Then She Was Gone

by Luca Veste

  Johnson began to say something then stopped himself. He went back to tracing patterns on the metal surface again.

  ‘There’s one incident we do want to speak to you about,’ Murphy said, bending his head to try and meet Johnson’s gaze. ‘Involving a student in your last year.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I think you do. It’s written all over your face. You’re worried about something coming up in this conversation. It’s that, isn’t it?’

  Murphy waited for Johnson to reply, but there was only silence. He pushed on regardless. ‘I want to have a guess at what happened, then you can correct me if you need to, sound fair?’

  Johnson still sat in silence, the finger moving slower across the table.

  ‘As a group, you’re all used to women throwing themselves at you. The eight of you have some prestige because of this club. If someone wasn’t amenable to your advances, it wouldn’t sit well, would it? So, what happens, is that you do it anyway. All of you, or some of you. You take a young girl from one of your parties and something happens behind closed doors. You all think she’ll keep quiet, but she doesn’t, does she?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about . . .’

  ‘You were there,’ Rossi said, hands flat on the table. Murphy could see the pulse in her cheeks as her teeth clenched together. ‘You know what happened.’

  ‘Depends which time,’ Johnson said, his hands no longer shaking. ‘There were a lot of parties.’

  ‘If it was all Sam Byrne, that’s all we need to know,’ Murphy said, cutting in before Rossi had chance to say anything. ‘We just need to know the truth.’

  ‘Sam was always the one looking out for that sort of thing. He was a cad, a real ladies’ man. They all wanted him, that was for sure. He never did anything wrong.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? Only you don’t sound like you are.’

  Johnson tugged on his bottom lip with his teeth. ‘Explain to me why I should help you?’

  Murphy had hoped that question wouldn’t come up. ‘Why don’t you tell me about Sam?’

  ‘No, tell me why I should do anything for you?’ Johnson leaned back in his chair, his body shaking now. ‘It’s because of all of you I’m here in the first place. I should be out there, finding my daughter and living my life. Instead, I’m stuck in prison for something I haven’t done, while Molly is out there in danger. Or even . . . I don’t know.’

  Rossi gave Murphy a look as Johnson collapsed onto the table with his head in his hands. They didn’t have any leverage here, which pissed off Murphy royally. ‘Look, Tim,’ he said, as Johnson’s shoulders hitched from silent tears. ‘I don’t know the full story, but I promise once we’re done with our investigation, we’ll take another look into what happened. Something is going on with regards to your original group members, so I do want to check that you weren’t involved in that.’

  ‘Really?’ Johnson said, lifting his head a little and exposing his face. Murphy didn’t believe in being able to read people to the extent some professed to. Yet, there was something in Johnson’s expression which jarred with him. If Johnson had really killed the woman he was in prison for, then it was an Oscar-worthy performance.

  ‘You just need to help us,’ Murphy continued, carefully working things through in his head. ‘Is there anything you think we should know?’

  Johnson sniffed and propped himself up on his elbows. ‘I don’t know. There were rumours, that’s all. There was eight of us, so we weren’t in each other’s pockets. We would split into smaller groups. Some of us were closer than others. We mostly lost touch after we left university, but I knew if something happened I could call on them.’

  ‘Did you? When this all started?’

  Johnson hesitated, looking between Murphy and Rossi then back at the table. ‘No.’

  It was the first time during the interview that Murphy could definitely say Tim had lied. He decided to leave it alone.

  ‘What happened in your final year? Something did, didn’t it? That’s why you took yourself away and had little to do with them.’

  ‘There was one girl. It wasn’t right,’ Johnson said, his voice quiet again. ‘I told them that.’

  ‘What wasn’t right?’

  ‘What . . . they did to that girl. It didn’t need to happen, but they wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘You need to tell us everything you know,’ Rossi said, keeping her voice strong and even, her knuckles growing whiter as she gripped the table.

  ‘I wasn’t there, honest. I found out later, when she was going around telling everyone what happened. Some first year, I don’t know her name, just recognised her from the campus. She was always buzzing around us. She wanted to be close to us, as so many did. She looked so young. Sam liked them looking like that.’

  ‘Like what?’ Murphy said, trying to keep his feelings under better control than Rossi. She was gritting her teeth again, and experience told him that even though she was usually able to keep check of her emotions, it wasn’t working right now.

  ‘Young, like teenager age, I guess. He liked that look. I don’t know what happened that night but it wasn’t the only time it happened. It was the first time someone made a complaint, though. She ended up leaving university, but I heard she was still sniffing around years later. Sam’s parents rang me and asked about it. Thing is, you’ve got to understand, these girls were up for anything the night before, but then the next day it would be all different.’

  ‘Walk me through what you know to have occurred that night,’ Murphy said, trying to work out the man in front of him. He seemed meek, broken, but there was something about the way he spoke, with such emptiness and a lack of empathy, that worried at him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Johnson was lying. Then he remembered they were in a prison, with a convicted murderer, and he shook it off.

  ‘I don’t know really,’ Johnson said, glassy eyes landing on Murphy and staying there. ‘I saw them the next morning, I think. If I’m remembering the right night.’

