Copycat

by C. S. Barnes

  Oliver Lane let out a stifled breath. Meanwhile, Izzy Hughes, tucked away in the corner, looked too stunned to say anything at all.

  ‘Is that a confession?’ Edd asked, leaning forward.

  Eleanor almost laughed. ‘What else do you have in that folder?’ she asked, directing the question at Melanie rather than Edd, but not waiting for a response from either of them. ‘You must have found the clothes by now.’

  Without skipping a beat, Melanie replied, ‘The ones in the back of your wardrobe?’

  ‘They’re the ones.’

  ‘Eleanor.’ Izzy had finally come around. ‘Eleanor, I think it’s best if we take a break.’

  ‘I concur,’ Oliver chimed in. ‘It’s been a long night and a tired morning, Eleanor doesn’t know what she’s agreeing to or not agreeing to here.’

  ‘No, no I do,’ the teenager spoke directly to her defenders. ‘You’ve found the clothes, but I don’t think you’ll have had time to test them yet, right? Even if you rushed it, they still wouldn’t be done by now.’ She looked from Melanie to Edd and back again, as though waiting for a response this time. ‘So, you’ve got laptop, phone, written plans, clothes,’ she counted off each item along her fingers as she spoke, measured and calm but somehow childlike. Cool as Melanie had been throughout the interview so far, she was disturbed by the sight of their suspect relaying the evidence against herself so readily.

  ‘Eleanor.’ Melanie sat forward, closing some of the distance between her and the young woman. ‘You need to be really careful with how you answer this question, and I would consider listening to your counsel before you commit to anything.’ She shot Oliver a look as a friendly warning for what was coming next, but Melanie couldn’t hold off any longer. ‘Are you formally confessing to the murders of Jenni Grantham and Patrick Nelson?’

  ‘Eleanor, don’t–’

  ‘Stop telling me what to do,’ she snapped at Oliver and the demanding child that Mrs Gregory had described just two hours earlier was all too clear to Melanie in those seconds.

  When Eleanor looked at the DI again, the young woman’s face was pulled into a clear smirk, and as she spoke there was a slight laugh bubbling beneath the surface: ‘Why do you need a confession?’ the girl asked. She nodded toward the stuffed file sitting between her and the detective inspector. ‘Look how easy I’ve already made it for you.’

  40

  The rest of the team stood still in the viewing area, watching the details unfold before their eyes. Midway through the proceedings, Superintendent Archer entered and joined in the viewing, maintaining a stern silence until Melanie and Edd had exited the interview space. When the feed to the room was cut, the entire group seemed to exhale in unison.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ Read exclaimed, his eyes widening as he turned to see his superior standing at the back. ‘Ma’am, my apologies, I didn’t–’

  ‘Don’t apologise, Read. I’d say your sentiment was quite right.’ The shock lay heavy throughout the room until the superintendent gave instructions to stir the group into action. ‘Surely we should head back toward the incident room. There are things to discuss here.’ She turned to exit with a trail of confused detectives following in her wake. The collective was halfway back to the room when they stumbled upon Melanie and Edd, both detectives leaning back against the wall of an empty corridor. Melanie chugged at a can of Coke while Edd took up the reigns of addressing the team.

  ‘Ma’am.’ He nodded, standing upright from his leaning post. ‘I suppose the rest of your saw that display?’

  Chris acted as spokesperson for the group. ‘All of it. Are you both okay?’

  Melanie looked up. ‘Shocked, relieved, a little sick.’

  ‘That sounds about right,’ Archer intervened. ‘Let’s get you back to your base so you can regroup. We need to get this wrapped up as soon as possible. A break for everyone, then I want you back in.’

  ‘As early as this afternoon?’ Melanie asked.

  ‘She’s feeling talkative, Watton, and there’s more we need to know.’

  ‘Like what? She killed them,’ Fairer piped up.

  ‘So it seems,’ Archer replied. ‘But I want to know why.’

