Mine

by J. L. Butler

  Our future was exciting. All we had to do now was fix the problem of Donna Joy.

  I glanced up and noticed that I’d arrived in Notting Hill, on Portobello Road, near a café Clare had mentioned that sold rose lattes. Picking up a paper from the newsagent, the same Sunday tabloid that Clare had shown me, I went into the café and over a pastel-pink coffee, I read the story again from start to finish, feeling my temper flare once more. It was gutter press at its lowest. How any journalist could write this and still have a clear conscience was beyond me. And I knew exactly who to ask for more details: Jenny Morris, my old friend from school, my friend who had helped find me when I had run away from home in the summer before university.

  Jenny had come up – or down – a similar route as myself, both beginning at the same ordinary Northern sixth-form college, then taking opposite forks in the road when we’d felt the inevitable pull of the capital, Jenny into journalism, myself into the law.

  I hadn’t seen her for years, but the last I remembered she was working on the daily version of the same tabloid that I was holding in my hands.

  When I tapped her name into Google, her LinkedIn profile came up. She was still working at the paper, although her current position was listed as deputy features editor – a step up from the last role she’d told me about. Jenny being relatively senior at the tabloid was good and bad. Good in that she would have her finger on the pulse of everything that was happening, bad in that she wouldn’t give up that information for free, however fondly she remembered me. I smiled, remembering an exposé she had written for the student news-sheet on exam-fixing. It was explosive, well researched and backed by a solid investigation in the course of which Jenny had bought a stolen exam paper in a dimly lit car park. Unfortunately, the embarrassed college principal had taken his revenge by arguing that Jenny’s illicit purchase meant she was breaking exam rules herself and so he’d expelled her. Jenny had simply rung the Manchester Evening News and got herself a commission to write a piece on the failure of Britain’s corrupt education system to support free speech.

  I found her number in my contacts and wondered if it would still work. I hadn’t used it for years. We’d met a handful of times when she first moved to London, having transferred to one of the nationals. She was, of course, always full of the latest gossip on everyone and everything, usually some lurid ‘real story’ behind the one the papers had dared to print, but we’d both found it harder to find the time to meet up and, if truth be told, found it harder to ignore the fact that our professions were incompatible. How could I tell Jenny some amusing anecdote about a divorcing couple when it could – let’s be honest, would – appear in the following morning’s paper? Nothing in that situation had changed – if anything, recent events had only intensified the conflict of interests. But I badly needed to hear the story from another perspective. I hadn’t seen Jenny’s name on any of the ‘Missing Donna’ reports, but she would have heard every detail in their daily conferences and, most importantly, would have a good feel for which way the police were leaning. I just needed to avoid any more surprises and Jenny could give me that. What her price would be, I could only guess. I pressed ‘call’.

  Jenny arrived at the café within the hour. Her voice on the phone had sounded so familiar, it wasn’t until I sat down to wait that I realized I had no idea what she’d had to rearrange to come over to Notting Hill on Sunday morning. Cancelling a brunch date with a partner? Watching a son play soccer from the sidelines? I didn’t even know where she lived. But my instincts had been correct; as a journalist she could not pass up on a meeting with someone involved in the most high-profile missing persons case in years. And then there she was, striding confidently through the tables, arms wide.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ she grinned, giving me a big hug as I stood up to greet her. She was heavier than I remembered, and her face rounder, but that only made her smile more dazzling and warm. Charisma, that’s what had got Jenny where she was. People instantly liked her and wanted to tell her things – then forgave her when she repeated them in print. I knew I needed to keep that in the forefront of my mind.

  ‘I’m good. And glad to have an excuse to get back in touch,’ I said; and it was true. I was surprised at how much I’d missed her.

  Perhaps it was simply reassuring, seeing someone from your youth, a link to more simple times, or maybe it was because she knew me when we both had everything to prove and nothing to lose.

  ‘I’m sorry I dragged you out like this,’ I said as she sat down and signalled to the waitress for coffee.

