The Silent Girls: A gripping serial-killer thriller
Page 19
She got up at 11.45 p.m. and made herself a hot chocolate; she tried to read some pages of a novel by an Icelandic writer that Kate had recommended, but gave up after reading three pages twice. Nothing wrong with the book, this was all about concentration.
A little after midnight, she rang Jane Markham, knowing she was a little drunk, but needing to offload with someone who understood.
‘He actually showed you two bodies?’ Jane didn’t mention the lateness of the hour. Maybe she had demons of her own.
‘I’m sure one of them is Tanya’s.’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Filthy. Like I’ve had to lie in a cesspit to hide while the storm troopers pass.’
‘Did you have someone with you?’
‘My DC. But Shaw knew all of the buttons to press with him too.’
‘It’s never easy, Anna.’
‘The other body… Shaw said it wasn’t a body when he buried it. He said it was alive—’ She caught there, unused to the tightness in her chest, conflicted by the relief she felt at feeling something but still not quite understanding what it was and why. It had always been this way with emotions. This struggle to understand them in herself, the irritation of how irrational they were. Her voice, when it spoke next, was more controlled. ‘He wants to do it again. Wants to show me more of his… treasures.’ She snorted. ‘Listen to me. This is so not me.’
‘Anna, it’s OK to feel like this. You’re grieving and you’ve been abused. Just because he didn’t touch you, it doesn’t mean he didn’t harm you. You ought not to be doing this alone. I can help.’
‘No,’ Anna said. ‘He insists on it being just me. And I can do it alone. I’m better alone.’
‘Who told you that?’
Anna didn’t answer. She was angry for letting her emotions trip her up.
Blame the alcohol.
‘Anna?’ Jane’s voice brought her back.
‘I did. I gave myself permission.’
A silent beat followed as both women analysed the lie.
‘Is there anyone there with you?’ Markham asked.
‘No.’
‘Is that by choice?’
‘For now, yes.’
‘You don’t give of yourself very easily, do you, Anna?’
‘I’ve never felt the need.’
‘Some people are like that. But sometimes other people are all that is needed. I’m here if you need me.’
‘Thanks,’ Anna said, ending the call. She sat and finished her hot chocolate, pondering Jane’s words for long minutes. She fetched her iPod from where she kept it next to the turntable and picked a playlist that she found comfort in. Old tracks; the things she’d listened to in the car with her mother and father and Kate; songs to sing on holiday trips. Often this music was as good as having other people around and had the added advantage of never leaving wine stains on the coffee table.
ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’ began and she caught her breath because it was the song she remembered best.
Hot chocolate had been a comfort since childhood and, in combination with the music and Jane’s penetrating insight, she dredged a memory up from the silt in her mind. A birthday party when she was ten. She had not wanted to go. Her mother and sister had wanted to dress her up, but she’d opted for unfussy jeans and a T-shirt, already knowing that after an hour and a half she’d be bored rigid, looking for things to do away from the inane noise, craving a few moments of solitude.
Her father had driven her to the party and, as always, he’d sensed her mood. ‘How many parties is it this year?’ he’d asked.
‘Six,’ she’d said, sighing.
‘But you like Gemma, don’t you?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘And what about your other friends?’
‘I like them too. But it gets weird after a couple of hours.’
‘It?’
‘OK, I get weird. It’s OK at school ’cos there’s lessons and stuff. But after a while it’s like everyone’s talking at once and I can’t shut out the noise. I start to feel really tired and I—’
‘Wish there was a cupboard to hide in?’
She’d looked across. He wasn’t laughing. ‘Sort of,’ she’d said softly. ‘Do you feel that way too, Dad?’
‘Sometimes,’ her father had said. ‘In crowds.’ Recognition and sympathy had registered in equal measure on his face.
‘So, it’s not just me?’
‘No.’
‘So, I’m not weird or anything?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’
She’d punched his arm and he’d laughed. ‘Anna, you are the least weird person I know.’
‘Mum and Kate think I’m weird.’
‘Different is a better word.’
She’d stored it all away. But he’d still made her go to the party. Ninety minutes in, she’d been in the garden alone, pretending to look at flowers, when Gemma’s mum had called her. ‘Anna, your dad’s here.’
He was in the hall; Gemma’s mum was holding her coat.
‘I’m so sorry to hear about your Aunty Louisa. I’m sure she’ll be better soon. Do you want to take something from the party for her? Do they even allow sponge cake in hospital?’
Anna had looked confused. Her dad had shaken his head. ‘Best not to.’
And then they were in the car.
‘Are we really going to the hospital?’
‘Waterstones,’ her dad had said, deadpan. ‘Fantasy for you. Detective and crime for me.’ He’d grinned then and relief had flooded through her.
He understood.
‘Does Mum know about Aunty Louisa?’ she’d asked, confused.
‘Good Lord, no. Why should she? She’s my aunty.’
She’d hugged his arm and almost made him swerve. ‘Mr Blue Sky’ was playing in the car and she’d started singing along.
