by Cara Hunter
‘So one set are Isabel Parker’s,’ begins Gallagher. ‘But the others –’
‘The others,’ says Baxter, ‘are a perfect match for Leah Waddell.’
But people don’t get it; not immediately anyway. I can see that from the confusion in their eyes. I get up and turn to face them.
‘OK. This is what I think happened. Patsie, Sasha and Isabel left Summertown on foot that night, just like Nadine said. They met up with Nadine at the footpath and then they all went down to the river. God only knows what they told Sasha to persuade her to go along with that, but whatever it was, she must have believed it. Meanwhile Leah Waddell waited in Summertown on her own, and eventually caught that 9.43 bus. That ticket there, on the board – that’s hers.’
‘But it’s a ticket for Headington,’ says Everett, evidently still confused.
‘Right. Precisely. She bought a ticket for Headington. Only she didn’t stay on that far. She got off at the very next stop, and walked back home from there, arriving – as we know – at 10.15. And the following day, at school, she gave that ticket to Isabel, so she had something to prove her alibi if she needed it.’
Quinn lets out a long breath. ‘The cunning little mares.’
‘But that bus driver spoke to Isabel,’ says Everett, clearly still confused. ‘He identified her. I don’t get it – she had to have been on that bus.’
I nod. ‘And she was. Patsie walked home from the river but Isabel went back down to the main road and caught the bus to Headington from there. The same bus Leah had just got off only a few minutes before. I reckon Isabel probably had her hood up when she got on so the driver wouldn’t notice her hair, but she must have taken it down later. She wanted to make damn sure he’d remember her.’
‘Fuck me,’ says Gislingham under his breath. ‘Someone remind me about this, will you, next time I say I want daughters.’
* * *
Somer’s flat doesn’t have the space of Saumarez’s house. Or the décor. Or the view. The sitting room is tiny, she has only the one bedroom and the bathroom doesn’t even have a window. But it doesn’t seem to bother Giles. It’s one of the things about him that intrigues her. For someone who’s clearly spent a pile of money and time on getting his own surroundings exactly as he wants them, he seems to have a talent for being at ease wherever he finds himself. Which, right now, is sprawled on Somer’s sofa, watching TV.
He doesn’t turn it off when he sees her, but he does get up, pulling her into his arms and burying his face in her hair.
‘Missed you,’ he says.
‘It’s only been a few days,’ she laughs, but it’s been a shit of a few days, and she feels suddenly on the edge of tears. She breathes him in, the heat of him, the smell. Sea air and skin and clean laundry. Perhaps this is what love is like, she thinks suddenly. Perhaps she’s been searching for this – exactly this – all her adult life. She just never knew.
She pulls away now and hauls off her coat.
‘I’m going to make tea,’ she says, heading for the kitchen. ‘And then I’m going to have a shower. Do you want anything?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ He drops back on to the sofa and swings his feet on to the coffee table. If any of her previous boyfriends had done that she’d have seethed. But it’s early days, as she keeps reminding herself – for this and many other reasons. Stuff like that only starts to jangle your nerves after at least six months.
It’s a true crime show he’s watching, surprise, surprise; Somer recognizes the woman doing the voiceover. A rich, arch American accent she can’t quite place geographically. The west coast somewhere?
Her phone pings as she tips water into her mug. An email from Ev. She puts down the kettle and opens it up.
‘Shit,’ she says. ‘Shit shit shit.’
* * *
Adam Fawley
11 April 2018
13.35
‘Have you got everything?’
Alex sighs. ‘God, Adam, I can’t wait to get home. If I never see another cottage pie it’ll be too soon.’
I pick her coat up from the bed and hold it out. She’s a little unsteady on her feet, after so long in bed. She brushes against me as I help her find a sleeve. Her hair smells different. Hospital shampoo.
‘I’ve got chicken and chips ordered for tonight, by the way. From that French place.’
That gets a smile. It’s her guilty pleasure. Along with the Meursault she’s not currently allowing herself to have.
She picks up her handbag and takes a last look round. ‘OK, pardner. Time for you and me to get the hell outta Dodge.’
