by Caz Frear
I bring Holly up on my phone. Fellows walks around the island and stands behind me, leaning in closer than he needs to, so close I can smell the sticker adhesive on his cheek. There’s a long pause before he speaks—the kettle coming to the boil, Kelsey singing a song about five little monkeys outside. “No, can’t help, I’m afraid. Don’t recognize her.”
“Why the hesitation?”
“I see a lot of her kind, just wanted to be sure.”
Parnell swivels his stool to face him. “You know we’ll be showing Holly’s photo to everyone in your circle, Mr. Fellows, and I don’t just mean the people who sent us on a wild-goose chase around London this morning.”
I have to ask, “Were you here the whole time this morning, Simon, hiding behind an old biddy? What was she going to do? Attack us with the mop if we tried to come in?”
He laughs. “I wouldn’t let Alma hear you call her that! Sharp as a tiger’s tooth, that one. I bought her a gym membership last Christmas—she’s there at six a.m. every morning when you’re still hitting snooze, darling.”
“You’re a good employer,” says Parnell, eyes steady on his. “But you’ve made plenty of enemies who I daresay will be happy to help us. And then there’s your neighbors, the restaurants you frequented, the pubs you drank in. If anyone so much as saw Holly Kemp within a hundred feet of you, we’ll be back, and we’ll be drawing conclusions about why you lied about knowing her.”
“Be my guest. I can make a list if that makes your lives easier.”
“No need,” says Parnell. “We can access plenty of information about you.”
A small bow. “I’m honored.”
Kelsey skips in, smearing dry mud and twigs all over Alma’s recently washed floor. There isn’t a trace of Fellows in her. Pale and white blond, blue veins shining through, like a sprite from a Scandinavian fairy tale. Her grandfather scoops her up with one deeply tanned arm.
“Ever spent much time in Cambridgeshire, Simon?” I spot a missed call from Jacqui as I slide my phone back in my pocket.
Fellows pretends to spit on the floor. “Sorry, just a little joke. I was an Oxford man. Keble College. We’re trained to hiss at the C word.”
“You had a privileged start in life,” says Parnell. “You could have done anything and yet . . .” He leaves it there. Alleged, alleged, alleged.
Fellows looks around, smiling. “Oh, I don’t think I’ve done too badly, do you?”
“Let me give you a more specific C word,” I interrupt, before Parnell makes an accusation that ties him up in paperwork until Christmas. “Caxton. It’s South Cambridgeshire, around forty miles from the university. Do you know it?”
“No.”
“You’re quite sure.”
“Quite sure.” He looks at Kelsey. “I’m not being much help to these nice people, am I, baby? But Grandpa’s trying. You should always try to help the police.”
“Good of you, Mr. Fellows. Maybe you can help by telling us where you were on the afternoon and evening of Thursday 23rd February, 2012? That’s the last time Holly Kemp was seen alive.”
It’s a question we have to ask but pretty pointless all the same. There’s a vague expectation that most people should be able to recall their movements over the past month or so without too much fluster. Anything beyond that, a blank face is the norm. Six years later—forget about it.
But Fellows’ face isn’t blank.
“I can tell you exactly where I was. Street opened that day, I was there for most of it.” We wait for an explanation. “Contrary to popular myth, I’m a legitimate businessman, Luigi. An investor. Street was a Peruvian-themed place over in Hoxton. The idea of street food was still up-and-coming then. Thought we’d catch the wave, make a fortune. It didn’t work out. We got the concept all wrong, tried to make it a fine-dining experience. Turns out people don’t want to pay fine-dining prices for food you’d normally buy off a market stall. We closed in 2014. You live and learn.”
We. As if he was choosing the color scheme, curating the menu, rather than using the place to launder drug money.
“You’ve got a good memory,” I say. “I couldn’t tell you what I was doing on 23rd February this year.”
He shrugs. “Street was the first restaurant I invested in. My baby. I’m into double figures now. Much less hassle than the clubs, I’ll tell you. As a product, food’s a lot less stressful than women.”
