Behind Closed Doors

by Susan Lewis

  Stepping into the back garden where the square of carpet was still lying abandoned, next to the flattened grass, she took out her phone to call Helen Hall. ‘Has your client been bailed?’ she asked.

  ‘He has,’ Helen confirmed. ‘The CPS is considering his request for immunity. I think there’s a good chance, provided Sikora keeps his word and gives evidence in court. He knows that and assures me he’s willing to do it.’

  ‘OK. Are you still on duty? If you are, there are two more coming your way. I don’t imagine they’ve already got a lawyer.’

  ‘Same case?’

  ‘No. It’s Sophie Monroe’s parents.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Helen murmured. ‘Not what I wanted to hear. I’ll get one of my colleagues to help me cover.’

  After ending the call Andee rang Martin, while thinking of Graeme and wishing she was with him, planning a trip to Italy, preparing dinner, discussing his business, anything rather than where she was now.

  ‘Hi,’ Martin said cheerily. ‘How’s it going?’

  Andee took a breath. ‘She – she’s dead,’ she managed, and almost lost it. How she had longed and yet dreaded to hear those words about Penny.

  ‘Oh Christ, I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Her parents are in custody.’ She could hear the noise of their families in the background, each with a sadness over Dougie, but feeling the support of the closeness they shared.

  How easily it could all come apart.

  One day you were a small girl singing with the Upbeats, the next . . .

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I will be,’ she replied. ‘Perhaps you can break it to Mum and the children. I’m sorry if it spoils the evening, but it’ll be on the news . . .’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll handle it. I guess you’re not going to be able to make dinner?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Do you want to call me when you’re done? I could drive over there and pick you up?’

  Appreciating the offer, especially when he had so much else to be dealing with, she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got my car. I’ll ring you in the morning.’

  By the time Andee walked into the custody suite Heidi and Gavin had already been processed, and Gould was talking to Helen Hall and her colleague, Bertie Gifford, a small, wiry young man with a large mole under his nose, like a penalty spot.

  ‘They want to make full confessions,’ Gould informed her.

  Feeling relief emerging through her sadness, Andee said to Helen, ‘Prepared statements?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘They’ve agreed to be interviewed and I’d like to suggest we speak to Gavin first.’

  ‘First? Leo can interview Heidi while we’re . . .’

  ‘They’re both insisting they want to talk to you,’ Helen interrupted.

  Feeling their dependency, their fear and trust binding her up in their guilt, their tragedy, she said to Gould, ‘Are you going to sit in on this?’

  He nodded.

  ‘The CPS is here,’ the custody sergeant announced, releasing the outer door.

  ‘I’ll leave that to you,’ she said to Leo, and excusing herself she took off to the Ladies to splash cold water on her face and clean her teeth. The memory of the baby being taken away by a social worker was still proving hard to deal with. He’d screamed and fought, holding his tiny arms out to Andee as if she, a stranger, could save him. Even the social worker had wept, so had Lauren, and Andee was crying now, which was why she’d had to come in here and pull herself together.

  She hadn’t handled this well, any of it, but she’d have to confront her fears and failings when it was all over.

  A few minutes later she and Gould were facing Gavin and Helen across a square, scuffed table in an interview room, with the tape machines running and identities established.

  Determined not to engage emotionally with how wretched Gavin looked, Andee reminded him of his rights and said, quite steadily, ‘I want you to tell us what happened during the Sunday evening before Sophie disappeared. I know there was a row and she walked out, but she came back, didn’t she?’

  As his eyes rose to hers there was so much devastation in them that she almost had to look away.

  ‘Didn’t she?’ she prompted.

  He took a breath that became mangled by a sob. ‘It was an accident,’ he said brokenly. ‘No one meant it to happen . . . We . . . We didn’t even realise . . . I mean at first . . .’ He turned his head away as his voice cracked apart. A moment later he was sobbing uncontrollably. ‘She was my baby,’ he gasped wretchedly. ‘I let her down so badly. Ever since her mother died . . . Oh God, forgive me . . . Sophes, my little sweetheart, my angel . . .’

