Murder Undeniable

by Anita Waller

‘And the other five?’

  ‘There’s me, of course, Peter Swift the footballer, Isla Yardley, who was called Isla Norman at school, Michael Damms and Sarah Hodgson, who wasn’t there that night.’

  ‘What night?’

  Caroline’s brain froze. Shit, shit, shit echoed around her head.

  ‘That night we first smoked a joint,’ she said, aware her voice was off kilter.

  ‘Why not? Why wasn’t she there?’

  ‘She’d moved to Ross-on-Wye a month earlier. She’d been to all the others, and she wasn’t happy to have moved, but her dad had been promoted so they left Eyam.’

  ‘Did everybody live in Eyam?’

  ‘Yes, I think it’s why we were friends really. We all met up in the morning for the bus, and we all came home together at night. We were in the same year as well, so it was natural we’d stick together.’

  Caroline could feel sweat on her face. She wanted out of there. She’d almost slipped up saying ‘that night’, and now she was scared. She wanted to make no mention, accidental or otherwise, of Leon Rowe.

  ‘Michael Damms. What can you tell me of him?’

  ‘He works for Anthony. He’s a pharmacist in one of Anthony’s shops. He still lives in Eyam, he inherited the house his parents had lived in. Works in Chesterfield, I believe, but don’t know which shop.’

  ‘So there are just two left,’ Marsden said. ‘Isla Yardley and Peter Swift.’ She leaned across to look at Hannah’s notes, checking her facts.

  ‘Isla is married to Gerry Yardley, the haulage contractor in Stoney Middleton. At school we got on okay, but she left to go to work as well. She started at Yardley’s as an office junior, ended up marrying the boss’s son, who is now, of course, the boss.’

  It briefly occurred to Hannah that Caroline must be pretty damn scared of Marsden to let all this information pour out of her.

  ‘And Peter Swift?’

  ‘When Peter left school that summer, he joined Stoke, went to their academy. Haven’t you heard of him?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of Peter Swift, the Stoke striker, but it doesn’t automatically follow it’s your Peter Swift.’

  ‘Well, it is. He was at the funeral, and joined us at the pub later, but he was kept busy signing autographs and posing for selfies.’

  ‘So, who was at the pub?’

  ‘Myself, Sarah Hodgson, Michael Damms, Isla and Gerry Yardley, and Peter Swift. We stayed a couple of hours, talked wedding invitations, toasted absent friends and then as far as I know, split up. I took Sarah back to my home in Sheffield, and she left for Ross-on-Wye just after ten this morning.’

  Marsden stared at her for a few seconds without speaking. She guessed Caroline was being garrulous for a reason; to hide something she didn’t want to talk about. She stood. ‘DI Marsden and PC Granger are leaving the room. Interview terminated at 11.48.’

  She paused at the door. ‘PC Irwin will escort you out, Caroline, but we’ll probably need to speak to you again. Please leave telephone numbers of everybody on this list with the constable.’

  Caroline sat in her car and frantically worked her way down the list, telling Sarah, Michael, and Isla that they needed to prepare for a phone call from a DI Marsden. She left voicemails for Peter and Keith.

  She hoped she’d done enough to cover her slip up and that DI Marsden hadn’t read anything sinister into it. Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to be the one to mention Leon Rowe’s name. She may not have recognised him when Anthony went to speak to him on their first “date”, but she certainly had known his name for nearly fifteen years.

  The sight of him at the funeral had been enough to make her legs go weak, and it wasn’t his jaw-dropping stature and good looks that had turned her to mush. It was the memory of what he had done to his victim that night.

  No killer had ever been found, no gun had ever surfaced, and yet seven people had witnessed events from that night. Seven people who had met up fifteen days later for Caroline’s sixteenth birthday, and had made a solemn pledge to never speak of what they knew.

  Sarah knew nothing and for that Caroline was grateful. Under police pressure she would have folded.

  Caroline leaned her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. Her friends were really not going to appreciate being dragged into Anthony’s murder investigation; she simply hoped none of it would prove to be justified.