He grins. I grin back. I won’t let him faze me.
“What about New Year’s Eve 2011?” I think about mentioning Holly’s allegation, but let’s see what he has to say first. “Can you remember where you were?”
“Bantry Bay, Cape Town. Why?”
“Quick on the draw again,” says Parnell.
“It was a friend’s sixtieth. An amazing night. Stays in the memory, you know? Do you want to see my passport stamp?”
“Did you travel to Cape Town alone?” I ask.
He lets out a sigh—not stressed, just bored. “If you mean did I travel to Cape Town with the woman I’ve told you I never met, then no, I didn’t.”
Parnell looks at me, then lowers his eyes. A sign we should keep our counsel. We need to figure this out first. Why wouldn’t Holly have mentioned Cape Town to Dale Peters? Why would she leave that significant detail out?
I keep my voice neutral. “So come on then, Simon. Give us a theory. Why do you think Holly Kemp, a supposed complete stranger, would fabricate an entire relationship? And why you?”
“Mad as a March hare, obviously. Not right in the head.”
He draws two fingers to his temple, making the tiniest of circular motions before jerking them skyward with a cold, sharp laugh.
The universal cuckoo sign, the twirl of his fingers indicating that Holly had a screw loose?
Or a finger gun?
A brazen confession. A gauntlet thrown down.
16
Linda Denby’s been waiting an hour by the time we get back, although she could have been waiting since 1983 judging by the poodle perm and the oversized glasses that cover half her face. It’s a nice face, though. Plump and lined and farmer’s-wife rosy. And I kind of like her time-warp vibe. It makes her seem consistent, dependable, not given to flights of fancy or changes in fashion. Probably everything you want in a foster parent.
We’re in the “soft” interview room, the pastel-hued one reserved for visitors, not suspects. If you’re helping, not hindering us, you get a nice squidgy sofa and Van Gogh’s Sunflowers to gaze on. You also get table service. Someone’s brought Linda a mug of tea—Flowers, presumably, as it’s definitely his mug, LEGEND stamped across the front.
Linda Denby seems inclined to agree.
“It was so good of that big chap to make it himself. I can’t bear drinking tea out of those plastic cups. He made it just the way I like it too—milky-beige with two sugars.” She smiles. “Holly always used to say I liked a drop of tea with my milk, not the other way round.”
“Just like my wife.” Parnell’s opted to sit in.
“Hey, never mind the big chap,” I say. “It was good of you to come in so quickly and to wait for us. We headed back as soon as we got our colleague’s message, but you know what it’s like at this time on a Friday. It’d be quicker to hopscotch across Central London than drive.”
“I don’t drive. I can’t,” she clarifies. “Four disastrous lessons in 1982 and that was me done. I don’t need to, anyway, not living in Islington.”
“You don’t have to drive to be a foster parent?” I ask.
“Almost certainly in rural places, but in London, no. There’s far more important qualities than being able to execute a three-point turn.”
“Such as . . . ?”
“Oh, humor, patience, knowing how to discipline without losing your temper. And in any case, Sean drives.” Another crinkly smile; I’d say she’s not far off sixty. “Sean does the driving and I do the disciplining. That’s another quality you need—teamwork.”
“Could Sean not come?” a
sks Parnell.
She shakes her head; the lacquered perm stays stock-still. “No, he had to take a day off for the hospital yesterday—MRI scan, I think a knee replacement isn’t too far off—so there’s no way he could take another, not at short notice. No, I’m afraid I’ll have to do, but I’m sure I can answer whatever it is you want to know.” A curious frown. “Although we hadn’t actually seen Holly for years before she disappeared. We’d send her a birthday card if we knew her address and she’d always call on Christmas Eve—usually drunk as a lord, but the gesture was sweet. She loved Christmas. We only had two Christmases with her, but they were certainly memorable. She made us play ‘Who can keep their Christmas cracker hat on the longest.’ It was a tradition when she was a child, apparently. She won both times. She was still wearing it on Boxing Day—slept in it, would you believe!”
