by T. M. Logan
A middle-aged man’s face, emotionless as a tombstone, stared out from the screen.
Andrew Blaisdale has been found guilty of the murder of missing Lincolnshire woman Janine Cooper.
The body of the 34-year-old beauty therapist, who disappeared in February 2008, has never been located despite extensive police searches in Market Rasen and the surrounding countryside. Prosecutors believed that Blaisdale, 39, buried his former lover in a shallow grave in a remote part of north Lincolnshire.
A jury at Lincoln Crown Court reached a majority verdict after almost two days of deliberation. Blaisdale will be sentenced on June 21. He had denied killing Ms. Cooper and attempting to pervert the course of justice, but detectives were able to use cell phone data that revealed his movements on the day of the murder.
I read to the bottom of the story, a numbness in my stomach as each new detail added another parallel to my own situation.
A missing persons inquiry that became a murder case. A married man having an affair. And it seemed the victim was attacked in an underground parking lot. Electronic footprints left behind that led to the conviction.
There was no text in the body of the email, but the meaning of it was clear: The police don’t need a body to get you sent down.
Ben. His latest taunt.
“Daddy?”
I jumped, startled, at the small voice behind me. My son stood in the doorway in his Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas, his hair sticking up in all directions.
“Is it schooltime?”
“Not yet, Wills. Did I wake you up?”
He yawned and shook his head. “Daddy?”
“Yes, Wills?” I pulled out a chair for him at the kitchen table next to me.
“Erm.” He yawned again and seemed to forget what it was he was going to say.
“What is it, matey?”
“Do you love Mummy?”
Out of the mouths of babes, indeed. “Yes,” I said automatically. “Of course. More than anything.”
“More than me?”
“Except you, big man.”
“And does Mummy love you?”
“Yes,” I said, pouring him a glass of apple juice.
He thought for a moment, rolling a toy car along the kitchen table. “What happens if one of you doesn’t anymore?”
“Doesn’t what, matey?”
“Love the other one.”
I wondered what he’d seen, or overheard, or picked up from the adults around him. He was a smart boy and picked up lots of things, without necessarily letting on at the time. Often he’d ask about things right out of the blue, days or weeks after he’d first heard them.
“Well,” I said slowly, a painful lump in my throat, “then they both have to be really nice and kind to the other one, and remember how they got married because they were in love, and try really, really hard until they love each other again.”
“So are you going to be nice and kind to Mummy?”
A new thought struck me. In all this mess that had been created, I’d thought Beth and I were the biggest victims, with the most to lose. But that wasn’t true; William would be the biggest victim, if things weren’t put right. He was not even five years old and stood to lose more than all of us.
“Yes, Wills. I’m going to try as hard as I can to be nice and kind.”
He picked another of the cars scattered around under the kitchen table and rolled it absently back and forth, back and forth.
“Can I have Golden Nuggets for breakfast?” he asked.
* * *
If Mel realized that I’d discovered the secret cell phone in her handbag, she gave no sign of it. She got ready for work as usual, kissed me, and asked me twice if I was all right or whether she should take a personal day and stay home with me.
“I’m worried about you, Joe.”
“It’s fine. I’ll be all right. You go. I can do the school drop-off.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure.”
I took our son to school, stood with him as he lined up with his class, and watched him trot happily into his classroom. His teacher, Mrs. Ashmore, gave me a smile. I smiled back.
Then I drove home and hacked my wife’s email account.
I had a suspicion that all of Mel’s passwords were the same, and I guessed right on the third attempt: WilliamLuke4.
An egg timer appeared on-screen, then it went blank for a moment.
Bingo.
Her in-box appeared.
I scanned the list of emails. Forbidden territory. A strange, voyeuristic feeling like you get when looking over someone’s shoulder on the Tube, reading their Kindle. In the last few months, I had caught glimpses of Mel’s in-box, but only for a second or two before she minimized the screen or shut her laptop or dragged another tab over the top of it to hide its contents. The reason for that secrecy was no longer a mystery.
There were only eighteen messages in the in-box, so I checked each of them one by one and then went through the subfolders looking for anything that looked like it might relate to Ben. But it was all routine. Nothing, as far as I could tell, from Ben. Next I went through the sent items, slowly at first, checking the sender, subject line, and first line of every message that she had sent from her Gmail account in the last three months.
Nothing. Maybe there was nothing to find? She had obviously been good at covering her tracks while the fling with Ben was going on, but now she had promised the affair was over. It made sense. That was why she had deleted everything.
Or almost everything.
There were seventy-two emails in her deleted items—she was ruthless with her in-box and never liked to have more than she could see on the screen at one time. Delegate, deal with, diary, or delete, that was her mantra with both work and personal email accounts. Most of the deleted emails were from the last few days. Special offers, circulars, marketing stuff, companies trying to sell product.
There was a liquid feeling in my stomach as I saw a message from an account named [email protected].
Received Monday evening, two days ago. The subject line was blank.
BD: Ben Delaney.
I clicked on it, a painful lump in my throat.