Aunty Louisa became their safe words. Hers and her dad’s secret words. Anna had never told her mother, but she knew now that she’d found out. Secrets were dangerous things. This special thing between her and her dad might even have explained her mother’s unfathomable cattiness. Might even have been the thin end of the wedge that grew between her parents. A wedge that her feckless mother used to push him away, and which Anna found the most difficult thing of all to forgive.
But that all came later.
Her dad, that day, had made it OK for her to need her own space. To deal with crowds on her own terms and, when gatherings became like a roaring waterfall, she knew that it was OK to walk away. OK not to be a part of the herd. Her dad, and later Myers and Briggs, said so.
Shame they hadn’t announced it to the rest of the world.
* * *
She was up at dawn on Sunday, running through the park, the leaves wet beneath her feet, sucking the ozone-sharp air into her lungs with gusto.
She ran for far longer than usual, twice around Badock’s Wood, craving the endorphins and the immediacy of putting one foot in front of the other so that it became all she needed to think about. By the time she got back to Horfield Common an hour and a half later, the dog walkers and drone flyers had arrived.
When she was a child her father would sometimes take her and Kate to the wide-open moorland on the edge of the Brecon Beacons on Sunday afternoons. There, enthusiasts would fly huge, remote-controlled planes, some with four-foot wingspans. Her dad loved to watch the aerobatics executed by these skilful amateurs. Now, the lovingly crafted Hurricanes and Spitfires had given way to quadcopters and multirotors hovering over the trees, flipping and zooming in and out of the branches. Nothing like as elegant, but much easier to fly. Technology marched ever onwards and yet Anna wasn’t sure her dad would approve.
She did her stretches on a low wall within sight of her front door, accompanied by the barking of dogs and the high-pitched waspish drone of miniature electric motors, then finished the last of her water and, refreshed, put Shaw back in the locked drawer of her mind. Time to go to work once again on the living.
Twe
nty
Tobias’s file was waiting for her the next day. He’d seemed convinced that there was more evidence exonerating Cooper. But Anna wanted to know if there was evidence implicating someone else buried in the file, too. It lay open on her desk at Portishead and she read through it avidly. The top five sheets were poor photocopies of what appeared to be itemised evidence lists. All five had the same date of 10 March 1998 and all contained roughly the same content. The numbers 1 to 5 were ringed in another hand at the bottom. The sixth sheet was a copy of a typed letter from a company called Nordoc Document Laboratories. Anna turned back to the lists. They each contained several scrubbed-out entries. The signature at the bottom of each page belonged to Maddox.
Khosa came in with two mugs of tea and caught Anna shaking her head as she thumbed through the papers again.
‘Interesting reading, ma’am?’
‘You’ve seen it?’
Khosa nodded. ‘Glanced at it. Trisha made a copy.’
‘Multiple lists?’
Khosa shook her head. ‘I asked Tobias. It’s one list. The same list, in fact, modified and rewritten at least half a dozen times. Maddox was writing all this in his notebook to include or exclude whatever evidence was thought to be helpful to the investigation.’
‘Like no cinema ticket?’
‘Exactly. And he was a great one for lists was Maddox.’
‘I presume Tobias asked for the ESDA test as part of the appeal?’
Khosa nodded. Electrostatic imaging for indented writing often revealed a great deal more than what was actually written down. Anna’d researched how the detection analysis worked; by stretching Mylar film over an indented page and picking up the difference in electrostatic charge between the indented paper and the background. It varied with the type of paper, the type of pen or pencil or stylus used, humidity, the number of sheets between the actual page that was written on and the page the indent was being read from. It was clever science and very damning evidence. Nails in the coffin of the Crown prosecution’s case against Neville Cooper, if Tobias could get the jury to accept it at retrial, she was sure.
The reports and the files made compelling and harrowing reading, but they still weren’t exactly what Anna was after. She busied herself with trivia and came back to the file at lunchtime. Between mouthfuls of an overpriced ham and mustard on granary bread, Anna sifted through sheaves of photocopies and a flotsam of unrelated items. On each page, Tobias had carefully stapled a brief explanatory note to himself, indicating source and occasionally a cursory explanation or query.
Anna sipped her tea, flicking through the file until a police fingerprints report caught her eye. She called Khosa back in to her office.
‘Is this the mysterious cinema ticket?’
‘As mentioned,’ Khosa said. ‘Maddox covered his tracks expertly. He submitted a false witness ID and a different scenario to the lab when he asked them to report on the ticket. The report confirms that the prints on the ticket are Cooper’s, but the ticket itself is missing. This was Maddox camouflaging their paper trail.’
‘So Wyngate knew exactly what was going on?’
‘Maddox was his protégé. It’s difficult to believe otherwise. I’m trying to pick out stuff that’s relevant, ma’am,’ Khosa said as she headed back to her desk. ‘Slim down the file.’
‘That’s a really good idea, Ryia,’ Anna called after her.
