by Caz Frear
“A Chanel belt,” confirms Kayleigh. “And definitely not fake, the receipt was in the bag. How many twenty-one-year-old part-time receptionists can afford to spend £300 on a belt? And she got me other bits too. Expensive makeup. A voucher for this fancy spa in Holland Park.” A little sigh. “She was really kind, Holly. I mean, I’d have been happy with a Topshop voucher but she loved spoiling people.”
“Well, you know my thoughts,” says Josh, staring at Shona and Kayleigh.
I raise my hand. “Er, well, I don’t. And I’d love to hear them.”
Shona doesn’t give him a chance. “Josh thinks Holly had a sugar daddy on the go. Or that’s what he wants to think. For some reason, he finds the idea of one sad twat paying her for a blow job more palatable than the idea of several sad twats.”
“Fuck you, Shone.”
She’s harsh, but I agree his morality’s flawed. Sugar daddy or escort, it’s still using sex as currency, whichever way you slice it. And you’re either fine with that or you’re not.
“And you never mentioned any of this to the original investigators?”
“No.” Shona sits up straight, poised for battle. “For one, I didn’t know I was right and I still don’t. It’s just a hunch. A strong hunch. But in any case, by the time they interviewed us, they’d already tied Holly to Masters, so they weren’t really asking questions, they were just laying out the facts and asking us to fill in the blanks.”
In policing, and probably in any field, it’s possible to do nothing wrong and yet still do nothing right. This case is starting to feel like this. The race to the finish meant the details got left behind.
“OK, so is there anything else you didn’t say at the time? Anything else that didn’t seem relevant after Holly was tied to Masters?”
Everyone looks at Josh, who looks away, leaving Shona, again, to pick up the mic. “Look, we didn’t notice anything.” She draws a triangle on the table between herself, Emma, and Kayleigh. “But Josh reckons she seemed jumpy in the months before she disappeared.”
“Jumpy, how?”
Josh’s face is severe, staring at his amber pint.
“It’d be really good to hear it from you, Josh.” I think about laying a hand on his meaty arm before deciding against it. “If it means nothing, where’s the harm? If it means something . . .”
“What’s it going to mean”—he looks up abruptly—“unless someone else killed Holly. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Why don’t you just come out and say it?”
Fair play. It hasn’t escaped me that no one else has asked outright. Shona stares at me expectantly, like the question was all hers. Kayleigh and Emma are in shock, either at the notion of a different killer or the fact Josh had the balls to ask.
I’m going to have to give them something.
“It’s unlikely,” I say, my voice all press-conference monotony. “Masters and Holly were seen together just before she disappeared, and he made several statements that support the theory he killed her.” Not a confession though. Nor a speck of detail that confirmed any kind of vile intimacy; the mole on her right thigh, her appendix scar, the fresh burn on her inner forearm from taking a pizza out of the oven the night before. “However, in light of a few things—the fact she was found one hundred miles away, for a start—we need to make sure we rule out all other possibilities. Honestly, that’s all we’re doing.” Hands open, and with a little sigh, I give the impression it’s probably all a big waste of time but hey, that’s my problem, not theirs. “So, Josh—she was jumpy?”
“More clingy than jumpy,” he says, seemingly happy to swallow my rhetoric. “Asking to stay at mine a lot.” I tilt my head. Oh, yeah. “No, it was nothing like that. There was never anything between me and Holly.” A chorus of “He wishes” from the girls. “The first few times, I thought it was because her and Spencer had fallen out—’cos that wasn’t rare, he could be aggressive, possessive—but then after a while I noticed something. She always wanted to stay over when Spencer was away, or out for the night. It was like she didn’t want to be at home on her own.”
“Some people don’t,” I say. “It takes a while to get used to. The random noises. The imaginary ax murderers. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
Kayleigh jumps in. “Nah, Holly lived for nights in on her own. If she knew Spencer was going to be out or away, she’d have everything planned. What films she was going to watch, which candle she was going to light, which takeaway, which bath bomb . . .”
“And, not being funny,” says Emma, looking at Josh, “but thinking about it, when did she ever stay round yours until those last few months? It was always mine or Shona’s.”
“I was still living at home then,” explains Kayleigh.
Josh puffs out his considerable chest. “I think she might have been scared of something—well, someone—and she felt safer staying with me.”
Big, brawny, male me. Lifter of dumbbells. Protector of fair maidens.
“Any ideas who?” Getting blank faces, I prompt, “And you’re absolutely certain you don’t recognize the guy from outside the church?”
Another round of definitive nos.
“Maybe if she was escorting, someone got obsessed with her?” suggests Kayleigh.
“If she was escorting,” says Emma, chiming with my thoughts.
Shona throws Josh a grin. “Or maybe she pissed off her sugar daddy?”
I pour water on their phantom bogeymen. “Tell me more about Spencer. Josh, you said he could be possessive?”
“I don’t know about possessive,” says Shona, cutting across. “It took him three days to realize Holly was missing. Does that sound possessive to you?”
There’s no way around it. “It took you guys three days to realize too. Wasn’t it odd not to hear from her at all—a text, a call, anything? You seem like you were pretty tight.”
