‘Which of you killed Daisy?’ Maggie looks from one to the next, seeing the sweat break out on Easton’s temples, the red veins in Pearson’s cheeks glow a little brighter. ‘Because I don’t believe it was Hamish. He was fond of her. And he was with her that night, wasn’t he? She was there when you came to his house in the middle of the night. You probably didn’t know, Hamish thought she was asleep, but she heard what you were saying. She knew what happened to the girl in Warwick’s room. I think she threatened to go to the police and you had to shut her up.’
They are staring at her the way they might watch a dog tear apart a rabbit, the way they might look after slowing down to pass a road traffic accident, repulsed but fascinated at the same time. She has become the human equivalent of roadkill.
‘But you knew you’d never get away with two dead women in one night, so Daisy had to disappear. The only thing I’m not sure about is whether you were all involved, or just some of you. I’m certain Hamish wasn’t, though, because he thinks she’s still alive. He wants me to find her.’
While she’s been talking, they’ve risen, one by one. They want to hurt her. They won’t, though, not here. The veneer of civilization clings to them like burnt jam to the side of a saucepan.
‘Seeing as how you’re a lawyer, Miss Rose, you’ll understand about restraining orders,’ says Easton.
Maggie smiles.
‘I shall be applying for one and I advise the others to do the same. And I’ll be lodging a complaint against you at the bar.’
‘I wouldn’t have the reputation I have without a few complaints and restraining orders, Mr Easton. Have a good trip back to Gloucester. I’ll be seeing you.’
Maggie doesn’t watch the three men leave. She just hears the swish of the door and feels the rush of cold air as the front door of the hotel closes behind them.
All things considered, that went rather well.
Chapter 83
FOR ONCE HAMISH hasn’t shaved. Dark stubble, almost a beard, covers his jaw and neck and lines his upper lip. He hasn’t showered either. He smells like the Lycra-clad men who run past her in the street, and of clothes that need washing. This is the first time he hasn’t made an effort for her and Maggie isn’t sure how she feels about it. But if he’s starting to take her for granted then maybe it’s time to remind him how much he needs her. She starts speaking almost before his cuffs have been removed, before the guard has closed the door, shutting them in together.
‘No more lies, no more evasions. I want to know what happened the night Ellie Holmes died and Daisy Baron disappeared. I will know if you’re not telling me the truth.’
He rubs one wrist, flexes and bends his fingers. ‘Did the guys lie to you?’
She thinks back to the three men who tried to bully her in the Bristol hotel. ‘Not as such. They rather cleverly avoided telling me anything too much. They blustered. Poured outrage over each other and themselves. They’re hiding something, though. They’re frightened.’
He scratches the side of his neck and inserts his little finger into his ear. ‘Even so, I really can’t believe any of them framed me for three murders. I know these guys. They don’t have it in them.’
She glares. ‘That’s interesting. Because they all think you’re more than capable.’
He looks surprised, then a little hurt. His hands fall back on to the table. ‘Really?’
‘They all think you’re guilty. Oliver Pearson especially, and his wife. There was awe in their voices when they spoke of you.’
He thinks about this for a moment. ‘If they believe me guilty, they can’t be.’
‘No, you’re right. I don’t think any of them are guilty of killing Jessie, et al. I never did.’
A rare flash of frustration clouds his face for a second. ‘Then we’re no further forward. Especially as you seem determined not to think of Pete Weston as a possible suspect.’
Oddly, his annoyance helps to calm her. She takes it as a sign that he is, in spite of the front he puts on, struggling. ‘Hamish, we don’t need to present the Crown with the real killer, even an alternative one. All we have to do is throw enough doubt on your conviction. And those three were guilty of something. Which brings me back to the question you’re trying to avoid. What happened that night?’
His eyes drop to the table. ‘You’re not going to like it.’
‘I like nothing about this whole sorry business. Get talking.’
He peers up at her through his eyelashes. ‘I love it when you’re bossy.’