  Struggling to steady herself inwardly as Helen passed him a tissue, Andee waited until he was ready before saying, ‘Try to talk us through what happened from the time she came back. What time was that?’

  He nodded, and carried on nodding, until finally he said, ‘About quarter to midnight, maybe a bit after. I was . . . I was waiting for her. I wanted to see her, try and make up with her, before I went to France, but she was drunk – or she’d had a bit anyway. I hated seeing her like that, and she was coming home like it more and more often. I . . . I told her she was grounded until I got back and she . . .’ He choked on a breath. ‘She said things I don’t want to repeat. They weren’t my girl. It wasn’t the way she’d been brought up.’ He pressed his fingers to his eyes and tried to breathe. ‘Everything had gone so wrong for her,’ he said shakily. ‘She was lonely, I could see that, she missed her mother so badly . . .’

  Mummy’s favourite things: Sophie, daisy chains, singing, Daddy . . .

  Andee could feel so many cracks opening up inside her.

  It’s not Penny we’re talking about, it’s Sophie.

  ‘When me and Heidi were first together,’ Gavin continued, ‘they were that close, her and Sophie, that I thought my girl would be all right, that she’d start getting over it. And I think she did for a while. It did my heart good to see her laughing again. It was like the lights had come back on and she was as sweet and mischievous as ever, and as loving. Then . . . then Archie was born . . .’ He swallowed hard as his eyes drifted to what only he could see. ‘She was that excited about having a baby . . . She could hardly talk about anything else, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to help out if Heidi was feeling tired. She had all these ideas about babysitting and changing nappies and giving him feeds, but then, when he was there, nothing seemed to go the way we planned. I can see what happened now, but at the time we were so worried about him that we didn’t notice what was going on with her. By the time we did, it was too late. She’d turned against us, gone looking for attention elsewhere . . .’ His eyes closed as the kind of attention Sophie had received seemed to crush him from within. ‘I promised her mother I’d take care of her,’ he wailed, ‘Oh Jilly, forgive me. I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry . . . I deserve to be punished. She was our little angel . . .’

  As he broke down again Andee’s eyes went to Helen. It was clear the lawyer was deeply affected too, and sensing Gould’s tension told her that even he wasn’t immune to this guilty father’s despair.

  ‘Perhaps she’s with her mother now,’ Gavin went on raggedly. ‘That’s what I like to tell myself. Jilly will take care of her. They’ll sing songs together and play with the angels.’

  After a beat, Gould said, ‘You still haven’t told us what happened when she came back that night.’

  Making a visible effort to pull himself together, Gavin put his trembling hands on the table. ‘She wasn’t only drunk, she was angry, and seemed dead set on upsetting us. She said we were cruel and selfish, and it would serve us right if she ran away and never came back. I tried calming her down, but it must have been the drink, because she wouldn’t listen. She kept saying no one cared about her, that she was a waste of space and that she hated the baby more than anything. She called him some terrible names, said he was brain-
damaged and ought to be put down and if we liked she’d do us the favour. I got so angry, I hardly knew what I was saying. Then Heidi started accusing her of shaking him, and banging him against the wall to stop him from crying. She said Sophie was responsible for what was wrong with him, that she was the one who was cruel and selfish and maybe she was the one who ought to be put down. Sophie went for her, like she was going to hit her, then Heidi . . .’ His eyes closed as the horror of it washed over him. ‘I . . . grabbed . . . I pushed Sophie out of the way, and she . . . she fell back against the worktop, hitting her head. We didn’t realise . . . I mean . . . It didn’t seem like such a bad fall, but then she didn’t . . . she didn’t get up. I thought she must have been knocked unconscious, so I tried bringing her round, but she just wouldn’t wake up.’

  His head went down as he said, ‘I’m not sure when we realised she was . . . I couldn’t take it in. It just didn’t seem possible. One minute she was . . . I still can’t believe . . .’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the emergency services?’ Andee asked.

  He shook his head, seeming not to know. ‘It was . . . We – we thought that if we didn’t tell anyone what – what had happened, then everyone would assume she’d run away, and then she’d turn out to be one of the ones that never got found.’

