by Elena Forbes
‘I didn’t kill her,’ Gavin whispered, when she had finished. ‘Please … You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t even know she was dead … until just now. When I left her … she was angry … but still alive.’ The words came in short, staccato bursts. ‘I heard nothing … after that … from her. I thought it was extraordinary … I just hoped she’d seen sense … given up on me … and gone away somewhere. I swear I didn’t kill her.’
He was dying, his life ebbing away right in front of her, but all she felt was numbness.
‘Melissa knew about the two of you?’
‘Yes. Hold me. Please.’
She shook her head. ‘I do believe you,’ she murmured. ‘But it doesn’t excuse what you did to me.’
With a sigh, he sank slowly down into the long grass. His eyes were still open and he was mumbling something. She put her face close to his, trying to hear what he was saying. She made out a few more words, felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek, then his body relaxed.
She heard the distant sound of a siren and stood up. She didn’t care if somebody shot her.
‘Eve?’
It was a woman’s voice. She turned and saw Melissa on the path below, looking up at her.
‘Where’s Gavin?’
From where Melissa was standing, Gavin was hidden from view in the undergrowth.
‘You killed Holly Crowther,’ Eve shouted. ‘I know you did, Melissa.’
Melissa stared at her for a moment. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Jane’s alive, Holly’s dead. You’ve known all along, haven’t you?’
Melissa was silent for a moment, then said in a cold, flat voice, ‘You’ve gone mad.’
‘Gavin told me everything.’ It wasn’t true. The only words he had said to her before he died were ‘I love you’, but she now understood what had happened.
‘He said what? Where is he?’
The siren was very close now. Turning, she saw flashing blue lights flickering in the distance coming down the long drive to the marina. She started to scramble down the hill towards Melissa.
‘Why don’t you just admit it?’ she shouted. ‘It’s just the two of us here. Nobody’s listening.’ Although she knew she was right, she wanted to hear Melissa say it.
‘You’ve got blood all over you again. What’s happened? Where’s Gavin?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just admit it, Melissa. You killed Holly Crowther. I know you did.’
There was a moment’s hesitation, then Melissa shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s Jane who’s dead.’
‘No. I’ve met Jane and she’s very much alive. It was Holly’s body in the woods and you had a strong motive to kill her.’
‘You’re talking total crap.’
‘The crime scene exhibits are still held by the police and can be retested. Forensic science has come on leaps and bounds in the last ten years and it’s amazing what they can do now with the tiniest speck of DNA.’
‘So what?’
‘You’ll have touched Holly at some point, either when you killed her, or afterwards. Maybe you left a hair, or a drop of sweat or blood behind, something that in the heat of the moment you didn’t think of. Even though you tried to burn the body, it will still be there.’
‘I tell you, I had nothing to do with it.’
‘We will be able to prove you killed Holly …’
As she spoke, a shot rang out, the bullet glancing off one of the trees right in front of Melissa, sending splinters of wood and bark into the air.
‘Shit. What was that?’ Melissa looked around towards the marina below.
‘Get down,’ Eve shouted, taking cover behind a tree. Melissa was lying. She knew in her own mind what had happened and she believed Gavin.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘For Christ’s sake, get down.’
‘Tell me where Gavin is, now. He’s clearly been telling you a pack of lies.’
Craning her neck, Melissa took a few steps forwards off the track, moving out into the open.
‘I know you killed Holly,’ Eve shouted. ‘You couldn’t have disposed of the body on your own, so Harry—’
Two more shots echoed in quick succession through the woods. Melissa was thrown sideways. Crouching low, Eve ran to where Melissa’s body lay face down in the undergrowth. In the gloom, she could just make out the dark, wet hole at the back of her head. There was nothing she could do for her.
