I mean, just repeating what a person said and adding a were you? or a did you? to the end of it was hardly likely to make anyone crumble and suddenly confess.
"And then it was stolen from your house?" He said, raising his eyebrows.
I was waiting for the was it? and, when it didn't show itself, I have to admit to feeling a little cheated.
"That's correct, Detective Inspector. It was stolen from my house by an intruder who broke in whilst I was in the bath. In fact, I think they were still in my house when I came out of the bathroom and realised it was gone."
"And you didn't call the Police?"
"No."
"So, having an intruder in your home isn't an unusual occurrence then?" Thorn said, with a superior little smirk.
"Of course, it is. It was extremely unnerving, as it happens."
"Why, then, did you not call the Police?" Thorn looked like a man who felt sure I was lying but wasn't convinced he'd ever get to the bottom of it all.
"Because just that morning, two of your officers frog-marched my friend out of the university canteen."
"And?"
"And, despite neither of us having a criminal record, both Liam Attwood and I are horribly used to being treated in a certain way by some, not all, of the Grantstone Constabulary."
"Really?" He said, and had the gall to look incredulous.
Seriously, and him the main offender!
"Yes, really. So, it's fair to say that my faith in the local police force was at an all-time low at that moment. So much so that calling the police for help when I was scared out of my gourd was absolutely the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, I ended up hiding for a while, then going downstairs to take a look for myself, armed with nothing more than a heavy thermodynamics text book." I was slowly but surely reaching furious again. The man just pushed all my buttons. "But the intruder had fortunately gone."
"Well, that all strikes me as rather odd. Really, for you to have such a problem with the Police...."
"For me to have such a problem with the Police, bearing in mind I am an innocent member of the public, is not my problem, is it? If you have sections of the community so alienated that calling the police for help isn't a consideration, then I rather think that is your problem."
Josie Cloverfield, for the love of God just shut up!
"So, the notebook was stolen, was it?" Oh, here we go again.
"Yes."
"So, how did you know about the email address and Facebook account?"
"Because I had read snippets of it on the bus, looking to see if there was a name anywhere in the book. Then, I would have been able to return it."
"And you wrote it down? The email address, I mean."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Just as a quick reference."
"So, just run me through the Emjay bit again? Presumably you wrote this down for quick reference too?"
"No." I said, feeling too ropey to keep thinking up lie after lie.
"I think you'd better tell me the whole lot, don't you? Start at the beginning."
I could have howled with anguish. As intellectually challenged as Thorn was, he wasn't entirely stupid. There was only so much skirting around the whole issue of withholding evidence that I could feasibly do.
I came to the very sorry conclusion that I would actually be better off in the long run if I told the truth.
So, in the end, that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t mention that I knew there was a police search on at Hannah’s home, and the whole idea of me being on the canal path for a walk seemed to pass muster.
As for the rest of it, I was too tired by the stress and haunted by the sight of Hannah’s dead body to do anything other than tell the whole truth.
“You’re telling me that Hannah Davenport was a stripper, are you?”
“No. I’m telling you that Matty Jameson told me she was a stripper.”
“And you found a mucky painting of Hannah in his office at the university?”
“No, I found a nude painting. It was just a nude painting. Not mucky.”
“But with no clothes on?”
“Detective Inspector Thorpe! There is a difference. Nude is art and mucky is tabloid.”
“And you didn’t think to tell the Police about this?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because for one thing, a portrait sitting is between the adult sitter and the artist. It’s not a Police matter, unless, of course, you now keep a register of that sort of thing. For another thing, after the way you treated Liam with absolutely no grounds, I thought that Matty Jameson would get the same treatment. Just a whiff of suspicion at a place like Grantstone University would be likely to lead to Matty Jameson’s contract being ended. His whole life! It is bad enough that Liam Attwood feels he can no longer attend university, without another person’s life being ruined.” Obviously, I refrained from telling him that I did not want to cast further suspicion on Liam by providing DI Thorn with a rather excellent motive.
I didn’t want to bring it to his attention.
“And you think that’s a good enough reason to have kept it to yourself?”
“Yes, I do. If you want to throw suspicion on people without even a moment’s discretion, then it’s nothing more than public humiliation. If that’s how you do things, then you really should have something approaching evidence before you do it. Instead, you drag people through the mud publicly without evidence. In fact, with nothing more than a bit of cheap tabloid-style suspicion.”
“And you don’t think it might have saved Hannah’s life?” He added, delivering an appalling and very cheap shot.
“Hannah has been dead for days. Hannah was dead already by the time I spoke to Matty Jameson so no, I do not think I could have saved Hannah’s life.” I hated his guts.
Lazy policing, lazy investigating, lazy interviewing. How I wished I could have said it all to him.
“And how do you know Hannah had been dead for days?” He asked.
Thorn was having an a-ha moment, predominantly because he was just about the most spectacular fool I’d ever met. He thought for a moment or two that he’d caught the killer! My suspicions were first aroused, your honour, when Josie Cloverfield claimed certain knowledge of the time of death……..