  ‘Who’s them?’ Rossi said, pen in hand. ‘Names.’

  ‘I don’t know. It could have been any of us. We would meet up for coffee the day after these parties and we were always full of it. I remember that night a bit clearer, that’s all. Mainly because of what happened afterwards. It was a close call. Sounded like she was right up for it, but we were worried as well, you know?’

  ‘No, I really, really don’t,’ Murphy said, then stopped himself from saying any more. ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘She apparently started talking. Changed her mind and decided they had done something she hadn’t wanted them to. I knew those guys and they weren’t like that. It wouldn’t be their fault if she’d decided the next day that she didn’t want to be known for being that type.’

  Murphy felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room. They had heard so many similar stories over the years that it wasn’t really surprising to hear. It was the complete lack of thought which always jarred with him.

  ‘We’re talking multiple men and one first year student . . .’

  ‘It happened all the time. These girls, they’d be throwing themselves at us constantly. Yeah, they’d be drunk, but they weren’t saying anything that night. They’d come back with us willingly and it wouldn’t be until they started feeling guilty the next day that they’d say anything was wrong. Not our fault. It’s not like they were saying no, was it?’

  ‘Probably weren’t saying yes, either,’ Rossi said, the words coming out in a hiss.

  ‘Why was this girl different?’ Murphy said, trying to keep things on track and not jump over the table and teach the young guy a lesson. ‘If this sort of thing happened often, why do you remember her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think you do,’ Murphy said, not letting it go. ‘The memory of this one came back to you so easily. You knew exactly what we were talking about. Why?’

  Johnson shrugged, shutting down after being so
willing to speak before.

  ‘Want to know what I think,’ Rossi said, leaning towards Johnson. ‘I think your hatred of women has landed you here. I bet you were there that night, that’s why it comes back to you so easily. You know exactly what happened, because you were in that room. When you leave university, and you don’t have your pick any more, it festers inside you. That’s how you are found guilty of murder, because you couldn’t handle it not coming so easily to you any more.’

  ‘You really don’t know a thing, do you?’ Johnson said, fixing Rossi with a stare. ‘Typical. I knew one of your lot back at university.’

  ‘What lot?’ Rossi said, Murphy bracing himself to get in between them at any moment.

  ‘You’re Italian, aren’t you? All the same. Nothing but illogical passion. He was like that. Come to think of it, you share his name.’

  ‘I think we should leave before I do something,’ Rossi said, turning to Murphy and beginning to get out of her seat.

  ‘Rosti . . . no, that’s not right. Rossi, that’s what you said. Vinny Rossi ring a bell? A relative from the boat, perhaps? He was a mature student, who wanted to be one of us. We got rid of him, but not before we found out what he was really like.’

  Murphy turned back to Johnson as Rossi grabbed the file from the desk and headed for the door. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘They all know each other, these Italians. Just like that Polish lot. Ruined my life, them coming over here. You’ve got to help me. I can’t let my daughter become another slut like the rest of them.’

  Murphy stared at Johnson as he dissolved into tears once more. He looked over at the door where Rossi waited.

  Once, a few years earlier when they had been stuck in a car waiting on something or other, he had asked Rossi how she remembered all her brothers’ names. It had been a jokey conversation in which Rossi had repeated their names so many times that by the end even Murphy knew them all.

  He remembered Vincenzo Rossi. He also remembered that he had returned to university as a mature student.

  As he headed after Rossi, he realised that he’d been wrong about what had been bothering her. It wasn’t anything to do with her relationship.

  It was her brother.

  Twenty-nine

  DC Kirkham checked the details again, then twice more, just to be sure. The whole case was becoming more convoluted by the day, he thought. It wasn’t about to get any easier either. Another body, another death. It was almost like clockwork.

  He’d decided early on just to keep his head down and do as he was told, ignoring the voice inside him which only spoke of dark days ahead.

  ‘We’re losing control,’ he said under his breath as he walked over to the murder board at the back of the incident room. He lifted up the marker and added the details of what he’d discovered in the past few minutes.

  ‘That the girl’s name?’

  Kirkham turned to see DC Hashem standing behind him, holding a cup of tea out towards him. He smiled, thankful for the interruption.

  ‘Cheers,’ Kirkham said, taking the cup off her and blowing on the surface before taking a swig. ‘Yeah, that’s her name. We’re going to have to track her down now. Nothing in the system that’s recent.’

  ‘What do you think about this whole thing?’

  Kirkham didn’t answer, turning back to the board and its various weblike diagrams, moving from name to name, act to act. He wasn’t about to try and make sense of the whole thing.

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely that this is anything to do with her, does it? I mean, on her own, doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘No, not really. Stranger things have happened, though.’

  ‘I think revenge is key here. Someone is offing all these blokes for a reason.’

  Kirkham stepped aside as DC Hashem took the pen from his hand and added a single word next to Paul Wright’s name on the board.

  ‘Dead?’ Kirkham said, reading DC Hashem’s writing. ‘Another one?’

  DC Hashem turned to him with a smirk. ‘Just found him now. Another suicide, apparently. Can’t be a coincidence, can it? That’s our number five.’

