To say that the place we are headed to is remote would be an understatement. Howard Smail has done reclusive in style. We arrive at his village in the late afternoon. It feels as if it is on the edge of the world. Old fishermen’s cottages teeter on the edge of the land, held up on stilts that disappear into glassy water. Dominating the roadside where we stop is a large wooden structure that resembles the skeleton of an old chapel. Stockfish are draped over every horizontal beam, yellow-brown and tightly packed. They smell fetid and salty. There is snow on the ground, but not as much as I was expecting. We scramble across the rocks to look at the water in the inlet. It seems bottomless. Reflections of the dark mountains surrounding us float on the surface. Below, large jellyfish drift, transparent tentacles wafting unhurriedly. Everything we see is beautiful and mesmerizing, yet harsh.
Howard Smail’s house is only two miles down the road. We park the car and I get out. I’m standing beside a five-bar gate at the entrance to the driveway of a modest traditional property. It’s late afternoon and the light has almost faded completely. There’s a sign on the gate. I can’t read Norwegian, but the picture of a large dog tells me everything I need to know. Maya stays in the car. I open the gate and walk toward the door. I can see lights on inside the property and hear a dog barking. I ring the bell and chimes sound from inside the house. The door opens a crack.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Smail? Sir, my name is Cody Swift. I don’t know if you remember me? No? Well, that’s okay. I’ve come here to see you because I’m working on a podcast about the murders of Scott Ashby and Charlie Paige.”
That sound you just heard? That was the sound of Smail’s front door slamming in my face. I try calling out to him.
“Charlie and Scott were my best friends, Mr. Smail! I don’t know if you know, but Sidney Noyce took his own life recently. I’m investigating allegations that police put the wrong man behind bars. Do you have a comment for me, Mr. Smail?”
He didn’t. The door remains shut and the dog continues to bark. Maya watches from the car, her face white behind the windscreen. I retreated.
That night, as the northern lights snaked across the sky, Maya and I decided I should write Howard Smail a letter. We could afford to spend only one more full day in the Lofoten Islands before starting our trek back to the airport, so we hand-delivered the letter first thing the following morning. Howard Smail called early afternoon, just when we were beginning to give up hope. He said four words: “You can come now.”
The sound of the dog barking is more distant when I approach his house for the second time. The daylight will not last much longer, but today there is enough of it that I can see his house is positioned on the rocky shore of an inlet and in the shadow of a sheer mountainside. Smail shows me in with few words and invites me to sit in a small lounge paneled in cream-painted wood and warmed by a stove. A fine antique telescope is mounted on a stand and points at the mountainside.
What follows is a recording of our conversation. Smail took control of the interview at the start. He immediately addressed what might otherwise have been the elephant in the room: the scandal that forced him out of his job during the investigation into Charlie and Scott’s deaths.
“I’m going to say this once and I will not repeat it: I did not assault Jessica Paige. I exhibited no inappropriate behavior around her. Her accusation was entirely untrue. The charge was fabricated against me in order to ruin me and to halt certain aspects of the investigation. I’m prepared to discuss the investigation with you, because your letter was very honest, but on condition we don’t talk about the accusation and you report that I maintain my innocence.”
“Of course.”
“So, what do you want to know?”
“I have a list of questions we can work through, or you can start by telling me what you remember and we can go from there?”
“Is that thing recording already?”
“Yes.”
“The case was a Category A murder investigation. That’s as serious as it gets. Resources were not a problem. I picked the best men for my team. I launched that investigation meticulously. This is the kind of case where you don’t even care if you’re paid or not, because it involves kids. Your only goal is to catch whoever took the lives of those two boys and you are prepared to do whatever it takes. Nobody wants to see this investigation fail. Nobody apart from the person who committed the crime.”
“Can you tell me about your team?”
“My team was excellent. I picked John Fletcher to be my deputy because he’d come to my attention as a very bright up-and-coming detective, and I wanted to give him an opportunity. Plus, he was one of the officers who found the boys. He found them and Charlie Paige died in his arms. That’s the kind of thing that stays with you your whole career, probably until your dying day. Even if he wouldn’t admit to it—because he is not the type of guy to show emotions—I’m sure that moment still haunts John Fletcher today and will do so until the end of his own life. It meant that by the time I appointed Fletcher to deputy investigating officer, the case was already in his bones.”
“Can you talk about the first few days of the case?”
“A murder case is a complicated thing. Always. The lead detective must take his or her time at first, even though time is the one thing you haven’t got. You need to ignore that. No matter how crazy the press is going around you and how much pressure is on you from families and senior officers to solve the case quickly, you cannot rush in. See out that window? Where the telescope is pointing?”
“The mountainside?”