  ‘I only live in Kilburn,’ said Jenny. ‘Besides, the editor is obsessed with Donna Joy. Actually, we all are, as you might have noticed,’ she laughed, tapping the paper on the table in front of me. ‘Nothing like a missing persons case to sell papers, especially when the missing girl is gorgeous and married to the current version of the panto villain.’

  I smiled, hiding the fact she was describing the man I wanted to be the father of my children.

  ‘So you’re his lawyer,’ she said as her coffee was delivered.

  ‘Divorce lawyer, yes.’

  ‘I must be slipping,’ said Jenny. ‘If I’d known that I would have given you a ring when the police told us they were arresting Martin Joy.’

  ‘Would you?’

  She smiled back. We both knew the answer was yes, but only if it worked for the paper and the story. It wouldn’t have been a courtesy call; at best she would have called for a reaction quote, just as the paper was about to go to print, giving their ‘victim’ little time to get an injunction.

  ‘So I have to ask, do you think Martin Joy would be up for doing an interview?’

  I allowed myself another smile and looked at my watch.

  ‘Two minutes. I wondered how long it would take you to ask.’

  Jenny cracked up laughing and I couldn’t help joining in. She was shameless, but at least you knew where you stood with her, and that wasn’t something you could say about most of the people I was involved with at the moment.

  ‘Come on, what do you think?’ she urged. ‘I’ve been deputy features editor forever. I’m not on the editor’s Oxbridge social scene, so I need to deliver something juicy to bag a promotion.’

  I looked at her, knowing that these situations were about give and take, information traded like goods at a medieval market.

  ‘I’m not sure he wants to talk,’ I said, as if it had only just occurred to me. ‘But I can certainly ask. He had nothing to do with Donna’s disappearance and he might be keen to set the record straight after the hatchet job your paper did on him this morning.’

  ‘Sunday edition,’ Jenny pointed out. ‘Same name and same owner, but we’re a whole different team. And I can tell you my editor is not happy about the Sunday edition running the Martin Joy story first.’

  ‘Well, perhaps he’ll cheer up when I persuade Martin to talk to you instead.’

  Unlike Inspector Doyle, Jenny certainly knew the meaning of quid pro quo – she understood it was her turn to offer something.

  ‘So why did you want to meet?’ she asked, her eyes shrewd.

  ‘Simple question, really: where is she?’ I asked. ‘What happened to Donna Joy? Nothing’s going to help my client – and my practice – better than finding Donna Joy and absolving her husband once and for all.’

  ‘I get that,’ said Jenny, ‘but I’m features, not news. Why are you asking me?’

  ‘Because you’re the best,’ I said honestly. ‘You found me in a Fallowfield bedsit when no one else had a clue where I was – and, as you say, it sounds like your editor needs reminding of how good you are.’

  ‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ she smiled.

  ‘Seriously, Jens, I’m sure you know what the police are saying. You’ve always had your ear to the ground. Even at college you knew which teachers were having affairs.’

  ‘As I said, the editor is pissed off about the Sunday edition running the story. We’ve got something better cooking,
but it’s something the legal team needed to pick over with a fine-tooth comb. The Sunday paper went with a softer story – as you probably saw, it’s all insinuation, no facts – but still it’s taken the wind out of our sails when it comes to running anything else this week.’

  ‘So what’s this better story?’ I pressed.

  Jenny shook her head slowly.

  ‘Fran, I’m not stupid. You’re his lawyer. I say anything, your team will be serving us an injunction by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Jen, this is important to me. As a friend, tell me.’

  ‘Can you get me an interview with Martin Joy?’ This was Jen the hack playing hardball, not my old school friend, but I couldn’t blame her for that.

  ‘He’ll do whatever I say.’

  ‘Really,’ she said, raising a speculative eyebrow. ‘In other circumstances, I might be quite envious of you there. Martin Joy is pretty hot.’

  I nodded impatiently. ‘What’s your story?’

