‘Good.’ Bremer looked over at Nell, who’d just hung up the phone. ‘Anything?’
‘Eve.’ Nell walked back to the group and sat down on the chair next to Carla.
‘She’s sure it’s Kelly-Anne who killed the baby, not Connor.’
‘Do we believe her?’ Paul asked.
‘Why wouldn’t we?’
Paul pointed to the letter. ‘It’s what they said would happen – Eve would blame the girlfriend. And she does have previous for getting it wrong.’
Before Nell could respond Bremer held up his hand. Speaking to Paul, he said, ‘I get your point but I’ll go with a pathologist over a poison pen letter until I’m proved wrong.’
‘Eve is a good pathologist,’ Carla added. ‘Joanne, if she wrote the letter, obviously has an issue with her, and rightly so, but it can’t stop us relying on Eve’s word.’ She looked at Bremer. ‘Want me to do some digging on Kelly-Anne, see if she has form?’
Bremer shook his head. ‘No, I want to see what Joanne knows about the case. Nell, Paul, you bring Kelly-Anne in.’ He paused. ‘And Connor.’
My God, so Bremer had his doubts too? Had everyone lost all reason based on a vicious letter? Irritated, Carla picked up her brown leather tobacco pouch. If they were going to rely on hearsay rather than facts she needed nicotine.
‘And Carla,’ Bremer continued, ‘we’ll go and see Joanne, see what light she can shed on the case.’
Nell stared at him, jacket half on, car keys in hand. ‘What?’
Carla stared at him. Was he serious? She knew he hadn’t minded causing a few stirs in his six months with them, but this was a whole other level.
‘Do you have a problem with Carla meeting Joanne?’ Bremer held Nell’s stare and the office atmosphere shifted. Nell put the keys on the desk.
‘With all due respect, analysts don’t go out on jobs, they stay here and do our research.’
Carla flinched inwardly. What Nell had said was true, in part, but it didn’t stop the tone she’d delivered it in from stinging. Carla had been out on jobs – looking at crime scenes so she could better judge the evidence she was to analyse – but she hadn’t sat in on an interview, merely watched an untold number via video link. But then Bremer was new to Thames Valley, arriving after ten years in the Met, and maybe they did things differently in London; maybe it was standard procedure to take an analyst along for the ride? But then this wasn’t the Met and Carla wasn’t in London.
‘I think Nell’s right. I’ll just stay here and do some digging on Joanne, Kelly-Anne and Connor.’
Bremer swung his eyes to her. ‘I want an analyst’s eye on the Fowler woman, so what better way than to be there with me?’ His eyes held a challenge Carla didn’t feel she could match. If he wanted to buck the trend of all other DCIs she’d worked for, then so be it, but she was damn well going to have a cigarette first.
She picked up her bag, stuffed her tobacco pouch in it, and said, ‘I’ll meet you by the car, shall I?’ Carla felt Nell’s eyes on her as she walked towards the door, but what was she supposed to do, refuse? Her palms were sweaty before she’d even left the building, and as she pulled out a cigarette paper she realised her hands were shaking.
‘Get it together, Brown,’ she said into the empty stairwell and by the time she’d surfaced into the blistering heat, she’d half convinced herself it was all going to be fine. She licked the paper and rolled her cigarette in a single move. Squinting in the glare of the sun, she put her sunglasses on, lit up, and waited for Bremer.
The car ride to Joanne’s home address was awkward. At least, for Carla anyway. As the green field by the airport – behind which was tucked an asylum detention centre – turned into a long, bare village sliced in half by a dual carriageway, Carla tried to ignore the silence and wondered what it was going to be like to meet the woman she’d researched.
Convicted at thirty-two and released six months ago, Joanne would be thirty-five now. The picture resting on Carla’s knee was of a woman ravaged by grief and despair – her blonde hair dishevelled, her eye make-up smudged which caused her eyes to appear almost black – so she didn’t dare think what the intervening years had done.
‘You nervous?’
They were the first words Bremer had spoken and she turned to him in surprise.
