The Silent One

by M K Farrar

  There wasn’t a single person who didn’t turn and stare.

  Lucas Gill stood, his mouth open in shock and horror. He was surrounded by his friends. But unlike everyone else, it wasn’t Paige he was staring at.

  “Jas?” he cried. “Is that Jasmine?”

  Paige swung for him. “You know it is! You fucking son of a bitch. How could you do this!” She screamed in rage, looking like she was going to kill him herself.

  The officer Paige had been standing next to grabbed her, preventing her from attacking Lucas.

  “You need to calm down, Miss,” he told her.

  Erica stepped forward. “Lucas Gill, I am arresting you in connection with the murder of Adam Humphries. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  “He did it!” Paige screamed. “He killed Adam and now he’s killed Jasmine, too.”

  Shawn lifted his hands. “Calm down, Paige. You need to let us deal with this.”

  “I’ll fucking kill you myself,” she screamed, paying no attention to Turner. “You’re a monster. You’re a fucking monster. How could you do that to her? How could you have killed my friend?”

  She struggled and fought against the police officer who was holding her back, but she was only slight, and the officer held her easily.

  “No!” Lucas yelled. “This is bullshit. This is fucking bullshit. I’d never hurt Jasmine.”

  Erica clipped cuffs onto Lucas’s wrists. She had to give it to him, if he was responsible for these two deaths, he was certainly a good actor. Of course, they had no idea what the background was to the girl’s death yet, and Lucas might have nothing to do with it.

  Their investigations would find out the truth.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Paige could barely see she was crying so hard.

  Jasmine was dead. Gone forever. And in a way, it had been her fault. If only she’d kept her mouth shut about what Lucas had done, Jasmine would never have gone to confront Lucas. Paige was certain that’s what had happened. Jasmine must have demanded to know the truth and Lucas had lost it. How had he killed her? Had he raped her first and then dumped her body in the canal? Or had she still been alive when he’d pushed her in there and she’d drowned?

  The world was a blur, and Paige stumbled rather than walked, not caring who she barged out of the way to get past. For once in her life, she didn’t care who was staring at her. They could stare all they liked. She might as well have her labels printed out and attached to her clothing. Who was she if not the product of everything she’d been through—daughter of an imprisoned father, rape victim, dead girl’s best friend?

  She left the crime scene behind her, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to run away for long. The police were going to want to talk to her again. All she could see ahead of her were days and weeks of questions and more questions, pulling her apart. For now, she simply wanted to reach her room and hide.

  But in her distress, she’d taken a wrong turn. Where was she? Buildings rose on both sides of her, walls with no windows. The canal was somewhere behind her, she was sure, so she needed to turn right, didn’t she? Everything looked the same, and no one else was around, everyone distracted by the crime scene—not that she could even tell through the underwater world her tears had created. All she knew was that she’d left both the police and the body of her best friend far behind.

  Movement darted out in front of her, and she was vaguely aware of someone lunging towards her. Something hard slammed into the side of her head, and then the ground came up to meet her at a terrifying speed. She hit it hard, her bones jarring, her chin slamming against concrete, her teeth snapping together, narrowly missing her tongue.

  Someone stood over her, and her vision filled with the sole of a trainer.

  “You fucking bitch,” a male voice spat at her.

  The sole smashed into her face in an explosion of sparks and pain, and then... nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Erica stood in the hallway outside the interview room. Through the glass panel in the door, she could see Lucas Gill sitting in a chair on the other side of the table. His hands were still cuffed, his features set and sullen. Beside him sat the blonde solicitor who’d been present the previous day.

  She turned to Shawn. “Can you go and check on Paige Arland? She’s not answering her phone, and I’m concerned about her.”

  Her sergeant nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  Erica entered the room and took a seat. She went through the routine of reading him his rights, telling everyone the interview was being recorded, together with the time, date, location, and who was present.

  “Talk to me, Lucas,” Erica said. “On the day leading up to Adam Humphries’ death, what were you doing?”

  He threw up a hand. “I don’t know! Normal stuff. Had some lectures during the day, ate lunch, hung out in my room, did some uni work.”

  “And then you went out to the student union?”

  “Yeah, a bunch of us went out. We’ve been there loads of times before. It was just a night out. Like I said, normal stuff.”

  “Except it wasn’t a normal night out, Lucas, because one of your fellow students ended up dead and another student was raped. Do you classify that as ‘normal stuff’?”

  He looked down sulkily at the table. “No, course not.”

  “The thing is, we have you placed at the scene, both of Paige Arland’s rape and of Adam Humphries’ murder. And now we have a girl dead. You can’t possibly try to convince me those things aren’t all connected.”

  He shrugged. “They might be connected, but not through me.”

  “You were Jasmine Newton’s boyfriend, weren’t you?”

  “I mean, we weren’t official or anything. We were just hanging out. She was a cool girl. Honestly, I’m gutted about what’s happened to her. I wish I could help you, but I don’t know anything. And I know there’s no way you have anything on me because I’m innocent. I didn’t even see her before she died.”