I need you. Don’t let him do this. You know we are meant to be together. Please let’s just talk one more time. Need to see an old mate at home on Thurs but then back. 10 A.M. Sat, usual place? Begging you, beautiful girl.
Will dream of you tonight, like every night. B xxx
I read it once, then again, then a third time, feeling a vein pounding in my forehead.
On the pad beside me, I wrote: Meeting: 10 o’clock Saturday. B+M. And underlined twice: Where? At 10:00 A.M. on Saturdays, I was at the swimming pool with William for his regular weekend lesson—we would be out of the house between 9:30 and 11:00 A.M. Maybe he was coming right here to our house, then. Maybe I’ll arrange a playdate for William and make a surprise appearance at home.
There was no maybe about it. I would be there; it was just a case of finding out where.
I checked the sent items again but could find no response to this plea from Ben. Either she had deleted her reply, or she had not replied at all and simply deleted his email.
A brief hope flared in my chest. Maybe she didn’t reply, because it’s finished between them?
I stared at the screen.
Do you really believe that?
No. That was just wishful thinking, plain and simple. They were planning to meet, which begged the question: What else were they planning?
I forwarded the email to my Hotmail account—copying in Peter Larssen with the short message “From Ben—can we discuss?”—then deleted it from her sent items so she wouldn’t know what I’d done.
The message was interesting for another reason.
Need to see an old mate at home on Thurs.
Home. It was the only mention that I could find of Ben saying he was going somewhere, a definite indication of where he might be found. But where was home for Ben? His home in Hamps
tead, where his wife was slowly falling to pieces in his absence?
Or home as in where he came from, where he was born?
50
At 10:00 A.M., I called Larssen to fill him in on our close encounter at the mall and the text exchanges between Mel and Ben. He listened, asked a few questions, and said he would inquire about CCTV footage.
“The email you just forwarded to me,” he said. “Where did you find it?”
“In Mel’s Gmail account.”
“With her knowledge and permission?”
I paused. “No. She doesn’t know.”
“Hmm. Any indication that she replied to this message?”
“Not that I could find.”
“OK.” He paused as if he were writing something. “I was about to call you, actually.”
“About?”
“Good news and bad news.”
“Well, that’s better than just plain bad news, I suppose. What’s the good news?”
“It isn’t really good news, to be honest.”
“Great.” A feeling of dread rose from my stomach.
“They found your cell phone. The one you lost on Thursday night.”
“And the bad news?”
“They found it at Fryent Country Park.”
“Where? How?”
“It was in a patch of woodland, half-hidden in a pile of leaves. In the area they’ve been searching.”
“But … that doesn’t make sense.”
“The police are tearing the woods up now, looking for a body. Using ground-penetrating radar, scent dogs, the full house of forensics. They also have divers in the lake, looking for weapons and anything else that might have ended up in there. They’re treating it as their secondary crime scene.”
I sat down slowly at the kitchen table. “Say that again.”
He repeated it, word for word. It felt like I was floating above myself, disembodied; as if this conversation was happening to someone else and I was just a spectator.
“How can they be sure it’s my phone?”
“The IMEI number is registered to you. Plus, your fingerprints, numbers, photos, and various other bits and pieces. It’s your phone, Joe. There’s no doubt about that.”
My mind was racing. A million possibilities, but only one that made sense. “Somebody planted it there.”
“Somebody?”
“Ben. Ben planted it there. It’s part of his plan to set me up. Convince the police that he’s been done in.”
“Right,” Larssen said, stretching the syllable to breaking point.
“He convinces the police, they finish the job of wrecking my life.”
Larssen sighed audibly. “Joe, you need to keep your mind focused on this. Just this, nothing else.” He couldn’t keep the exasperation out of his voice. “Forget about other theories, other ideas. That’s not your job. And the fact that you’re persisting with it is making my job harder.”
“I’m persisting with it because it’s the truth.”
“Your cell phone has just been linked to a potential crime scene, and you don’t seem to have an explanation. I expect DCI Naylor is feeling pretty pleased with himself at this moment.”
“All I can tell you for certain is that phone didn’t end up there because of anything I did. That’s the truth.”
“Of course,” he said in a tone that sounded like it was reserved for guilty clients. “It’s a rather unfortunate truth, though, isn’t it?”
When Larssen hung up, I called Beth at home to fill her in on what had happened at the mall. Alice picked up again, and I was momentarily thrown by the sound of her voice.
“Is your mum there?” I asked.
“She’s asleep.”
“Is she OK today?”
“She’s not, like, come down from her room yet this morning.”
“How come you’re not at school, Alice?”
There was silence for a moment at the other end of the line.
“Felt a bit like, sick, this morning.” She said it without any conviction, and I was almost certain that she was lying. “And mum needed looking after.”
“I need a favor from you.”
More silence.
Then: “What favor?”
“Your granny’s address in Sunderland. Do you have an address book handy?”
“Why?”
“It’s just something I need to know.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“It’s … delicate.”
“Don’t treat me like I’m just a kid.”
But you are a kid, I thought. Instead, I said, “OK. I think your dad might be heading up there. Tomorrow.”
“Why would he do that?” She sounded surprised at the suggestion.
