Remember Me

  Ava’s phone rang, and she sighed with relief when she saw it was Jack. She looked quickly at DS Sharon for permission and he nodded, pale-blue eyes sharp with interest, his fingers busy logging the information so far. ‘Listen, Jack, things have escalated here, and I’ve got a body. I’m with the police now.’

  ‘Who is it?’ His voice was sharp with interest, and there was no trace of sleepiness, despite the time difference.

  ‘Some private investigator hired to find a local girl who went missing fifteen years ago.’ She hoped her voice sounded natural, but he picked her up immediately.

  ‘Around the time you left Wales?’

  Her boss retained pretty much everything anyone ever told him, which was both a blessing and a curse, for a cop. ‘A couple of years before, actually. I’ll… I’ll tell you about that later. As I said, I’m with the local police now, and I really wanted to know if you found anything on whoever put those pictures up?’

  She heard clicking, then rustling. Jack was a paperwork-not-gadget type of guy.

  ‘Firstly, pictures are down, but of course we have the screenshots. Secondly, no. The website is owned by a company called Blue Dreams, based in Chicago. We checked, and they are a legit supplier of porn, sex toys, chatlines, and crap like that. But the guy I spoke to denies any knowledge of this particular site, and says they play by the rules. Of course, he would say that.’

  ‘Or whoever runs the site just uses them as a front to seem more legitimate?’

  ‘Right, but that wouldn’t be unusual for a dodgy site like this, would it? We’re still digging on the bloke who posted the photos. He calls himself BoyNextDoor – you know what it’s like trying to track down these people. It really depends whether whoever took the photos is the same person who actually posted them, or whether the photographer took them, sold them on, and then crawled back under their rock.’

  Ava considered this for a moment. ‘No, I think someone who went to those lengths would want to gloat. They’d want to be part of the victim’s… my… humiliation. I got another weird text this morning, saying that I should go to the lake to find this poor vic.’

  DS Sharon was watching her intently, and Ava wrapped up her call. ‘Thanks, Jack. I’ve got to go, but let me know if you get anything won’t you? Oh, for reference the lead on the case over here is DI Sophie Miles. I’ve got a bunch of contact details for the team, so I’ll send them over for you to liaise.’

  ‘Sure, got that. Call me later anyway and tell me the full story. I can tell there’s a lot more on this. And Ava… be careful. Don’t get any more involved than you have to.’

  He always had been a perceptive bastard, she thought, almost amused. Then her gaze went out the window, settled on Alex’s body, slowly making its way up to the top of the hill, and she quit smiling in an instant. ‘Always, Boss.’

  Chapter 20

  That was fun. It was so much fun I almost forgot to visit the girl. She surprised me a bit today – clearly she has a feisty side, and being with me has brought out a better side of her character. Suffering is good for some people. Luckily, I prepared for a cold snap, but the weather is showing no sign of lifting. How disappointing if she dies before Ava has a chance to save her.

  Honestly, the number of ridiculous mistakes people keep making, it truly makes my mind spin. If I didn’t love Ava, I would have killed her for spilling any secrets to the law. As it is, she is doing well, and the game is taking some pretty interesting twists. Ellen’s death has always been fairly low on my list of secrets, anyway, and I have a number of options prepared for the police. Unlike certain other people, for years I have been sure that at some point Ellen’s body would be discovered. Therefore, I laid down plans to cover this eventuality. I have adjusted the board to reflect my players. Only one has been retired so far, which means the others have everything to play for.

  Alex Jennington was an easy kill. I didn’t bother with any games – not when I have the girl locked away, and Ava so close. It was quick, and he was still half-asleep. I think he was rather excited by the idea of his new source, and I assured him I had thought long and hard about divulging this key bit of information.

  I can’t be sure he wasn’t recording our initial call, and where that might be stored, so I kept it fairly vague and semi-formal. It wasn’t until I met him in the darkness by the old primary school that I was able to ascertain he had put all the facts together. He still didn’t know who had killed Ellen, but he did know about something else. It would have pissed Ellen off, to know this isn’t just all about her. She always was a selfish bitch. Beautiful, but a bitch.

