by M K Farrar
“Who was the last person you called or texted on your phone?”
Paige wrinkled up her small nose. “I’m really not sure. My friend, Jasmine, most likely, but I can’t be certain.”
“Jasmine who?” Erica asked, making a note of the name.
“Jasmine Newton. She’s a student here at the university as well.”
“Did you report the phone as missing or stolen to your provider?” Erica wondered if she’d lie.
“No, I didn’t. I mean, not yet. I meant to, but I didn’t get around to it.”
“Why not?”
The girl shrugged. “I hoped it would show up again. Someone might have handed it in or something.”
“Weren’t you worried someone might be using your contract to run up a big bill?” Shawn asked.
Erica noted how the young woman’s gaze rested on him just that fraction too long before she looked away again, pink flooding to her cheeks. Erica understood why. Shawn Turner was an attractive man, and as a detective, he also had that air of authority about him that instantly caught people’s attention—both men and women. She got the feeling Paige Arland might open up more to Shawn than she would Erica, so she took a step back and allowed him to do the talking, for the moment, anyway.
Paige shrugged again. “It was locked, so I guessed no one would be able to use it.”
“So, you were at the student union the night Adam Humphries died, is that right?” Shawn asked her.
She nodded. “Yes, I was.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yeah, he was there.” Paige fiddled with the ends of her hair. “I didn’t really know him, though. He was hanging around, but it wasn’t like we were friends or anything.”
“And what time did you leave?”
“I’m not sure. I think it was sometime between twelve and one, but I wasn’t really paying much attention.”
“When you left the student union, were you on your own?” Shawn asked.
“Yes, I left on my own.”
“And where did you go?”
She chewed her lower lip, tugging at a piece of dried skin until it finally broke free, and a bright dot of blood appeared in its place. Her hands rested in her lap, but her fingers knotted together. The police often made people nervous, that wasn’t unusual, but Erica got the sense there was more to this story.
“I came straight back here and went to bed.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Alone.”
The question surprised laughter from Paige. “Yes, alone. I’d had too much to drink. I stumbled home and passed out, fully clothed, in bed. When I woke the next morning, the police were in the courtyard and my phone was missing.”
“But you have no idea how it got in the bushes?”
“No, I don’t. Maybe someone else threw it in there. Or maybe I bumped into the bushes and it fell out of my handbag. I honestly don’t know.”
Movement in the doorway caught all their attention as one of the other students came to use the kitchen, saw the room already in use, and turned and left again. Erica hoped their presence here wasn’t going to cause Paige any problems.
Shawn allowed a smile to touch his lips, half teasing her. “You don’t know if you bumped into the bushes?”
She let out a resigned sigh. “Look, I was really drunk, okay. Truthfully, I don’t remember much of getting back that night.”
“Do you have any friends that you went to the party with? Maybe someone who could tell us what time you left?”
“I went with the girl who I mentioned earlier, Jasmine, but I don’t think she could tell you anything about me leaving. She was hooking up with some guy and I don’t think anyone really noticed when I’d gone.”
Erica gestured to Paige’s face. “Can you explain how that happened?”
Paige lifted her hand and lightly touched the tip of her nose. “Oh, right. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
She softened her voice. “Did someone hit you, Paige?”
“No, no. It was nothing like that. It was stupid, really. I fell on the stairs on the way up to my room and banged my face. I was horribly drunk. I’m embarrassed, that’s all.”
“The stairs here, in this building?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure that’s all that happened?” Erica had heard these excuses from women a hundred times before. “If someone is hurting you, Paige, you can get help. You don’t need to be embarrassed or ashamed.”
Her defences rose. “I told you! I just got too drunk and fell over and lost my phone. I know it was stupid, and believe me, I have no intention of going anywhere near Jägerbombs again, ever, but I didn’t do anything illegal.”
“Okay, that’s fine. I wanted to make sure, that’s all.” Erica reached into her bag and took out the CCTV images. She pushed them across the table to Paige. “Can you take a look at these for me? Is that you in the pictures?”
She sensed Shawn widening his eyes at her. He must have thought she was just going to ask Paige if she knew who the girl in the pictures was.
The colour drained from the student’s face. “Umm, yes, I think that’s me. The pictures aren’t great, though.”
“But you believe they’re of you?” Erica pressed her.
“Yes, they are.”
There was no point in the girl denying it. Now they had her right beside the pictures, it was clearly her.
“A moment ago,” Erica continued, “you said that you left the student union alone, and you came straight back here, but according to the time stamps on the CCTV footage, almost half an hour passes between the time you left the union and you getting back to this building. Can you tell me what happened in that time?”
Paige’s fingers curled onto the edge of the table, as though she was trying to stop herself from falling backwards. “I don’t know. I already told you, I was really drunk. I can’t remember what happened.”
Erica softened her tone. “We could really do with you remembering, Paige. You realise that you were in the same vicinity as Adam Humphries, and potentially his killer, around the same time as his death? You could have seen something important.”