“Not sure yet, but I’ve got a hunch that’s where he’s going.”
“A hunch?”
“An educated guess.”
“I don’t think he’d go there.”
“Really? What makes you say that?”
She paused before answering. “He’s, like, always telling me how bad it is, how rough Sunderland is compared to where we live now. I speak to Gran more often than he does.”
“I’m sure your gran will want him found too. Want to hear that he’s safe.”
“S’pose so.”
“Is there anything else you can think of that might help me find your dad? Anything at all?”
“No,” she said, her voice flat. “Don’t think so.”
“Everything will be better,” I said, “once we know your dad’s OK. That’s all I want.”
She didn’t reply.
“Alice, are you there?” I said.
“It’s what I want too,” she said in a small voice.
“So help me. To find him.”
There was a muffled click on the other end of the line, as if she had closed a door.
“Are you going to sort everything out? Find my dad and bring him back?”
“Alice, I’m going to do everything I possibly can to bring him back. I promise.”
“I miss him,” she said quietly.
Then she gave me the address.
51
I couldn’t call from an identifiable cell phone or from our home phone—it had to be from a number Ben couldn’t link to me. A number that was anonymous. There were still a couple of phone booths on the High Street. Most of them had been swept away by the popularity of cell phones, but a few remained. One of the two was out of order. I went into the other one, looked around to see if anyone was watching, and dialed the first landline number, designated in Mel’s phone as BW. The phone booth was grimy and cigarette-burned and stank of stale piss, but I didn’t mind too much; in a strange sort of way, it was almost reassuring to find that some things hadn’t changed since my youth. The number rang three times before a female voice picked up.
“Hello, CEO’s office. How can I help you?”
“Oh, sorry, think I might have the wrong number. Who have I called?”
“Zero One Zero Limited, sir. Can I help you?”
I hung up. Ben’s company.
The next number in the list was marked W. Mel’s secretary, Gavin, picked up after one ring.
W was her work number, her direct line. I never used it, preferring to call her on the cell when she was in the office. But it seemed a bit weird that it was on this list—why would you have your work number on an illicit cell phone? I hung up without a word. Stared at the phone for a second, then redialed. Gavin answered again, giving the exact same greeting.
“Hi,” I said, trying to raise my voice half an octave. “Could you put me through to Melissa Lynch, please?”
“Who’s calling?”
I looked across the street. A Burger King. “Mr. King.”
“Will she know what it’s concerning?”
“Yes, I’m sure she will.”
He put me on hold and came back half a minute later.
“I’m afraid Mrs. Lynch is out seeing clients this morning, Mr. King. She should be bac
k about 3:00 P.M. Can I take a message?”
I hung up. It struck me again how little I knew about her day-to-day work, her movements, and who she was with at any given time. And in that context, the work number also made sense—because it would allow her to coordinate absences from the office, make excuses, call in with a bogus appointment here and a fictitious client conference there when she had an opportunity to spend time with Ben. Pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together: this was how you used new technology to conceal the oldest of sins.
It wasn’t warm in the booth, but sweat was already making my shirt stick to my back. The next number rang three times before a young female voice answered. Home Counties accent, confident, posh.
“Good afternoon, Pollard and Clarke. How may I help you?”
“Hi. Sorry, who have I called?”
“Pollard and Clarke, sir. How can I help?”
“Oh. What exactly do you do?”
“We offer a range of legal services, sir. What’s your particular requirement?”
For the third time in five minutes, I hung up. A Google search on my cell phone told me Pollard and Clarke was a law firm based in Holland Park, just around the corner from Mel’s office.
They specialized in family law and divorce.
I felt winded, like I’d been punched in the stomach. Mel had been unfaithful, she had deceived me—but to have lawyers involved gave a ring of finality to it. I leaned against the side of the booth, my head on the glass, a hard pain in my chest. How was I going to tell William what was going on? How was it possible for a four-year-old to understand that his parents might split up?
I turned back to the list of numbers, the blood pumping in my ears.
The cell phones were next, the first of them designated with the letter A. Presumably this was her main method for contacting Ben—and the way she had warned him about my plan in the mall last night. I put another coin into the pay phone, but my fingers hesitated over the keypad. If he picked up, what would I say? What should I say? Or was it better to say nothing?
It is better to know than not know. I dialed the number and waited, my hand on the receiver, slippery with sweat. It rang once, twice. Six times. Then went to voice mail, an automated female voice asking me to leave a message. I hung up. Dialed it again. Six rings and then voice mail again. What should I say? Hi, Ben. This is Joe. You tried to wreck my marriage, you bastard—let’s meet up to discuss? I hung up again and was about to hit redial when I stopped myself. A couple of random calls might be OK, but a third from the same number might arouse Ben’s suspicion. I put the phone back in its cradle and checked my list of numbers again. Lover, hotel, work, husband’s work, and so on. They performed a very specific function: enabling Mel to run her double life, to carry on the affair, while keeping it contained and airtight from the rest of her life. Keeping the two separate and distinct so they could not overlap, so they always ran in parallel and never converged. Except they had converged, the moment our four-year-old son spotted her car in traffic last Thursday night.