‘That’s right,’ I say, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. ‘Her name’s—’
‘Bella.’ Rose is grinning. It takes a second for my brain to kick in. I didn’t put Bella’s name in my feature. She didn’t want to tell me her name. Before I can ask Rose how she knows, she says, ‘She lives in the same block of flats as me, you know, in the project.’
‘Can you tell me where that is?’ I ask.
‘Great Ann Street. St Paul’s. It’s a ten-minute walk from here,’ Rose says. ‘I’ll take you if you like.’
‘Would you, Rose? That’s very sweet of you.’
As we leave the shelter, I text Jon with an update. Rose chats away as we walk along. She now plays the violin once a month in a local Irish bar, where she works in the kitchen.
‘The owner says I can do a bit of waitressing in the summer,’ she says, her voice and face attesting to her excitement.
‘I’m thrilled for you, Rose,’ I say, realising I’m going to do that follow-up after all. ‘I’ll come along the next time you play.’
The block of flats isn’t somewhere I’d like to call home. Rabbit cages, piled five storeys high, loom over me and some kids in their late teens loiter in front of it, smoking. I can smell the marijuana before I get anywhere near them or their ugly albino dog.
‘They’re harmless,’ Rose says, leading the way down the path and through the entrance hall, which smells strongly of piss.
It strikes me that Bella may not be in. ‘Does Bella work now?’ I ask, following Rose up the steps to the third floor.
‘She has an evening job,’ Rose replies. ‘Pretty sure she said she’s off tonight though.’
I’m about to ask what Bella does when Rose says, ‘This is her flat, here.’ She hammers on a door with blue paint peeling off it. She calls, ‘It’s Rose. Bella? Open up.’
And she does. There she is, standing in front of me. I can hardly believe it. I’ve found Bella Slade. Finally.
‘Hi, Bella. Remember me? I’m Kelly. You talked to me for my article about homeless women in Bristol. Would you mind if I came in for a chat?’
Bella’s eyes flick from left to right, like a trapped animal that doesn’t know which way to run.
‘I’m writing a follow-up on my story.’
‘Sure,’ she says, uncertainly. I can’t read her expression. Surprise? Anger? Unease, perhaps.
‘I have to get back to the shelter,’ Rose says, turning to go. ‘Laters, Bella.’
Bella holds the door open for me to come in. Her flat is clean, if a little sterile, and sparsely decorated. There’s a faint smell of cat litter by the front door. She leads me to the living room, which has a kitchenette in the corner. Moments later, I’m sitting next to a more relaxed Bella on her sofa – the only piece of furniture in the room apart from a small plastic coffee table. Bella’s tabby is sandwiched between us, purring loudly. She tells me about her job, washing up dishes in a restaurant.
‘The restaurant owner is nice to me. I get to eat my evening meal when everything’s been cleaned up at the end of the evening.’
I take notes and sip the tea she has made.
‘I’m doing a course, too,’ she says, stroking the cat. ‘The hostel put me onto it. It’s to help people in recovery from alcohol and drug abuse. People like me.’
I decide this gives me my lead-in. ‘I came to see how you were getting on and I’m super pleased you’re doing so well. I’d like to talk to you about a different matter now, if that’s OK.’ I make a show of snapping my notebook shut and putting it in my handbag to indicate to Bella that this is between her and me. ‘I want to ask you about a different form of abuse.’
I sense her stiffen next to me and notice her hand stop on the cat’s back. ‘On the streets?’ she asks.
‘No, not on the streets. Before you left home.’ Turning to look at her, I notice her eyes fill with tears. ‘Why didn’t you report it?’ I ask gently.
‘Is this … what’s the expression? Off the record?’
‘Yes. I promise.’
But she shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Why do you want to know anyway?’
Good question. How do I answer that? It’s not really clear in my own head. To begin with, I was investigating the Slade babies’ deaths and I thought Bella might be able to throw some light on it seeing as she was there the night Amber died. I thought it odd no one knew where Bella was and this made me all the more determined to find her. Then I discovered Michael Slade had been abusing his daughter and I have such a low opinion of him that I’ve convinced myself he had a hand in his babies’ deaths. But, as Jon says, the fact Slade abused one daughter doesn’t mean he killed the other two.
