33 Women: A gripping new thriller about the power of women, and the lengths they will go to when pushed...

by Isabel Ashdown

  Celine wonders what she will say if she locates Georgie, Vanessa’s oldest friend. Will she even want to talk to her – will she even remember who Celine is?

  When morning comes round, as much as she dreads the conversation she’s about to have, Celine picks up her phone and dials the number she traced online last night: a City firm in London where Georgie is listed as working.

  While she waits for the receptionist to put her through, she wanders out into the waking garden, down towards the river path to gaze over the water beyond.

  ‘Hello?’

  Even after all these years, Celine recognises Georgie’s tone, having regularly sat beside her and Vanessa on the bus, back in their school days.

  ‘Georgie, it’s Celine here. Celine Murphy? Vanessa’s sister.’

  There’s a long pause at the end of the line before Georgie speaks again. ‘God, Celine! Hi. Um, how are you?’

  Hearing the warmth in Georgie’s voice, Celine feels relief seeping through her veins. ‘I’m, you know, good, thanks.’

  ‘And Pip – and your mum?’ she asks.

  Celine is surprised that she even remembers her younger sister’s name. ‘They’re – well, Mum died actually. Just recently. Me and Pip are at her house in Sussex, sorting stuff out.’

  ‘Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that. Your mum, she was – she was—’

  ‘A flippin’ nightmare,’ Celine finishes, and she’s grateful when Georgie laughs and the tension is broken. ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘It’s about Vanessa’s murder case. There’s a possibility the police might reopen it, and I wondered if you’d consider meeting me for a chat. No pressure at all, just a few questions to help us understand what was going on with her and Jem Falmer back then.’

  ‘When were you thinking?’ Georgie asks without hesitation.

  ‘Is today too soon?’ she asks. ‘I could get a train up …’

  Celine waits, while Georgie flips through some papers. ‘Sure – I’m out this evening but lunchtime is clear? Where shall we meet?’

  Celine waits for Georgie at a window seat in The Yacht restaurant overlooking the Thames, not far from where Vanessa once shared a flat with Jem Falmer. She’s early and her mind is working double-time, torturing her with thoughts of missed opportunities and what-ifs. Even now, she struggles to believe that her sister had lived this other life, quite separate from her and Pip, a life they were never invited to be part of. What the hell had Vanessa been doing in the first place even getting together with Falmer, a man ten years her senior, but never her equal in moral fibre or worth? Celine hadn’t actually met him, but everything she’s heard since tells her he was a violent thug, and she shudders to imagine what lies and manipulation Falmer had used to reel her beautiful sister in. Was he charming at first, persuasive, reassuring? Did he promise the world? What was it that he could offer Vanessa that she didn’t have with Celine and Pip? Independence, perhaps? A chance to reinvent herself; to separate herself from her dysfunctional family and the pain of the past? Maybe she was just looking for someone to show her a bit of attention in her own right. God knows, all three of them had been crying out for that in the years since Delilah had left them, and it wouldn’t take a particularly sharp psychologist to recognise they were all desperately seeking security and approval of one sort or another. Celine had found it in hard work and professional success, Pip, later, in her marriage and children. Maybe Vanessa thought she’d found it with Jem Falmer, before he’d moved her in and turned violent on her.

  Celine’s gaze falls on the sparkling water of the Thames and that nightmarish image comes to her again, a picture conjured up from the words of the police officers who broke the news; from the media reports she pored over and over in the weeks that followed Vanessa’s death. Fifteen years have passed now, but still Celine asks herself daily, can it really be true? Her beloved sister, beaten and strangled to death, laid out on the boardwalk of Brighton pier. It never gets any easier to think about, to imagine.

  When Georgie walks through the door, Celine recognises her instantly, and they embrace warmly before ordering glasses of wine and self-consciously browsing the menu.

  ‘I’ve always meant to try this place,’ Georgie says. ‘Thanks for choosing somewhere so close to my work.’

  Celine had made a point of choosing somewhere close to the City, but also somewhere nice, by way of an unspoken apology for dragging Georgie into this. ‘No problem – I’m grateful you could make the time.’