  The superintendent continued to pave the way back to the office and stayed with the team of detectives until they were seated and settled. Speaking quietly to Melanie, Archer explained her exit – ‘Things need to be in place for when this goes public.’ – before leaving the team to strategise. The detectives seemed to revolve around Melanie and Edd, as though sensing that their first ninety minutes with the suspect had drained a significant measure of energy from them. After two cans of Coke, Melanie felt a little more with the situation, but she was still grateful to those around her for picking up the baton. The team continued to collaborate on theories; Fairer was convinced it was a teenage love triangle while Read remained optimistic that the young woman had been coerced.

  ‘She’s just a kid,’ the DC argued.

  ‘Even kids can be bad,’ Burton replied, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Edd. He was the only member of the team to have a kid waiting for him at the end of every day; the case might hit him even harder because of that. ‘What’s your take on it, boss?’ Chris asked Melanie, drawing the DI back into the conversation.

  Melanie thought, not for the first time, how she could possibly answer that question. A second or two had passed when she ventured, ‘I think she wanted to get caught. I just don’t understand why.’

  Eleanor had eaten two sandwiches and managed half an hour of sleep since Melanie and Edd had last seen her, and the difference that made was clear. The teenager was bright eyed, straight-backed and all ears as soon as Melanie formally started the interview. Before entering the room, the detectives had it on Izzy Hughes’ authority that, despite being given the option not to continue, Eleanor was as eager to speak to the police as they were to speak to her. Although the thought of more twisted logic upset Melanie’s stomach, the DI knew that she had to wade through whatever was coming if she stood any chance of her and her team emerging victorious on the other side of this investigation.

  ‘Eleanor, why did you google Jenni’s name so many times after her death?’ Melanie asked. There was a page full of notes splayed out in front of the detective should she need prompting, but Melanie already had a clear idea of where she wanted this discussion to go.

  ‘To see how many hits there were.’

  ‘To see how popular her name was, you mean?’ Melanie asked, and Eleanor nodded. ‘Is that the same reason why you googled Michael Richards before and after Jenni’s murder?’

  Again, Eleanor nodded. ‘When he died, a year ago or whatever it was, he was everywhere again. That’s how I found out about the murders. He was so popular, so known, and I knew that Jenni would get people talking about him again–’

  ‘Eleanor, I’m advising you against continuing with this,’ Oliver Lane cut in, but the girl continued speaking all the same.

  ‘So, I wanted to know how much of a difference it would make.’

  Melanie frowned. ‘Is that why you all arranged it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Eleanor,’ Oliver tried again, and the teenager threw him a look. ‘You’re digging your own grave here,’ he spoke quietly, lowering his voice to address just the girl.

  ‘And you’re wasting your time,’ Eleanor replied, before turning back to Melanie. The DI waited for final interventions, but Oliver was – or at least looked – defeated by his client, so she continued.

  ‘Maybe I’m leaping ahead here,’ the DI said, still trying to contain her eagerness. ‘The three of you wanted to know what difference it would make, that’s what you’re saying?’

  ‘Patrick and I did, yeah. But how would Jenni know?’

  Melanie took in a quick pull of air, quietly planning a tactic change. ‘What involvement did Jenni have with all this?’

  ‘She didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘But in yours and Patrick’
s messages to her, you were all planning something?’

  ‘A Halloween prank,’ the teenager replied. She answered each question without hesitation, ignoring every attempt at an interruption that her solicitor made, instead powering through in helping the police piece together their discoveries. Melanie wondered whether this was strategic, whether Eleanor was hoping for brownie points for having helped the police when it really counted. But something told the detective that the young woman was more interested in other end results.

  ‘That’s what you were discussing in your messages, under the Michael Richards moniker? It was all just meant to be a prank?’

  Eleanor sighed. ‘We were getting her to dress up like a Michael Richards victim, and we were going to stage the murder but as like, art, or something. Like an interactive thing where people would find her on the playing fields. That’s what she thought; that’s what we told her.’

  ‘But all along you and Patrick were planning to kill her?’