‘Yes, a little.’
He nodded, eyes still on the road, the slick hum of the Mercedes engine beneath them.
‘Understood. And I’m sorry if it’s put you at odds with Nell.’ He glanced across at her. ‘When I got here from the Met it took me by surprise how little analysts are involved in cases. Stuck in little rooms away from the action.’ He gave her a smile. ‘You see to me, the analyst isn’t there to do research for the officers, they are there to direct the officers. You find things out that direct where we go, what we see. It’s important you’re at the heart of the case, not on the periphery.’
Before Carla could reply, he carried on.
‘So when we meet Joanne, just follow my lead. You’re there to pick apart what she says, see what bits you can analyse. If you need to ask a question to help do that, feel free. If she agrees to speak to us it won’t be a recorded interview so don’t worry about ballsing up the case by not asking a question in the right way. It’s just a chat, got it?’
‘Got it.’ Carla wasn’t convinced she had but she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him now.
Bremer smiled again. ‘Good. Right, address?’
Carla directed them through the myriad of roundabouts filtering cars to opposite ends of the city and led them towards Summertown, a suburb of Oxford where houses cost a minimum of a million and charity shops stocked the latest lines of discarded designer wear at a fraction of the cost.
The Fowlers lived in a cul-de-sac of tall town houses arranged around a neatly tended patch of grass that was ringed by a black iron fence and trees so tall they blocked out most of the light. Bremer pulled the car to the front of number 4. A set of smooth concrete steps led up to a light grey door framed on either side by two small round potted trees, a contrast against the pure white of the painted brick.
‘Nice.’ Bremer turned off the engine and nodded to two cars on the sloping drive. ‘Looks like the husband’s in.’
‘You think they know we’re coming?’ Carla wasn’t prepared for the husband too.
‘I don’t see how they’d know,’ Bremer replied. Carla wasn’t reassured by his tone, but then who would have told him?
As Bremer unclicked his seat belt, the front door opened and Joanne Fowler emerged, followed by her husband, Ian. Standing on the top step, she was wrapped in an oversize cardigan despite the midday heat, her husband’s arm wrapped protectively around her. She looked just like the photo Carla had hastily shoved in the glove compartment, but smaller, like a tiny frightened mouse.
‘Ready?’ Bremer asked.
She wasn’t. She felt her heart start to race and her hands get clammy. She took a breath.
‘Ready,’ she said, and climbed out of the car.
Six
Then
The day I meet Aoife is the day I’m taken into care, which means the best thing that’s ever happened to me also coincides with the worst. I’m not sure which I would give up – finding her or losing my mum – but then I don’t have a choice. I learned that the moment they put me in the back of a car and drove me away.
On the plus side, the room they put me in is bigger than nine at home. There’s a bed in the far corner against the wall, but the one I’m sat on sticks out at a right angle. Both beds are waiting to be made and I panic when I realise I’m expected to make it on my own. I’ve never made a bed – mum always did it for me – so I try to reassure myself I can figure it out, but the panic keeps building and it makes me want to cry, because I miss my mum.
I start to unpack the little I was allowed to bring: a teddy, my Walkman and two cassettes, a little bottle of cheap perfume Mum got me last week and the earrings I took from her nightstand. She’ll ki
ll me when she sees they’re gone, but she wears them every day and I wanted them to remind me of her.
I roll the large studs across my palm. They have dulled with age and the gold is starting to rub off. I smell them, breathing in the smell of Mum’s perfume, but this makes me want to cry more so I put them in the drawer by my bed and tell myself I’ll be able to give them back when I next see her. I try not to think about how long that will be.
Finished, I sit back down and look around the room. It’s at the top of the house and the windows are small, covered by a layer of yellowed lace, and the wallpaper – faded pink and blue flowers on a cream background that may once have been white – is peeling in places, revealing a creeping black mould. I feel cold just looking at it. Pulling my cardigan around me, I decide to go downstairs, although it takes me a while to feel brave enough.