* * *
‘Show me that email again?’
Somer hands Giles the phone and watches as he scrolls down.
‘We thought we had them,’ she says. ‘Fawley worked out it must have been Leah who got that bus ticket and gave it to Isabel. And he was right – her prints were on it. And we all thought, there we are, that’s the proof.’
‘Only now Leah’s saying she can explain how those prints got there,’ says Giles, handing her back the phone.
‘Right. She says she looked for something in Isabel’s bag when they were at school the following day and must have touched the ticket then. Which I don’t buy for a single nanosecond.’
He looks up. ‘But you won’t be able to prove it either way, will you. That’s the problem.’
‘We were already facing an uphill battle convincing a jury. The defence will be able to call a whole truckload of witnesses to say what great friends Sasha and the others were. And everyone’s got a daughter or a sister or a niece who looks like one of those girls. No one’s going to want to believe them capable of something like this.’
‘You wouldn’t have any trouble convincing me – it happens a lot more often than you think. There was a bloody awful case in the States where a sixteen-year-old kid was stabbed repeatedly by two of her closest friends just because they “didn’t like her any more”.’
Somer wraps her arms around herself. ‘I just can’t stop thinking about it, Giles. About Sasha – how she must have realized at some point that they weren’t going to stop – that her best friends were going to kill her. Imagine that – imagine knowing that.’
He reaches out and touches her on the shoulder. ‘You’re doing your best.’
‘But what if it’s not enough? What if we can’t even persuade the CPS to run with it? Because right now, I don’t think we have a hope in hell. It’ll just be poor bloody Nadine carrying the can. And all this time that vicious little cow Patsie’s been cosying up to Sasha’s mother, eating her food, sleeping in Sasha’s bed – that poor woman has no bloody idea –’
Saumarez stares at her. ‘Say that again.’
‘Patsie’s been round at Sasha’s house pretty much non-stop ever since she disappeared. We thought she was just trying to be nice – to give Fiona some support – but now of course it’s starting to look like something else entirely –’
She stops. Giles has got his own phone out now and is tapping at the screen. ‘What is it?’
He holds out the mobile to her. ‘This is from the late nineties, in LA. The Michele Avila case. Any of it sound familiar?’
Somer reads what’s on the screen and looks up at him, the colour draining from her face. ‘What the –’
He nods. ‘Two of Avila’s friends beat her to death, just because she was prettier and more popular than they were. And all the time the police were searching for her murderer, one of the killers was holed up in her house, “comforting” her mother. They very nearly got away with it, too.’
Her eyes widen. ‘Are you saying Patsie and the others could have known about this? That they could actually have copied it?’
‘Has to be a possibility.’
She’s reaching for her own phone now. ‘I’ll ask Baxter to check the phones and laptops –’
But he’s shaking his head. ‘Patsie’s way too clever for that, Erica. Same goes for the school PCs – they keep records of what the kid
s look at online.’
Her face falls. ‘Please don’t tell me it’s another dead end.’
‘No, not necessarily. The internet’s not the only way they might have found out. You said Patsie and the others were well up on forensics and GPS tracking and stuff like that? Well, maybe I’m not the only one who watches too much crime on TV.’
His voice trails off. He’s looking at his phone again, frowning this time.
‘What – what is it?’
‘I’m just wondering – maybe the Avila case isn’t the only one Patsie’s been boning up on.’ He looks up at her. ‘Didn’t you say Fawley thought this whole thing could be a copycat?’
She nods.
He holds out the phone again. ‘Well, looking at this, I think he might be right.’
* * *
* * *
Baxter doesn’t know who he is – not at first anyway. But it doesn’t take him long to work out it must be Somer’s new squeeze. He remembers Gis making snide remarks about Saumarez when she first started seeing him, and you only need to take one look at him to see why. All that and a DI as well. Some buggers have all the luck.
He opens the car door and gets out as Somer comes up the road towards him, her bloke a step or two behind.
‘This is Giles,’ she says. ‘He’s been helping me out.’
Saumarez smiles and holds out his hand. ‘Good to meet you. Erica’s told me a lot about you. She says you’re the team computer ace.’