‘Well, you see, I’m trying to help someone, too. Someone who’s in prison right now and who may have been wrongfully imprisoned.’
‘Melissa.’
‘That’s right. I think your father’s hiding something – I’m not sure exactly what – that might help prove Melissa’s innocence.’ Or guilt, I think, but I don’t say that. ‘I believe he knows more than he’s telling us, or the police, or anyone else. And I’d like to find out what it is. I’m trying to work out who your father is, get a full portrait. And what he did to you, well, that’s something else he’s been keen to keep quiet about, isn’t it?’
Perhaps it doesn’t sound any more logical to Bella than it does to me, for she remains silent and tense beside me.
Then she says, ‘I’d like to help Melissa, I really would. She’s nice. But I don’t want to … I left that behind me when I left home.’
‘OK. I’m sorry. I understand. Let’s talk about Melissa. And your sisters. Would that be all right?’
She gives a faint nod.
‘Do you remember the night Amber died, Bella? Can you tell me what happened?’
At first she doesn’t answer. Then she starts stroking the cat again, in slow sweeping movements. The cat’s not purring anymore, but perhaps caressing it soothes Bella. ‘It was a dinner party. Dad and Melissa’s friends were there with their daughter. Callum, my stepbrother, he was there. Clémentine …’ she spits the name out ‘… the twins’ au pair.’
The unspoken words hang in the air between us, but I’m sure we’re both thinking the same thing. Clémentine was also her father’s lover. Michael admitted in court that they’d been having an affair. Bella didn’t attend the trial, but I’m sure she followed it. I remember Jon telling me that Bella had written an angry email to Clémentine after it came out about the affair.
‘Clémentine brought Ellie downstairs and gave her a bottle,’ Bella continues. ‘Melissa was sitting there with the baby monitor, waiting for Amber to wake up. And, of course, Amber didn’t wake up. My stepmother went to check on her eventually. It was just awful … the screaming. We heard Melissa screaming and I just knew … something terrible had happened. Clémentine put Ellie down on the rug and we all raced upstairs. Clémentine tried to … you know, do mouth-to-mouth. Someone rang for the ambulance.’ Bella’s voice breaks here. ‘But it was … too … late.’
The cat leaps off the sofa with a yowl. Bella must have pulled its fur or pummelled it.
‘What do you think happened to Amber?’
‘She died of cot death, like they said.’ She sounds very sure of herself.
‘And Ellie? Do you think that was cot death, too?’
Bella doesn’t answer immediately. Just when I think she’s not going to answer at all, she says, ‘No. Ellie’s death was deliberate.’
‘You mean she was killed?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice is almost inaudible, or perhaps it’s drowned out by the roar of blood in my ears.
‘Do you know who killed her?’
She nods.
I’m aware I’m holding my breath, but she doesn’t offer the information. ‘Was it Melissa?’ I ask.
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then who was it?’
&nbs
p; She shakes her head. I try to think of a way of teasing this out of her. ‘Does anyone else know who killed Ellie?’
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Who?’
‘My father. He was there that night.’
‘Where?’
‘On the landing. Outside the babies’ bedroom. He knows everything.’
Chapter 31
Jonathan
October 2018
It’s two days before Simon Goodman gets back to me. Of course Holly noticed her laptop was missing immediately. I’d barely arrived back at my place with her stuff when she phoned to ask me to check the bags for it. Then she wanted to know if she could come and get it. I had to lie and say Alfie had a temperature and I didn’t want her near him, with her being pregnant and all. Nor did I want to leave Alfie to bring her the computer. She didn’t insist. Luckily. But her silence down the phone spoke volumes that I couldn’t quite comprehend.
I’m consumed with guilt for taking Holly’s computer and for not trusting her, and I regret handing over the laptop to Simon, but I simply had to know if I could trust Holly. Beyond that, I haven’t thought anything out. I don’t know what I’ll do if my suspicions turn out to be founded. I’m convinced I’m right. But I’ve never hoped so hard that I’m wrong.