  She opened her eyes, leaned forward and turned the ignition. The sooner she got home the sooner she could curl up in a ball and escape the world. The memory of that night had been buried once, she could bury it again. Buried, just like Anthony Jackson.

  Chapter 22

  ‘Can I trust you two ladies not to get up to any mischief this morning?’ Kat asked, smiling at Doris and Mouse across the kitchen table.

  ‘Of course,’ they answered in unison, then smiled at each other.

  ‘Is it a full day meeting?’ Doris asked.

  ‘No, I should be home for around one. It’s only in Castleton.’

  ‘I’ll make sure lunch is ready for when you get home,’ Doris promised.

  ‘Thank you. I can’t see how this will help in any way, but how about a run out to Anthony’s home this afternoon. It might give us more of a feel for the man, and the police will have gone. Think about it, we’ll decide later.’

  Mouse nodded. ‘Good idea, then we’ll have a chat about what we’ve found out so far. Consolidate everything. And I’ve got somebody I want to ring but he’ll probably be in lectures. He’s a supplier for some of the students and I thought it might be worth a chat. He probably won’t tell me anything, but he’s asked me to go out for a drink with him a couple of times…’

  Kat grinned as she stood. ‘Go, Mouse. Just don’t agree to anything till this killer’s out of the way. Oh, and Nan, we’ve a Tesco delivery coming today. Between ten and twelve, I think. If you can’t sort it, I’ll put it away when I get back.’

  They heard her car pull away, and Mouse went upstairs to the chest of drawers, pulling out the print outs she had done.

  Doris had cleared the kitchen table, and Mouse spread everything on it.

  ‘It seems really strange that these eight people have stayed in touch. They were friends in school, and going back into their email accounts, they’re all still friends now. Something is holding them together and I don’t think it’s school. Most people leave school and go on to live separate lives because they make new friends in whatever field they move to. This was a group of eight teenagers who probably liked a drink, and that really isn’t enough to bind them together for life. And now two of them are dead.’

  Doris pulled some of the paperwork towards her. ‘There’s a lot of information here, Kat. I hope you covered your tracks well.’

  ‘That really doesn’t bother me, Nan. Somebody tried to kill me and they tried three times. Legalities are the least of my worries. I’ll be quite happy to pass all of this on to the police if I come up with the answer.’

  ‘So,’ Doris mused, ‘we have Anthony Jackson and Oliver Merchant dead. Was there anything suspicious about Merchant’s death?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve read the newspaper accounts from the time, and the inquest was an open verdict. His family and friends all seemed to say he was an exceptional driver, took good care of his Ferrari, and he knew the road very well, travelling it twice a day for work. He worked in Sheffield, but still lived in Eyam. There was no reason for him to leave the road and hit that brick wall.’

  ‘You’re thinking two people murdered out of these eight? That puts the others at risk, surely.’

  Mouse nodded. ‘It does, and I think we need to talk this through with Kat. Something happened when these kids were sixteen or so, that bound them together, even as adults. I’m going for a walk down to the church, have a look at Oliver Merchant’s gravestone, try to clear my head.’

  ‘Then take my car. Think you’ll be okay driving?’

  Mouse moved her arm and smiled. ‘It’s much easier, gets a little better
every day. But I can walk if you’re going to worry.’

  ‘I’ll worry more if you walk,’ the old lady responded. She handed the car keys to her granddaughter. ‘Maybe we should think about a new car for you.’

  ‘Soon, Nan, soon. I don’t feel ready yet. Those two little boys…’

  Doris nodded. ‘We can share mine while we’re here. Don’t worry about it.’ She cursed herself for being thoughtless.

  Mouse collected her bag and headed for the door. ‘I won’t be long and I have my phone if you need me. Rest, Nan, please. And if things are hurting, take the damn painkillers!’

  ‘I don’t need them. Now go.’

  Mouse parked on the road outside the church and walked through the large wooden doors. She chose the same seat she had used before, and sat for a while, enjoying the peace and allowing her thoughts to roam. She knew she was on the right tracks with thinking they were linked by something; how hard could it be to work out what it was? Would Caroline talk to her? Even if she did, she knew she wouldn’t talk about something that was so big it had tied together eight people, with none of them breaking the chain.

