It’s half ten in the evening and they’re sitting in the car outside the hall where rehearsals take place. Jess struggles to control her temper and hold her tongue. She starts the car and they drive away in silence while Erica taps furiously at her phone and sniffs aggressively.
Whatever Erica was doing on her phone bears fruit quickly. Half an hour after they get home, Jess’s notifications ping with an email from Olly’s mother:
Please excuse if this is out of turn. Olly said you had an unexpected change of plans and are going away but Erica would like to stay here and finish Guys and Dolls. If you’re agreeable, we’d be happy to have her to stay—separate rooms, of course! Then we could put her on a plane to join you? Give me a ring if we can help. We’re just thrilled about the relationship! Erica is a gorgeous girl!
Jess reflects on her options. It’s a good offer and it’s going to be hard to turn it down without telling both Nick and Erica something’s going on. She considers what it would mean if she took up the offer. Taking Erica to Morocco won’t limit Erica’s communication with her friends, not if there’s Wi-Fi, which there’s bound to be, so if Erica’s friends hear about the podcast, then Erica will, too, wherever she is. Rehearsals could distract her from that, though, perhaps more than being in the company of her parents in Morocco might. That Erica wouldn’t be staying at their home while Jess is away means that if Cody Swift or his girlfriend or any journalists call round, they won’t be able to get to her. They would be hard pushed to track her down at Olly’s house.
Jess wishes she could discuss everything with Nick, but she can’t have him finding out about her contact with Felix. As she tries to think, the cat winds through her legs. “Then there’s you to deal with as well,” she says.
By morning, her mind is made up. She will go, but she’ll let Erica stay. It’ll be good for Erica, a tiny step toward independence. A safe step, the kind a normal teenager would make. The cat can return to the rescue center temporarily.
A notification on her phone tells her that an email has arrived overnight. Sent at midnight, it’s from an address that looks to be Felix’s private account.
Lovely lunch. Nice to catch up. Have a great holiday. Xx
It’s a bland message, yet so riddled with subtext from yesterday that Jess doesn’t know how to reply. She deletes it instead.
Before she has a chance to waver, she books herself a ticket to Marrakech leaving in twenty-four hours and calls Olly’s mum to accept her kind offer, make arrangements for Erica to stay with their family, and get reassurance that Erica and Olly will be looked after and monitored appropriately while Erica is there.
When Jess tells Erica what she’s done she’s rewarded with a crushing hug. “Thank you soooo much,” Erica says. She actually jumps up and down with excitement, then begins to throw her stuff into a bag. Jess says, “You’re welcome, darling,” and is pierced by the thought that Charlie never had one thing like this to look forward to. She can’t remember him jumping up and down with excitement after the age of about seven or eight. He was too street smart. She suppresses an urge to snap at her daughter and tell her to calm down. Erica’s privilege is not her fault, Jess thinks to herself. You made Charlie one way, and you and Nick are making Erica another way. Don’t blame her for that. She knows, too, that she wouldn’t want it any other way for Erica. For Charlie, she’d rewrite the whole book if she could.
By the time she’s packed her own stuff, Jess feels both bolder and relieved about the podcast situation. Felix can handle everything here. He bloody owes her after all, so perhaps this won’t become the crisis she has feared. Perhaps it’s karma and she can actually relax because everything will be okay.
She reckons she’ll surprise Nick in Morocco. She knows where he’s staying and she thinks it might be fun to be there when he gets back to the hotel after a long day on set. She looks up the hotel online. It’s got two pools, a “couples only” area, and the cocktail list looks promising. She crams the last few items into her suitcase and zips it shut.
“Mum?” Erica is in the doorway of her bedroom.
“Yes?”
“I packed. And I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Erica blows her a kiss and disappears as suddenly as she appeared. Jess sits on her bed and wipes a tear from her eye.
Chapter 16
“I didn’t think you were a gossip.”
Fletcher tugs at one of his earlobes. He’s not sure how to respond. Dr. Mary Hayward is standing beside her hatchback in the car park at Southmead Hospital. A red umbrella with a smart leather handle keeps the rain off her. As she waits for his answer, she smiles. She is teasing him. He gets it now.