“This is perfect, Linda,” I say, encouraging her from the opposite squishy sofa. “This is the kind of stuff we’re after. You see, I—we—don’t feel like we’ve got a great handle on Holly yet. I met her friends yesterday, of course, but that’s only one viewpoint.”
“You met Emma and Kayleigh? They were nice girls. Kayleigh found me on Facebook, told me about the service. ’Course we couldn’t go, what with the MRI.” She tips her head, looking up at the ceiling. “There were another two, weren’t there? Gosh, I forget their names now. Is that awful?”
“Shona and Josh. And no, not awful at all. It’s a long time since Holly was in your care.”
She reads my cue perfectly.
“Yes, she came to us in 2003 when she was nearly fourteen. She’d been in the system for three, four years by then, and in that time alone she’d already had several different social workers, two different foster families, two extended stays in a residential unit—not happy ones, either.”
At ten years old, I was in the throes of loathing Dad. My trust had been broken two years earlier when Maryanne Doyle got into his car and he’d lied to the police about ever meeting her. But at least I’d been safe. Safe and warm and loved and fed in my Spice Girls–themed bedroom.
“Why weren’t they happy?” I ask.
“There was a real culture of bullying in both of the homes, particularly Sycamore Croft; it had an awful reputation. And I’m not talking occasional name-calling or a bit of scrapping, regrettable as that is. I’m talking brutal hierarchies—the strong ones bullying the weak ones or the younger ones. Physical abuse, definitely. Sexual abuse . . . well, it happened.” My heart sinks. “And no, Holly never complained about the latter, but I always wondered . . . she’d definitely been badly beaten several times. We knew that when we took her in. The problem was she was small, shy, weak when she first came into the system. ‘Geeky,’ one of her social workers called her. She was studious, loved reading, and depressing as it sounds, that can make you a target in some establishments.” Regret crosses her face. “She toughened up, though, no doubt about that. There was nothing shy or weak about the girl who arrived in our home.”
“She was a handful,” says Parnell. A redundant observation but it keeps Linda in the flow.
“Oh, she was. A handful and a half! But then most Sycamore kids were. We were prepared for it, as prepared as you can be.”
“So what did she get up to?” I ask.
She puts the mug on the floor, next to her worn sandal. “She had ‘a mouth’ as my mum used to say. Our children were older by then, sixth form and university, and I’m sure they’d heard worse, so I chose not to go to battle over that. But she ran away a few times. Stayed out late, drinking and smoking. Very little respect for curfews or homework deadlines. And there were other issues at school—bullying . . .”
I interrupt. “Holly was the bully, or she was being bullied?”
“The former, I’m afraid. The switch from victim to bully is really very common. And not to make light of it, but it was entirely normal, given what she’d been through.” She brings her hands to her lap. “Anyway, I got through to her in the end, and she settled down after a few months. Oh, I’m not saying she was an angel, but she was a nice kid underneath all the front. Even when she was acting out, you couldn’t help liking her. She was funny, sharp, and so, so interested in the world. She wanted to go everywhere, see everything. She was always asking questions. She got back into reading for a while, but it didn’t last—I think she always had the bullies in her head telling her she was a loser, a nerd, a geek—as if that’s a huge insult.” She rolls her eyes, kindly. “No, I’m afraid it was clothes, makeup, vacuous celebrities, that became her passion. Oh, and our dog, Buster—they were inseparable.”
“So why did she leave you?” I ask. “DCI Tessa Dyer recalls you saying . . .”
Linda claps her hands. “Oh, Tess, she was wonderful. So efficient, but you could tell she really cared. She was as devastated as we were when they couldn’t charge that . . . that man, with Holly’s murder.”
I try again. “Tess recalled you saying that Holly had become so disruptive she had to leave.” Her face changes. “Sorry, did we pick that up wrong?”
She fixes me with a bold stare—my punishment for implying that she gave up on Holly, which, for the record, was absolutely not my intention.
“I could live with disruptive. I had lived with disruptive. I couldn’t live with destructive, with dangerous.”
“To herself or other people?”