“See how the clouds send shadows scudding across it, so one moment it looks black, then it’s a dark green, then sunshine glints off one particular area, but that changes after a few seconds? There is snow, but it can melt or be replenished. It disguises the contours. To get the measure of that mountain, you need to look at it over time. You cannot make a swift assessment of the lay of the land. A murder case is like that. There are two sea eagle families who live around this fjord. Imagine one of them is hovering above the landscape, searching the water for signs of prey. He’s assessing if the water is choppy or glassy, if he can see what he’s looking for or not. That’s the first stage of an investigation. You need an overview of everything. You are looking for facts. What are the facts? They will begin to emerge if you are patient, and if you don’t form your own theories before the investigation has even begun. When the sea eagle is satisfied that he has a good overview of what is going on, he drops down lower. Maybe he’s seen something that draws his attention to a particular spot. He’s hovering closer to the water now, strategizing about how to make his catch, the speed he’ll need, angles of attack, working out if what he thinks he can see is really prey or just a shadow or a piece of plastic floating in the water. If he drops down too early or the wrong way, he’s blown it. The prey will get away and the eagle will go hungry. So he makes sure he knows what he’s looking at. He makes sure he’s sure. The first few hours and days of an investigation are all about establishing facts, finding out what is true and working with that, forming theories based on the facts. Then, when you are sure, and only then do you swoop down and bag your prey. That’s the idea, anyway.”
“Does that mean you were looking at a wide pool of suspects?”
“Families of victims are always of immediate interest. Statistics tell you a family member can be a likely perpetrator in any homicide. But we never assume. We were gathering information about the boys, their families, but also their friends, their neighbors, the community, people’s habits and patterns, and so on.”
By this point in our conversation, the light in the room has become grainy, smudging Smail’s features. He gets up with a grunt to switch on a lamp and at the same time retrieves a sheaf of papers from a desk drawer. He sits down with the papers on his lap. I’m the first to speak.
“Was there agreement amongst the team about which leads you should pursue?”
“There may be repercussio
ns if I discuss that.”
“Even here? Now?”
“I’m not as vulnerable as if I was in the UK, but people can reach you. They won’t like me talking about the case at all, let alone about internal decision-making. It’s not what you do. Ever. It’s taboo. I’m persona non grata anyway, but this will make it worse. Ask yourself if that’s something you would willingly bring on yourself.”
“I understand.”
“I will say that there were disagreements, but I was the senior investigating officer, so I should have had the final call on any decisions. Unfortunately, I was not on the investigation for long enough to enforce those decisions.”
“Because of the accusation made by Jessica Paige?”
“Because of that. I was set up.”
“Who set you up?”
“I won’t speculate about that on tape. But you might ask yourself who had the most to gain from my ‘disgrace.’”
Smail looks agitated. He puts the papers down just far enough away so I can’t make out what they are. He gets up and feeds the stove with a few logs that have been precisely chopped into small pieces. Flames surge around them after he closes the stove door. When he retakes his seat, he grabs the papers and holds them up.
“This is a copy of my policy book from the case.”
“Can you explain what that is?”
“A policy book is kept by the lead detective on every case. He uses it to make a record of each of the decisions he makes and the rationale behind them. Obviously, this isn’t the actual book. That will be under lock and key in Bristol with the original case files. This is a photocopy.”
“Why do you have a photocopy?”
“I wouldn’t be the first officer who took a copy of a document that’s officially police property and mailed it to himself. It’s an insurance policy.”
“Why do you need an insurance policy?”
“I knew I was about to be under investigation for something I didn’t do. I wanted to keep a record of my decision-making on the case to protect myself from further accusations.”
“Are you saying you were concerned people might tamper with your policy book after you left the investigation? In order to misrepresent your work?”
“If somebody is going to manufacture a sexual assault allegation, why wouldn’t they also try to discredit my work? Look, when things are going well, CID is the best place in the world to work, but when they’re not going well, it can feel like the loneliest place on earth.”
“Lonelier than here?”
“People think I came here to escape. But who really escapes these days? It’s impossible unless you’re willing to give up everybody you’ve ever loved. No, I came here because it’s home. My mother is from this island.”
“Are you willing to share the contents of those papers?”
“I might be. If I think it’s relevant.”
“Can I see the papers?”
“No. I want to listen to more of your podcast before I decide what I might release. You have editorial control over your material, which is a powerful thing, and I want to see where you’re going with all this.”
“I have to prove myself?”
“We all have to prove ourselves.”
“And how do I know you are telling the truth?”
“That’s up to you to decide. Personally, I’ve nothing to prove.”
“Except that the accusation against you was fabricated.”
“Except for that, yes.”
Howard Smail and I spoke late into the night and I’ll share more of our conversation in future episodes. He continued to talk about the case with the same strange mixture of defensiveness, paranoia, and acuity. He had such good recall of the details it was as if it had happened yesterday. He gave me a lot to think about. He also agreed to keep in touch. Maya and I made the long drive back to the airport feeling elated.
On our return to Bristol, I made efforts to contact Detective Inspector John Fletcher. He is still in service in the Criminal Investigations Department and his rank hasn’t changed. A little while ago, after a frustrating few days of leaving messages, I got a call back from him and we met in a mall car park, a location suggested by him.