  ‘Patrick didn’t do much,’ Eleanor announced, with something that sounded a little too much like pride. ‘He was meant to, but he wasn’t great with stuff, really.’

  ‘Talk me through the night that Jenni died, would you? It wasn’t meant to happen until Halloween?’ Melanie pushed.

  ‘Detective Inspector, do you not think this is unfair?’ Oliver Lane intervened.

  ‘Can I wave my right to counsel?’ Eleanor asked, throwing a pointed look at the solicitor.

  ‘We’re both here to help you, Eleanor,’ Izzy added from her corner of the room.

  ‘If Eleanor’s happy to continue being interviewed, she’s not distressed or uncomfortable, then I’m happy to continue interviewing her,’ Melanie said, looking at both Oliver Lane and Izzy Hughes in turn.

  ‘I’m happy,’ the teenager chimed with a smile that made Edd wince. ‘Jenni thought everything was happening on Halloween, but we planned it out differently. We were going to do a practice, we’d decided that already, and on the night it happened, before we, you know, we’d told her just to treat the whole thing like a run through.’

  Melanie thought for a second. ‘That’s why when she was stopped at the pub–’

  ‘She was acting panicked, like she had somewhere to be?’ Eleanor filled in. ‘We told her to go to the playing fields to see what it was like at that time of night, but we were there already when she arrived. Patrick grabbed her from behind, but he couldn’t do it right,’ Eleanor said with a hint of judgement in her voice. Edd shifted uncomfortably in his seat but Melanie was determined to work through this reveal, now they’d finally arrived at it.

  ‘So, you strangled her?’ the DI asked.

  Eleanor looked at Oliver who, with wide eyes, shot her a firm shake of the head, but the teenager continued all the same: ‘I killed her. Patrick just helped with the staging.’

  She said it all so easily, as though talking someone through a school project, scene by scene. Melanie swallowed down a bubbling feeling of disgust that was spreading through her lower abdomen; in part, she was facing down a deeply confused minor, but she was uncomfortably aware that she was also facing down a cold and calculated murderer. The detective took a breath to steady herself before asking the next question.

  ‘And what was Patrick’s murder meant to achieve?’

  Eleanor narrowed her eyes. It was the first question that seemed to throw her off balance. There hadn’t been any searches for Patrick’s name in the days after his death, so he already didn’t fit the pattern of Jenni’s murder. But Melanie thought there must be a reason to explain Patrick’s murder away – in Eleanor’s mind at least.

  When the teenager spoke again, it was slowly, as though addressing a child. ‘Patrick and I were meant to get caught together. He wanted to duck out on me. That’s what it achieved.’

  ‘What do you mean, meant to get caught?’ Edd stepped in, unable to stop himself.

  ‘Jesus, did you work out anything?’ Eleanor snapped with a tone that Melanie thought the girl probably used with her mother. The DI felt a sudden urge to apologise to Mrs Gregory for all of the incorrect judgements she’d made about the woman. ‘Patrick didn’t think you’d work it out. He genuinely thought, after like, a week, that we were safe from you guys. He called me to say we shouldn’t say anything, we should keep quiet and let it all fizzle out. And I couldn’t go along with that, not after all the work and the planning. That’s why I met him that night.’

  ‘That’s why you killed him,’ Melanie said, completing the narrative, and Eleanor smiled.

  ‘I genuinely didn’t plan that one though,’ the girl said, leaning forward as though addressing Melanie privately. ‘He thought we could just let Jenni be a cold case, after everything, everything that I’d done to make all of this happen. I was so angry, and he was just ready to walk away, and I couldn’t let that happen, you know, not after everything, Detective. I couldn’t not get caught, after everything.’

  ‘That’s why you left so much evidence everywhere.’ Again, Eleanor smiled and this time nodded. But Melanie couldn’t understand it all. The pieces were laid out so clearly but none of it made sense. Why would anyone want this? Why would any teenager throw their life away, for what? ‘Eleanor, you’re going to have to help me out here,’ the DI said, admitting defeat. If Eleanor was so eager to explain everything to them, maybe there was one last explanation that she’d be happy to share. ‘Why would you do all of this, orchestrate all of this?’

