by Steve Mosby
Q: And you found what happened to her upsetting?
A: Yes, of course. It would have been horrible even if I hadn’t known her. We were all really shocked and frightened by the whole thing. It was very sad. I remember there was a memorial service for her one assembly. People told stories about her life and loads of people were crying. And it was – well, it was just really sad. I remember crying myself, which really isn’t like me. Horrible.
Q: Her body was found at Frog Pond. Were you there on the day she was killed?
A: No. Of course not.
Q: Did you see John Edward Blythe kill her?
A: No.
Q: When you picked Blythe up yesterday, who got in the car first, and who had the keys?
A: Oh God, I’ve already told you this.
Q: Tell us again.
Q: Does the name Melanie West mean anything to you?
A: Yes. You know that. She was the woman I saved from John Blythe in my cellar. She was one of his victims. He said she was special to him in some way.
Q: Did you know her before then?
A: No, not really. Obviously, I can make the connection now.
I do vaguely remember her from school, although I don’t think I ever spoke to her. She was Jennifer’s friend back then, I think. If I heard the news when she went missing, then I can’t have recognised the name. We were never close.
Q: Does the name Jeremy Townsend mean anything to you?
A: Not that I’m aware of.
Q: He’s Melanie’s husband. He’s an author. You’ve never read a book called What Happened in the Woods?
A: Again, not that I’m aware of. I have a lot of books – I read a lot – but that’s not a title that stands out for me. What’s it about?
Q: It’s loosely based on what happened to Jennifer.
A: Is it? That seems a little distasteful to me. I suppose I would remember it if I had read it, so I can’t have.
Q: You never wrote to Jeremy Townsend?
A: Absolutely not. How could I have done? Like I just said, I’ve never even heard of him.
Q: Well, let’s go back to Melanie for a moment. It’s your contention that, while camping in the wilds over the past few days, John Blythe had Melanie West with him the whole time. And that despite having to move quickly on occasion, he somehow managed to take her along with him. How is that possible?
A: I don’t know. It’s not my contention, though. I’m just telling you what happened to me.
Q: If Melanie was abducted by Blythe, and kept imprisoned all this time, why haven’t we found her DNA or fingerprints in his cellar?
A: I have no idea. Why are you asking me?
Q: Where did Blythe get the newspaper from?
A: How would I know any of this} I literally have no idea what Blythe did before he attacked me, whether Melanie was with him at that point, or where he got the newspaper from. I can’t help you with any of that. Why don’t you ask her?
Q: We’ll ask her, don’t worry.
A: It doesn’t make any sense. If what you’re implying is true, then why would I have sent that email asking for help? Why wouldn’t I just have killed Blythe and. . . carried on doing whatever horrible thing you think it is I’ve done?
Q: That’s a good question. Why don’t you tell us?
A: I can’t. Because none of it’s true. [Long pause.] You haven’t even told me how she’s doing. Do you realise that? I think that’s the least I deserve. I’d like to know that she’s okay after everything I did to help her.
Q: Were you bullied as a teenager?
A: No. Obviously not. Why?
Q: Most kids are at some point, aren’t they? And with all respect, you say ‘obviously’, but it sounds like you were the kind of kid who might have been. No friends. Keeping to yourself.
A: No. Like I said, it was more by choice than anything else. The other kids left me alone. I think maybe they respected me more than anything else – the way I didn’t seem to rely on anybody. It’s always been that way.
Q: Put it like that and you sound a lot like Blythe. Maybe you were bullied and you looked up to him a bit because you wished you were more like him. Is that why you helped him?
A: No.
Q: Why did you help him then? Was it because you knew all along what he’d done, and were worried it would all come out when the police caught him?
A: No. As I’ve told you a hundred times now, I didn’t help him. I’ve never communicated with him. I’d never made the connection with Melanie West. I’d never heard of her husband or his book. You can print everything, check everywhere, do whatever tests you want; you won’t find anything to contradict what I’m saying. Because everything I’ve told you is the truth.
Q: We’ll do all of those things, don’t worry.
A: Anyway – the police didn’t catch him, did they?
Q: What do you mean?
[Pause. Note that the interviewee seems pleased.]
A: I did.
Forty-Six
Go and take his story and tear it to pieces.
Early afternoon on the day after arresting Simon Bunting for the abduction of Melanie West, Emma and I parked up outside the hospital. We had about ten hours left. It wasn’t going to be enough.
A part of me really had thought he’d fall apart under more detailed questioning, but I’d underestimated him. Aside from a few hesitations and flashes of anger, he’d managed to keep calm and stick to his story – and of course, that was all he needed to do. It was a wild story, but it fitted the facts, and so far – despite the department throwing everything we had at the case – we hadn’t found a single thing to contradict it.
While we’d been interviewing him, other officers had talked to his neighbours and work colleagues. It had given us nothing. The neighbours said he was quiet but not unfriendly, and they hadn’t seen anything suspicious on the evening he’d arrived home with John Blythe. His boss confirmed that Bunting had called in sick to work on the two days he claimed to have done. One of the police manning the checkpoints in Moorton recognised him from a photograph, and confirmed that Bunting had indeed told him he was on his way to visit his parents’ grave at the cemetery.