  Mouse didn’t say a prayer, she didn’t really know how, but she did walk to the front and light four candles, two for Jo and Millie, and two for the boys killed by the explosion in her car.

  She walked out into sunshine that hadn’t been there when she went in, and blinked. With her eyesight adjusted once more to light, she walked around the churchyard. Crossing to Anthony’s grave, she stood quietly and looked at the wreaths that covered the mound. There were many; she took out her phone and photographed each one.

  Her task finished, Mouse left Anthony’s grave and searched for Oliver Merchant’s. It wasn’t difficult to spot. The large stone marking his last resting place gleamed white in the sunshine. A family of wealth, she decided.

  She took two photographs of it, and slipped her phone back in her bag, before returning to the car. Her phone wasn’t ready to head home to Kat’s house just yet; it pealed out as she was fastening her seat belt.

  ‘Nan?’

  ‘Mouse, are you still at the churchyard?’

  ‘I am. Just about to head home.’

  ‘Then can you go back in and see if there’s a grave or a plaque for a Craig Adams. He used to live in Eyam, but I’ve not found out if he was cremated or buried. I’ll explain more when you and Kat are both here, or I’ll be doing everything twice.’

  ‘I’d decided to wait till Kat was home, I’ve got loads of photos to print off so by the time I’m finished she should be with us. I’ll see what I can find and then I’m heading home as well. Love you.’

  She locked the car and walked back into the graveyard. It took her a quarter of an hour, but she found the small dark grey headstone, buried in long grass. It looked neglected, and she cleared as much of the overgrown grass and weeds as she could. It seemed Craig Adams had been twenty-two when he died, and once more she took out her phone to take the photograph. The date of his death hit her with a thud to her brain. The 8th of May 2002.

  Kat’s car was parked out front when Mouse arrived. Mouse picked up her bag, her mind reeling with the discovery in the churchyard.

  ‘I’m back,’ she called as she went through the front door. There was silence, so she headed for the kitchen. Nothing.

  She glanced down the garden in the direction of the summerhouse then headed towards Doris and Kat, holding her phone.

  Kat frowned at her, just as Mouse had known she would. ‘You’ve been out.’

  ‘I have indeed. Taking pictures of this beautiful place.’

  ‘You haven’t. Nan says you’ve been to the churchyard.’

  ‘And the church,’ she retorted. ‘I sat for quite some time, then lit four candles. Then I went to the churchyard.’ She emphasised the second “then” to confirm she had done what she said she was doing.

  Kat shook her head. ‘Three attempts on your life, and still you take risks. Wait for me next time, will you?’

  Mouse sat. ‘Lunch looks lovely. Are we eating all of the Tesco delivery?’

  ‘No,’ Doris said, ‘but I think Kat feels we need feeding up. I’ve never seen so much food. We have to start paying our way, Mouse.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ Kat interrupted. ‘Leon foots the bill, and he just pays it, so don’t worry about it. He’ll not even notice the difference.’

  She picked up a sandwich. ‘Eat. We have work to do apparently.’

  It took Mouse an hour to print off three copies of every photograph she had taken. She left Kat and her nan to put away the huge amounts of food and wine, clear up after the delicious lunch, and settle themselves at the kitchen table with glasses of wine.

  Mouse joined them, clutching three plastic envelopes containing photographs.

  ‘Right, these are the pictures I took this morning. I photographed every wreath, every spray on Anthony’s grave, then went to find Oliver Merchant’s, which was spectacularly large, followed by Craig Adams’s. I had to do some weeding around that one. Nan, you want to talk through Craig Adams first?’

  ‘I do. I knew the birthdates of the kids, so took 2001 to 2003 as my points of reference, and trawled through newspaper accounts and… well, you don’t need to know all the details of my research. Suffice to say the only unsolved murder in this area was of an Eyam young man, killed in Bakewell. This set of kids went to school in Bakewell. I don’t think for one minute they had anything to do with the murder. I think they saw it. And I think fear has been the over-riding thing with all of them because they know the person or persons who did it.’