The last few shots had come from way above, to the right. Zigzagging through the trees as fast as she could, Eve ran back up the hill. She heard the whip-crack of breaking branches somewhere above and saw someone dressed in dark clothing streaking away up the hill towards the road. Moments later, she heard the roar of an engine and the screech of tyres as a car drove off at speed.
FORTY-SIX
Eve stared across the table through the glass at Duran. ‘Why? That’s all I want to know.’
He returned the stare. ‘Why what?’
‘You know exactly what I mean.’
It was two days later and she was back at Bellevue Prison. Duran sat upright, hands folded on the table in front of him, chin slightly lowered so his black eyes were almost lost under his dark brows. For a moment, she was back in the woods, in the dying light, listening to the car drive off. As its engine faded into nothing, it had struck her how none of the shots had been fired at her. Not even close. The shots had only been aimed at Gavin, and then at Melissa. Also, Gavin and Melissa had been shot almost immediately after she had accused each of them of killing Holly. But the sniper had been far away, somewhere up the hill, close to the main road. How could he possibly have heard what was being said?
She had gone back to the marina and spent the next few hours being interviewed by the local police, not that she could tell them much. She had no idea what the sniper looked like, let alone who he was. After that, she had checked into a Travelodge nearby and, before showering, had stripped herself, examining all of her clothing and the contents of her pockets and her bag. She had then checked her car. Eventually she found what she was looking for. The first device, a tiny black chip, had been hidden in the Nokia Duran had given her, which had been tucked away in her coat pocket all that day. The second, a small rectangular black box, about the size of a cigarette packet, had been attached magnetically underneath her car. She had taken them both that morning to someone she knew in London, who used to be with the Met and who knew a lot about such things. He confirmed that the first was a wireless voice transmitter containing a SIM card. Someone had been listening in on her conversations whenever the phone was close to her. The second was a waterproof GPS tracking device. Both had been programmed by, and linked to a mobile phone – the sniper’s, she was sure. They were both the latest technology, although relatively inexpensive and easy to come by either from a specialist shop or via the Internet. They had to have been planted by the same person and that person had to be somebody acting for Duran. She felt such a fool. She had assumed that the phone he had given her was safe because it was old technology and couldn’t be tracked. She had also been so keen not to use her own phone for anything that might link her to him, it hadn’t occurred to her to take the Nokia apart and check inside. No doubt this was something he had anticipated. It had been in the pocket of her outdoor coat at the marina. Luckily, when she went on board Gavin’s boat, he had hung her coat up in a cupboard well away from where they were sitting. The buzz of the nearby generator would have drowned out any sound from outside in the cabin. She reassured herself that Duran, or whoever it was, would have heard nothing of her confession. What was suddenly clear was that right from the start Duran’s interest had been in Holly, not Jane.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You owe it to me, to tell me. That’s all I want.’
‘Dear Eve. Always so curious.’
‘Just tell me. Then I’ll go, and leave you alone for good.’
‘But I don’t want you to leave me alone. I like you coming to see
me.’
She pushed back her chair violently, the legs screeching on the floor, and stood up.
‘This is not a social visit. If you won’t tell me, I’m off. I’m not wasting my time here any longer.’
He held up his huge, yellow hands, palms towards her. ‘OK. Calm down. Please sit down. You want to know why Holly Crowther is so important to me?’
‘Yes.’
There was a long pause as he stared at her before he said, ‘She’s my daughter.’
‘I don’t remember your having any children.’
‘There’s a great deal you don’t know about me. With regard to Holly, I was seventeen when I fathered her, out of a stupid whore of a girl. But she’s still my blood. I’ve been looking for her for the last five years, ever since I discovered the mother had died. It’s become even more pressing now that I don’t have much time left. The trail ended at Westerby. I had a really good PI looking into it. He tracked down Jane’s mother, trying to get more information on Holly, and something she let slip made him wonder if Jane wasn’t dead after all. Two girls go missing more or less at the same time, from the same area, what are the odds?’