As Holly is spending the weekend with the boys and me, I heave a sigh of relief when I get Goodman’s phone call on the Thursday morning. He won’t give me any details over the phone. He won’t even say if his “guy” managed to unlock Holly’s password-protected file. We arrange to meet in a pub near his home in Totterdown that evening. And I imagine all will be revealed then.
‘Banco Lounge. It’s on the corner of Wells Road and some other road – I don’t know its name, or even if it has one.’
‘OK. And it’s near your place, you say?’ I ask, wondering how he doesn’t know the name of the road.
‘Yeah. About fifty feet from my front door. You can’t miss it. It used to be a bank. Hence the name. Six-ish?’
‘No problem. I’m free,’ I say, thinking I’ll have to ask my parents to look after the boys this evening. ‘You’ll bring the laptop, right?’
‘Of course.’
Despite thinking Goodman’s directions were a bit vague, I find it easily, even in the dark. You can barely make out the words Banco Lounge on the glass windows, but the building has got Lloyds Bank splashed across the wall in huge stone letters. Arriving bang on time, I slot my trusty Ford into a space in the unnamed road. Goodman passes on foot as I’m getting out of the car. With the laptop tucked under his right arm, he shakes my hand a little awkwardly. Then together, we make our way to the pub.
It turns out to be more of a café slash bar and it’s very noisy. There’s an excited crowd, wearing fancy dress and obviously celebrating something. Even the bartender is dressed up as a policeman, while, somewhat ironically, Simon is in jeans and a bomber jacket.
Goodman spots a couple, also in normal clothes, putting on their coats. We grab their wooden table for two, right in front of the bar and underneath three rows of paintings, hanging on the maroon wall. My eyes travel over the paintings: brown landscapes, portraits, flowers – varied subjects, but they’re all hideous and faded, and look like they’ve been picked up in a car boot sale.
When the pair have left, Goodman shrugs off his jacket and sits down on one of the chairs.
‘Erm … I’ll get these,’ I say, picking up the empties from our table.
‘Mine’s a bitter,’ Goodman says as I turn to the bar.
‘What have you come as?’ the bartender asks, looking me up and down before blowing a streamer across the bar in my face.
I feign a chuckle, then order a pint of bitter and a pint of lager. As an afterthought, I ask for two chicken and chorizo paninis, too.
When I take my seat opposite Goodman, the laptop on the table between us, he gets straight to the point.
‘I passed the laptop to a colleague and friend of mine – he’s a forensic computer analyst. Fortunately, your girlfriend has an old version of Microsoft Office on her laptop. Recent versions of encrypted Word documents are much harder, sometimes impossible, to break into.’ He hands me a printout.
‘Is this … it is … isn’t it?’ The first time I laid eyes on this document was in a Thai restaurant in Clifton with Holly. The very words that caught my eye then grab my attention now. Antimony, liver.
‘It’s Ellie’s post-mortem toxicology report, yes.’
‘Is there any way Holly could have saved the document to her desktop after it resurfaced?’
‘No. She’s definitely the author of the document. And the date of the last revision precedes the date Ellie’s toxicology report was discovered. By two days.’
‘So she forged it.’ It’s not a question. It’s what I’ve suspected since I saw the file on Holly’s desktop. A Word document with the title ES. Ellie Slade.
‘It certainly looks like it.’
‘Holly said the toxicology analysis was found in her colleague’s papers as well as on his computer. Wouldn’t it be easy to prove that he didn’t write it?’
‘It’s easy enough to change the author name. You need to be a bit tech-savvy to change the time stamp and so on, but it can be done. She must have changed all the document properties after transferring it to her colleague’s computer.’
I’m appalled at what Holly has done, but I can’t help but feel a grudging admiration for her at the same time. She has damaged Sparks’s reputation to get him back for damaging hers.
Our paninis arrive and Simon bites into his ravenously. I’ve lost my appetite.