The colour still hadn’t returned to Paige’s face. If anything, she looked even worse, the makeup she’d used to cover her bruises appearing dry and crusted and a couple of shades darker than her normal skin tone.
“But you remember that you came home alone, and that you fell and banged your face.”
Now colour rose into her cheeks, twin, bright spots. “I mean, I assume that I fell and banged my face. I woke up and realised I’d done something. I was really hungover, though, so it makes sense that that was what happened.”
“But you don’t actually remember?” Erica probed. “Because in this photograph, you’re in the foyer of the building, and it looks as though you’ve already hurt yourself, so how would you have done it on the stairs on your way up?”
Paige stared down at her hands. “Okay. I don’t remember. I mean, not fully.”
“There is a chance you did see something, then?”
In a sudden burst of fury, she slammed her hands down on the kitchen island. “I said I didn’t remember! What more do you want from me?”
Erica lifted both hands in a stop motion. “It’s okay, Paige. I understand this is frustrating, but you must realise that with your phone found not far from the body, and with your whereabouts unaccounted for during a period of the night when Adam was killed, that we have to ask these questions. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t.”
Tears welled in the girl’s eyes. “I didn’t hurt Adam Humphries. I didn’t! I couldn’t!”
Why had Paige Arland jumped to that conclusion? Was she trying to convince them or herself?
“That’s not what we’re saying, Paige. No one is accusing you of hurting Adam. But there is a chance you might have seen the person who did.”
The anger vanished, and she sank back into herself. “Oh, right.”
“Because of your proximity to the murder aroun
d the time that it happened, I’d like for you to come down to the station so we can have a proper chat. Is that all right?”
Her eyes widened. “Am I under arrest?”
“No, not at all. We’d simply like to get everything on record, that’s all. You could be a witness to a crime, and if you are, it’s important we document everything you saw and heard. The smallest thing can be helpful in pinning down who did this.”
Paige exchanged glances between the two detectives. “Do you want me to come now?”
Erica nodded. “If that’s okay. We have a car here, so we can give you a lift and even get someone to drop you back again, if that’s convenient for you.”
She wanted to make sure the student didn’t find an excuse as to why she couldn’t come right away.
“Umm, I guess so.”
Erica smiled. “Perfect. Let’s go then, shall we?”
Chapter Eighteen
Paige felt as though she couldn’t breathe.
A tight iron band had locked around her chest and was constricting her lungs. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t draw in air.
They’re going to find out. The police are going to find out everything.
All she could think about was the amount of blood that had been in her bed the morning after Adam Humphries’ death, and how it had been all over her clothes. She didn’t know that all the blood belonged to her. There was a chance it hadn’t.
She couldn’t tell the police about that, could she?
People were going to see her leaving with a couple of detectives. Even though they were in plain clothes, everyone still knew who they were and why they were here. Other students would see them marching her off campus, and word would spread like wildfire. They’d all gossip about whether she’d been the one to kill Adam Humphries, and it was guaranteed that they’d all decide she had—just like they’d done with Professor Young.
Paige had been here before. She’d only been nine when her dad had been arrested, but she remembered clearly what it had been like to have everyone talk about her. Her mum had done the best she could to protect her daughter from the gossip, but it had been impossible. Everyone at school had known. During those first few weeks, she felt like every time she walked into a room, everyone fell quiet. The same would happen with little clutches of girls who’d once been friends, gossiping in eager whispers and shooting her sly glances from the corners of their eyes. Luckily, Paige had had a couple of real friends who’d stayed by her side, but she’d noticed how those same friends were no longer allowed to come to her house to play, and that invites for tea quickly grew sparse.
As time went by, though, people did begin to forget. Once it was clear that Paige’s mother had never supported her husband’s violent outburst, and that he wasn’t going to be coming home, things returned back to normal—or as normal as they could be with a father serving a life sentence for murder. Paige always felt like she carried it with her, though. It had tarred her, dirtied her, and she would always be the daughter of a killer, no matter what. Even after the gossip died away, she knew, deep down, that her family would always be the one people would gasp about and widen their eyes at when their name came up. They’d say things like, ‘No way, her father killed someone!’ Or ‘Her mother married a murderer. Do you think she knew what he was capable of?’
That was why coming away to university had been so important to her. She’d been desperate to escape all of that. Her mum had found a new partner, who she was happy with—a gentle man who liked to garden and worked in a bank—and so Paige hadn’t felt guilty at leaving her alone. Paige had been looking forward to being her own person, leaving that flashing light above her head that said she was the daughter of a killer behind her. Except now, it seemed, she’d created her own flashing light.
Paige kept her head down, letting her hair fall over her face in a shield as she left the building with the two detectives and crossed campus to where they’d parked their car.
“Paige?”
She jerked her head up at Jasmine’s voice. Her friend was hurrying towards her.
“Paige, is everything all right? What’s going on?”