“That’s why I’ve come to you,” he says. “Because I don’t think you’re one, either.”
“Drink?”
The suggestion makes him feel absurdly happy. His existing plan for the evening is the usual post-divorce void, and he can’t think of a better way to fill it. He admires everything about this woman from her elegant ankles to the way she handles a dead body. They drive into the city center in convoy and find a table upstairs at the Mud Dock Café, which offers an excellent wine list and expansive views across the floating harbor. Rain pits the surface of the water, shattering the reflections of the lit buildings and walkways that line its banks.
Mary orders a glass of red wine and Fletcher says he’ll have the same. He wonders briefly if they’re on a date, but he’s not exactly sure how that’s different from having a chat over wine just like they would over coffee. It was over coffee in her office that he learned Dr. Mary Hayward was an acquaintance of Rhonda Street. She mentioned it around the time of Street’s election to her post.
“Why do you want to know about Rhonda?” Mary asks him.
“You were at Uni with her? Is that right?”
“I asked first.”
He acknowledges she’s right with a raised glass and she chinks hers against it. He sips his wine. It’s very good. On the blackboard behind the bar somebody is chalking up the evening’s specials. “Are you hungry?” he asks. He’s thinking of the pot noodle rings on his table back home. The whole tableau in his dining room is unutterably glum compared to this buzzy place and his current company. She shakes her head and he feels a sharp twinge of disappointment. Back to business, then.
“Rhonda Street was married to our John Doe,” he tells her and notes with pleasure her expression of surprise. It’s hard to shock her.
“Peter somebody?”
“Peter Dale. You were right about the lucky charm. It didn’t take long to ID him once we had that.”
She taps the stem of her wineglass with a fingernail that gleams with polish. “I remember him,” she says. “Good lord. How strange.”
“You met him?”
“Only briefly. It was at their engagement party. He was holding forth and I was introduced to him, but we didn’t exchange more than a few words.”
“What do you remember about him?”
“Um. Height and weight as I described to you in the lab. My impression was that he was a slick sort of a guy. His hair was styled and he wore snappy clothes. I can’t remember what, mind you, but I know that’s what I thought at the time. Funny, isn’t it, how you don’t remember the detail but you do remember impressions? Rhonda was infatuated with him. It was a whirlwind thing. They met and got engaged within a few weeks. People were gossiping about that at the party, as they do. It didn’t last, mind you. Do you know what? I think that’s the first time I’ve worked on the body of somebody I met when they were living. It gives me a bit of a funny feeling.”
She takes another sip of her wine and the liquid moistens her top lip. Fletcher watches her and takes in the modest plunge of her neckline. He thinks—but doesn’t dare say—that this might be the first time he’s seen her outside their work environment. He also thinks that she’s a beautiful woman and that he wants her. It’s not the same way he wanted his ex-wife when they first met. That was young, naive,
and animal. They couldn’t get enough of each other in the early days. That was something, but this is different. Mary Hayward is like the finest trophy in the cabinet. She is classy. You’d look forward to your day if you woke up next to her in the morning. He asks, “Are you still close to Rhonda?”
“No. We were never close. We had a mutual friend at University, so we hung out in the same crowd, but after we left, we lost touch for a while, as you do, when you all start working. I met up with her again when I came to Bristol, but I didn’t see much of her. We never got close. I was surprised to get an invitation to the engagement party, if I’m honest. I heard they had a quickie wedding, just friends and family. It might have been abroad somewhere.”
“Do you remember where?”
She shakes her head. Fletcher notices a mole the size and shape of a beauty spot behind her ear. He takes another sip of wine. He is beginning to feel warmed by it. “Did she have money?” he asks.
“She did. She was noticeably better off than the rest of us at Uni. Better clothes, money for going out whenever she wanted, and her dad bought her a flat in her second year. An investment property. It was very nice and the rest of us were jealous because we lived in such cheap, nasty student flats. The money came from the family business. She worked for her dad when she moved back to Bristol.”
Fletcher ponders this. It doesn’t sound as if Street would be motivated to act criminally by Dale’s cash if she was already comfortably off, but he supposes having money can breed an urge for more of it.