‘Will she …? What do we …?’ I’ve also lost the ability to speak, apparently.
‘No. Nothing.’ Goodman puts down his panini, and steeples his hands. He gives me a look, a strange amalgam of a warning and a plea. ‘All trace of the encrypted document has been deleted from this computer.’
My first thought is that Holly will notice. She’ll know I know. Then something else dawns on me. Simon Goodman is a police officer in the CID. And he has just destroyed evidence. Evidence that my fiancée faked a report to exact revenge on her colleague. Holly’s forgery is Melissa’s lifeline, her get out of jail card.
‘Neither you nor I have ever touched Holly’s computer,’ he says, as if to drive his point home. ‘OK?’
An entry in Melissa’s diary comes back to me, when she related how Simon persuaded her to ask for leave to appeal. She described a man used to getting his own way. Simon says. He’s turning his intense blue eyes on me now, waiting for me to consent to this. He knows I’ll agree. He’s got me by the short and curlies.
I maintain eye contact with Goodman, as he continues to stare at me, stroking his stylish stubble. It crosses my mind that he upholds the law in his own way, but at the same time, he holds himself above the law, making decisions on his own initiative, according to his own sense of right and wrong. I think of Claire’s son, whose misdemeanour – whatever it was – Goodman essentially buried. Goodman saw a boy who needed a second chance and made sure he got it.
And Melissa. Simon is convinced she’s innocent. He’ll do anything to prove that. Even if he has to rely on fabricated evidence. He wants Melissa to be freed at all costs – for her sake and for their son’s sake, but also for himself.
‘Sure,’ I say, ripping up the printout. It’s about more than the secret that now binds us. We both have the same ulterior motive behind our actions. Because like Simon, I would do anything to protect the woman I love. And just as Goodman has his son Callum’s interests at heart, I’m desperate to do what’s best for my sons – all three of them.
‘Great,’ he says, sliding Holly’s laptop across the table towards me. ‘Now, there was another matter you wanted to run by me?’
I’m amazed he can jump to a different subject so easily. Deep down I knew it was the fake report Holly had on her computer, but the confirmation of that has knocked the wind out of me. I’m still trying to catch my breath, get
my bearings.
‘Er … yeah.’
‘I’ll get another round in, shall I?’
While Simon places his order at the bar, I pull myself together and when he gets back, I tell him what’s on my mind.
‘My colleague—’
‘Kelly Fox.’
‘Yep. Michael Slade followed her the other night. She was walking home from her mother’s; he was at the wheel of his poncey red Merc. Do you have anything on him? I mean, is he dangerous?’
Simon narrows his eyes. ‘Could it have been a coincidence he was in the same neighbourhood as Kelly?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why would he follow her?’
‘I think he got wind that she was on to him and he was trying to intimidate her. You see, Kelly believes Slade sexually abused his daughter.’
Goodman holds his hand up, like he’s directing traffic. ‘Hang on. Rewind a bit. Abuse? I don’t know anything about abuse.’
I bring him up to speed, telling him about Kelly’s article on the homeless for which she happened to interview Bella Slade. ‘Kelly may know more,’ I say. ‘She went to visit Bella today in some hostel or housing project, but I haven’t seen her yet to get a full report.’
There’s a manic glow in Goodman’s eyes as he drinks all this in. I know he can’t stand Slade – I’m sure he hates him with a passion – and I dread to think what’s going through his mind right now. I get the uncomfortable impression that the information I’m giving Simon is feeding his shady side.
He asks for Bella’s address. Against my better judgement, I get out my mobile and bring up Kelly’s text message, then pass him the phone. Typing the details into his own phone, he finally answers my questions.
‘He doesn’t have a police record. He was arrested three times, in the eighteen months or so after Melissa’s imprisonment.’
‘Oh?’
‘Twice for dangerous driving – he was speeding near a school on one occasion and he jumped a red light on another. And once on suspicion of trying to pick up underage prostitutes.’ I raise my eyebrows at that. ‘But there was nothing in it.’
The Guilty Mother Page 23