“Both, and we were fostering another child by then, a much younger girl. It was an agonizing decision and we didn’t come to it overnight. We had several Placement Support Meetings, discussed various strategies, but in the end, Sean and I had to do what was best for us.” She’s on the defensive straightaway. “And if that sounds harsh, you’ll be surprised to know that one of the first things they tell you when you become a foster parent is to make sure you practice high levels of self-care. You’re no good to your other children, or any future children, if you feel burned out and resentful.”
Which makes total sense, of course. And yet you can’t help but feel heartsick for a vulnerable teenage girl who’s effectively been told that she’s too hot to handle.
“So what was she doing that was dangerous?”
“What wasn’t she doing by that point? Staying out until one, two a.m. Wouldn’t say where she’d been, who she’d been with. One time, she staggered in, completely out of it, with her top on back to front, scratches and bruises all up her arms and legs. Next day, two men turn up at the door. They were easily in their twenties but Holly announces they’re her boyfriends—both of them, as if one wasn’t bad enough. Well, of course, Sean tried to warn them off, got a punch in the jaw for his efforts. Oh, and then there was the time she decided she knew how to drive a car at age fifteen. Cue a call from the police to say she’s been joyriding and she’s injured. We rushed to The Whittington and there she was, finding the whole thing hilarious.”
Should this be a red card, or a sign she needed more help? I don’t know and I can’t judge.
“It was the drugs that sealed it, though—she was taking drugs in the house. Betsy, that was the other child we were fostering, got hold of an ecstasy tablet . . .” She shivers. “I found it just in time, but it was the last straw. We’d warned her and warned her and warned her. Of course, I often think now that if we’d handled things differently, maybe she’d have taken a different path, maybe she’d never have been in Clapham that day.”
“I’m sure you made the right decision.” It feels like the kind thing to say.
She shoots straight back. “Oh, I don’t regret the decision, but I do regret not considering the obvious . . .” We wait for the obvious as she fiddles with her sandal. “Losing her parents in such quick succession at a young age, the violence at Sycamore, foster placements breaking down . . .” She takes a long, measured breath. “I think Holly had PTSD. Dangerous, reckless behavior is a classic symptom, but I just passed it off as teenage behavior—heightened teenage behavior, admittedly. I honestly think it could have been a mental illness, though. She jus
t didn’t seem to have any sense of danger, none whatsoever. She’d walk alone late at night. She’d pick fights with people you really shouldn’t pick fights with. She’d push people to the edge, almost for fun. I think she wanted them to strike back to confirm her belief that the world was bleak and other people were the enemy.” She shrugs. “I’m not a psychologist, but the more I’ve thought about it over the years, the more it makes sense.”
It does.
And Simon Fellows is definitely someone you really shouldn’t pick a fight with.
17
“Who’s been sitting in my chair?” I ask, trying and failing to adjust the height back to something less suited to a giraffe.
“That’ll have been DCI Dyer, Goldilocks.” Ben Swaines’ voice hovers above me. I look up to see him standing there, dangling a document like a dog treat. “Do you need a hand with that?”
“Nah, I’m done,” I say stubbornly. “And, not to be pedantic, but it was the three bears that said that, not Goldilocks.” I stand up, then sit down, try the chair out for size. It’ll do until I get Parnell to fix it properly. “So what’s that in your hand, then?”
“Aha, wouldn’t you like to know?” Swaines jerks his arm back and forth, daring me to make a grab for it. Instead, I turn to Emily. “Ems, Ben’s being a dick. What’s he got that I’m supposed to be excited about?”
A bawdy laugh from Pete Flowers.
Emily and I aren’t exactly friends, but we’ve established something of an entente cordiale of late. An acceptance that while we have little in common, bar a womb and an aversion to sushi, we’re both twenty-something women who share the same cramped space for sixty hours a week, so we might as well unite against the patriarchy when the need arises. Which, fortunately for us, isn’t all that often. The odd filthy laugh from Flowers, or Ben Swaines being a good-natured dick occasionally. Steele was right: we’ve got a nice setup.