by Fiona Barton
“The Last Photo Taken of Murdered Gap-Year Girls,” the headline shouts above an exclusive interview with Lars. Joe has written it well. He’s got all the best quotes in and named everyone who was at the guesthouse. Jamie Way is in there. Then I spot a quote from one of Alex’s e-mails to Mags. Just a line, not mentioning drugs or theft but clearly identifiable as one of her messages.
You idiot, Joe. You’ve tipped off the police that we’ve seen the e-mails and you’ve not even used the best stuff. What a waste. I wonder what Bob Sparkes will say.
I ring Joe and he’s had a call from Sparkes already—and Jenny Shaw. “Not a happy conversation with Jenny,” he admits. “She said it was an invasion of Rosie’s privacy.”
“But you didn’t use the stuff about her stealing and her dad shagging around, did you? Still, she knows you know now. Must be galling for her, never mind Mike Shaw. What about Bob Sparkes?”
“DI Sparkes didn’t want the e-mails released either, but he didn’t spend too long on that. He was more interested in asking a lot of questions about Lars and Jamie Way.”
“That’s good. Have you put him in touch with Lars?”
“Yeah, he was pleased with that, I think. Looked good, though, didn’t it?”
“Fab. Now, where is Jamie Way? Meet you in the café round the corner from the office in an hour. Let’s find his birth certificate. I’m sure Bob Sparkes’s team is doing the same thing.”
* * *
• • •
Joe has done the heavy lifting by the time I get there, trawling through the births registers from 1985 to 1995, by the time I get there. I told him to spread the net wide. Jamie Way looks the same age as the girls in the photo, but you can never tell.
“He might be older and hiding it,” I say. I interviewed a bloke once who was in his thirties but pretended to be seventeen to re-sit his A Levels. People do the strangest things. And I’ve always suspected that people reinvent themselves a bit when they travel abroad. It’s so easy to embellish or redact our lives when no one knows the truth.
There are five births that could fit our Jamie Way.
“We don’t know where he was living in the UK, so we’ll just have to contact all of them,” Joe says, poking at the foil round a pat of butter with his knife. “I’ll order the birth certificates.”
“Okay. But we can look for the parents of each of them online in the meantime—trace their marriages and birth details. Give me the first one and I’ll make a start on my laptop while you eat your toasted tea cake.”
Joe takes a big bite and chews. “It’ll take a day or so to get the certificates.”
“Yes, but we may not have to wait. The paper’s only just published the photo. You’ve put a come-on at the bottom, haven’t you?”
“Yes, the usual ‘If you know any of these people, please call . . . ’”
“Well, let’s see what we get from the readers. Someone may recognize him.”
And of course they do. A building-site manager from Portsmouth gets in touch with the news desk and they pass the details on to Joe. He dials and puts the phone on loudspeaker.
“Hi, is that Mr. Watson? Thanks so much for ringing in. I hear you have some possible information about the photo we used today.”
“Oh right! Yes,” Mr. Watson says loudly, and the couple at the next table tut. “Well, I think it’s a bloke who used to work with me. But he had a different name.”
“Did he? What was he called, your workmate?”
“Jamie, but Jamie Lawrence. Funny kid but a hard worker. He had the makings of a good plasterer.”
“How do you spell Lawrence? With a W? Funny how?” Joe says.
“Quiet, but when he got wound up he used to go a bit mental. Do you know what I mean? Bit handy with his fists if someone pushed him too far.”
“And did he get pushed too far a lot?”
“He was the youngest on the gang so . . .”
“Right,” Joe says wearily. “And where was he living when you worked together?”
“Dunno. Bedsit, shared flat, that sort of place. He didn’t talk about it. Don’t think he had any family.”
“When?” I’m mouthing.
“So, when did you last see him, Mr. Watson?”
“Er, am I being paid for this?” the caller asks, and I sigh.
“Well,” Joe says, switching to a script, “we don’t normally pay for information.”
“Oh, maybe I’ll ring the Herald instead then . . .”
I make alarmed eyes.
“But, as I was about to say, I might be able to put a fee through for your help. A hundred pounds?”
“Lovely,” Mr. Watson says. “Right, well, he left the site in July. He’d been saving to go off and travel the world for a while. It was all he talked about. Thailand this, Thailand that. He was all excited about it, said he was getting his first passport. But he wasn’t himself in the last few weeks before he went. Miserable—you know, moody. We were going to have a few beers to send him off but he didn’t show up at the pub.”
“And has he been in touch since he went?”
“We got a postcard at the site office. The secretary did. She used to talk to him when he looked a bit down. Used to mother him. Anyway, it just said he was in Bangkok and having a great time.”
I mime taking a photo and Joe waves me away, impatiently.
“I don’t suppose you have any photos of Jamie?”
“No, we don’t go in for selfies on the building site. But I could ask down at the pub. He used to hang round there.”
“Which pub is that?”
“The Black Swan. Bit of a dive, but it’s home.”
