Tears sprang up in Cassie’s eyes. I’m scared.
Singh leant forward and smiled at her. ‘We understand that, but it’s our job to protect you and keep you safe. But we don’t know who we need to keep you safe from.’
It started out with the presents, Cassie said. They all had little notes, saying they were from a friend. Then I got text messages from my friend, just asking how I was. I felt like I could tell them anything and they’d understand. They didn’t ask me to do anything for them for ages.
‘Why didn’t you tell us any of this before, Cassie?’
Because I was told to keep it a secret, she insisted, her eyes shining. I didn’t want my friend to stop being nice to me. But then Mike was attacked. She looked down at the table. I’m worried it was my fault. I thought he might have been my friend, because he’s always nice to me. Leon asked me about my new shoes and I told him I thought Mike had bought them for me. He thought it was really funny and told everyone I was making up stories about Mike buying me presents.
The detectives looked at each other. ‘We don’t know if these things are connected, Cassie,’ Forest said, ‘but we need to look into them. Please will you let us have your phone, so we can see the messages you got from your friend?’
She shook her head. I told you, I lost it.
‘Have you had any messages from your friend in the last week?’ Forest asked.
No. They only text my new phone now, and I haven’t had it since the weekend we went on the trip.
‘What about the presents? Could you write us a list of what they gave you? And did you keep any of the notes that came with them?’
For a moment I thought Cassie was going to shake her head again, but then she sagged a little. I kept some, yes.
‘Where are they?’
In a box in my room.
‘Okay Cassie, when Sasha takes you back to school I’m going to come with you and collect those notes.’
Why? I want to keep them.
‘They might help us to find out who your friend is.’
Can I have them back afterwards? There was an earnest look in her eyes, and I wondered how lonely she must have been for this ‘friend’ to get her so completely under their spell.
Cassie and Sasha left, and Singh was about to follow when Forest got a phone call. She held up a hand telling him to wait, and I hovered next to him.
‘What?’ she exploded. ‘Are you absolutely certain?’ There was a pause as the person on the other end spoke. ‘Right,’ Forest continued. ‘I’ll send a car and a couple of PCs to collect him. Don’t let him leave. I don’t care what you have to do, that man is about to be placed under arrest and if he discharges himself before my officers get there I will hold you personally responsible!’
She hung up with a snarl and looked over at Singh. ‘I can’t bloody believe it,’ she began, then spotted me over Singh’s shoulder.
‘You, out,’ she barked at me. ‘You can’t be here for this.’
I did as I was told, getting out of there before she had a chance to turn her anger on me any further, but I didn’t leave the station. I wanted to know who was under arrest – had they found the murderer?
Chapter 38
Fifteen minutes later, Singh spotted me hanging about in the police station lobby.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, keeping his voice quiet. ‘Forest will throw a fit if she finds out you’re still here.’
I shrugged. ‘She told me to get out. I took that to mean get out of the room, not the building.’
He looked at me for a moment, then burst out laughing. ‘You’re sneaky, you know that?’
‘I wouldn’t have got where I am today without it,’ I replied. ‘Anyway, what’s going on?’
Singh looked behind him, checking that Forest was nowhere to be seen, then took me back through the doors to a waiting room.
‘Stay here. I’ll come and get you in a while.’
‘Do you need me to interpret?’
‘No, but I think this is still an interview you deserve to hear.’
Puzzled, I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he shook his head and left the room. I spent twenty minutes pacing in there, tensing every time I heard footsteps approaching, but each time they passed by.
My phone buzzed, and I felt a jolt of nerves when I saw that it was a text from Max.
Sorry for being a dick. xxx
It made me smile, and it lifted a weight from my heart that I hadn’t even realised was there. After the bombshell of Cassie’s announcement, I’d almost forgotten about our argument.
Come over tonight? he asked.
Sure :) xx
I kept expecting Forest to appear in the doorway, telling me to go home, but when the door finally opened it was Singh again.
‘Come with me,’ he said quietly, leading me through the corridor and directing me into a room. When I got in there I realised it was an observation room, and on the other side of the glass panel in front of me was an interview room. The walls were stark, breeze blocks painted a bland beige, and the only furniture was a single table and three chairs. Forest was sitting in one of them with her back to me. Mike was facing me, his expression neutral, but I could tell it was an act as his eyes were darting from side to side.
‘What’s going on?’ I said quietly, unsure if sound would travel through the mirrored glass.
‘You’ll see,’ he said, backing out and closing the door behind him, then reappearing a moment later in the room on the other side of the glass.
‘Right, we’re ready to begin,’ Forest said, leaning forward and pinning Mike with a steely glare. ‘Mr Lowther, can you explain to us what happened to you yesterday afternoon?’
The expression on Mike’s face was one I was familiar with, the face he used when he wanted people to trust him. I had learnt not to believe a word that came out of his mouth, but that facial expression worked on a lot of people; his charm was his greatest weapon. Could he have used that charm to manipulate Cassie?
‘Well, I can’t completely remember,’ he said, running a hand over his short hair. ‘It’s a bit blurry.’
‘Try your best,’ Forest said, her tone sharp. Mike picked up on this and frowned.