  The solicitor spoke up. “My client hasn’t been brought in because of Jasmine Newton’s death. This line of questioning isn’t relevant.”

  Erica smiled sweetly. “We’re just getting an idea of Mr Gill’s relationships. This one just happens to be dead.” She pushed forward a photograph of the hoodie she’d seized and the forensic report that had come back saying the two items matched. “We have fibres found on Humphries’ body that match ones from an item of clothing seized from your room. Would you care to explain how that happened?”

  Lucas’s jaw dropped. “That hoodie isn’t even mine! I borrowed it.”

  “When did you borrow it?”

  “The other day! And it was days after Adam—”

  He suddenly fell silent, the colour dropping out of his face.

  “What were you about to say?” Erica prompted.

  Lucas stared down at his hands and shook his head. “Nothing. I got muddled up. I think that one is my hoodie. It was a different one I’d borrowed.”

  A knock came at the door, and Shawn gestured for her to step outside with him.

  Erica turned back to Lucas. “I’ll give you a minute to have a think about what really happened with the hoodie.” She addressed the solicitor. “You might want to make sure your client knows to tell us the truth. For the recording, I’m pausing the tape and stepping outside with DS Shawn Turner.”

  She got to her feet and went to join Shawn in the corridor outside.

  “I’ve been calling Paige Arland’s phone,” he said, “but I’m not getting any answer. A uniformed officer saw her run off at the crime scene, but no one knows where she went yet.”

  “Okay, thanks for trying. I’ll get Rudd to track her down. I think I’m going to need you in here with me. We might need to do a little persuading to get Lucas Gill to tell us the truth.”

  “Oh?
In what way?”

  “He’s saying the hoodie doesn’t belong to him and that he wasn’t wearing it at the time of Humphries’ murder. I believe he was going to tell me that someone else was, but then he must have realised he was about to dump that person in it and clammed up fast.”

  Shawn frowned. “You think he’s protecting someone?”

  “Loyalty is everything at that age. He’s willing to give up his whole life rather than point the finger.”

  “You don’t think he did it?”

  “I don’t think he’s innocent, but the way he cut himself off like that makes me think that hoodie didn’t belong to him, and another person was wearing it the night Adam Humphries was killed.”

  “But Lucas Gill has a potential motive. If the story Paige is telling us about the rape is true, then there’s a good chance Adam stumbled across what Lucas was doing, and Lucas killed him to shut him up.”

  Erica rubbed her fingers across her mouth as she thought. “Or someone shut him up for Lucas.”

  “You think someone would do that?”

  “Like I said, loyalty is fierce amongst teenagers their age. They’re at a new university, in a strange city. They want to keep the friends they have.”

  Shawn cocked an eyebrow. “Want to keep them enough to kill someone for them?”

  “Enough that they’ll risk a life prison sentence to protect them?”

  “Shit.” Shawn shook his head. “We need to find out who Lucas Gill’s friends are, and if anyone of them happened to own that hoodie.”

  Erica sent a quick message to Rudd to ask her to track down Paige Arland, and then they went back into the interview room.

  Erica sucked in a long breath through her nose and sat opposite Lucas. “You understand that if you’re convicted for the murder of Adam Humphries, you’ll most likely be sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum sentence served of fifteen years before they’ll even consider you for parole. How old are you, Lucas?”

  “Eighteen,” he muttered.

  “So, you’ll be in your thirties by the time you get out. You’ll have missed university and getting your first real job. You won’t have met any of the girls you currently have in your future, or even that special person who you might decide to settle down with. Your parents will be old by the time you get out. All your friends will have gone on to live their lives, and probably be married with children by the time you emerge from prison. And do you think they’ll want to have someone like you hanging around their families? No, they won’t. You’ll be all alone, with nothing and no one, so if you’re even thinking of protecting someone, I suggest you think again.”

  He pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You just said the hoodie isn’t yours, and that you borrowed it from someone. I assume you were going to say ‘after Adam had been killed?’ Is that right? You’re saying that someone else was wearing this hoodie when Adam was murdered?”

  Lucas stared down at the table. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Prison, Lucas,” she continued. “Would your friend do time for you?”

  Lucas exchanged a glance with his solicitor, who widened her eyes at him, and then he exhaled a sigh, and his shoulders slumped.

  “Fine. I borrowed it from a friend.”

  “What’s your friend’s full name?”

  “Ben Redding.”

  “And you think Ben was wearing the hoodie the night Adam Humphries was killed?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Can you think of any reason Ben would have for hurting Adam?”

  “He might have been trying to protect me.”

  “What are you talking about? Protect you from what? Adam?”

  “Kind of.” He twisted his lips, glanced down at the table, shaking his head. “I think Adam saw me and Paige together. He must have followed us out. I think he probably liked Paige as well, and maybe he wanted to see where she was going.” He gave a cold laugh. “I don’t know, perhaps he was making sure she got home safe. Anyway, Adam wasn’t the only one to follow us out. Ben did, too. He must have noticed that Adam had seen us. Maybe there was an altercation, or it could be that Ben just saw him watching and snuck up behind him and bashed the back of his head in with a brick. I don’t know. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”

  “So, you’re saying that Ben Redding killed Adam Humphries to stop Adam from telling everyone you raped Paige?”