* * *
• • •
The barmaid at the Black Swan says she’d been about to ring us, when Joe calls her. “I saw the piece but I had to wait for my shift to finish. Jamie’s a nice bloke. Always bought me a drink,” she says. “Am I going to get paid for this?”
“I’ll ask,” Joe says. “But I can’t promise anything. Anyway, where did Jamie live? Was he a local?”
“Oh yeah. He lived down past the docks. He had a room in a shared house. With students, I think. He didn’t know them before—it was just somewhere to put his head down, he said.”
“No girlfriend?”
“Not now, I don’t think. He was going out with someone last year, but it fizzled out. I think he was a bit full-on for her. He would be for me. He’s lovely but a bit needy. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think so. Has he got family in Portsmouth?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t like talking about his family. He was adopted, he said. But I think he spent part of his life in a care home. Just from things he said.”
I love barmaids. They are the ear to every door, hoovering up information with a practiced smile. Like me.
“That’s so helpful. Thanks. I don’t suppose you’ve got a number or e-mail for Jamie?
“No, sorry. I don’t really swap numbers with customers. Leads to misunderstandings.”
“Right, well, can I give you my number in case you see or hear from him?”
“No probs. And you’ll check about the payment? I earn peanuts here.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Joe promises.
* * *
• • •
“Well, that’s interesting,” I say as soon as the phone goes down. “He was Jamie Lawrence before he got to Bangkok. I wonder why he changed his name. And if Way is the name he was born with. Before his adoption.”
Joe looks for a Jamie Lawrence listed on the electoral register in Portsmouth and finds one living in what looks like a shared house.
Bingo! And all while sitting in a café.
* * *
• • •
Bob Sparkes tries to sound pleased to hear from me, but I’m not fooled.
“Don’t worry—I’m not ringing to whine, Bob. I’ve got some info that could be important about Jamie Way—the boy Lars said was at the guesthouse.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“We’ve had a ring in from someone who used to work with him. They say he was Jamie Lawrence when he lived in Portsmouth. He was working on building sites just before he set off for Bangkok.”
“Was he?”
“And the story is backed up by a barmaid at his local.”
“I wonder why he changed names.”
“Something to hide, maybe? The barmaid said he mentioned being adopted. We’ve found what could be him in a multiple-occupancy house.”
“I don’t know why we bother, Kate. You are all over this,” he says, and I can hear he’s smiling.
“Sorry, Bob. I’m not trying to best you. You’ve got a million things to do. I’ve got one.”
“We’ve already got Interpol and immigration looking for Jamie Way—I’ll give them this new name straightaway as an alias. Thanks for passing it on so quickly.”
I can hear he’s about to end the call and I interrupt his good-byes.
“Bob, this is just a thought, but do you think this boy, Jamie, could be the JW in Alex’s e-mails? Lars says he spent all his time following Alex around. And reading the e-mails, I’ve noticed that she uses a different tone when she’s talking about Jake, as if she is the pursuer.”
He hesitates. Perhaps I’ve pushed too far.
“I’ll look at that, Kate,” he says, adding as I knew he would: “Don’t suppose you’ve heard from Jake?”
Putting me back in my box.
FIFTY-TWO
The Mother
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2014
“Bloody Mags Harding,” Lesley shouted across the kitchen table, sweeping the paper off onto the floor.
“Les! Look what you’ve done.” Her husband started picking up the pages and folding them back together.
“It must be her who’s given the Post Alex’s e-mails. Bob Sparkes said the police were the only ones who had seen them apart from her. And it definitely wasn’t anyone from his team. He’s as fed up as we are.”
“I bet he’s not flinging newspapers around the room,” Malcolm muttered.
“Jenny’s doing her nut. She rang to say she’s given the reporter a real earful and she’s coming round to discuss it with us.”
“Oh God,” Malcolm said and stopped his origami exercise. “I’m not sure I’m up to this, love. I can’t face another scene with her.”
“Then go and have a bath. I’ll deal with it. Go on. Don’t just sit there.”
He lumbered to his feet, all energy gone, and padded out. She listened to the sound of his feet on each stair, counting them like the tick of the clock. She registered the whine of the extractor fan that needed a squirt of WD-40 and the gush of water as he turned on the taps. She was so deep in her thoughts that she sprang to her feet as if to run when the doorbell rang. She wished she could run away most days. Just leave all this behind.
She opened the door and Jenny started immediately, her eyes bright with anger. Lesley stood back to let her pass. “Malcolm’s in the bath,” she said. “He’s not coping today.”
It gave Jenny pause but not for long. She sat herself down at the table where the remains of the Post held center stage and she banged her hand on it.
“This rag . . .”
“There’s no need to shout, Jenny. I’m right here.”
“This bloody rag has got its hands on the e-mails. Can they do that? Can they just publish private things like that?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought so—have you spoken to the paper?” She knew Jenny had, but it seemed the kind thing to do, to allow her to tell the whole story.
“Oh yes. I rang first thing this morning. Spoke to that child, Joe Jackson. Hopeless. Then I tried to speak to the Editor but he was in a meeting. Hiding from me, more like.”