It was very strange to see Detective Fletcher in person again after all these years. He still had the steely detective’s gaze. He explained he was unable to share details about the investigation and could discuss only what is already in the public domain. He explained that the case remained closed as far as police were concerned, regardless of Weston’s allegations, but that police would of course consider any new evidence, should it arise. He was utterly professional. He wished me well. I wouldn’t have expected him to say anything different, however frustrating it might be, because his hands are tied. He also told me I could call him anytime, and it’s good to have the lines of communication open.
In the next episode, we’ll be discovering more about the prime suspect in the case, Sidney Noyce. He was charged and convicted of the murders of Charlie and Scott. This is Valerie Noyce, his mother:
“Sidney grew bigger than his dad before he was seventeen, but he never developed in his head. The doctors and the social workers told us he would only ever have the sense of a ten-year-old, and they were right. They call it mental impairment these days. Back then they said Sid was a retard. It’s not a nice word, is it?”
Chapter 9
Jess sits on the easy chair in the corner of the bedroom she and Nick share and watches him pack. She loves the way he does it so precisely: garments rolled or carefully folded and neatly tucked into place. He’s finally off to Morocco for his six-week shoot and has managed to fit everything he needs into a modest-sized bag. He zips it shut.
“Done,” he says.
“Good job.”
Jess hasn’t told Nick about the journalist who ambushed her outside the house when he was away before. She’s worked hard to cover the agitation she felt in the aftermath of that. Nor has she mentioned the email she received this morning.
“Come and visit me in Morocco,” Nick says. “Please. Maybe Erica could come, too, if you make it half term, and bring Olly. They could come to the set.”
“I’ll price up flights,” she says.
“Do you mean it?”
“Of course!” She doesn’t mean it, though. The email that landed in her inbox this morning has made a trip impossible, but she can’t tell him. Once again, she needs him to leave so she has time and headspace to deal with this her way.
The email was from a woman called Maya Summers who described herself as Cody Swift’s “life partner” and explained that she was working on the podcast with him. Would it be possible, the note had asked, if Jess didn’t want to meet with Cody, for Jess and Maya to maybe get to know each other over email in the first instance, woman to woman? Jess felt her irritation mount as she read it. As if opening up to a woman podcaster was any less exposing than talking to Cody! They must think she was born yesterday. She snorted as she read the ridiculous email, but she also felt her dread ratchet back up because it wasn’t looking likely that Cody was going to back off anytime soon. It’s tempting to get on a plane to Morocco and hope the whole thing will go away, but what if it doesn’t die down, but balloons instead? She wouldn’t be able to stay away forever. She needs to act.
As soon as Nick has left, Jess finds Felix’s website online once again and clicks through to the “Contact Us” page. She dials his office. Her call is answered by a woman with a clipped voice: “Felix Abernathy PR.”
“Can I speak to Felix, please?”
“He’s unavailable just now. Can I help you?”
“I need to speak to him urgently. I’m an old friend.”
“Can I take your name?”
“Jessy Paige.” Jess can hear a keyboard clacking at the other end of the line. “It’s a bit of business,” she adds, because she knows that money talks louder than anything else for Felix. She’s pleased with how she’s coming over. She sounds businesslike. She recites her phone
number, says a polite goodbye, hangs up, and gives in to her nerves. Her forehead is still resting on the cool surface of her desk when her mobile rings. She sits up and looks at the screen. It’s a London number. She takes a deep breath before answering. “Hello.”
“Jessy Paige!” Felix’s voice resonates down the line. It hasn’t changed a bit. He sounds so confident, as if he owns her still.
She shuts her eyes. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“I wouldn’t miss a catch-up with you for the world. How are you? How’s married life treating you?” The question is more harmful than it seems. Jess is pretty sure he is purposely echoing words she spat at him years ago, after she had met Nick and when she finally stood up to Felix and refused to take part in one of his sex parties. “I’m with someone now, someone good,” she had said, prying his fingers off her arm. “I want normal. We’re getting married.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be nice to other men now and then,” he’d replied. “Since when did you zip your knickers up and get so bloody bourgeois?” He’d followed that up with a direct hit: “Probably for the best, though, darling. I’ve had complaints about your dead eyes.”
She used to be able to disarm Felix occasionally by being completely honest and she goes for that tactic over the phone now. “It’s really lovely,” she says. “I’m very happy. How about you?”
“Oh, I’m happy as a bloody bandicoot, darling, or I was until my girl said you had a bit of business for me, which makes me think you’re in a spot of bother like last time you rang. What was that? Sixteen years ago?”
He’s referring to the time when she was on Dart Street and he quashed the story about Charlie for her. It was before the millennium. Long enough ago that the internet didn’t instantly deliver every news item straight to people’s fingertips. She knows she won’t be so lucky if the story goes big nowadays.
“Yes,” she says. “Near enough.”
“What’s the problem? What can I do?”
“Do you recall the name Cody Swift?”
“Refresh my memory.”
I Know You Know Page 10