‘Giles is pretty good with computers, too,’ says Somer quickly. Baxter eyes her – her cheeks are flushed and he’s never seen her looking so jumpy or trying so hard. As if she’s introducing Saumarez to her dad, not just some random work colleague.
‘Oh yes?’ he says heavily, turning back to Saumarez. ‘Digital forensics, is it?’
Saumarez smiles again. A clean smile, without sarcasm. Somer has to hand it to him: he’s almost miraculously even-tempered.
‘Nah, just a common or garden copper.’
Somer looks from one to the other. ‘OK, so are we good to go?’
* * *
Adam Fawley
11 April 2018
15.15
‘You’re not going in at all today?’ says Alex, when I slide the mug of green tea on to the bedside table.
I shake my head. ‘I’ve done my bit on this one. And in the meantime, I’m going to take some of the pile of time in lieu they owe me and spoil you rotten.’
Her lip quivers and I can see she’s close to tears.
‘Hey,’ I say, sitting down on the bed next to her, ‘it’s not that dreadful a prospect, is it?’
But I can’t get her to smile.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she whispers, her voice breaking. ‘I should have done it before, I know I should. But there never seemed to be a good time.’ The tears spill over. ‘And then it all got out of hand and I didn’t think I could tell you. I thought it would just make it ten times worse.’
I take her hand. ‘It’s about the trial, isn’t it,’ I say softly. ‘The evidence you gave at the trial.’
She looks at me. ‘But how –’
‘I know. Alex, my darling, I’ve always known.’
* * *
THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT
The Old Bailey
London EC4M 7EH
BEFORE:
THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEALEY
R E G I N A
v.
GAVIN FRANCIS PARRIE
* * *
MR. R. BARNES Q.C. and MISS S. GREY
appeared on behalf of the prosecution.
MRS. B. JENKINS Q.C. and MR. T. CUTHBERT
appeared on behalf of the defendant.
* * *
Tuesday, 16th November, 1999
[Day 23]
ALEXANDRA SHELDON, recalled
Examined by MRS. JENKINS
Q. Ms. Sheldon, I’d like to ask you some further questions, if I may, about the events of January 3rd this year. I apologise for having to put you through this again, but this is, as you must be aware, a crucial element of the prosecution’s case. Indeed, quite possibly the single most crucial element of all. You, as a trainee solicitor yourself, must appreciate that.
MR. BARNES: My Lord, if I may interject, the witness cannot be expected to comment on such matters.
MR. JUSTICE HEALEY: Mrs. Jenkins, perhaps you might move on.
MRS. JENKINS: My Lord. So, Ms. Sheldon, it is still your contention, is it, that you did not enter Mr. Parrie’s garage premises at any time that day?
A. That’s correct.
Q. You didn’t try the door before the police came, just to see if it was unlocked?
A. No.
Q. In fact, as we have heard, the door was indeed locked, but Mr. Parrie kept a spare key above the lintel – a key which anyone who might have been watching him that day could have seen him take down and use to open the door.
A. I told you, I didn’t go in. They’d have found my fingerprints on the handle if I had. And on the key.
Q. Not necessarily, Ms. Sheldon. Not if you were wearing gloves. And according to Met Office records it was a bright but very cold day on January 3rd – the temperature barely exceeded six degrees.
A. I wasn’t wearing gloves.
Q. So you didn’t go in, and you didn’t leave anything inside?
A. I told you.
Q. Like strands of your hair, for example? Such as were subsequently discovered by the police?
A. No, like I said. And I’d had my hair cut short weeks before. Where would I have got strands that long?
Q. You might have had some in your handbag? On your hairbrush?
A. How often do you clean your brush?
Q. That’s hardly the point –
A. I clean mine every few days. Like most women. The assault had happened four months before.
MR. BARNES: My Lord, if I may, we have already heard evidence from the police forensic scientist that hair recovered from a brush would have been knotted in a clump, not in the long ‘free’ strands retrieved from the garage.