Lesley rose and assumed her role as tea maker and comforter. “On the plus side,” she ventured cautiously. Jenny’s face darkened.
“There is no plus side.”
“Hang on; hear me out. On the plus side, they only used a couple of sentences—and nothing about Rosie and the drugs or Mike and the money.”
Jenny banged the table again, sending ripples across the tea in the cups. “But they can. They could print any of those lies, couldn’t they?”
There was a strange stillness in the room, and as Lesley turned to look at Jenny she felt as if she were moving in slow motion.
“Lies?” she said, the word elongating unnaturally, to fill the air between them. “What on earth do you mean?”
“I mean, why would Alex write those things? Those awful things,” Jenny gabbled. “Rosie wasn’t like that. Not before your daughter dragged her off to Thailand and put her in danger, anyway. I should never have let her go. Anyway, I think Alex was jealous of her, jealous that all the boys liked her, and she just wrote this stuff out of spite.”
Lesley could feel the heat rising through her core. She spoke slowly, hardly trusting her voice to work.
“Shut up! What a wicked thing to say. You should be ashamed of yourself. But I understand why you would say it. After all, no one wants to admit their daughter took drugs, slept with anyone with a pulse, and stole from her friend. You must be devastated.”
Jenny’s face was scarlet and there was a tiny pearl of perspiration on her top lip. She gulped for air, then hissed, “She didn’t do those things. Aren’t you listening to me?”
“I think you need to go home, Jenny,” another voice broke in. Malcolm, in his old striped dressing gown and with bare feet, stood in the doorway. She whirled round to face him. But he stopped her dead.
“Perhaps you should speak to Mike about the money he gave Rosie,” he said. “You are right—we only have Alex’s word for what happened in Bangkok. But your ex-husband is here. You can ask him face-to-face.”
Jenny fled in tears, slamming the front door behind her.
“Do you think she will?” Lesley said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think she’s interested in the truth, Les. Only her own version. But I can’t have her talking about Alex like that.”
“No. Mal, it was awful . . .”
He led her into the front room to talk it all through. It had become their panic room, the place where they could say the unsayable and leave it there.
When she’d railed and cried herself to a standstill, Lesley looked up at her husband. “I’m going to ring Mags and ask her to come and see us. I need her to tell me everything she knows. It’s not her fault this happened, and we haven’t talked to her properly since we got back. She was Alex’s best friend.”
Malcolm nodded.
“Perhaps we can give her something of Alex’s as a keepsake.”
“That’s a lovely idea. I’ll go and pick something for her.”
BANGKOK DAY 19
(THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2014)
There was another message via Mama. Jamie said Rosie had texted to say she needed time on her own. That she was with Lars. He had loaned her money.
“How strange,” Alex said. “It’s as though Rosie can hear what I’m saying. I think Mama is making it up.”
Jamie had gone quiet. “Why would she?” he said in the end. And Alex couldn’t think of a reason.
She’d asked to see the messages, but the landlady had snorted in reply. “You are not Rosie’s friend. She messaged me,” she’d said.
* * *
• • •
Alex felt completely isolated. She wasn’t e-mailing Mags—she didn’t have a phone and she wouldn’t have done so even if she’d had one. She couldn’t trust her friend to keep Rosie’s disappearance a secret. It was too serious to keep quiet. She thought she’d probably sound the alarm if
it were the other way round. So radio silence until she had sorted it out, got Rosie back.
Alex wasn’t receiving any help closer to home. She was getting increasingly fed up with Jamie’s constant badgering about Phi Phi. She lost it with him when he tried to bring it up again in the bar. There was no one else around—she wondered if Mama had stopped taking guests.
“For God’s sake, Jamie! I am not thinking about that. I have to get Rosie to come back. Don’t you understand?”
He clearly didn’t. “I thought you’d be happy that Rosie had gone. You complained about her all the time. You said you wished you’d never come with her. That you were going to ditch her.”
“Jamie! I haven’t got time for this. I need to talk to someone who can help me. I need to talk to Jake. Don’t give me that look! He knows how things work here. He’ll know what to do.”
“Maybe Jake could go to Myanmar and find Rosie. He obviously fancies her . . .” Jamie said quietly.
“Don’t be stupid,” she shouted. “He doesn’t fancy her. She was throwing herself at him. He was embarrassed by it.”
“Well, if that’s what you want to believe. It didn’t look like that when I saw them.”
“When did you see them?”
“The other night when you were supposed to go out with him. They were getting drunk together. Rosie was all over him, sitting on his knee, and Jake wasn’t trying to get away. In fact, they went off together. Upstairs.”
Alex closed her eyes against the images. “Shut up!” she shouted, as if she could blot out his voice. “You’re making this up, trying to upset me.”
“No, I’m not. Ask Mama. She saw it, too. I’m not saying this just to upset you. I’d want to know if my friend was doing that behind my back. It was a revenge shag. How low could she get?”
“Leave me alone, Jamie,” Alex sobbed and ran from the room.
She hated him, too, now. A revenge shag. Was Rosie really capable of that? And was Jake so weak he’d go along with it? She didn’t know what to believe.