A large amount of CCTV footage had been pored over, but there were as yet no sightings of his vehicle in any of it. The search amounted to hundreds of cameras and even more hours of film, and even if we did manage to catch his car somewhere, the footage would likely be from a distance and probably useless for establishing the veracity of his story.
The laptops had still given us nothing. Bunting’s own machine could be traced to him, but the saved files and browsing history were all entirely innocuous. The one he alleged to be Blythe’s was second-hand, and could theoretically have been purchased by either of them. While the letters and stories were on it, the browsing history remained impenetrable. Bunting’s prints had been found on the machine, but that fitted with what he’d told us – that Blythe had shown him the final Melanie story, and that Bunting had amended it and sent the email asking for help. Blythe’s prints had also been found on Bunting’s keys and in various places throughout the house and the cellar, and just as I’d expected, all of them matched Bunting’s account.
There were discrepancies, of course. It seemed unbelievable that Blythe could have dragged Melanie around the countryside with him when he went on the run. Where had he got the newspaper? And there was absolutely no physical evidence that she had ever been in his cellar. But Bunting had remained calm under fire. He didn’t know any of that; it wasn’t his problem; he was just giving an account of what had happened to him.
Even though we were all sure he was lying, we still couldn’t prove it. And time was not on our side.
As Emma and I walked towards the hospital, the media gathered by the entrance seemed to come to life. Cameras appeared, turning in our direction, and reporters moved to meet us. In the small but intense throng, I recognised one of them as the man who’d annoyed me outside Blythe’s house. That was less than a we
ek ago, but it felt like years had passed since.
‘Can you give us a word on her condition, Detectives?’
‘Not yet, Joe.’ Emma was as frustrated as I was, but she managed to sound as cheerful as ever. ‘We’ve only just arrived, haven’t we? We’ve talked about that keen journalistic eye of yours before, I think.’
We passed through the crowd to the front door, and I tried not to wince at the cameras flashing around me.
‘How badly hurt is she?’ Joe called from behind.
I kept my head down and ignored him.
We were met outside Melanie West’s room by Dr Cleaves, the same man we’d spoken to days earlier about Amanda Cassidy. Word on Amanda’s condition was cautiously positive: she remained in a serious condition, but was stable and responding well to treatment. It appeared that she was, finally, coming out of the woods.
Melanie West was another matter entirely.
How badly hurt is she?
‘With one notable exception,’ Cleaves told us, ‘she doesn’t appear to have been hurt at all. Physically, I mean. Obviously, what has been done to her is its own form of violence, but her health is good. She hasn’t been directly harmed in any way.’
‘What’s the exception?’ Emma said.
‘Her eyesight. We’re in relatively uncharted territory here. My understanding is that she’s been kept in an extremely dark environment, and generally blindfolded, for over a decade. As you can imagine, there isn’t a large body of medical literature dealing with such a situation.’
I glanced at the closed door. At this point, we were relying on Melanie being able to tell us something that could help prove she had been held by Simon Bunting and not John Blythe. But she had been blindfolded. An extremely dark environment. There was also the fact that Bunting’s house was structurally identical to Blythe’s.
Just how careful had Bunting been?
‘Can she see?’ Emma said.
‘She can. But living in those conditions for a prolonged period of time weakens the eye muscles. The pupils are no longer used to dilating and contracting. Light – even weak light – can be exceedingly damaging. So we’re keeping her surroundings very dim for the moment, and she’s wearing dark glasses.’
‘Is it permanent?’
‘Probably not. It might take some time, though. Interestingly, she isn’t displaying any of the other signs you might find in somebody deprived of light for such a long time. She has been looked after – if you can call it that. She’s been well fed. She’s been given vitamins.’
‘You make her sound like a plant,’ Emma said.
Cleaves looked awkward at that, but she was right. Assuming it had all happened the way I thought, that was exactly how Bunting had treated Melanie. I didn’t think he’d been interested in her at all, except as a way to torture Townsend. A plant, dutifully kept and watered. That was what he had reduced her to, and he had done it well.
‘She’s mentally quite sharp,’ Cleaves said, ‘but there is something else. She suffers from hallucinations.’
‘Hallucinations?’ Emma said.
‘This is actually a well-documented phenomenon; you see it in test subjects after only a few days. When the brain is deprived of sights, it creates them. It usually starts relatively small – flashing lights and so on – but over time it develops into elaborate visions. She’s not insane; she knows they’re not real. But they seem as real to her as the world we’re seeing around us now. According to her, they’re already beginning to fade, but over the years they’ve been vivid and intense.’
Neither Emma nor I spoke for a moment. I continued to stare at the closed door, feeling any hope I had beginning to ebb away inside me. Melanie had been kept blindfolded in the dark. She suffered from hallucinations. If we were relying on her account to nail Bunting, then we might be relying on testimony that any half-decent defence team would tear to shreds in minutes.
Might be, I thought.
Give her a chance.
‘What has she been hallucinating?’ Emma said.