‘I’m not playing games with you, Hamish.’
He scratches the side of his head. ‘OK, everything James Laurence testified in court was true. My defence did a bloody good job of discrediting him, but he was telling the truth.’
‘There was a Fat Club?’
‘There was. And my seeing Daisy is what started it. I took a lot of banter over her. It’s not always easy, seeing a woman you actually want to spend time with, as opposed to the sort of girl your peers think you should be with. Especially when you’re young and a bit unsure of yourself.’
‘My heart bleeds.’
He pushes himself back on the chair and fixes her with a stare. ‘As my lawyer, you’re really not supposed to be judgemental. You sound more like a pissed-off girlfriend.’
‘Get over yourself. And keep talking.’
For a second he looks uncertain – whether to fight back or do as she says. ‘The other guys started picking up fat girls in bars,’ he says. ‘We went into town, away from the usual student hang-outs. We were looking for women who weren’t necessarily looking for a relationship.’
‘Or who didn’t expect to be taken out to dinner a few times before they put out?’
He gives her a pitying look. ‘We were students. We didn’t do much fine dining. A girl was lucky if we paid for her drinks. Anyway, at first it was just a bit of a laugh.’
‘You were involved too? Even though you had a girlfriend?’
‘I was nineteen, Maggie. I was a good-looking bloke. Sorry to sound conceited, but there it is. Yes, I liked Daisy, but I wasn’t ready to settle down.’
‘So this was a competition? A prize for the most bedpost notches.’
‘Nothing as formal as that. It was just a bunch of dickhead guys pissing around.’
‘Until someone had the idea of recording the encounters for posterity? Who was that? You?’
‘No. It was Simon, from memory. He made a tape. We all watched it. Found it a bit of a turn-on, if I’m being absolutely honest, and that became the next stage. We all bought surveillance cameras, fitted them in our rooms and went into the movie business.’
‘How many films were made?’
He shrugs. ‘I lost track. A few dozen. More, maybe.’
‘Who thought of selling them?’
He is silent. His eyes slip away from her.
‘Was it you?’
‘That’s what the others will tell you. And, yes, it probably was me who said, Hey, guys, you know what, we can make a fucking fortune out of these babies. But setting up the business involved all of us.’
‘How much money did you make?’
‘Enough. Our student finances became a lot more manageable.’
‘And nobody spotted it? Nobody recognized themselves?’
‘Women tend not to watch porn. And we didn’t exactly promote it around the university. We used shops in other towns to sell them. Most of our viewers probably had no connection with Oxford.’
‘How many tapes featured you?’
His eyes leave her face again. ‘Three, maybe four.’
He is still lying. There were more than four.
‘Was Daisy in any of them?’
‘No. That one was private.’
‘What happened to Ellie Holmes?’
He looks down, washes his hands over his face. When he looks up again she sees creases around his temples. This is how he will look first thing in the morning, she thinks. Tired, a bit crumpled.
�
��Death by misadventure,’ he says. ‘The Coroner got that right. She’d drunk a lot over the course of the evening. Warwick encouraged it, of course, it was always a lot easier when they’d had several drinks, but he didn’t know she was taking anything else.’
‘Taking what, exactly?’
‘Ecstasy. A bad dose. Contaminated with methyl diethanolamine. Sent her into primary cardiac arrest. If Warwick had taken her straight from the club to A & E, she’d probably still have died.’
Maggie has read the post-mortem report into Ellie Holmes. This is all true. Just not the whole truth. ‘Go on,’ she tells him.
Hamish takes a deep breath, as though about to dive into a cold swimming pool. ‘When she lost consciousness, Warwick panicked. He tried to resuscitate her and failed. Then he phoned Oliver.’
‘Who phoned Simon, and then went to collect first Chris and then you?’
He examines his fingernails for a second before looking up. ‘I guess James was a lot smarter than we gave him credit for.’
‘You were alone at home?’