‘What’s going on here? I thought you just wanted to take my statement.’
‘And that’s exactly what we’re doing, if you’d stop avoiding the question.’
Mike hesitated, but then I saw his shoulders relax. ‘I was in the residence, just checking some paperwork, and I heard the door open behind me. Before I had a chance to turn round and see who it was, I felt like I’d been punched in the arm. I fell over and hit my head.’ He gave a little shrug and a smug smile. ‘That’s all I remember until I was being wheeled into the ambulance.’
‘You didn’t see your attacker at all?’
‘No, they were behind me the whole time.’
Forest nodded, her lips pursed. ‘Hmmm. Okay. And there was nothing else that could help you identify them? They didn’t speak to you? You didn’t catch a glimpse of their shoes as you passed out, anything like that?’
Mike wrinkled his brow as if he were thinking. ‘Now you mention it, I think I saw their shoes. They were black, and quite small. And I felt their fingernails graze against my neck. Maybe they were quite long?’ His expression had now changed to one of earnest helpfulness, but once again I was convinced he was lying. I hoped the detectives could see it too.
‘Let me check I’ve got this right,’ Forest said smoothly. ‘Just before you passed out, you saw that your attacker was wearing black shoes and had small feet. And you felt long fingernails scratch your neck. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ Mike said assertively.
‘Why haven’t you mentioned this before now?’
‘I only just remembered. Your questions prompted me to remember.’
‘Oh, I am glad,’ Forest said, and the sheer force of the sarcasm made me realise that she had another agenda. Whatever it was, I didn’t think it was go
ing to reflect well on Mike.
‘What about if I asked you if you’d smelled their perfume or aftershave, do you think you’d be able to remember that, too?’
Mike looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.’
‘Or if I asked you whether a specific person looked you in the eyes before trying to kill you, would you remember that too?’
This time, Mike didn’t reply, but looked between the two detectives, trying to work out what was going on.
‘You are lying,’ Forest said, enunciating each word clearly and slowly for effect. ‘The report from the doctor who examined you states that whoever tried to stab you did so from the front, not from behind you. They would have been standing right in front of you, looking you full in the face, in order to attack you. I don’t understand how you couldn’t identify your attacker in this situation.’
Mike shook his head vehemently. ‘No, that’s not how it happened. The doctor must be mistaken.’ He paused, and I could almost hear the thoughts forming in his mind. ‘Unless I’ve completely forgotten it. If I have concussion from hitting my head, I’m sure that could cause temporary amnesia. Then when I came round, I just assumed they attacked me from behind because I couldn’t remember seeing them.’
‘That’s a lovely story,’ Forest said, ‘but I’m afraid that version isn’t going to work either. The doctor has assured us that the person who attempted to stab you didn’t do a particularly good job of it, and they only gave you a gash on your arm. The blow you suffered to your head was minor. In fact, he was surprised that you even lost consciousness.’
Mike looked sullen and stared at Forest. ‘What are you accusing me of? I don’t think I want to continue talking to you,’ he said. ‘I came here to give my statement, not to be badgered and accused of lying. I’ll be putting in a formal complaint about my treatment here.’ He stood up and made as if to leave the room, but Forest got to the door before him.
‘Sit down, Mr Lowther. Or do I need to arrest you?’
‘What for?’ he demanded, calling Forest’s bluff, or so I thought.
‘Wasting police time with this absolutely appalling fabricated story,’ she snarled.
For a moment they stood nose to nose, until Mike’s shoulders dropped and he sat back down, putting his head in his hands.
‘The inconsistencies in your story lead us to believe that you weren’t actually attacked,’ Singh said, his voice icy. ‘Instead, our current theory is that you faked this attack, stabbed yourself in the shoulder, knowing that someone would soon find and help you, and invented this story. Are we correct?’
I thought Mike wasn’t going to answer, but he nodded.
‘Out loud, please, Mr Lowther,’ Forest barked.
‘Yes, fine. You’re right. Fuck’s sake.’ Mike thumped the table but didn’t say any more.
‘Our question now has to be, why? Why go to all of this trouble to try and convince us you were attacked?’
Silence. Mike rested his forehead on the table and looked down at the floor, ignoring Singh’s question.
‘I think I know this one,’ Forest said, addressing her words to Singh. ‘He did it because he wanted us to believe he was an innocent victim. He did it to take attention away from himself as the person who has been manipulating Cassie, killed both Steve Wilkinson and Saul Achembe, and then kidnapped Leon from Samira’s house. Am I getting close, Mike?’
As she said this, Mike raised his head from the table and looked at them both, aghast.
‘No! No, I had nothing to do with any of that!’
‘Why should we believe you? You’ve been lying to us since you stepped into this room. How do we know you’re not lying now? It would be the perfect way to throw suspicion off yourself, if you were also attacked by the killer.’
‘What? Why the hell would I kill Steve and Saul?’
‘That’s what we’d like to know, Mike. Did Steve taunt you because he was seeing Jess after she left you? Did he make you angry? Or was it that he’d found out you were the one stealing from the school? We know you have a gambling problem.’