  Jenny dropped a sugar cube into her coffee and stirred it slowly.

  ‘The police aren’t officially saying that Martin Joy killed his wife, but that’s what they believe. They’ve got tons of stuff on this guy. And so have we.’

  I felt a thickness in my throat.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Our guys on the City desk say he’s a ruthless operator, completely devoid of empathy. He’s a tyrant in the office too. One secretary who used to work at the place said he’d grabbed her by the throat. All she’d done was cut someone off when she was trying to transfer a call. Another employee was bullied so much by him she had a miscarriage. Or so she says.’

  I was feeling sick, but couldn’t show it. I waved a dismissive hand, trying not to let her see that I was shaking.

  ‘It’s all hearsay, Jenny. Not much better than the groundless rumours the Sunday edition ran. Anyway, it doesn’t mean Martin Joy had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, conceding the point. ‘But the police have also found Donna’s diaries. She was scared, Fran, in the weeks leading up to the divorce. Martin was threatening her, warning her not to pursue a claim in the business. He said he would make life very difficult for her if she did.’

  Again I did my best to look sceptical. ‘Sounds like the standard toxic back-and-forth couples have when they separate. I’ve heard that stuff a hundred times.’

  I was aware that I was beginning to sound defensive. Jenny was smart, intuitive. I didn’t want her to suspect my relationship with Martin was anything more than professional.

  ‘But if Donna died before any financial settlement was put in place, Martin Joy keeps his entire stake in the business, right? All his money, assets, everything. You’re a lawyer, you know that. He’s a ruthless man and his business is everything to him. Plus, as well as motive, he had opportunity. Joy said he left his wife’s house at midnight. CCTV cameras have finally picked him up walking across London at 2 a.m. But what was he doing from the time he arrived at her house? Even if he didn’t kill her and dispose of the body himself, he’s a wealthy guy with criminal connections. We’ve heard rumours that one of his business acquaintances ended up in hospital over an insider-trading deal gone wrong.’

  I kept my face neutral. ‘But if Donna was so scared, why did she agree to have dinner with him the night she went missing?’

  Jenny shrugged.

  ‘Joy’s charming, isn’t he? Most psychopaths are.’

  I should have been unsettled by this deluge of anti-Martin propaganda, but I found myself switching into professional mode, taking in all the information, looking at every angle, creating a picture. And even though I was clearly biased towards Martin’s innocence, I still wasn’t convinced, not by this flimsy evidence and not by the idea that Martin Joy was a psycho. I’d seen the way that Donna had looked at him that night at the restaurant. Hers was the seducer’s smile, not his. I knew Jenny was watching me, waiting for a reaction.

  ‘Sounds like a load of crap,’ I said, and Jenny began to laugh.

  ‘Why didn’t we stay in touch, Fran? I miss you.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I guess we let work get in the way.’

  ‘Two Northern girls who climbed London’s greasy pole and ended up meeting for the first time in years to talk about our lives in crime.’

  I looked at her cynically.

  ‘You saying we should have stayed in Accrington and got a job at the bank?’

  ‘I’m saying for my next job I might try and be Country Life’s afternoon tea correspondent,’ smiled Jenny over her coffee glass.

  ‘The simple life,’ I nodded distractedly.

  My phone started ringing. It was an unknown number so I excused myself from the table to answer it.

  I didn’t recognize the voice until Inspector Michael Doyle introduced himself.

  ‘Sorry for the intrusion on a Sunday, Miss Day, but can we arrange a suitable time to come round and speak to you?’

  ‘Can’t we discuss it over the phone?’ I said.

  ‘I think it’s better if we meet face to face,’ he said, his tone much firmer than on our previous meeting.

  ‘I’m not at home at the moment,’ I said, my lips beginning to feel dry. ‘Can I ask what this is about?’

  ‘Just come down to the station then,’ he said, and I knew right there and then that things were starting to unravel.