‘I shared a house with three other guys. They were all there, but they didn’t wake up. Daisy was there too, that night. It was the last time I saw her.’
‘We’ll get back to Daisy. So, the four of you were roused from your beds. What happened?’
‘We went to Warwick’s house. The girl was dead. She was starting to go cold by this time. There was nothing we could do for her.’
‘So you did what you could for yourselves?’
‘I said you wouldn’t like it.’
‘Good call. Go on.’
‘We washed her. Got all traces of Warwick off her body and dressed her again. We put her in the bed, making it look as though she’d passed out from alcohol and Ecstasy. While three of us were doing that, the other two were clearing the room. We took away the camera, Warwick’s various props. And we wiped his computer clean of anything to do with Fat Club or the business. We knew the police might take it away. We had to do it there and then.’
‘This must all have taken some time. Didn’t the medical examiner realize she’d been dead too long?’
A swift headshake. ‘It’s really not that easy to pinpoint time of death. The most anyone can usually do is give a window of a few hours. Warwick claimed he’d been asleep beside her and wasn’t sure what time she’d died.’
‘Warwick called the emergency services?’
‘That’s right. After we left.’
Maggie is silent.
‘I know what you’re thinking. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But we didn’t kill her. Even Warwick had no idea what she’d taken.’
‘He was a medical student. He could have spotted the signs.’
‘There’s not a single symptom of Ecstasy use that can’t be mistaken for inebriation.’
True or not true? She needs time to think. Hamish doesn’t appear to be lying. The girl died, as young people do every year, from a dodgy dose of Ecstasy, and a group of friends conspired to keep their unsavoury behaviour from coming to light. The discovery of a porn business that exploited unknowing subjects would have had them sent down from Oxford, ended their medical careers before they’d even begun. Admission even now might see them struck off. It’s understandable that Pearson, Doggett, Hespe and Easton are concerned.
On the other hand, it doesn’t make them murderers.
‘OK, now tell me what happened to Daisy.’
Hamish yawns, giving her a full view of the fillings in his teeth, the fur on his tongue. ‘I wish I could,’ he says. ‘She was gone when I got home. I went round to her room the next day, but she’d cleared out. Taken most of her stuff and vanished. The university knew nothing about it. They got in touch with her family, who just told them she wouldn’t be returning.’
‘Did you look for her?’
‘I went to see her parents during the Easter break. I hadn’t met them before but I knew where she lived in Leeds. They told me she’d gone travelling. That they weren’t expecting her home for at least a year and then she’d be enrolling in a different medical school. One they weren’t prepared to disclose to me.’ His face clouds over at the unpleasant memory. ‘They weren’t welcoming.’
‘Maybe they knew you’d made their daughter a porn star. Parents tend to frown on that sort of thing.’
‘Daisy wasn’t part of that. Did I not already make that clear? No one saw the tape of me and Daisy. It was private.’
‘Rumour has it, and I quote, it was some weird shit. Bondage, is the best guess. Sadism.’
Hamish pulls a face. ‘Fantasy.’
‘Why was it called Daisy in Chains? Was she? In chains, I mean?’
‘I don’t tie women up.’ He gives her an unpleasant smile. ‘Unless they ask very nicely.’
‘So, why would she just disappear?’
‘My best guess? She heard enough of what we were saying to know something serious had gone down. Then she found the tape of her and me.’
‘You left it lying around?’
‘I’m not a complete fool. I knew she’d found it, though, because it was missing. It wasn’t where it should have been. And I checked my browser history on the computer. In the middle of the night, someone – and it can only have been Daisy – found the folder for the business and looked at several pages. I’m guessing she realized what we’d been up to, saw the tape that she was on, and put two and two together, making a whole bigger number than four.’
‘Daisy thought you’d been using her. That you’d only been seeing her to get salacious video footage. She thought dirty old men the world over had seen the two of you having sex.’