MRS. JENKINS: One final question, Ms. Sheldon. The court has heard that you had never met Detective Sergeant Fawley prior to the night you were assaulted, on September 4th 1998. Is that true?
A. Yes, it is.
MRS. JENKINS: No further questions, my Lord.
* * *
It’s a man who opens the door. His hair is wet and he has a towel wrapped round his waist and another in his hand.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘DC Erica Somer, Thames Valley Police, and DC Andrew Baxter. This is DI Giles Saumarez. Is Mrs Webb in?’
He stares at them all one by one. ‘Nah. She’s gone shopping for Patsie. Something to “cheer her up”, the spoilt little bitch.’
His contempt is palpable. The last time she was here Somer came away wondering whether this man could have been abusing Denise Webb’s daughter – so much so that she checked his whereabouts for the night Sasha died. But he was nowhere near the place.
‘Can we come in?’
‘What’s this about? The Blake kid again?’
‘Did you know Sasha, Mr Riley?’
If he’s surprised she knows his name, he doesn’t show it. ‘Yeah, I met her once or twice. Nice kid. Quiet. Polite. Never could see what she saw in bloody Patsie.’
He steps back and the three of them troop past him into the hall. There’s a bag of tools on the floor by the stairs and a high-viz jacket hooked over the bannisters.
‘You’re a builder, aren’t you, Mr Riley?’
He grins at her. ‘Fuck me, you really are a detective.’
‘Do you know someone called Ashley Brotherton?’
He starts a little, and a wariness creeps into his face. ‘Yeah. Worked with him a few times on jobs. Why?’
‘Did you know Patsie was seeing him?’
‘Seeing him as in shagging him? Yeah, I thought she might be. I saw them in town once.’
Jesus, thinks Som
er – if only they’d thought to talk to this tosser before –
‘You didn’t tell her mother? She’s fifteen –’
A smile curls nastily about his mouth. ‘So fucking what? And in any case, Den’s made it balls-achingly clear that Patsie is her business not mine. So as far as I’m concerned, what that little cow does or doesn’t do is absolutely nothing to do with me.’
He’s towelling his hair now. He has tattoos all up one arm and a snake twisting across his shoulders – the same one, Somer suddenly realizes, that Denise Webb has.
‘Didn’t you search Patsie’s stuff already?’ he says. ‘Den said some of your blokes came and took her laptop.’
Saumarez takes a step forward. ‘Does Patsie have a TV in her room, Mr Riley?’
‘No,’ he says, frowning. ‘Just the one down here.’
‘And you have, what, Sky? Virgin?’
‘Sky,’ he says. ‘For the sport.’ He looks at Somer and then at the two men. ‘That’s what you want to see? The telly?’
‘If you don’t mind,’ says Somer.
He smiles again. ‘Go ahead – knock yourself out. If you can find anything to incriminate that little bitch you’ll be doing me a favour big-time. In the meantime, I’m going upstairs.’
* * *
28 August 1998, 10.45 p.m.
Kubla Nightclub, High Street, Oxford
It’s crowded in the bar. Friday night and everyone’s a bit wired. Apart, that is, from the young man with dark hair sitting at the bar, who’s had the same pint slowly warming up in front of him for over an hour. He hasn’t been alone all that time – he had a mate with him until a few minutes ago – but whatever they were talking about, it must have been something serious because he hasn’t been doing much smiling. But now his friend has gone and the young man has twisted round on his stool he can observe what’s going on in the rest of the bar. He’s good at that – watching people, working them out. There’s a scattering of couples – some at tables, a few dancing. One pair who’ve been needling each other all night are now on the brink of a row, another pair are definitely in the jittery stages of a first date. Groups of lads gripping fancy beer bottles by the neck and laughing just a bit too hard. And a group of women on a hen night in the far corner. Not teenagers – they must all be in their mid-twenties. No embarrassing inflatable body parts either, just satin sashes and tiaras and a balloon tied to the back of the bride-to-be’s chair. He’d have known which one she was anyway, even without that: she’s wearing a pink diamanté hairslide saying TAKEN in large glittery letters, which she’s tried to take off several times, only to have it firmly reinstated by her friends.