  Andee swallowed what tasted like bile. ‘Where is she now?’ she asked quietly.

  When he looked up his eyes were so clouded, so stricken that she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his reply.

  ‘Gavin,’ Gould prompted. ‘You have to tell us what happened after she fell.’

  Finally, looking and sounding as traumatised as he surely must have been throughout the ordeal, he was able to say, ‘I . . . There was a roll of carpet in the garden. It was left over from the caravans that had just been fitted. We . . . I wrapped her in it . . .’

  Oh dear God in heaven. How had he managed to make himself do it? His own daughter. Why the hell hadn’t they rung an ambulance? How had he been able to live with himself since? The answer was clear, he hadn’t, because Andee could see now that it had only ever been a matter of time before the guilt would tear him apart.

  ‘The CCTV camera outside the bungalow,’ Gould said. ‘Did you tamper with it?’

  Gavin shook his head. ‘I didn’t know it wasn’t working. I thought it was, so I took my van round the back of the house . . .’

  Imagining the scene and wishing it were no more than a nightmare she could wake up from, Andee listened in mute horror as he described how he’d lifted the body into his van, taken it to the transport depot and transferred it to the container part of his truck. From there he’d driven to Portsmouth, crossed the Channel to St Malo and headed south for Toulouse.

  ‘Where did you leave her?’ Gould asked.

  ‘In . . . In a lake about twenty kilometres from Clermont Ferrand. I’d have to look at a map to tell you what it’s called.’

  ‘We’ll get you one,’ Gould told him. And for the benefit of the tape, he said, ‘This interview is terminated at 19.45.’

  As Andee turned the machines off, Gould said to Helen, ‘We’ll need to take your client to a computer so he can show us exactly where to direct the French police.’

  Gavin’s eyes were on Andee. ‘I didn’t mean what happened,’ he told her desperately. ‘I swear it was an accident. Please believe me, it all happened so fast. When she fell, I tried to catch her . . .’

  Though she didn’t doubt that he had, there was nothing Andee could say to help him now. The man had driven his daughter’s body to a foreign country and dumped it in a lake.

  ‘There you are,’ Jemma declared, setting a fresh coffee and tired-looking sandwich in front of Andee. ‘If you don’t mind me saying you look just about all in.’

  ‘I don’t mind telling you that I feel it,’ Andee admitted, deciding to sideline the sandwich and go straight for the coffee. This was only a short break before interviewing Heidi, but she needed it. ‘What’s happening at the bungalow?’

  ‘CSI are still there. The press have got wind of it now, they’re wanting a statement, obviously.’

  ‘Is someone taking care of it?’

  ‘Yeah, DCI Spender’s on it.’

  Andee sat quietly for a moment. Of course all her bosses would become more visible now; the murder of a teenage girl was big news. ‘Where’s the CPS?’ she asked.

  ‘In his office, I think. Can I ask how it went with Gavin Monroe?’

  After treating her to a brief résumé, Andee drained her mug and got up to return to the custody suite.

  ‘What news on the Poynters?’ she said, turning back.

  ‘Arrested and bailed,’ Jemma replied, ‘and Sikora’s not the only one round the camp who’s decided to sing.’

  Andee nodded. ‘That’s good.’ Walking towards the lift, she saw Gould emerge. ‘Have you got the location?’ she asked him.

  ‘We have. I’m about to contact the French police. Are you sure you’re up for talking to Heidi Monroe?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘OK, let me know when you’re done. I’ll either be in my office, or upstairs with Spender.’

  ‘Am I going to hear anything different from Heidi?’ she asked Helen Hall and Bertie Gifford as she returned to the custody suite.

  Bertie shook his head. ‘It was an accident, she wishes it had never happened, that they hadn’t done what they had. She’s desperate for some news about her baby.’

  Of course she was, and making the decision to lie rather than tell her how traumatised he’d seemed when they’d taken him away, Andee broke open a pack of fresh tapes ready to begin.