  Georgie orders a light bite from the vegetarian menu, and Celine says she’ll have the same, opening up her file of papers the moment the waiter has taken their order. ‘So – Jem Falmer.’

  The startled expression on Georgie’s face tells Celine that she’s moving too fast, as ever, not reading the cues. ‘Sorry,’ she says, closing the file again. ‘Vanessa always used to tell me I was too impatient – I think she was probably right.’

  ‘She did used to moan about that,’ Georgie says, smiling. ‘But she also used to say she didn’t know how she and Pip would have survived without you holding the family together after your mum left.’

  ‘She said that?’ Celine and Vanessa had never really got round to talking about that time in their lives. They were so busy just getting on with it all, trying to keep themselves away from the notice of social services, that they never actually gave voice to their struggles.

  ‘So, OK, Jem Falmer,’ Georgie says, picking up her wine glass. ‘What do you want to know?’

  Celine flicks through the papers she’s gathered with Una’s help, locating a printed list of Falmer’s non-custodial convictions. ‘Did you have much to do with him?’

  Georgie sighs. ‘To be honest, he’s the reason Vanessa and I drifted apart. I don’t know if you remember, but Ness and I were talking about getting a flat together, before she started her job at Waterways and met Jem. We hadn’t begun looking at places yet, but once she started seeing him she lost interest in the idea anyway. Everything moved pretty quickly with the two of them.’

  ‘I know: they moved in together after only a couple of months.’ Celine remembers her feeling of disquiet at the time – she’d never even met this new boyfriend – but Vanessa had been adamant that it was what she wanted to do, said that they’d all meet up soon enough. But of course, that never happened.

  ‘Anyway,’ Georgie says, ‘after that I didn’t really see much of her.’

  ‘Did you meet him?’

  ‘Just the once.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I hated him. It was at some bar in Soho – I can’t even remember the name – but Vanessa had invited me along because she wanted Jem to meet me. By the time I got there they’d obviously had a few drinks, and he was full of it, wanting to let me know he was in charge.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The waiter places a jug of water on the table between them and makes room for their plates.

  ‘I mean, he kept putting Vanessa down in front of me, saying crude things about her not being “up for it” as much as he’d like, asking her why she couldn’t wear low-cut tops like some girl he’d spotted further along the bar. And then suddenly his mood shifted, and it was like he was flirting with me to hurt Vanessa, kind of daring her to complain, while at the same time challenging me to step in. It was fucking horrible, if I’m honest.’

  ‘And did she complain?’

  Georgie shakes her head. ‘No. She just took it. I was boiling up inside; I couldn’t bear to see her so downtrodden, and when she went off to the loo I asked him what his game was.’

  ‘I bet he didn’t like that?’

  ‘He wanted to know what I meant, and I told him I didn’t like the way he was treating my friend. I told him he should have more respect. And then I got up to follow her, to check if she was OK, but he came after me, cornered me in the passageway to the toilets. There was no one else around, and it only took a second. He slammed me against the wall and grabbed my breast, really hard – left bruises. He hissed – and I’ll never
forget this – “Are you dyke bitches at it behind my back?” Someone came round the corner then and he let me go.’

  ‘Did you tell Vanessa what had happened?’

  ‘I tried to, but she wasn’t listening. She wanted to put it all down to the drink, but I could tell she didn’t believe that. Anyway, I left the bar on my own that night, and even though we kept in touch a bit – the odd phone call and one awkward lunch – we never talked about Jem again, and our friendship fizzled out.’

  ‘The police tried really hard to contact you,’ Celine says, giving the waiter a nod when he asks if they’d like another drink.

  ‘I didn’t even know about Vanessa until over a year after it had happened. I was out of the country. Two or three months after the last time I saw her, I got a job offer in Greece, and I didn’t come home for nearly two years.’

  ‘Didn’t you think to check up on her, to see if she was OK?’ Celine can’t help herself as the accusation seeps through her tone.