‘That wasn’t me, any of it! Yeah, I like to gamble, but I’d never steal!’
I snorted at this assertion, but I supposed he’d never thought of it as stealing when we were together. He’d seen everything of mine as being his.
‘Really? What about the items that have gone missing from students in the residence in the last year? Including, most recently, a charm bracelet? It might not have had diamonds on it, but it still could have fetched you a bit of cash at a pawn shop.’
My mouth hung open for a moment after Singh mentioned the bracelet. Had that been Mike, too? From the look on his face, I thought Singh had got it completely right.
‘The bracelet was … a mistake,’ Mike said, his voice so quiet I could barely hear him.
‘A mistake.’ Forest’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. ‘You mean it was a mistake because there were police crawling all over school and you knew you could be risking more than a reprimand from your boss?’
‘No! Anyway, I returned it.’
‘Dumped it in the snow outside Courtney’s window, you mean?’
‘I was going to put it back inside. I went round to see if she was in her room, but then I heard someone coming, so I dropped it and ran.’ He didn’t look up once as he told this story, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
Singh sat forward, and Mike’s gaze flicked upwards. The DS put on his best fake smile. ‘Come on Mike. Tell us the truth. How are you mixed up in all this?’
‘I’m not!’ he yelled, pushing himself backwards so his chair wobbled precariously.
‘Tell us why, then? Why the hell would you fake an attack on yourself, that so closely resembled the ways Steve and Saul were killed, if you’re not the person who committed those crimes in the first place?’
To my horror, Mike began to cry. He put his head down on the desk and he sobbed, big ugly sobs that screwed up his face. The two detectives looked at each other, clearly surprised by the effect they’d had on him.
There was a long pause as Mike sniffled and tried to pull himself together, then he shook his head and thumped the table.
‘It’s all that bitch’s fault. If she wasn’t so cold to me, I would never have had to do something like this. She’s messed up. She’s messed ME up.’ He took a big shuddering breath. ‘You can’t arrest me for this, I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s a mental health issue. I need to be assessed by a psychologist or something.’
My heart was hammering at this outburst. Was he talking about Jess? I hoped he was, but I wasn’t confident.
‘We’ll certainly look into that,’ Forest replied. ‘You’re claiming you did this for attention?’
He laughed coldly. ‘Attention. You make me sound like the stupid little teenage girls I have to deal with every day. No, I did it to teach her a lesson. Paige fucking Northwood caused this. You should arrest her. She’s cruel and manipulative, and I did this to show her just how much damage she’s doing.’ Mike stared wildly at Forest as he continued. ‘You know she’s dangerous. She manages to convince everyone that I treated her badly, but I would never do that. She’s got him wrapped around her little finger,’ he said, stabbing a finger towards Singh.
Forest shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t believe this. You’ve wasted our time with this, when we could be out catching a murderer, and more importantly finding one of your vulnerable students. I’ll be putting forward a case to have you charged with wasting police time, and anything else I can find that will stick. You’d better find yourself a decent lawyer.’
The detectives wrapped up the interview as my legs gave way and I sank to the floor in the observation room. How could Mike have done something like this? Faked an attack on himself, just to get a reaction out of me? Maybe the old me would have gone running to check he was okay, or let him back into my life out of guilt or duty, but there was no way in hell that was going to happen now.
I�
��d stopped shaking by the time Singh came back to get me.
‘That’s not what we were expecting,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I let you listen to it now.’
‘Don’t be. I’m glad I heard it. He’s poisonous, and I don’t want anything to do with him, but I’m glad I know exactly what he said about me. I can’t believe I ever thought he might have changed.’
‘Come on,’ Singh said, taking my hand to help me up off the floor. ‘I need to go to the school to collect those notes from Cassie. Are you up to interpreting?’
I nodded and followed him. As we walked out to the car park, he hesitated. ‘Do you mind driving? My car wouldn’t start this morning so I got a taxi here.’
We got into my car and set off for Lincoln, not speaking, both deep in our own thoughts. I was turning everything over in my mind when all of a sudden something struck me.
‘How did you find out about the messages between Joe and Leon in the first place?’ I asked Singh.
‘What?’ he said, coming out of a daze. ‘Oh, we had his phone number so we got the network to give us access.’
‘But how did you get that number? Who gave it to you?’
He paused. ‘I can’t remember. One of the staff. Why?’
‘How did they know about that phone?’
Singh didn’t reply, so I tried to explain my thinking.
‘The phone Leon was using to message Joe was his second phone, his secret one. Nobody knew about those phones except for the students.’
‘And the person who gave them the phones,’ he said quietly. ‘Shit. How did we not pick up on that?’
‘Whoever gave you that phone number knew about Leon’s secret phone,’ I said. ‘Which means they were the one who planned this whole thing, and they gave you that number instead of his usual number, because they wanted you to find those messages. They’d been setting Steve Wilkinson up, building up the evidence for months to destroy his life and his reputation, and now they’re letting you finish it off for them.’
Singh pulled out his phone and made a call. ‘I need to get someone to check the interview records and find out who gave us that number,’ he told me as he dialled.
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