“Holly was tight with anyone who was bringing the fun and buying the drinks.” Shona gets a sharp look from Emma. “Well, it’s true. It wasn’t unusual for her to go AWOL. You always knew she’d turn up eventually.”
Until the time she didn’t.
I jump back a moment. “So maybe not possessive, but Spencer was aggressive?”
“Fuck, yeah,” booms Josh, followed by Kayleigh and Emma, his backing singers.
Shona’s thinking about this, screwing her face up and teasing her spikes. “Look, I couldn’t stand the bloke, but it depends what you’d call ‘aggressive.’ He’d get in her face sometimes, shouting at her, and maybe a bit of push and shove—her as well as him. But me and my boyfriend are like that too when the mood takes us. I don’t think Spencer killed Holly, if that’s what you’re driving at.” She points at Josh. “Issue is, he had it bad for Holly since way back in Year Seven, so anyone who dared look at her the wrong way was being aggressive, apparently. And they’ve both been with the same laid-back pushovers since we left sixth form.” Emma and Kayleigh’s contented smiles confirm this.
“Couldn’t your pushovers make it today?” I ask them. “They must have known Holly.”
“Mine’s a plumber, works for himself,” says Kayleigh. “We can’t afford for him to have time off, what with the baby coming.” She rubs a hand across her nonexistent belly. “If it’s a girl, I might call her Holly. Holly’d have loved being an auntie; she was good with kids.”
“And mine’s on crutches,” says Emma. “Although if I’d known so few people would turn up, I’d have forced him to come. Make up the numbers, at least.”
“Short notice,” I say again, hoping they’re not too deflated.
Shona tilts her empty glass, rolling the dregs around the bottom. “Yeah, we’ll keep telling ourselves that, but, truth is, Holly was good at making friends, not so good at keeping them. She was funny and entertaining, but she could be cruel. She’d use people. Put them down. And God, she was so materialistic.”
Emma butts in. “And she could be kind and she was a great listener. She was one of the most perceptive people I knew—s
he’d know you were feeling down before you realized yourself.”
“Emma likes to only remember the good stuff,” Shona says.
“Maybe it’s not a bad idea.” I take a furtive look at my watch. “Anyway, she must have been OK, you guys stuck around.”
Shona shrugs. “Your oldest friends forgive more. We knew the stuff she’d been through. She’d had such shit luck in her life and she just wanted attention, I think. So if being cruel would get the laugh, she’d say it, you know? But she wasn’t actually cruel. It wasn’t who she was.”
“When will they release her . . . um . . . her remains?” asks Josh, keen to move on from Holly’s faults. “God knows what’ll happen about a funeral. Who’ll pick up the cost? My uncle died last year and the headstone alone was over £2,000.”
“You won’t have to think about that for a while.” I scrape my chair out, stand up. “Listen, thanks for being so open, and well done again on the service. It doesn’t matter how many were there—you were there and you did her proud. I really need to get going, though. It’s nearly three.”
“Shit, you and me both,” says Emma, bolting up and blowing air-kisses. “They practically call social services if you’re not at the gate at three thirty. Laters.”
Three thirty. A fairly standard school pickup time. On occasional days off, I’ve collected Finn and brought him for ice cream at Udderlicious. Every time, it’s drilled into me.
“Three thirty p.m., Cat. Got that? Not three thirty-ish. Not three forty-five. Three thirty—do you hear me?”
And so now a question’s forming. A question I’ll keep from Steele, even Parnell, until I know it has weight. A question it should only take a quick detour to answer.
Because shouldn’t a teacher have been in school on a Thursday afternoon in term-time, not trying to buy Lady Gaga tickets in an overpriced Clapham bar?
Were Serena Bailey’s whereabouts that day ever officially checked?
10
“May I ask why you need this?”
It’s not the first time a head teacher has eyed me with suspicion over the rim of their bifocals. It is the first time I’ve had the upper hand, though.
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that.” Oh, the power. The head-spinning power. “If you could just confirm for me, that’d be great, thanks.”
Geetha Gopal, head of Riverdale Primary since 1997 (“The week after Princess Diana died,” she announced grandly, as though only a human of immense spirit could commandeer a new school under such circumstances), returns to her computer screen, leaving me standing in the center of her office, staring at the busy walls. A patchwork of certificates and thank-you cards tell the story of a job well done. A photo of every current pupil, along with their name, birthday, favorite book, and piece of fruit, tells the story of a head teacher who goes way beyond the standard definition of “care.”
“God, and to think I used to be scared of this office,” I say, surveying one hundred–plus gummy smiles and bad fringes; a collage of heart-melting promise.
Mrs. Gopal looks up immediately, her lined face full of warmth. “You’re an ex-pupil of Riverdale?”
“Ah no, sorry. I meant the concept of the head teacher’s office. I spent far too much time in them, back in the day. Nothing terrible,” I feel the need to add. “Just the usual swearing, scrapping, rolling my skirt up and my socks down.”