  ‘I didn’t think I needed to,’ Georgie replies. ‘As far as I was concerned, Vanessa and Jem had gone their separate ways.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Well, I got a postcard from her just before I left. Must’ve been around May time – let me think: May 2004, it would have been, and I left in the June. It was an apology, I guess – saying sorry that she’d let Jem get between us, and that she was safe and away from him. I had the sense that she was getting her life back on track, putting right some wrongs.’

  ‘Do you know where she was writing from?’

  ‘I can’t remember – this was years ago, and the card probably got thrown away when I was packing up for Greece. It was some kind of farm, I think. There was a windmill on the card, I remember that much.’

  Celine opens up her photo app and shows Georgie a picture of the postcard Una found just two days earlier. ‘Could it have been this place – Two Cross Farm?’

  Georgie studies the image, and nods firmly. ‘Yup, that’s it. It’s the same postcard. I wrote back to her eventually, once I’d got settled in Greece – sent her a little present I’d picked up – and she wrote back to thank me a couple of months later. Actually, it was around December, because I remember she wished me a happy Christmas. It was the same card design again, so I assume she was still there.’

  Celine counts the months off on her fingers. ‘That means she was in the same place for seven or eight months at least. I guess now we just need to find out what happened in the last three months before she was killed.’ She looks out over the water again, trying to subdue her anger at the ease with which she’s just gathered this vital piece of information about her sister’s movements – information the police should easily have uncovered at the time.

  She turns back to Georgie. ‘What was the gift you sent her?’

  ‘It was one of those little blue glass pendants you see all over Greece. Just a cheap thing, strung on a leather thong. They call them “evil eyes” because they’re meant to …’ She smiles sadly. ‘They’re meant to ward off misfortune and evil.’

  Celine returns her smile. ‘It’s just the kind of thing Vanessa would’ve loved. And, talking of evil, Jem Falmer – did you ever hear about him again?’

  ‘Only what I read online after I got home: that he was the police’s prime suspect. He was thought to have fled abroad, wasn’t he? As I say, Vanessa had been dead over a year by the time I came back home. I was distraught when my mum told me, and I called the police to see if I could help, but they weren’t that interested as I didn’t have anything new for them. To be honest, I got the impression they’d run out of steam.’

  Celine runs her finger down Falmer’s list of offences. ‘He’d been arrested on twelve separate occasions prior to meeting Vanessa.’

  Georgie takes a sharp breath.

  ‘Affray; breaking and entry; possession; and four counts of assault against women.’

  ‘But he’d never done time in prison?’

  ‘Some of the convictions were when he was a minor. Some were suspended sentences. And all but one of the women involved in the assault cases dropped their charges before it went to court.’

  Georgie pinches the bridge of her nose, appearing suddenly exhausted. ‘So, no rehabilitation, no repercussions for Jem Falmer. Is it any wonder these men reoffend – they can basically get away with just about anything, can’t they?’

  And it’s no wonder some women want to shut themselves away in Two Cross Farm, Celine thinks to herself. She’d put her money on Seed protecting her women in there, but she’s not so sure she can say the same about the police in the outside world.

  ‘Did you know that Falmer grew up in West Sussex?’ she asks.

  Georgie shakes her head. ‘I’m not even sure Vanessa knew that much about him.’

  ‘My notes say he’d trained as an apprentice shipwright in his home town of Littlehampton, before getting a job boat-building in London, where he met Vanessa.’

  ‘Do you think that’s relevant?’ Georgie asks.

  ‘Well, only in that the commune where she was staying, Two Cross Farm, is in Arundel, just four miles from Littlehampton. Falmer had gone missing a few days before Vanessa’s body turned up in Brighton, so it’s possible he’d worked out where she was, and headed down there to get her back. He knew the area well enough.’

  Georgie looks thoughtful. ‘Arundel. Wasn’t a woman found dead there just this week?’

  Celine pulls out a recent news report. ‘Robyn Siegle. There are strong similarities.’

  Even as she says the words, Celine doubts herself. Is it conceivable that Falmer’s back in the Sussex area – and also responsible for Robyn, fifteen years later?