* * *
It was Khosa who finally found something. Another piece of revealed writing in Maddox’s, by now recognisable, hand. The explanatory note said: Maddox’s daily notepad – torn sheet
The ESDA method had revealed a list of witnesses who’d purportedly seen Emily Risman in Coleford on the day of her murder: a woman who had spoken to her as she left the hairdresser; a shopkeeper who had sold her a salad roll; a list of hairdressing colleagues. It looked very much as if this sheet was the page of Maddox’s notepad he’d used on a visit to Coleford – a list of potential witnesses who would be contacted later for statements.
Khosa brought it through to Anna who peered at the indented image of the fragment. It was a brief entry – a name and a scribbled note.
Mr J Stanton, van driver. Car park at approx. 3.15-3.30. Blue saloon
* * *
tel. 38517
Odd that this should have been torn out. It was an anomaly, because Anna had seen witness statements from everyone else on that list but not from any van driver called Stanton.
Ann walked out into the squad room with Khosa and on the whiteboard, she wrote:
Cinema Ticket
* * *
Coleford
* * *
Van driver witness
She asked Trisha to contact the DVLA about any Stantons owning a van in and around the patch.
On the way back to her office with Khosa, Anna was buttonholed by Holder, looking unhappy.
‘Slack rang. Neville Cooper’s in hospital. Tried to hang himself.’
‘Oh, no,’ Khosa said.
‘Christ,’ said Anna. She knew it happened. They all did. People tried to commit suicide in detention and prison all the time. ‘At risk’ prisoners were put on suicide watch. Obviously, Neville Cooper had not been. Knowing that did little to numb the shock. ‘When?’
‘Last night.’
‘OMG,’ Khosa muttered.
* * *
Anna immediately rang Harris but got no answer. Slack, too, was unavailable. Frustrated, Anna stayed late at Portishead, writing up the report on Shaw’s disclosure, but it was a struggle because she kept being distracted by Tobias’s file and a burning anger over what had happened to Cooper.
There was a growing conviction in her mind now that Emily Risman’s and Nia Hopkins’ killer was linked to the serial rapes. Shaw, damn him, had planted the seed with his enigmatic online encounter with the chat-room ghoul who’d known about the dress with the floral rose print. Nia and Emily had marks on their necks consistent with non-fatal strangulation. Megan Roberts had told her how her attacker had ‘put his hands around my neck and squeezed’. And the other rape victims who’d come forward told the same harrowing story. But it was what Shaw had said, in his inimitable way, that she kept coming back to.
Maybe he likes to take them to the edge before bringing them back for more.
There was a pattern here. A very obvious one. All she needed was that one little piece of the jigsaw to make the picture whole so that everyone else could see it, too.
* * *
Despite ringing twice more, Harris was still not answering his phone so Anna turned again to Emily Risman.
The police had traced her movements from the hairdresser in Coleford to a bakery, where she had bought a sandwich on the day she was killed. After that the trail went cold until her body was found in the Forest of Dean. Was it that easy to disappear?
The prosecution witness the Crown produced made a statement saying that Emily Risman boarded a bus to Millend at 2.05 p.m. on the day of her murder. This was the Monmouth to Lydney bus, which would have taken twenty minutes to get to Millend from the square in Coleford. The defence questioned the witness’s memory. She had been a seventy-five-year-old commuter from Yorkley, a village two stops down the bus route from Millend, who travelled in to Coleford every Thursday morning for a weekly shop and returned home again at lunchtime. In her testimony, she remembered Emily Risman as a regular traveller who sat at the rear of the bus reading magazines. The very regularity of this journey was the flaw that the defence went after. How could she have been sure that Emily had been on the bus that day? The bus driver, another regular on the route, had not been able to swear that Emily had been a passenger. As a result, the jury saw no reason to doubt the prosecution’s contention that Emily had met Cooper in Millend.
They might not have been so quick to think this had they been shown another witness who may have seen Emily getting into a car in the car park that afternoon. And Maddox had conveniently torn out the entry in his notebook regarding that witness.
* * *
In the morning, Anna’s phone rang early. It was an unfamiliar number, but she recognised the animated voice as belonging to Tobias.
‘You’ve heard about Neville?’
‘How is he?’
‘A mess.’
‘What happened?’
‘What happened, Inspector, is that Chief Inspector Harris appears intent on trying to send my client to an early grave.’
‘That’s a bit strong, isn’t it?’
‘You be the judge. And I am telling you this because I’m certain that Harris wouldn’t volunteer this information. Yesterday afternoon, I was with Neville. He likes me to call, bring him news about his mother. We talked in a seminar room. He was feeling well and buoyed by me telling him that you were also on his team.’
‘I don’t know about—’
‘Let me finish. We left together. Me to my car, Neville to go back to his cell. There was someone in the corridor with Harris. Does the name Wyngate mean anything to you?’
‘Yes.’ The word hissed out of Anna’s mouth like steam from a kettle.
‘Obviously, Neville recognised him. When he did I saw him tense. I saw his whole demeanour change. He looked terrified. As we passed, Wyngate said something. Neville didn’t respond. But I saw he’d gone very pale. I asked him if he was OK and he said he was, but I knew something was wrong. An hour later I get a call to say that Neville tied his shirt to the metal legs of his bed and tried to strangle himself. Wyngate is a bogeyman from Neville’s past.’