  Eleanor smiled and looked in turn from one adult to the next, until her eyes settled on Melanie again. ‘Have you googled me yet?’

  41

  The incident room was hollow. The desks were empty, and the computers were powered down, the evidence board half-dismantled, with only the essential details left for ease of access when the team wrote up their final notes. Melanie sat in quiet solitude, her office door open but her blinds angled to keep out the winter sun. She hadn’t been able to settle at home. After three weeks of non-stop investigative work, winding down for some quiet solitude seemed impossible, especially when there was still so much work to be done.

  Once the interview had drawn to a close, Melanie had taken it upon herself to visit Mrs Gregory, who had collapsed in a mound of tears on hearing what her own daughter had confessed to. The woman’s tone had changed from how Melanie remembered it, as though the detective’s announcement had softened her – or maybe broken her.

  ‘You’re absolutely sure?’ Mrs Gregory asked, looking up from her crouched position on the sofa. ‘She couldn’t be lying?’ The desperation in the mother’s voice hit Melanie with a force but, despite wanting to offer her comfort, the DI knew that there was little she could give.

  ‘Even without the confession, we’ve got enough evidence,’ Melanie explained, before trying to give the mother some guidance on what would happen next. She explained how the court case would, should go, if everything went to plan, and gave Mrs Gregory a rough timeline of events from here to sentencing – including when, and how often, she would be able to see her daughter during that time, assuming that she wanted to. Mrs Gregory didn’t offer anything by way of a response to the thought of seeing her child though. By the end of their talk, Melanie wasn’t sure how much information the woman had taken in, but at least the DI could leave knowing that she’d tried, that she’d done something, no matter how small.

  Mrs Gregory wasn’t the hardest of the trips though. After discussing Eleanor’s detainment with her mother, Melanie went back to the station to collect Burton.

  ‘We’ll take the Granthams,’ Melanie said to Carter. ‘Can you take the Nelsons? Take Morris with you, would you? She could use some time away from screens.’

  Melanie and Chris sat with the Granthams to explain their discoveries, the evidence, and the confession. Both detectives had expected questions but there hadn’t been many at all. Robert Grantham wanted to know whether Eleanor would be punished, meanwhile Evie wanted to know how long for, but their questions petered out after that. ‘If you think o
f anything…’ Melanie reminded them as she and Chris stood to leave, but neither parent seemed to be listening anymore. The couple had turned into each other, seeking solace in their depleted unit, forever missing their third, integral, piece.

  The detective inspector had called the team in for a morning debrief, now the parents, press and everyone else was aware of the break in the case. But as the team had ploughed through their piles of paperwork, Melanie dismissed them. She reasoned that they easily deserved a half-day skive with all the extra hours from the last few weeks anyway, and she followed their lead out of the station.

  The DI had managed a full two hours at home before coming back to the office to start work on her final report, which she was already three pages into. It had been such a hard and unexpected case, Melanie knew that it wouldn’t be out of her system until Eleanor was sentenced and the victims were buried. Although she hated the word, after something like this, closure was the final necessity for everyone involved.

  Melanie’s head was hidden behind her desk as she searched through filed documents in a nearby drawer, when she became aware of a change in the lighting – as though someone had stepped across her doorway. Her head shot up and she found Carter and Burton looking in at her, and the three detectives again shared a half-laugh.

  ‘You can’t settle at home either?’ Chris asked.

  Melanie exhaled heavily. ‘No chance, it seems.’

  ‘Us neither,’ Edd added. ‘We thought we’d get a jump on things here.’

  ‘Might as well make ourselves useful,’ Chris chimed in.

  Melanie admired their determination and, not for the first time over the last few weeks, she felt honoured to work alongside such committed individuals – even DCs Read and Fairer had proven their weight during the Eleanor Gregory case, Melanie thought, although she decided to keep her initial reservations about the two to herself.