black metal keypad is set into the wall and I buzz my window down to reach it, the steel call button cold and smooth beneath my fingertip. The intercom buzzes and I wait, looking into the square plastic eye of a camera set above it. The camera’s eye stares back, but there’s no response. I press the buzzer again, wishing that I could have phoned ahead rather than just turning up at the gate unannounced. I can see one corner of the house from where my car is pulled in, three storeys of white stone just visible through the trees. But it’s quite a way back from the road, too far away for me to make out any movement. I’m about to press the intercom buzzer one last time when there is a click and a female voice comes through the speaker, an older woman, a single word so quiet and reedy it sounds like it’s coming from a thousand miles away.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs Clifton, my name’s Ellen Devlin, I’m so sorry to just drop in on you like this, but I was hoping I could have five minutes of your time. It’s important.’

  A pause.

  ‘It’s . . . not a good time at the moment.’ Her voice is flat, toneless. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Clifton, I would have called but I don’t have your number. I really need to talk to you.’

  ‘I don’t have anything—’

  ‘It’s about Mia.’

  Another pause. Longer this time, seconds stretching out.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she says finally, a trace of worry lifting it above the monotone. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I looked after Mia for a short time on Tuesday. For a few hours.’ When there is no reply, I add, ‘I met your daughter Kathryn on a train, and she asked me to take care of her.’

  The voice has fallen silent again. I’ve said too much, too quickly. Damn. I lean a little closer to the intercom.

  ‘Mrs Clifton?’

  With a metallic click, the wrought iron gates part in the middle and swing slowly open on silent hinges. I put the car in gear and make my way up the curving gravel drive with wide green lawns on both sides, edged with tall trees along the boundary wall. The drive leads into a gravel turning circle in front of a house which is every bit as impressive as the satellite image suggested it would be, a Georgian manor house in creamy-white stone, neatly-clipped lawns and gravel paths on every side, low hedges giving onto a tennis court, a large patio, an orchard off to the far side. Two large fierce-looking dogs gallop up to my car as I pull in, staring and barking, teeth bared. At a signal I can’t see or hear, they run off towards the front door.

  I park next to a Mercedes with a baby seat strapped into the back and make my way to the front door, gravel crunching beneath my shoes. A tall, dark-haired woman is already standing in the half-open doorway, arms crossed over her chest. She’s in her mid-sixties, expensively dressed in grey and black, the soft lines of her face shadowed with fatigue. A small silver crucifix hangs on a chain around her slender neck. The two dogs sit at her feet, staring at me with their tongues lolling.

  ‘Are you a reporter?’ she says as I approach.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He told us to expect reporters, sooner or later. The detective inspector.’ She has the faintest trace of a Liverpool accent, the vowels softened but still there. She sizes me up for a moment or two, before pulling the door open wider. Her eyes are puffy and red, a balled-up tissue clutched in one hand. ‘You’d better come in.’

  She dispatches the dogs back out into the grounds with a single command and I follow her down a silent hallway, my feet sinking into the deep cream carpet, into a large L-shaped sitting room with views out onto the gardens at the back of the house. Framed paintings line the walls, broad canvas landscapes and a couple of abstracts, wide splashes of colour that contrast with the dark furniture. A grand piano stands alone in the corner, abandoned, its keyboard shut. A pair of shotguns are displayed in an ornate glass-fronted case. Despite the brightness of the afternoon, the room is in semi-darkness. Curtains half-closed and blinds pulled down against the cold autumn sun. She points to a corner of the room and I realise there is a man there in the shadows, slumped in an armchair. He is around her age or perhaps a little older, with a thick white moustache, his head bald except for a neat semi-circle of white hair at the back and sides. There is a large book open across his lap. A photo album.

  ‘My husband,’ she says quietly. ‘Gerald.’

  He nods vaguely in my direction but doesn’t say anything.

  She gestures to a long leather sofa and I sit down. She remains standing in the middle of the room, squinting against a single shaft of sunlight slanting in through a gap in the curtains, motes of dust suspended in the air.

  ‘I’m Angela, by the way. I’ve got some coffee on; would you like a cup?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She disappears back into the hallway, her footsteps silent on the thick carpet. Distant kitchen sounds reach me from a long way away. Apart from that the house is utterly still, as if it has been frozen in time like an old photograph. I glance at her husband in the corner again, but he is simply staring at the book in his lap and seems to have forgotten I’m here. Family portraits line the mantelpiece showing him and his wife with two young women. I recognise Kathryn. She’s pretty – very – but the woman in the picture next to her is on another level, like a Hollywood film star. Long dark hair, flawless skin, laughing brown eyes.

  There is no sign of Mia anywhere. None of the usual debris of small children that Tara battles on a daily basis, no brightly-coloured plastic, no toys, no high chair pushe
d into a corner.

  Dominic Church said she would be here.

  Dominic Church is a liar.

  I’m suddenly overcome by a cold wash of fear, a terrible sense that I’m about to discover something unbearable.

  This is a house in mourning, a family shell-shocked with grief. And Mia is not here.

  Angela returns and hands me a steaming cup of coffee in a white china cup. She sits straight-backed in the armchair opposite me, hands on her knees, blinking rapidly as if she’s fighting hard to hold it all together.

  ‘So, Mrs Devlin,’ she says quietly. ‘You met Kathryn. Tell me what happened.’

  I gather myself and describe the events of Tuesday afternoon as briefly as I can, from the moment Kathryn sat down opposite me on the train to my arrival at the police station several hours later, barefoot and desperate, with Mia in my arms. When I’m finished, Angela’s face is creased in concern and she is wiping away tears with a balled-up tissue she has pulled from the sleeve of her cardigan.

  ‘How was Kathryn?’ she says. ‘When you spoke to her, how did she seem?’

  ‘She was scared,’ I say. It might not be what Angela wants to hear but she deserves the truth. ‘Scared for Mia, and for herself. But she was determined, too. She knew what she was doing.’

  ‘She rang me,’ she says. ‘As she was getting off the train, she called me and said Mia was safe, she was with someone safe. So that was you.’

  I nod, holding her gaze. ‘Yes.’

  ‘She wouldn’t say who it was, she said ‘people’ might be listening in. Asked me to drive over and pick her up, take her to Marylebone by car. But when I got to the station she was gone. Vanished. No sign of her at all.’

  ‘Angela,’ I say as gently as I can. ‘Where’s Mia now?’

  She seems not to hear me.

  ‘I should have listened to her,’ she says, more to herself than to me. ‘Should have talked to her, believed her.’

  A drumbeat of fear in my head. ‘Isn’t Mia here with you?’ I ask again.

  ‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ she says softly. ‘My baby.’