  Kat and Mouse digested the information and Kat nodded. ‘You’re right. It makes sense, doesn’t it. But we have to tell the police.’

  ‘Soon,’ Mouse said. ‘Not yet. We can’t be confessing to things that could potentially put us in prison, so our stories have to be along the lines of we came across something accidentally.’

  ‘But all of these people are in danger,’ Kat protested. ‘It seems whoever did it is taking them out one by one. He or she has clearly found out they witnessed it, and if we don’t tell the police, they’re unprotected.’

  ‘Let’s get our stories right. Let’s go through these photos, and I mean scrutinise everything carefully because there may be something in them that will ring bells with us. Now, what about Leon? Will he walk in on us if we utilise this table?’

  ‘He’s away overnight,’ Kat said. ‘Let’s get going with this, because I’m feeling a real sense of urgency in it.’

  Mouse handed out the files, and the three women began their epic bout of scrutinising every picture, making notes rather than interrupting the others; it would be easier to discuss when they all reached the end.

  It was as Kat reached the spray of flowers sent by Sarah Hodgson that she remembered the photos she had on her phone from the funeral.

  ‘I have some pictures,’ she said, and Mouse looked up.

  ‘Of?’

  ‘Of people I believed were these friends. There’s no guarantees I got the right ones, because those pictures we saw that you downloaded were from when they were younger. You want to see them?’

  ‘I’ll go and print them for us. You two carry on here, I’ll only be a few minutes.’

  She ran upstairs, and Doris topped up the wine glasses. ‘We’re going to need this,’ she said.

  Chapter 23

  Two hours later, they were ready to talk. They had moved on to coffee, recognising that maybe the wine might fudge their thoughts a little.

  ‘So, first thoughts. Nan?’

  Doris turned to Kat. ‘The main thing to strike me was that the flowers from his friends of old all mentioned the past. Without exception. And to me that means they think Anthony died because of what they shared. So why is nobody talking? They must be scared. Or do they think that Anthony is somehow involved deeply in a criminal life and asked for it? That he had done something that merited being punished that they haven’t done?’

  ‘I couldn’t agree
more with that. Let’s look at Caroline’s wreath. RIP Anthony. A life ended much too early. You didn’t deserve this, we stuck together. We would have worked. All my love, Caroline. Xxx. To me, this is saying the group stuck together. The second we is personal, she means her and Anthony. Was there something between them?’ Kat queried.

  ‘I can partly answer that,’ Mouse said. ‘Caroline was Anthony’s escort a couple of times. If she came on to him a bit heavy, he would back off. I wouldn’t mind betting she used their long-term friendship to try to snare him properly. He must have asked for a different escort, because the agency tend to use the same ones if the client says they’re happy with the arrangements. Enter me. And that night he said he wanted to use me as his escort as a permanent thing, circumventing the agency and just ringing me to book me. That is most unusual. That tells me he was wanting to be well away from Caroline.’

  Doris nodded. ‘So what do you think to Peter Swift’s card?

  Kat pulled the picture towards her. ‘We kept the faith, Anthony, we kept the faith. RIP, mate, till we meet again. If you didn’t know, or even didn’t guess, at the circumstances, you would gloss over these words assuming they were personal between sender and recipient. I wonder if DI Marsden is mulling over these cards just as we are.’

  Mouse laughed. ‘She might be, if she knows about the connection between all of these people and Anthony. Bet she’s found out the legal way though.’

  ‘I can vaguely remember this Craig Adams murder happening,’ Kat said. ‘They found him in the river Wye, but he didn’t drown. He was shot. We couldn’t go near the river for ages, they had it cordoned off. But that’s as much as I remember.’

  Mouse smiled at her. ‘That’s what the Internet’s for, Kat; you no longer have to remember things. It’s all on there for the taking. Let’s have a quick look at these pictures you took at the funeral, make sure we all know what they look like now.’