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I didn’t know for sure. It was just a possibility. I needed you to look at everything with a totally fresh, unbiased pair of eyes. Also, if my Holly was dead, whoever had murdered her was likely to be associated with Westerby Racing. But the PI couldn’t get much further than the front gate.’
‘Was this about six months ago?’ she asked, remembering the second investigator that Annie had mentioned, the man whom Harry had punched.
He nodded.
‘So I was your Trojan horse?’
He gave the slightest of shrugs. ‘What’s wrong with that? I gave you what you wanted in return, so it was a fair deal.’
‘You don’t know the meaning of the word fair.’
He frowned. ‘Look, you’re annoyed because I didn’t give you the full picture, but it’s just your ego talking. You didn’t need to know everything. As I said, I didn’t want it to colour your judgement or line of questioning. I wanted a thorough job, from soup to nuts, and I was more than happy to pay your price.’
There was no point arguing. She folded her arms and stared at him. ‘Why choose me? There must have been any number of people who could have done what I did.’
‘You’re wrong, there. You’re the best, Eve. I told you, I know everything about you and your career with the Met from the research we did on you when you first interviewed me in that foul police station. I’m very thorough. I like to know exactly who I’m dealing with. I also knew about your connection with Gavin Challis. I found out about your relationship and how very close you once were. He wanted to marry you, I understand. You walked out on him. First love, first break-up, can be very scarring. You were both so young, but it’s often difficult to get over that sort of thing. From everything I heard, he hadn’t.’
‘You were taking quite a risk. Gavin might have hated me after what happened. He might easily not have wanted to see me, let alone help me.’
‘What was there to lose? I heard his marriage was on the rocks. Even if you’re not the sentimental type, I thought, twenty years on, he might be happy to see you again. I took a gamble and it paid off.’
A glimmer of light pierced the fog. She felt suddenly sick at the realization. In the confusion of everything that had happened, she hadn’t had a moment to see things clearly before. But looking at him now, seeing how vital it was to him to find out who had killed Holly, she realized what it all meant.
‘You’ve been behind everything from the very beginning, haven’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Right from the moment I went chasing after Liam Betts at the house in Park Grove. You couldn’t give a stuff about redemption. That was just a load of bollocks.’
He stared at her unblinking, eyebrows slightly raised, but said nothing. Maybe he hadn’t expected for her to work it out.
‘The man talking to Paul Dent in that recording you sent me, his informant, was your man, wasn’t he? You planted the information on him …’
‘Now you’re going too far. The informant – his name is Dmytro – is someone known to us, I admit. When the policeman – this Paul person – went to Dmytro and told him what he was after, that he wanted to cause trouble for you, Dmytro came to us. He’s one of my contacts. He was close to me at the time I was charged with murder, and he knows I’m interested in you. He thought I’d like to hear what Paul had planned for you.’
She shook her head. It didn’t ring true. ‘Why are you so interested in me?’
‘All sorts of people interest me.’
‘You set me up, not Paul. You could have got me killed. How would that have helped your search for you precious daughter?’
‘You’ve heard the recording. Paul was specifically told you weren’t to go there after dark.’
She had been the key to it all, she realized. Duran’s ‘research’ on her hadn’t stopped after his being sent to jail. He knew about Jason, he knew about Paul Dent and his jealousy and he had used it to get what he wanted. Rather than Paul Dent seeking out Dmytro, she wondered if it had been the other way around. Maybe Dmytro – Duran’s man – had initiated things, planting the information that Liam Betts was going to be at the house in Wood Green, knowing that Paul Dent couldn’t help but take it and would run with it. Knowing Paul, he had probably delighted in the idea of sending her blundering right into the middle of a highly expensive and important undercover investigation, the cock-up that would cost her her career. From Duran’s point of view, even without Jason being killed, she would have been suspended, making her open to his offer of help to clear her name.
‘You’re lying again. You’re incapable of telling the truth.’