  ‘He’d be mid-forties now,’ Georgie says. ‘Do you think it’s him?’

  Celine shrugs. ‘I don’t know – Pip thinks Two Cross Farm could be involved somehow. I guess we’re just trying to think of all the possibilities. It sounds far-fetched, but what if he’s been abroad all this time, and he’s only just returned to the UK – he’d probably head back to his family home, wouldn’t he? He’s a proven misogynist; his conviction list tells us that much. Maybe he still holds a grudge against the women’s community for keeping Vanessa from him back then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Georgie sighs. ‘All I do know is, he scared the hell out of me when I met him.’

  ‘But do you think he was capable of murder?’ Celine asks.

  Georgie glances at the wall clock and starts to pull on her jacket. ‘In my opinion, Celine? Without a shadow of a doubt.’

  Afterwards, as Celine waits on the platform at London Blackfriars looking out of the glass across the Thames, a delayed text pings on to her mobile from Una.

  Just spoke to Falmer’s ma – she hasn’t seen him since before Vanessa’s death. I believe her. Says rest of family are certain he went abroad – apparently always talked about boat-building jobs in the Caribbean. Could be anywhere by now.

  Celine’s heart sinks. After meeting with Georgie today, she’d really started to hope that Falmer might also be responsible for Robyn. At least that made some kind of sense; at least that narrowed the field of possibilities. She feels a deep weariness wash over her. If it weren’t for Pip, pressuring her to stay, to keep digging, would she carry on with this?

  As the train pulls in, Celine boards, finds her seat, and is just about to plug her phone in to charge when Una calls.

  ‘I’ve just been with Georgie,’ Celine plunges in, not waiting for a hello. ‘She told me that Vanessa wrote to her from Two Cross Farm – and confirmed that Falmer was just as violent as his criminal record would suggest. But I’m not sure what use any of that is to us, if the police can’t even track him down.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s too bad we’re no closer to locating Falmer,’ Una says. ‘But, on the flip side, there’s good news too.’

  ‘There is?’ Celine squints against the sunlight as the train leaves the station and picks up speed.

  ‘There is,’ Una replies.
‘I’ve just heard back from Dave Aston and he wants us to meet him at HQ in Lewes on Monday.’

  ‘So he’s got an update for us?’

  ‘Yup. Robyn Siegle’s post-mortem is in – and foul play is strongly suspected. His boss is sufficiently convinced of the similarities between Vanessa and Robyn’s cases—’

  There’s silence for a second or two as the train passes through a bad signal patch.

  ‘What does that mean? Una? Are you still there? What does it mean?’

  Una’s voice returns to the line, and Celine can hear she’s smiling. ‘It means Vanessa’s case is on the table again, baby. We’ve got another real shot at solving her murder.’

  15. BRAMBLE

  1995, Two Cross Farm

  Four years had passed since Seed’s terrible accident, which, while leaving her face and neck irreparably scarred, did not, as she’d hoped at the time, kill her.

  Thanks to Susan’s swift response in pulling her from the flames, Seed had been saved, and, following many weeks of bed rest and Kathy’s homeopathic compresses, she’d slowly recovered. Although we knew her burns would never heal entirely, the pain of them gradually subsided and the livid colour began to fade. It was a time of quiet contemplation for the Founding Sisters, all of whom had been as upset and disturbed as me at this sudden and traumatic turn of events. None of us really knew what had triggered Seed’s desperate actions that day, and her refusal to speak on the subject was respected by all. But, deep down, I think we each suspected what was going on: Seed felt trapped. Trapped inside this community of ageing women, with no one to relate to. No one like her at all.

  During her recovery, Seed’s request for a single bedroom was reconsidered, and by way of a compromise it was decided that she could move from my room and into Susan’s, so that she might share with someone closer in age. Of course, even Susan was seventeen years her senior, but her arrival at Two Cross Farm at so young an age had rendered her perpetually childlike and she was as delighted as Seed at the prospect. With the help of a little medical intervention arranged discreetly by Dr Kathy, by the time Seed reached her late teens she had, thank God, settled back into being the warm, level-headed girl we all loved.