“Because of the…… smell.” The last word caught in my throat and I felt tears suddenly making my eyeballs sting.
I hated saying it; it felt like I was being mean; making nasty comments. Hannah smells! Ner ner na-ner ner! I knew it was ridiculous, but there it was.
The strangest moments were the ones which reminded me that Hannah was very, definitely dead, and that I had found her. I had smelled her body beginning to decay.
“Oh.” Thorn said, buying time while he thought of his next clever move. “I wonder why it was that you were on the canal path at the back of Hannah’s home at the time of the Police search.” His next move….
“No idea. Just one of those things, Detective Inspector. After all, how would I know when a search was taking place? I’m not privy to that sort of information, am I? I also have never been to Hannah’s house. I didn’t know her address.”
“Liam Attwood could have told you it.”
“He could have, but he didn’t.” I’d had enough of his fishing. “I have told you everything I know. Am I a witness or a suspect?”
“A witness. For now.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, let’s not forget you kept back this diary. Yes, you say you weren’t sure of its exact provenance, but you still could be prosecuted for Withholding Evidence.”
“And you’re going to charge me with that, are you? Bearing in mind I have the photocopy I described to you and intend to deliver it to you?”
“You still withheld evidence.”
“I think that might be open to wider interpretation than you have a capacity for. Still, you must do what you must.” I said with a smile, hoping that the return of my mobile phone would give me
the armour plating I needed.
“Don’t you push me, you little runt. If you think anyone is going to give a damn about a council estate kid’s complaint that a nasty policeman was rude to her, then think again. I’ve got you around the neck, so to speak, so you can stick your university vocabulary where the sun don’t shine.” Wow! He could be seriously nasty!
Good job it wasn’t a taped interview!
“I’d like my mobile phone back now.”
“No.”
“Have you seized it as evidence? I mean, officially?”
“No.” He said, shifting a little awkwardly in his seat.
“Then I’d like it back.”
With a disgruntled snort, Thorn rose to his feet and left the room.
After some minutes, a uniformed constable came into the room. My heart nearly boomed with joy; the phone was in a police evidence bag. Thorn was busy with some mumbled conversation or other just outside the room.
“Can you just sign the bag, love?” The constable smiled at me.
He’d dated and timed the return and there was a space on the bag for me to sign for it. Also, there was an Evidence Related Property number. Oh dear oh dear! This efficient and ethical young officer, fresh from very thorough training and seemingly above any sort of corruption, had booked the phone into the police systems as evidence. All very proper.
“Thank you.” I said, smiling warmly at him and really, really meaning it.
The officer smiled and left the room, just as Thorn and his CID Neanderthal lumbered in behind him, almost like an ugly big old boxer dog following his master’s lead.
I had left my phone in the bag, but was able to check my messages through the clear plastic. Oh happy day! I found exactly what I had prayed for.
I knew Thorn would be a good, old fashioned, not-exactly-by-the-book type of police officer. The sort that jokingly quoted the Ways and Means Act. I’d heard it all before, but this was the first time it was going to work in my favour.
“Oh dear, DI Thorn.” I said, looking at my phone and smiling. He looked at me, his eyes flying to the evidence-bag-wrapped phone in my hand. “Not only has the uniformed officer bagged my phone, as should be done with all seized items, he actually booked it into your Evidence Related Property System. Look.” I said, holding the bag out for him to inspect. “Here’s the Property Number.” I was smiling and being a git and I knew it, but nobody deserved it more than the man in front of me. “Which means that there is an electronic audit trail. So, no denying that my person property was seized then.”
“So what? Something can be seized and returned. I can easily explain the fact that I thought it might be evidence and decided to hold it until I had spoken to you properly and was sure it was not. It was then returned. Simple.”
“No, not simple.”
You see, some good, long while ago, I had completed a piece of coursework at school. It was for the social science GCSE. Our course had a rather political bent, and I had chosen to study the Interception of Communications Act.
Now, please believe me when I tell you that I do not go to sleep wearing a tin foil hat lest the evil powers-that-be download the contents of my swede overnight. However, I have always had a healthy suspicion of government agencies, so I really went for it with my coursework.
I was a geeky kid, what can I tell you? And that is why I didn’t kick up a stink when he took my phone. I was feeling like a bit of an evil genius; white suit, fluffy cat – the works! And I was thoroughly enjoying it. Holding my tongue had paid off.
“Because, Mr Thorn, a text message has been opened.”
“So?”
“It was previously unread. I had not opened it. It was sent at a quarter to one this afternoon. That’s an hour after it was booked into your evidence system, and an hour and a half before it was returned to me. It was opened fifteen minutes after it was sent. About the same time that you popped out of the room, in fact. Honestly, I just assumed you’d nipped out for a wee.” I was totally loving it.
Really, endless rides on the big-dipper couldn’t come close.
“So?”
“The message was read before I had opened it. You opened an un-opened message without the relevant authority in place. That is contrary to the Interception of Telecommunications Act 1985.”