  It made my skin prickle with anger as Alex Jennington described his plans to gather more evidence. His rather colourless voice was lit up with excitement and interest. There was pity, too, and that burned my soul. Pity is one of the most disgusting of human emotions. It is one of the reasons I have arranged things as I have.

  It was just too bad he had stumbled on this particular secret in the course of his investigation. I had hoped he might get distracted elsewhere. All he really needed to do was find out enough to tell the Smiths their daughter was probably dead, and it might have been Jesse who killed her. End of story. The police were never going to waste time on a ‘maybe’ cold case, and the parents could depart knowing that the reason their daughter never contacted them was because she was probably dead. Jesse was dead, so there was no line of investigation.

  Neat and safe. But no, Alex Jennington had to come sniffing around me and my doings, and Ava has taken this whole photography thing and blown it out of proportion. Surely she knows on some level that it was me in her room? Perhaps her intelligence is slipping… That would be bad news for the girl.

  I picked him up in my Land Rover and drove down to my kill site. I offered him a drink from my flask as we wandered down to the Big Water and talked about the things that had happened to me. We wandered right up to the high point, near the cluster of bent and twisted trees. Their bleached limbs were pale and ghostly in the darkness. The zip line was all set up for Tough Love of course, and this was the start point. I needed him close to the line, ready for the next stage of my plan. No point in lugging a dead body around if you don’t need to. I checked his body carefully for recording devices, and took the SIM card out of his phone as he bled out. He thought I was going to show him a grave site, and of course he was right, he just didn’t realise it was his own.

  ‘Wnaethoch chi fwynhau hynny, Ava Cole?’

  ‘Did you enjoy that, Ava Cole?’

  Chapter 21

  ‘Penny, can we meet up for dinner?’

  ‘Of course, lovely. I heard about you finding the body! Poor Alex, such an awful thing to happen. He seemed such a nice man, and I feel so bad Paul threw him off the farm. It makes me feel sick to think of him being murdered.’ She sounded shaky, and despite the usual chitchat she seemed to be trying too hard, pretending everything would be all right, as usual.

  ‘I don’t know, but the police are looking into it. It is awful, but we just need to stay calm and tell the truth.’ Ava tried to stem the flow of anxious chatter, at the same time wondering if Penny would mention Ellen. It was obvious the two cases were connected, even without the other stuff that had been going on.

  ‘The truth about Ellen, you mean? Ah, I see. Leo told me you knew.’ Her voice had an edge of ice, now.

  Typical – Leo hadn’t been able to resist spreading the news. ‘We won’t talk about it on the phone, Penny, we can talk properly later. This is for the best though, I’m sure it is.’

  Silence, and then she bounced back with the sweetness that had always been such a part of her character. ‘Do you want me to cook, and you can come here? Paul is in bed at the moment, and his meds have knocked him right out, but if he feels better later, I’ll drive him over to the respite centre for a few hours. It will be easier to talk if it’s just us anyway. Does eight-thirty suit you?’

  Ava bit her lip, shoulders sagging with relief. At least she wouldn’t have to fa
ce Paul at the same time. Grilling Penny would be far easier. ‘Thanks, Pen, that would be great. Oh, just one thing. The police have taken Alex’s iPad. They looked through his notes and think he went out to meet someone last night, before he was murdered. Any idea who he might have been seeing? Did he catch up with Huw yesterday? I mean, after he saw you and Paul?’

  Silence, and Ava pictured Penny tapping her lip with her forefinger, the way she always did at school when she was thinking hard. Eventually she said, reluctantly, ‘I’m not sure. I do know Huw was supposed to meet him earlier but then changed his mind. Huw is always a difficult one, and he was so worried you were going to bring up the whole thing with Ellen. I know you and he haven’t ever really gotten along that well, but he isn’t a bad person.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him today?’

  ‘No, I did ring him after we heard about Alex, but Isabell, that’s his girlfriend, said he’d gone into town to the builder’s yard. Is Bethan still missing?’