  Chapter 41

  Inspector Doyle looked as if he didn’t want to be in the station on a Sunday lunchtime either.

  ‘So, Pete Carroll, your downstairs neighbour, came to see us this morning,’ he said, sipping from a plastic cup of coffee that looked grey and cold.

  ‘He said that on the night Donna Joy was last seen, you arrived home in the early hours, upset, with blood on you, saying that Martin Joy, your boyfriend, had been with his wife and that it had upset you.’

  Pete Caroll. My stomach twisted in hatred at the thought of him. I’d known how vile and manipulative he was, but hadn’t appreciated he would deliver on his threats so soon. Emotion clogged my throat as I replayed my meeting with him over and over. I’d made it perfectly clear that I was not interested in him romantically but had tried not to agitate him too much. I thought it had been the best way to play it, but I had obviously been wrong.

  Doyle looked back at me as if waiting for me to say something, but I chose to keep silent. Within two minutes of me sitting in front of the detective inspector I knew what sort of conversation this was going to be. I knew enough about criminal law to know that anything I said could be seized upon.

  ‘You’re also aware that Mr Joy has a property on Dorsea Island in Essex. I believe that you’ve been.’

  Again I didn’t respond.

  ‘We interviewed the manager of the Anchor Pub on the island and he says you were in there together, five days after Donna was last seen.’

  He threw his empty coffee cup in the bin and looked at me.

  ‘We’d like to take some fingerprints, and a few other samples, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Fingerprints. What for?’ I replied, feeling the earth begin to spin. ‘I don’t want to give you any fingerprints.’

  ‘Then we’re going to have to arrest you,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  The only person I wanted to speak to was Tom Briscoe. I didn’t care about our rivalries any more. He was simply the one person that I trusted.

  He came within forty minutes – I had no idea how he’d got down from Highgate so fast and even allowed myself the mischievous thought that he’d come direct from the bedroom of some Belgravia-based girlfriend. Perhaps the person he’d taken to see his brother’s play.

  ‘Thought you might need that,’ he said, handing me a Starbucks outside the station.

  I’d hardly ever seen him out of a suit. Today he was wearing jeans, a polo shirt and a beige Harrington jacket. He reminded me of a college professor – or at least how one would look in a Hollywood movie.

  ‘What’s that
?’ I asked, tasting the sickly liquid.

  ‘Girl’s drink.’

  He grinned at me and momentarily I felt buoyed.

  ‘The inspector in charge let me out to make a call, but he’s treating me like a criminal.’

  I felt tight pains begin to gather in my chest and raised my hand to rub my breastbone.

  ‘You’re only here to answer some questions,’ he said with a friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘You’re free to come and go as you please.’

  ‘But if I answer the questions truthfully it’s not going to look good for me.’

  I knew I had to tell him everything. The whole unvarnished truth – or what I could remember of that truth – about my affair with Martin, the night of Donna’s disappearance, our trip to Dorsea Island and my subsequent lies to the police. I knew I had to tell him everything.

  ‘Should we go inside and find a meeting room?’ he said more efficiently.

  I shook my head, paranoid that the police station might be bugged.

  ‘Can we just stay here?’ I asked, perching on a wall and gripping my fingers around the cup.

  I glanced around, looking for CCTV cameras or eavesdroppers but the street had a Sunday stillness to it. My foot started tapping on the pavement as I opened my mouth to speak.

  ‘Have you seen Martin since his arrest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you still involved with him?’

  I nodded, then avoided his gaze, wondering what my colleague must think of me.

  ‘Tom, I followed them to Donna’s house. I remember seeing Martin leave, and Donna watching him from the window, but I can’t remember anything else. Pete’s evidence that I turned up at my flat dazed and confused incriminates me. This is going to destroy me, my career.’

  ‘Fran, don’t get ahead of yourself,’ he said reassuringly. ‘There’s still no body. Without a body it’s going to be nearly impossible to get a conviction. And right now, the Met need a successful conviction.’