‘Yeah, it’s possible she thought that. But it wasn’t true.’ He pushes his chair back and claps his hands together, effectively signalling he’s had enough of this particular line of conversation. ‘So, where does this leave us?’
‘I have to go.’ Maggie checks her watch. ‘Did I mention I’m seeing your mother and that support group again tomorrow night?’ She starts to check her bag for keys, phone. ‘And where we are is, we have four alternative suspects – five, if we decide to count James Laurence.’
He grins. ‘Six if we include Pete Weston. Give my love to Mum, won’t you?’
‘More significantly, we have a fresh double murder, which everyone including the media is saying could be linked to your case.’
‘And that happened right outside Pete Weston’s bedroom window.’
‘I’ve also made some progress in tracking down that computer, in that I’ve ruled out several possible sites.’
‘If I’m right about Weston, he’ll have moved it.’
‘You’re not. And I need to run if I’m to make my ferry.’
He shakes his head, looking sad and amused at the same time. ‘That’s all great, Maggie, but actually, I wasn’t asking for an update on the case. I was talking about you. Do you believe me yet?’
Chapter 84
THE PHONE IS RINGING as Maggie opens the back door several hours later. She runs across the room to catch it.
‘So did you catch the boat?’
Hamish, but sounding different somehow, as though he is talking through a mesh filter.
‘Just barely, thank you.’ She is out of breath, hasn’t even closed the back door. ‘I had to take the ramp at speed.’
‘I’ve been thinking about you pretty much non-stop since you left.’
She is walking back towards the door but stops in the middle of the kitchen. ‘Oh?’
‘Those two men whose sentences you got overturned, did you believe in their innocence? Or did you just not care? Does a man’s innocence or guilt make any actual difference to you?’ He is almost shouting at her down the line. ‘Or is it all about proving to the world how clever you are? Because if it’s the latter, I’m just not sure any more.’
There is a cold draught blowing through the house. She sets off again for the hallway. ‘Hamish, have you been—’
‘I’m not drunk, although the illegal hooc
h is doing the rounds again. Just curious.’
Even allowing for the background noise he is still speaking loudly. She isn’t sure she believes in his sobriety. ‘Well, then you need to think about what you’re actually asking me.’ She pushes the door shut, turns the key and leans against it. ‘Do I really need to rehearse the time-honoured reasons why everyone, innocent or guilty, is entitled to legal representation?’
She gives him a moment to respond. He doesn’t, but she can hear his breathing. ‘You’re feeling sorry for yourself, Hamish. I don’t blame you, but I don’t have time for it, I’m afraid.’
The kitchen has grown cold during the day. She will need to crank up the heating.
‘So what do you have time for, Maggie? What do you do, all by yourself in that big house of yours, other than play God with other people’s lives? Come to think of it, why do you even do it? What makes a clever young woman say to herself, I will walk among murderers and liars and thieves, and I will succour them?’
How does he know she lives in a big house? ‘Hamish—’
‘Why? Why don’t you want a normal career? Why don’t you want friends, a partner, children? Have you ever even been in love, Maggie Rose?’
His mother. Of course. His mother has seen her house, will have told him about it. ‘I’m sorry, Hamish,’ she says. ‘I won’t be dragged into this sort of nonsense. I understand that you’re upset, but it’s late and things always look better in the morning. Goodnight.’
She puts the phone down before he has the chance to respond. She is trembling.
Email
Sent via the emailaprisoner service
From: Maggie Rose
To: Hamish Wolfe
Date: 5. 1. 2016
Subject: Why?
I can find just one question worthy of an answer in that self-indulgent diatribe. I do this job because it is rewarding (financially and in other ways) and because it is needed. It doesn’t matter to me whether the people whose convictions I overturn are innocent or guilty, just that their convictions are unsafe. No one should be convicted on the strength of a flawed case. The best, strongest, soundest system of justice in the world is the one that allows itself to be scrutinized and challenged. I scrutinize. I challenge.
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