  ‘Yes. He… he didn’t seem that concerned the other day. He just said she was playing for the cameras. What do you think?’

  ‘He is very ambitious for her. But he adores her, idolises her even, so I would imagine underneath he is pretty worried. Oh God, Ava, I just can’t believe this. That poor man. Who could have done this?’

  ‘The police will be interviewing everyone later today. I asked if they would just abandon filming, but they are going to hang on to the contestants for a bit. After all, they are all suspects now. I bet that’s a drama none of them ever dreamt of.’ Ava sighed. ‘Stephen’s fine. I haven’t been allowed to speak to him yet, and I expect he’s worried sick about Bethan, but he’s okay. Leo was talking to another officer about Bethan, and I imagine they’ll put another DI onto it. DI Miles will have enough to do, trying to sort out Alex’s murder.’

  ‘I’m so glad Stephen is all right. I’m sort of reassured we have all these police around us now too. It makes me feel a bit safer, with all this stuff going on. I did ring Leo last night, just to check if he was okay, but there was no answer on his landline or mobile. I expect he was down at the camp.’

  ‘He said he was. Okay, thanks Pen, see you later.’

  Ava stretched aching limbs, dropped her phone and laptop on the bed, and let out a long breath. There would be time later to ask Penny exactly why she had kept the true circumstances of Ellen’s death a secret all these years. She would get her talking over a home-cooked dinner and the bottle of wine she would buy from the store on her way over. Suddenly, exhaustion was beating waves around her head, but she had just fifteen minutes before DI Miles turned up for a chat.

  She had given DS Sharon the bare bones yesterday, but there had been a lot going on, and when DI Miles rang late last night suggesting an informal chat away from the chaos, Ava had agreed eagerly. Ava told her the whole story would take a couple of hours, and she was willing to come down to the station if someone would pick her up, but the DI vetoed this, saying she would bring one of her team to take notes.

  It was still a struggle, but she was part of the law enforcement team now, not a scared teenager who made a stupid mistake. She had managed to speak to her boss, giving him an outline, reiterating she had believed Ellen’s death to be an accident. He had given no indication of what might happen next, but she had been reassured by his usual unruffled demeanour. There was an element of surprise, and a few times he had asked her to go back over what had happened that night, but his main point, and she did agree with this, seemed to be that none of the other kids had suspected another person might be in the woods that night. The more Ava thought about this, the more she felt forced to conclude they knew which of them did kill Ellen. All of them knew, and they were protecting each other for different reasons.

  There was no answer from the Smiths’ telephone, and her mom and dad were out and not answering their mobiles. Bloody typical.

  A sudden thought struck her… Perhaps it wasn’t one person, or all of them, but two of them. Paul and Huw? Paul and Leo?

  Her mind drifted back to the night of Ellen’s death, and once again she began ticking off her list of suspects. Leo, Huw, Paul, Rhodri and Jesse had all been in the wood with herself and Penny that night, making up the whole gang. Sometimes there would be another girl or two tagging along, if the boys brought one, but that night there had just been the eight of them. She tried now, with this new evidence, to force herself to remember any fresh details, anything the others had done or said, that might implicate them.

  Ellen had been late arriving, but that was nothing new. She would have taken her time making herself look gorgeous, choosing the right top, brushing out her long dark hair.

  Tears were prickling at the back of Ava’s eyes, and her throat was tight and sore. Ellen’s flowery scent filled the room, and she could almost feel the warmth of her hand on her arm, see the laughter in her eyes. She was always challenging Ava, always daring her to go higher, run faster, aim for the stars. Ellen, like Bethan, had wanted to be a model, an actress, to be on the covers of magazines.

  Ava’s gut, something she used a lot in her job, told her that Jesse wasn’t responsible for the rape or murder. He was weak, and had followed Ellen around like a little dog. Sure, she had flirted with the others, thrown scenes to get attention, but he had remained constant with his affections. The other boys’ faces flashed past her eyes, laughing and young as they had been all those years ago. Was it the same person who had been in her room, touched her naked body, hacked her accounts, or were there several perps, years apart, committing crimes for different reasons, but tied to the same secret in the woods? Alex had been a bit too close to the truth, and he had been silenced. That part she did believe. She had been warned, but she would not keep quiet. Not this time.