  He nodded, still not meeting her eye.

  “You’re admitting that you raped Paige Arland?”

  “I’m saying it might have looked that way from an outsider’s view.”

  “Why? Because you hit her, and she was crying?”

  “Maybe,” he muttered.

  “Why didn’t you tell us any of this before? You were going to take the rap for something your friend did?”

  Tears suddenly spilled down his cheeks. “Because of Jas.” He swiped them away angrily.

  “You’re telling us because of Jasmine Newton’s death?” she confirmed.

  “I don’t think she just died. I think Ben might have killed her as well.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I guess because she knew about me and Paige. She was going to confront me and tell everyone.”

  “So, he killed her to keep her quiet?” Erica confirmed. “Why would he kill Jasmine but not kill Paige?”

  “I don’t know why. Maybe the opportunity never arose. I expect Jasmine pushed him, you know. Said some shit about me.”

  “And so he killed her?”

  He nodded, head down, tears dripping off the end of his nose and into his lap. “I never wanted it! I never wanted any of it. What happened with Paige was a mistake. It was stupid. I was caught up in the moment. I really thought she liked me, that she was giving me the eye all night. I liked Jas, too, you know, but there was something about Paige. It made me furious when she kept saying no. I thought she was just teasing me at first but then I realised she wasn’t, and I got angry.”

  “So, you raped her?”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like that.” His voice was small.

  Anger rose inside her.

  She turned to Shawn. “We need to bring in Ben Redding and find Paige Arland.”

  Turner nodded and got to his feet.

  “Does that mean I can go?” Lucas asked.

  “You’re not going anywhere. We’ve still got you for the next twenty-four hours at least, plus we’ve got your confession to raping Paige Arland on tape.”

  DC Rudd knocked on the door and entered. “Boss, we can’t get hold of Paige Arland. A uniformed officer who was still on the scene went to her room, and she’s not there either. No one has seen her since the confrontation at the scene of the crime.”

  “Shit.” A sickening thought occurred to Erica, and the hairs on her arms stood to attention. She turned back to Lucas. “Was Ben there when Paige shouted at you by the canal?”

  Lucas paled. “Yeah, he was right next to me.”

  “If he was willing to kill both Jasmine and Adam to protect you, it was always bound to be Paige next. With no rape victim in a rape trial, Ben would know you’d walk.”

  Shawn understood the thought pattern she was going down. “You think Ben might have hurt Paige?”

  “Or be in the process of hurting Paige.”

  “I never wanted any of this to happen,” Lucas cried. “It wasn’t my fault Ben did what he did.”

  “No, but you started this chain of events when you raped Paige. You’re an adult now, and you’ll be tried as one. It’s about time you started taking some responsibility for your actions.”

  He snivelled, a little boy again, spoiled and pathetic. Erica ground her fingernails into her palms, doing her best to control her temper. She knew it was always best to remain calm, though that wasn’t always easy.

  “I... I think I know where Ben might be. If he’s taken Paige, she might be there as we
ll.”

  Lucas’s voice snapped her focus back to him.

  “What?”

  “There was a place Ben liked to go to hang out and smoke weed.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know if it even has an address, or how to give you directions. I think it might have been a bar, but it would have shut down a long time ago. The roof is like the arch of a railway bridge. It’s not too far from the university, though.”

  Could this be a trap? She didn’t know, but if it meant potentially saving Paige Arland’s life, then she’d take the risk.

  “Fine, you come with us. Show us where this place is.”

  They didn’t have any time to waste. Every second that went by might be another second closer to Paige’s death.

  They stepped out into the corridor. Lucas was still cuffed, so Turner pulled her to one side.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked her.

  “I don’t think we’ve got much choice, do you?”

  “Lucas and Ben could easily be in on this together. This could all be a trick to divert attention from Ben, and let him make his escape, taking Paige with him. It would suit Lucas if Paige vanished.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, but what’s the alternative? We already have uniform on the scene, searching the campus. We can’t just ignore Lucas. What if he’s right, and we don’t act right away, and by the time we do eventually go and check, all we find is Paige Arland’s body. We need to move fast.”

  That poor girl, after everything she’d already gone through, was possibly suffering at the hands of Ben Redding. Erica kicked herself for not looking at Lucas’s friends more closely—maybe there was something she could have done to prevent this. Had she been too quick in arresting Lucas for Adam’s murder? If she’d checked the camera footage more closely, would she have seen it was Ben wearing the hoodie, not Lucas?

  Or Lucas could be lying to us, and he had actually killed Jasmine and Adam. Or the two of them are in on it together, and I can’t trust Lucas’s word.

  It was a possibility she couldn’t risk ignoring.

  If she diverted the other officers from the areas they were already searching, she could be giving Ben the opportunity to make his escape with Paige, or even worse, leaving Paige’s body behind.