“What?”
“Think back to your days at police training. The thing is, it doesn’t just apply to opening someone’s physical mail. It also includes messages sent via a public telecommunications system. Text messages, Mr Thorn.”
“Stop calling me Mr Thorn. It’s DI Thorn to you.”
“Not if you get two years for the offence.”
The look on his face was worth all the insults and insinuations that had been heaped on me from the moment Malcolm Thorn got me back to the police station.
“So, Detective Inspector Thorn, it’s a little bit more than a council estate kid’s complaint about a nasty policeman, isn’t it?”
“Now look here….” He said, but couldn’t find a way to finish it. I had him good and proper, and he knew it.
Even the CID goon knew it, and was squirming like a landed fish in his seat, clearly wondering if he would be guilty by association; he looked like he wanted to evaporate right out of the room.
Well good. He’d been one of two officers who had humiliated my best friend. If Detective Constable Neanderthal was clicking his heels together under the desk and thinking there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, then he deserved it.
“So, don’t you ever threaten me again, Detective Inspector. Unless you have truly professional business to do with me, you stay the hell away.” I said, rising to my feet in a way which made the chair scrape horribly. “Because it very much looks like it is I who has you around the neck, as it were. Not the other way around.” And with that, I started for the door.
“Actually,” I began, wincing a little. “You’ll have to show me out. I can’t remember how we got to this room.”
Chapter Fifteen
I almost cantered away from the police station. Very quickly getting over my bout of childish but good self-satisfaction, I realised I needed to act quickly. I needed to get the photocopy photocopied, if you see what I mean.
A police officer was going to be sent to meet me in an hour and a half to take possession of the photocopy. It would take me about an hour to get to uni, and that was with both busses turning up on time.
I still wanted to read the rest of Hannah’s diary; I had a horrible feeling that things were going to somehow get worse, and I wanted to at least have the ability to keep detecting.
So, I needed someone to get into my locker, take the photocopy, and photocopy it. I needed a spare.
I had been about to ring Liam when I realised that he did not yet know that Hannah was dead. I was having trouble getting to grips with it myself, and I’d seen her. How could I ring Liam and say Hannah’s dead, please can you pop into uni and photocopy the photocopy?
Apart from being pretty cold, it would most likely be pointless. Liam was probably still at home, so it would take him as long to get there as it would take me.
Taking my phone out, I ran through my contacts. All seven of them. Rich Richard. There was nobody else. I knew Richard would be there today, since he’d told me so the night before.
Could I trust him? I had no choice really. He already knew about the diary, and already knew his name was in it. I had to give it a shot.
“Hi Josie. Are you in uni?”
“No, Richard. I’ve just come out of the police station. Look, I really need your help. Thing is, I need it fast and don’t have time to explain.”
“Ok, what is it? I said I’d help if I could.” He sounded sort of pleased, as if I was Alan Sugar giving him the chance to stay in the Apprentice for another week.
“I need you to photocopy Hannah’s diary; well, the photocopy.”
“Ok, but why?”
“The Police are coming f
or it in an hour and a half. You’ll need to go like the clappers. It’s a big photocopy.”
“Alright.” He said, amazing me a little bit.
“Richard, I’ll explain everything when I see you.”
“So, which is your locker?” No small talk. He was taking me seriously!
“Its 147. And the combination is GS32QT.”
“Your postcode?”
“Yes. So, if you’re going to do it, just make sure it’s back in my locker with a good ten minutes to spare. Is that ok? I don’t want to put you in danger of getting into trouble, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“No problem. I’ll wait in the canteen when I’m done. Come and meet me when you’re free of the police.”
“Thanks Richard. I seriously owe you.”
“I’d better get on with it.” And with that, Rich Richard hung up.
Honestly, I felt pretty guilty for not telling him about Hannah, but what good would it have done in that moment?
Once I was on the first bus, I sat near the back, more or less alone, and called Liam.
“Hey Josie.” He sounded extremely rattled.
“You ok?”
“Not really. A police van has just pulled up outside my house. I’ve got a horrible feeling they’re here for me. Thorn is with them.”
“Liam. I’m really sorry to make this so brief and blunt, but Hannah is dead. I followed a lead from the Trixie email address and ended up finding her in a derelict building on Weatherby Road.”
“What? Josie?” Liam sounded winded, like he’d been punched in the belly by a very much bigger bloke.
He was so shocked, and I wished I could have done or said anything in the world to help him at that moment.
“I’m sorry Liam.”
“What happened? I mean, was it bad? Was she in a bad way?” I heard his voice choke away into a strangled kind of a sob.
I could barely speak. My eyes were filling with tears and my throat felt really, horribly tight.
“No. I mean, she wasn’t in a mess. She just looked like she was sleeping. I’m so sorry, Liam.”
“And how did you find her again?” Liam said, almost panicking. “Look, hurry. The Police are knocking at the door now.”
The Girlfriend: A Josie Cloverfield Detective Novel Page 17