  A car drew up outside, and Ava peered out of the condensation-streaked windows of her room. Time to face up to Ellen’s death. With no hesitation this time, she bent and unlocked her case, removing Ellen’s bracelet and hair band, and popping them in her pocket. She ran downstairs, pulling on her thick coat and gloves as she did so. It had taken half an hour in the pink bath last night to stop the shivering.

  ‘Can I get you some tea and biscuits?’ Mrs Birtley was hovering in the hallway, pulling at the sleeves of her purple cardigan. ‘I didn’t get a chance to say, earlier, but I heard you found poor Alex’s body, Ava? We had the police here yesterday morning whilst you were still down at Big Water. They went through his room and took things away. It feels wrong. The man’s barely cold and they’re poking around his things.’

  ‘Yes, I did find him. Well, me and a few other people. Mrs Birtley, there will probably be someone coming to look in Alex’s room again today, can you just make sure you keep it locked until then please? And obviously, I’m sure they mentioned – don’t clean it all, will you?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m not daft, Ava. It’s such a terrible thing to happen, and all after you’ve only just got back. It seems like, and don’t take this the wrong way, but there has been nothing but trouble since you came back to the village, and you’ve barely been here a week. Whatever will happen next?’ Mrs Birtley clicked her tongue, passing a yellow duster over her desk. Her podgy, pale face was alight with excitement, despite her reproving words. The Hoover was propped, ready for action, in a corner.

  The DI stood with a colleague, surveying the scene, her mouth pursed, but her eyes glinted with something that could have been amusement.

  Ava turned to the senior officer. ‘Actually, I think we need to go for a bit of drive, if that works for you?’

  ‘Of course.’ The other woman smiled now, understanding and amusement flickering across her thin face. ‘Get in the car. This is DS Harper. He’ll be recording our conversation so I can refer back to my notes later.’

  Ava nodded. She would never have come out to meet a suspect on a case without backup either. There was also the plain fact that, for better or worse, every tiny detail needed to be documented. The police knew that anything missed would be
picked over in court, and any doubts could cost a case. Everything went into the DL, or Decision Log, at home in the States, and she guessed it was probably pretty much the same over here.

  They drove, at Ava’s direction, out of the village, and up as far as the hairpin bend where Jesse had met his death. There was a lay-by leading off to the hills, and nothing but a few sheep to disturb them. The sky was still leaden with snow, sullen clouds pulsing their way across the very tops of the bare hills.

  ‘DI Miles, I’ll just tell you what I know, and then we can try and work out what is significant and what isn’t. Sorry, I realise I’m way out of my zone here, and a suspect to boot.’

  ‘Okay, Detective, you said it and not me. Go ahead, and hit me with the info. And for Christ’s sake call me Sophie, it makes me feel younger.’

  ‘Sure. It’s Ava, and just stop me if I’m talking too fast. It’s kind of a bad habit.’ Ava smiled at her, grateful for the brisk manner, and responding in kind. She went quickly through the timeline, starting with Ellen’s death, working her way up to the current situation. It took an hour, and by the time she was finished, she was exhausted, but strangely relaxed. The terror at having to reveal the secret, a secret that would affect so many people, ruin so many relationships, and surely alter the course of her own life, had vanished. The floating feeling, the fact that her body felt weightless, yet pinned to the seat, was not uncomfortable. It was done. Maybe this was why people went to religious confession, to get rid of their worst secrets. Most people probably didn’t have murder on their conscience. ‘The last thing is, and I realise it may not be possible, but I want to be there when the news of Ellen’s murder and burial in the woods, gets broken to her parents.’

  Ava watched out the corner of her eye as, unobtrusive in the back seat, the DS scribbled notes, scrolled down on his iPad to check details, and tapped details into his phone. He half-smiled as he looked up and caught her looking.