“Hmm.” She drags a finger across her screen, staring hard. “I’d love to say ours are still a bit young for all that, but the way things are going . . . ah, here we are. Miss Bailey, Thursday 23rd February, 2012. Yes, she was here—marked present all day.” She looks up with a satisfied smile, certain she’s given the right answer. I keep my face poker-straight, resisting the urge to sprint back to HQ with my finding, a cat dropping a chewed-up mouse on Steele’s clean floor. “Serena was an exemplary teacher. A natural. Very bright, creative—and devoted. I was sorry to lose her.”
“Why did she leave?”
“Well, it was a little out of the blue, if I’m honest, and I never quite got to the bottom of it. It was time for a change was all she said; she was quite adamant about that. She had been here a long time, I suppose. She’d arrived here as a teaching assistant and not everyone becomes part of the furniture like me.”
“It’s understandable, wanting to spread your wings,” I say, half genuinely, half wanting to draw her out further. “I’ve been with the same team for most of my career and I guess I’ll have to spread mine eventually. I’ll miss them like crazy, though. I take it Serena, Miss Bailey, stayed in touch? Her first school must have been special to her.”
“She sent a card the following Christmas.”
“That was it? No reunions over the years?”
“No reunions.” Her expression tightens. “People come and go, Miss Kinsella. Of course, I would have loved to have heard about her progress. I told her on her last day that if she ever needed advice, a mentor, then she could call me any time. But life takes over, things move on, especially when you’re young. I don’t think she even went straight into a new role. I certainly didn’t receive a reference request for some time afterward—a year or so, if I remember rightly.”
“When exactly did she leave Riverdale?”
“One moment.” She turns back to the screen, presses a few buttons. “Just before Easter, 2012.”
Which means taking into account a notice period, she must have resigned very soon after her encounter with Holly Kemp. My brain screeches “curiously soon after,” and even more curiously—to the point of weird, I’d say—Mrs. Gopal seems to know nothing of Serena’s starring role in the Roommate drama. She certainly hasn’t mentioned it, and surely she would, what with it being back in the news? Surely she’d make the connection to my visit?
“Mrs. Gopal, is there any chance Miss Bailey could have been absent that afternoon and her absence not recorded?”
She brings her hands together, her face turning from warm to professionally stern. “Record-keeping has to be rigorous in this day and age. I’m sure you understand that more than most.”
“So that’s a no?”
I’m not in the habit of being snippy with kindly women in their midsixties, but this could be big. I need answers, not policy statements.
She sighs. “Miss Kinsella, in my forty years of working in education, I’ve learned that definite yeses or nos are as rare as hens’ teeth. What I will say is that it’s unlikely Serena was absent without it being recorded, but records are only as good as the humans who manage them. And I assume human error also exists in the police force, does it not?”
I knew it was impossible. I knew there was no way I could stand in front of a head teacher without feeling chastened.
I try another tack. “What if she’d just left a bit early—say two, two thirty? Would that have been recorded?” I’m covering all bases, preempting Steele’s landslide of questions.
“Possibly not, but you must understand, teachers don’t just ‘leave early’ without good reason, especially those as diligent as Miss Bailey. Two, two thirty, is still very much part of the teaching day. Her class would need to be covered, arrangements made for home-time supervision. Of course, teachers are human. We’re not immune to needing doctors or dentist appointments like everyone else. Generally, though, staff try to schedule these outside school hours. But that’s not to say that emergencies don’t crop up that require someone to leave at short notice. That could have happened here, I suppose.” She smiles. “You know, I do pride myself on my memory, Miss Kinsella—it’s an important asset in this job—however, I’m afraid the exact whereabouts of an individual over six years ago are a little beyond even me.” She beckons me forward, then points at the screen—at the date 23.02.12 and the blue tick right next to it. “All I can go by is the system, and the system is telling me Miss Bailey was here.”
I don’t have the heart to ask if purchasing Lady Gaga tickets falls under the banner of “emergency.”
Somebody should have, though.
>
The officer who took Serena’s statement.
I phone through an update and get DC Susie Ferris’s name from Craig Cooke on the QT. Parnell might be the guy I’d trust with my life—let’s be honest, I’ve trusted him with my boyfriend and it amounts to the same thing—but when it comes to things like this, boy, does he ask a lot of questions. Far quicker to call Cookey, the soul of discretion—or the king of complete apathy, depending on your view.
DC Susie Ferris isn’t DC Susie Ferris anymore, in that she’s no longer a DC, or a Ferris, for that matter. It’s a DI Susie Grainger who sweeps into Caffè Nero, just a few minutes down from Lavender Hill Station, the place where Christopher Masters gave his fingerprints, admitted his guilt, then said no more. Detective Constable to Detective Inspector in six years is no mean feat, to say the least. She looks well on it too. Sturdy, almost stately, with a swishy auburn bob and the kind of clear, radiant skin that suggests five a day, eight hours a night, and a commitment to drinking the recommended daily water intake.
“A full-fat Coke and a caramel brownie,” she says, proving my health-nut radar to be wonky. Unable to decide, I order the same for myself and after a long wait in the queue, we sit down.