‘And you don’t lie to me? I know your name’s not Eve.’
‘Who I am – what my name is – doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters to me. Very much. Now, are you going to tell me who killed my daughter?’
‘Your sniper …’
‘Not my sniper …’
‘That’s another lie. You and I know the truth.’
‘Truth, as you call it, is a matter of subjectivity. It’s open to interpretation.’
‘Are you saying you didn’t give me a phone? That you weren’t tracking me, listening to all of my conversations?’
‘The phone, yes. But what’s this about a tracker and a bug?’ He spread his hands on the table and shook his head. ‘Why would I bother? What would I gain from it? I knew what you were doing. I knew roughly where you were and that was enough. Someone else was keeping an eye on you.’
‘No. The phone was with me all the time.’
‘Really? Are you absolutely sure? It’s kids’ play to plant these things, if that’s what you say they did. Maybe they didn’t realize the phone wasn’t yours.’
A niggle of doubt slithered into her mind, but the idea was ludicrous. He was teasing her. The whole point of tracking her and listening in on her conversations was to find out who had killed Holly and to enact revenge. Nothing else made sense. Perhaps Duran was denying it for the benefit of the prison guard standing behind him, or maybe he thought the walls had ears and didn’t want to be had up for two more murders. But however much he denied it, she knew the truth.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘What happened in those woods to my daughter was a bad, bad thing,’ he continued in a low, insistent tone, as though he hadn’t heard. ‘The only point of your coming here is to tell me who killed her and why. That’s all I ask.’
It struck her how very much it meant to him. ‘I’ll let you work that one out.’
‘I had a bargain with you.’ His tone was suddenly harsh.
‘You broke that by killing two people.’
‘My daughter, she was young, beautiful,’ he said emphatically. ‘She had her whole life ahead of her, so very much like you in
many ways. She didn’t deserve to die. Just tell me, was it your former lover? Or was it his wife? Which one? Or were they in it together? What about Harry Michaels? How was he a part of this? I must know.’
She almost smiled. The urgency in his tone and the mention of Harry’s name had given him away. The news of Gavin and Melissa’s murders had been all over the media, but only the person listening in – Duran’s man – would have heard her mention Harry’s name just before he took a shot at Melissa. It also struck her that in spite of the listening device, Duran had no clear idea who had actually murdered Holly, or why. She thought back to the woods and the interchanges with Gavin, and then Melissa. The phone had been buried deep in the left-hand pocket of her padded jacket. The listener had heard her accuse Gavin of killing Holly. But after Gavin had been shot the second time, they had both been on the ground and she had been lying on top of the phone. The exchange of words between them had been in a whisper. It was unlikely that anything much could have been heard. What she had shouted at Melissa would have been a lot clearer, but probably still accompanied by the type of shuffling, deadened sound of a pocket call. Whether anybody listening could hear all of Melissa’s responses was anyone’s guess. Whether they had, or not, they would have still struggled to follow the full thread of what was going on. No wonder Duran was confused and he was the sort of person who wouldn’t rest until he had the full facts. Only she knew what had really happened and why, although it gave her no satisfaction. It occurred to her how Gavin’s adultery – a small, inconsequential thing in itself compared to the following chain of events – had been the real beginning, the trigger, for the downward spiral. It had led in a direct line to Holly’s murder, to Sean Farrell’s imprisonment, to her being set-up by Duran, to Jason’s murder, to Mickey’s murder, her rape, the burning of the office, and finally the shooting of Gavin and Melissa. The tally of destruction was horrific. If Holly hadn’t looked so very much like her, if Gavin hadn’t been so obsessed, would he have been so easily tempted? It was a chilling thought. Even though Harry hadn’t murdered Holly, she was sure he had helped Melissa get rid of the body. He had then lied to protect his sister, telling Eve and Annie that he had been asked to give Holly a reference. But whatever exactly had happened, Eve owed Duran nothing.