The landing outside my room is wide and long. My bedroom at home would probably fit in about half of it. The carpet is green with black and gold swirls that make me dizzy. The banister to my left is dark and solid, so I grip it and run my hand across the smoothness of the wood.
I can hear shouts from below – both children and adults – but it’s not the general hubbub of family life, rather the pent-up energy and anger you get from a load of damaged kids being left with underpaid adults to care for them.
A girl rushes past me, pushing me aside in her dash for the stairs.
‘Stupid,’ she calls back to me. She can’t be more than eight. I watch her unruly blonde hair streak out behind her as she skips down the stairs before hearing a shout from behind me.
‘Come here, you little shit.’ A woman, probably late twenties, runs out from the girl’s room and follows her down the stairs. Glancing back, she gives me a look of frustration.
‘Get downstairs, won’t you? Dinner’s up.’
I have never been less hungry, but the look in her eye propels me to the stairs and down them. When I reach the bottom she’s disappeared and I’m left wondering where it is I’m supposed to go now. The panic I felt earlier returns and I want my mum. At fifteen I know that’s not cool, but it’s also not cool to be taken from her at four in the afternoon with not so much as a reason why.
Well. The reason why is also the reason my arm is in plaster, but that wasn’t Mum’s fault, and now I’m getting angry and want to go back to my room and scream into the pillow for her to come and get me. But before I can, the front door opens and a girl my age is dragged in.
‘Get off me, get your bloody hands off me.’ Her arms are everywhere and bright red hair covers her face like a blanket. Three staff members are trying to hold her but she squirms and wriggles like a newly caught fish.
I run up the stairs two at a time and crouch behind the banister. I hold my breath. I’ve never seen a girl fight with adults before, and certainly not one who looks like she might win. There is an energy in her so strong it seems to reach up and touch me: anger, hate, fear. All the things I feel but magnified five hundred times until they have a power of their own.
Two staff members have her on the floor now while the other tries to talk to her.
‘Come on, it’s going to be OK, just take some breaths, OK?’
The girl tosses her hair away from her face, revealing the palest skin I’ve ever seen, covered in a mass of freckles, and blue eyes that shine even as far up as me. I will her to win. I will her to fight harder, to win for us both, and when she spits at the woman crouched down next to her I push my hand over my mouth to stop from laughing. That’ll teach her. That’ll show them we’re not animals to be caged.
Finally, they get the girl to stand, arms held tightly behind her back.
‘Come on, Aoife. We’ll go and see what’s for dinner, shall we? Then get you settled in.’ The woman is forcing a smile but the girl refuses to answer. They start to guide her towards a door at the far left of the hall but when they reach it Aoife turns and looks up at me.
I hold my breath. Scared, thrilled, in equal measure. Then she winks at me and I laugh.
We are going to be friends. We are going to be the very best of friends. And now I can stop feeling lonely.
Seven
As they climbed the steps, Bremer said, ‘Hello, Joanne. I wonder if we could have a few minutes of your time?’
Joanne had an air of defeat, but her husband was full of barely contained anger.
‘What can we do for you?’ he asked, pulling Joanne closer to him.
‘It might be easier if we came inside, Mr Fowler?’
Ian Fowler tensed, then looked down uneasily at Joanne. ‘It’s hard for us.’
He spoke to Carla, so she nodded, unsure of what could be said, or should be said, in situations like this.
‘You have to understand we’ve come through so much, all as a result of lies told by the police, so we’re both wary of any further involvement with you. Because we don’t trust you,’ he said simply.
Carla wanted to get back in the car and leave the pair alone, but Bremer continued, apparently unconcerned. ‘We only have one question, Mr Fowler, then we’ll be on our way.’
Ian gave a laugh. ‘They said that the last time and it took us almost three years to get my wife home again.’
‘I can assure you that won’t happen this time.’
‘Can you?’
‘Yes,’ he said. But Carla knew full well he couldn’t.
The front room stretched the length of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end let in bright sunshine; shadows from the trees danced on the light wooden floor. Despite its size it felt cosy, wood logs sitting neatly stacked up by the side of a wood burner that was glowing deep orange. Its heat seemed to go unnoticed by Joanne, who curled up on the sofa covering herself with a blanket. There was no offer of tea, no small talk. Ian got straight to the point.