Still staring at the door, I nodded to myself, already knowing what the answer was going to be.
‘Water and woodland for the most part,’ Cleaves said. ‘Bright green woodland.’
‘The doctor told us you’ve been seeing things.’
Melanie West nodded. She was sitting up in bed, with the sheets around her waist, wearing a white hospital gown and sunglasses. Her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. Although it was difficult to see clearly in the gloom, she seemed – as Cleaves had said – healthy and physically unharmed. On the outside, at least.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘For a long time now. I’ve always known they’re not real, but. . . well. Actually. Are they or aren’t they? When that’s all there is to see, what difference is there? I know my mind’s making it up, but at the same time, they seem real.’
‘Are you seeing those things right now?’
‘I was earlier, but not right now. Everything’s just dark at the moment. Well – not that dark, really. Hang on.’
She reached up to take the sunglasses off.
‘Melanie. . .’
‘It’s fine. I can see you both.’ She smiled. ‘Assuming you’re really there, of course.’
‘We really are. All right.’ I took out the photographs I’d brought with us and held one up for her. ‘Can you see this?’
She peered at the image of John Blythe.
‘I can, yes. Is this the man from the house?’
‘I was just wondering if you recognised him.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t.’
‘What about this man?’
I swapped the photograph of Blythe for one of Simon Bunting. She stared at this one a little longer, her gaze intent, and I allowed myself to feel hope. All it would take was for him to have made one mistake. One slip.
But after a moment, she shook her head again.
‘No.’
‘Okay.’
‘The thing is, I never saw his face.’ She sounded apologetic. ‘It was always very dark, and I was blindfolded most of the time. I hardly ever saw him, and when I did, he was always wearing a mask. A balaclava. And I was glad. I didn’t want to see him. It made me less afraid.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if he didn’t want me to see him, that meant he might eventually let me go.’
I was silent at that. After a moment, Melanie smiled sadly and closed her eyes. Then she put the sunglasses back on.
‘What kind of build did he have?’ I said.
‘He was quite stocky, but not tall. At least I don’t think so. He always seemed much bigger, but I think that was my imagination as much as anything. I don’t think he was huge.’
‘All right.’ I put both photographs away. That didn’t help us either. Bunting and Blythe were roughly the same height, and while Bunting was in considerably worse physical shape, he could easily have looked broader and stronger in the right clothes. ‘Let’s start at the beginning then, as much as we can.’
We did. And very quickly, the frustration set in.
Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that after such a long time, Melanie could remember little about her actual abduction. She knew it had taken place at the canal, near a bridge, and that she had stopped to photograph something when it happened. But the exact details were lost to her now. Similarly, the intervening years had blurred together into one long monotonous period. There had – of course – been panic and fear at first, and then anger and boredom, but ultimately her existence had settled down, and she had become accustomed to her new life. It seemed impossible to comprehend. But then, what choice did she have? People survive. That’s what they do. And throughout it all, there had always been the hope that at some point, one day in the future, he might let her go.
‘I tried to talk to him,’ she said. ‘I remember pleading at first. Please let me go. And then just trying to understand. Why me? He would speak to me occasionally, but I could tell he was changing his voice – obscu
ring it somehow. That was reassuring too. And the strange thing is, even from the beginning, I never had the impression he wanted to hurt me. Only that he would if he had to.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘I can’t remember a lot of it. Sometimes he let me have a radio of some kind. I could listen to music or the news, and we spoke about that. What was going on in the world. Things like that. And he played me books.’
‘Audiobooks?’
‘Yes. One of them was my husband’s. The book Jeremy wrote about what happened to Jennifer.’ Melanie paused. ‘It was only one of many, but I realised it couldn’t be a coincidence, especially because he sat and listened to that one with me. It was like he wanted to see how I reacted. That was when I made the connection: that it was something to do with me back then. With Jennifer, I mean. And so I tried not to react at all. It was one of the only times after the first few weeks when I didn’t feel safe. It felt like he hated me right then.’
‘Okay.’
‘That’s one of the reasons I never mentioned the visions to him either. The woods. The water. I didn’t want him to know about any of that. I didn’t want to talk about it. And also. . . well. They were mine. He couldn’t see them. They belonged to me.’
I didn’t say anything for a moment.
‘Can I show you some more photographs?’
‘Yes.’
Melanie took her sunglasses off again, and looked carefully at each of the images I showed her. We had taken numerous photos in both Blythe and Bunting’s houses. Almost all of them seemed familiar, she said, but she couldn’t be certain. When she’d been allowed upstairs to use the bathroom and shower, she’d always been blindfolded. And the photographs of the first room in the cellars were all but identical. The only difference between the two was that Bunting’s was empty, whereas Blythe’s had a mattress in it.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That’s my bed.’
‘Did your room have a particular smell?’
She wrinkled her nose.
‘Yes. There was another room that was part of the cellar, and that always stank. An awful smell. Sometimes he’d go in there and do things, but the rest of the time it was locked. He told me there was something bad in there. I didn’t want to know what. It smelled like death. But after a while, I didn’t really notice the smell. It just became normal.’