  ‘Doesn’t explain why one of them isn’t dead, though, does it?’

  She shrugged in response, Kirkham moving back to his desk and placing the cup down on the Tranmere Rovers coaster an ex had bought him. It was the only thing he’d kept from the relationship, mainly because he couldn’t be bothered replacing it. He lifted up the phone on his desk and tried calling DI Murphy, unsurprised when it went to voicemail after a few rings.

  ‘What’s the latest?’

  Kirkham looked up to find DC Hale standing near his desk, looking at him while chewing a sandwich. Crumbs fell to the ground in front of the DC, sending chills through the mess-hating Kirkham.

  ‘While you’ve been busy eating that, we’ve got a name for the girl who we think was assaulted whilst Sam Byrne was at university. Also, Abs has found out Paul Wright’s whereabouts.’

  DC Hale looked down at his sandwich and snorted. He devoured the rest of it in one mouthful. ‘Good on her,’ he said, Kirkham getting a clear view of the half-chewed bread and ham before it was swallowed down.

  ‘Yeah, it’s good work.’

  DC Hale leaned forwards and covered his now empty mouth. ‘Not saying it makes up for ISIS, but she’s getting there.’

  Kirkham clenched his fist under his desk, but took a few breaths before answering. ‘You’d better be careful saying stuff like that. Murphy will bounce you out of here so quick your feet won’t touch the floor. You saw what happened with that Tony Brannon guy.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s just a joke. Can’t you take a bit of banter?’

  Kirkham decided not to keep the conversation going any further, already foreseeing the end of it. As soon as he heard the words ‘freedom of speech’ he’d have to batter Hale to death with his empty sandwich carton.

  Instead, he tried the phone again, waiting patiently for it to ring out before leaving a message this time.

  ‘Hello, sir, it’s Jack. Can you give me a ring. It’s urgent.’

  * * *

  Murphy looked at his phone, putting it back in his pocket as the number flashed up. It could wait. He looked across at Rossi, who was still refusing to meet his eye, much less talk to him.

  ‘I need to know,’ he said, trying again.

  ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  It had been that way since they’d left the prison, Rossi rushing ahead of him and sitting in the driver’s seat, eyes fixed forward and unwilling to acknowledge him when he tried to speak to her.

  ‘This isn’t going away,’ he said, placing a hand on the dashboard, the car braking suddenly as Rossi almost missed a turn-off. ‘You need to explain what’s going on.’

  ‘Nothing is going on.’

  ‘Who do you think I am, Laura? You think I’m the type to just let something like this go? He knew your brother. Vincenzo has something to do with this, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything.’

  Murphy suddenly had an urge to shake her. This wasn’t the way to deal with this situation and he was sure she knew it. Instead, she’d decided to clam up and say nothing. ‘You’re making this worse. Have you spoken to him at least?’

  ‘I don’t think I should say anything to you,’ Rossi said, giving him a sideways glance. ‘We both know what’s going to happen next, don’t we?’

  ‘No, we don’t, because you won’t talk to me.’

  ‘I’ll have to declare an interest and I’ll be off the case. Simple as that. I should have done it a while ago. For that, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here. Just explain it to me.’

  Rossi sighed heavily, such a large breath escaping her that he thought it would fog up the windscreen. ‘I don’t know if I should.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He waited for her to continue, happy that she had at least decided to slow down the car as they joined the motorway heading
back to Liverpool. ‘His name came up when we went to see Simon Jackson.’

  ‘Yesterday,’ Murphy said under his breath. He could almost feel his blood pressure rising.

  ‘It could have been anyone, because he didn’t give me a first name. He couldn’t remember it. I went to see him.’

  ‘Vinny?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rossi said, shoulders slumped now as her hands slipped to the bottom of the wheel. ‘I thought I would just check. See if there was anything there. I’d worked out they were at uni at the same time, but I was hoping it was just a coincidence. That there was another Rossi that year or something. No such luck.’

  ‘How involved was he?’ Murphy said, trying to keep his voice on an even keel.

  ‘Not at all, from what I can tell. Vinny wouldn’t really talk to me about it. Got quite defensive, but I think that’s just because I was asking him. It’s nothing.’

  ‘I’ll decide that, Laura.’ He turned to look out the passenger-side window, elbow resting on the edge as Rossi nodded in response. ‘Were you going to tell me about this?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was important . . .’

  ‘Not important?’ Murphy said, his voice echoing around the car. He breathed in and tried again. ‘Of course you did, which is why you didn’t mention it. What a mess.’

  ‘I don’t see what it has to do with anything. Vinny was at university at the same time as they were, that’s all.’

  ‘Two of them have mentioned him now. He must have known them quite well for that to happen. Were they studying the same courses or something?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rossi replied, but he could tell already that she knew more. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What else is there?’

  Rossi glanced across at him as he kept his eyes locked on her. She looked away and back at the road. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘This isn’t good,’ Murphy said, turning his head away from Rossi. ‘I don’t know what to do here . . .’

  ‘Why do you have to do anything? It’s not a problem.’

  ‘Are you joking? This is a delicate situation as it is. If this went to CPS, what do you think they’d say about it?’