‘What do you want with us now?’
Bremer had taken the seat furthest away from the fire, leaving Carla to take the one directly next to it. Heat scorched her cheek. Why on earth did she need a fire in the middle of a heatwave? But Joanne appeared untouched by the heavy warmth. Her thin frame was obvious, even beneath the layered clothing and thick throw. Her face was pale and gaunt, blonde hair limp, and Carla was struck by the woman’s obvious vulnerability.
‘We’d just like to speak to Joanne about a letter we received regarding pathologist Eve Graham.’
The pair instantly tensed. Joanne’s hands found her husband’s and they clung to one another.
‘What has that got to do with Joanne?’ Ian’s tone was cold, eyes angry. He was slight, like his wife. His hair, long on top, was greying at the sides. He was wearing a fitted T-shirt – brown and fashionably faded – with deep blue jeans, ironed.
Joanne put her hand on her husband’s thigh and left it there.
‘It’s OK, Ian, I don’t mind.’ Her voice was soft, gentle, and it immediately defused the tension in the room. She turned to Carla. Wide-set eyes the colour of conkers caught sunlight from the window, creating little specks of gold.
‘What would you like to know?’
It took a moment for Bremer to reply and Carla wondered if he was as disarmed by Joanne as she was.
‘Mrs Fowler—’
‘Joanne, please,’ she interrupted.
Bremer dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘Joanne, we received a letter today accusing Eve Graham of deliberately providing false evidence at trials involving babies who died.’
Joanne looked as if she was going to speak, but Bremer continued.
‘Furthermore, the letter alleges a current case involving the death of a child will be derailed by Ms Graham. Do you have anything to say about the letter and the allegations in it?’
Joanne ran her fingers across her husband’s thigh and took his hand again.
When she began to speak, her husband watched her carefully, eyes never leaving her face.
‘I had a little baby called Beatrice.’ She gave a slight smile, eyes on the floor, as she remembered her daughter.
She looked up.
‘She was our miracle. It was our last attempt, after three failed IVF cycles, and for every day of my pregnancy I was sure she wasn’t going to make it.’ Her eyes shone as she continued. ‘She was such a delight.’
Carla watched Ian squeeze his wife’s hand as she smiled.
‘Just a complete bundle of loveliness and for every waking minute I was grateful for her being given to us. For being the ones who got to love her and help her grow into the amazing person she would have been …’ Joanne faltered, and when it looked like she couldn’t continue, her husband took over.
‘Beatrice went to bed as usual, the night she died. I was the one to put her down. I sang the nursery rhymes and read the stories. I was the one who found our baby four hours later, unresponsive in her cot. I gave her CPR while Joanne rang 999. Yet when Graham turned up, her conclusion was that Joanne was to blame.’ His eyes flashed between Carla and Bremer.
‘Every night for four months Joanne put Beatrice to bed. The one night she doesn’t, our baby dies. And yet she’s convicted of killing her. Can you even begin to—’ His voice cracked and the pair fell silent.
‘Joanne, do you blame Ms Graham for your incarceration?’
‘Her wrongful incarceration,’ Ian corrected.
‘Do you blame Ms Graham for that, Joanne?’
‘Of course she bloody does.’ Ian tightened his grip on Joanne’s hand.
‘I’d like Joanne to answer, if you don’t mind, Mr Fowler.’
‘Yes. I do.’ Her voice was firm.
‘Because of her mistake?’
Ian laughed, but Joanne took her hand from his and clasped hers in her lap, her pain obvious to see.
‘It wasn’t a mistake.’ Her voice was small again, all strength gone. ‘She targeted me and convicted me.’ Her eyes rose to meet Bremer’s. ‘What she did was deliberate.’
Carla suddenly felt cold. Joanne spoke with such conviction it was hard to believe it wasn’t true, but why would a respected pathologist frame a woman she’d never met before?
When I Lost You Page 4