“It’s fine, Jas. I’m just helping the police. They think I might have seen who hurt Adam, but I keep telling them I don’t remember anything. I won’t be long.”
“Okay. Call me if you need anything.”
The female detective turned her attention to Jasmine. “Jasmine Newton?”
Jasmine nodded, wide-eyed.
“We’ll need to speak to you in more detail as well very soon, so don’t go anywhere.”
Great, now everyone would know. Jasmine was bound to tell Lucas, and Lucas would tell Ben, and then Ben would tell everyone else.
Paige didn’t want to go down to the police station and sit in a room, answering questions to a night she wanted to forget ever happened. Hell, it wasn’t as though she could tell them anything anyway. Not really. They wanted to know if she’d seen who had killed Adam Humphries, but the truth was that she couldn’t remember.
THE INTERVIEW ROOM was nothing like Paige had seen on television. She’d expected it to be big, with leather chairs and an expensive table, but the furniture could have been taken out of one of her college classrooms.
The female detective went through the motions of offering her something to drink or a snack, but Paige declined. She could barely swallow, never mind eat anything. She didn’t know what these people thought she was going to tell them that she hadn’t already. Just because she was in a police station, didn’t mean she was suddenly going to change her story.
But then DI Swift told her the interview was going to be recorded, and her reason for being here dawned on her. They wanted to get her on tape, maybe so they could refer back to what she’d said at a later date. Perhaps they even wanted to catch her out and see if she stuck to her story.
“I’m not under arrest, am I?” she checked again.
DI Swift smiled. She was pretty, her hair a wavy strawberry blonde, her eyes a bright shade of blue. The detective seemed nice, but Paige couldn’t bring herself to trust her. If she opened up and told her about what she’d woken to the morning after, they might think she had something to do with Adam’s death.
“No, not at all. You’re simply helping us with enquiries and you’re free to leave at any time.”
“Okay.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded small.
The detective asked her the same questions over and over, except each time the question was phrased slightly differently as though trying to catch her out. But she wasn’t lying—she really couldn’t remember what had happened that night—and, so far, they hadn’t touched on the following morning.
“Paige, how would you feel about us trying something?” DI Swift said eventually, when it was clear they weren’t going to get anything else out of her.
Alarms blared inside her. “Like what?”
“I’d like to take you back to the university—or to the student union, to be more specific—and go through the route that you most likely would have taken to get back to your halls?”
“What? Why?” She couldn’t hide her distress.
“To try and help you remember. Sometimes it can be helpful for people with forms of amnesia to go back through the motions of the time they’re blocking out. Even if only a few things come back to you, they could still be of help to us.”
“I really don’t think that’s going to work.”
Swift shrugged. “Maybe it won’t, but surely it’s worth a try.” She paused, her lips tightening slightly, a line appearing between her brows. “You do want to help us, don’t you, Paige? I mean, you want to help us find whoever killed Adam Humphries.”
How could she possibly say no?
Chapter Nineteen
She sat in the back of the unmarked Ford Mondeo, her heart hammering. The amount of adrenaline coursing through her veins was making her dizzy, and she was terrified she was going to do or say something that would make the detective
suspicious of her. If she did something crazy, like throw up or pass out, surely they’d know there was more to her story than what she’d told them. And she’d got to the point where she thought simply her omission about what she’d found the following morning would be enough of an admission of guilt.
Could she run away? Just wait until they opened the rear door of the car and take off? How far would she get before they caught her? It probably wouldn’t be far, but at least she’d have delayed the inevitable. That was all she wanted—just enough room to breathe. But if she tried to run, all that would happen was that they’d ask more questions of her. The kind, softly-softly approach would be replaced by tough interrogation. Maybe they’d even arrest her and lock her in a prison cell. For the moment, they simply thought of her as a girl who’d been in the wrong—or perhaps right—place at the wrong time, and who’d lost her phone and had too much to drink, but if they knew the truth about the blood, they might change their minds.
They pulled up at the university. Paige clutched her hands in her lap, trying to focus on them and get her breathing under control. She couldn’t let them see how badly this was affecting her.
The car engine died around her. A door opened and slammed shut again, and then the passenger door opened beside her.
“Ready?” DI Swift asked kindly.
Paige nodded and slid out of the back of the car and straightened. She plastered on a smile, trying to look as though she wasn’t about to throw up or pass out.
“It’s this way to the union, isn’t it?” Swift asked, though Paige felt sure that the detective already knew the layout of campus by heart. “Good. We’ll start in there.”
Paige hadn’t been back in the union since she’d been in to ask about her phone. That sense something terrible had happened intensified the closer she got to the building.
“Everything all right?” the detective called Turner asked her, raising one eyebrow.
Paige smiled again, her lips tight, her jaw clenched. “Fine.”
The student union was quiet. A couple of smaller groups of students nursed drinks in the shadowy booths, and another wiped glasses behind the bar, but that was all. Music played in the background, something modern and poppy.