  It turned out that the Monroes’ stories chimed in every significant way, leaving Andee in little doubt that they’d discussed at length what they would say in case they should ever find themselves where they were now.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, after Heidi had finished describing the scene leading up to Sophie’s fall, ‘when you realised she was dead, whose idea was it to try and cover it up rather than call the emergency services?’

  Heidi flushed deeply as she looked down at her fidgeting hands. ‘I – I don’t remember,’ she stammered. ‘I mean . . . We sort of decided it together.’

  ‘Are you sure she fell?’

  Heidi’s eyes rounded with fear as she said, ‘Yes, I’m sure. I pushed her . . . I mean, Gavin did to get her away from me . . .’

  ‘But if it was an accident, I don’t understand why you didn’t call the paramedics. They might have been able to save her.’

  Heidi was shaking her head. ‘They couldn’t. She was . . . We knew . . .’

  ‘So one of you, both of you, decided to cover it up? Why cover up an accident?’

  Heidi regarded her helplessly. ‘I don’t know. I suppose we were in shock. And we were afraid no one would believe us. Everyone knew me and her weren’t getting on . . .’ She took a breath and pushed her hands through her hair. ‘I know we’ve made everything ten times worse, but I swear I didn’t mean to hurt her.’

  ‘You didn’t mean to hurt her?’ Andee repeated.

  Heidi froze. ‘Neither of us did,’ she insisted. ‘It was an accident, I swear it. We didn’t mean for it to happen. We loved her.’

  ‘Yet you were willing to let her father dump her body as if she didn’t matter at all. I just don’t get how you could have done that, either of you. She was a child, for God’s sake. She depended on you.’

  Heidi slumped in her chair, seeming more ashamed than she could bear.

  ‘So you told yourselves,’ Andee pressed on, ‘that you could report her missing and after all the initial fuss died down everyone would simply forget about her?’

  The way Heidi flinched told her that was indeed what they’d thought.

  Incredulous and enraged, Andee said, ‘Do you know what, Heidi? I don’t believe you.’

  Heidi’s face drained of colour as she stared at Andee in shock.

  ‘I think you and Gavin have conjured up a tale between you to cover up
what really happened that night.’

  ‘No!’ Heidi cried. ‘I swear it was an accident. We didn’t mean for it to happen.’

  ‘We need the truth, Heidi.’

  ‘I’ve told you, she tried to hit me, Gavin leapt between us and the next thing we knew she was on the floor.’

  Andee regarded her coldly. This wasn’t the whole truth, and she knew it, but forcing the real story out of her, when she probably believed the fabrication by now, was clearly going to take time. ‘Tell me, how did you feel when you watched Gavin wrap her body in that carpet?’ she asked. ‘I presume you were there.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Heidi wailed, burying her face in her hands. ‘It was terrible. I wish to God we’d never done it. I know we’ve made everything worse . . .’

  ‘Yes, you’ve certainly done that,’ Andee confirmed. ‘And it seems you were even prepared to let someone else go to prison for something you knew they hadn’t done.’

  ‘No! I . . . We talked about that and we decided if anyone was charged we’d have to come forward.’

  Since she’d never know now if that were true, Andee said, ‘Did Gavin tell you, before he left that night, where he was going to take her?’

  ‘Not exactly. He just said he knew a place in France, in the middle of nowhere . . .’

  Suddenly needing to get out of the room, Andee rose to her feet. ‘I’m going to terminate this interview now . . .’

  Heidi broke down sobbing. ‘I know we did a terrible thing, but I swear we loved her . . .’

  ‘Enough to let her body moulder at the bottom of a lake,’ Andee shot back scathingly.

  ‘Please, you can’t make me feel any worse than I already do.’

  ‘Believe me, I can,’ Andee assured her, and clicking off the tapes, she removed them from the machines and left the room.

  ‘There’s more to it,’ she was saying to Gould and Carl Gilbert, the CPS, twenty minutes later. ‘Why would they go to such lengths to get rid of her body if it was an accident?’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ Carl Gilbert responded, ‘which is why they’re going to be charged with murder.’