“What about Peter Dale?” he asks. “Moneywise.”
“He was pretty slick, as I said. He definitely looked moneyed, though I don’t know what his actual financial situation was. He was certainly the type you could imagine flashing around wads of cash, but I never saw him do that. Maybe he was one of those guys who act rich when in actual fact they haven’t got two pennies to rub together.”
“He had money,” Fletcher said. “It wasn’t rightfully his, though. He conned a lot of people.”
“I see. And finished up under the tarmac as his comeuppance?”
“Could be.”
“I don’t see Rhonda being involved in that,” she says. “She was too straight.”
“Why was she with him, then?”
She shrugs. “Infatuation? Sex? Those are powerful things when we’re young.”
Fletcher takes a sip of his wine to avoid meeting her eye. It’s as if she’s articulating the very same thoughts he had about his ex-wife earlier, and it feels curiously intimate. “Are you sure you don’t want to get something to eat?” he asks.
He’s dismayed to see her check her watch. “Oh, my goodness! No. I’m sorry. I haven’t got time. I’m supposed to be meeting a friend at the cinema.” She begins to gather up her bag and coat and Fletcher’s disappointment is acute.
“I’ll get this,” he says as she riffles through her purse. He tries to smile graciously. He wants her to go because he fears his dismay that she’s leaving is written all over his face.
“Thanks, John.” She leans down and pecks him on the cheek. It’s chaste, but he savors the feel of it as she walks away. When she’s gone, he feels carved out. He orders another glass of the same red wine and a steak, cooked bloody, and watches the waiter clear away Mary Hayward’s place setting. He tries not to think about whether she might be meeting a male or female friend at the cinema. He checks his phone. No personal texts or calls or emails. It occurs to him that Danny Fryer and Mary Hayward are the sum of his friendships these days, and he wonders how that could have happened. He puts his phone facedown on the table and looks around the restaurant, checking out the other punters while he waits for his food. He tries not to give the name lonely to the way he feels.
“Mr. Noyce is a voluntary attender,” Fletcher tells the sergeant at Southmead Station. “In for a chat, aren’t you, Sidney?”
Sidney Noyce nods, but he’s not really listening because he’s rubbernecking, even though Fletcher can’t imagine what’s so interesting about the dismal waiting area they are passing through. Fletcher settles Sid and his parents into one of the better interview rooms, which is to say it has a window, through which the storm-bruised glow of the winter sun is attempting to penetrate. Fletcher flicks the lights on and leaves the Noyces alone there. He asks Danny to bring them refreshments. He knows he will have to caution Noyce and that he is also obliged to offer him free legal counsel from a solicitor now that Noyce is being questioned at the station. Fletcher has given Noyce the spiel about being “free to leave” and able to ask questions at any time.
It’s not easy working around the system, Fletcher thinks, but he believes he has it covered. Part of him relishes the challenge, but that doesn’t stop his heart from pounding. Fletcher is aware Noyce will need an “appropriate adult” to be with him during questioning because his mental impairment is severe enough that any evidence gathered in an interview with Noyce on his own could be rejected by the court. Valerie Noyce is Fletcher’s preferred “appropriate adult,” and he thinks he can swing that because she is so eager to please. Noyce senior seems to be a gentle giant and not burdened with the smarts himself, so hopefully he will not object. Getting a solicitor in quickly could be tricky, and Fletcher wants it to be quick to minimize the chances of Noyce kicking off. Fletcher wants a solicitor present to ensure that this interview appears to be done with belt and braces. As he heads to the custody suite to see if any of the duty solicitors are lurking and available, he gets a bit of luck: Julie McDowell is just leaving. She has a soft spot for Fletcher. They’ve worked together previously on a number of cases. Once, as they shared a cigarette in the shelter of the columned portico of the Bristol Crown Court, she invited him out for a drink. He declined the invitation—it wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive, but he was recently married—but he gave her enough eye contact to let her know he was tempted. Fletcher has always believed it is important to keep your options open.
“Julie!” he says. “Are you free?”
She’s burdened by a stack of files, but she frees a hand and fixes a loose strand of hair. “Free for what?” she says. “Are we finally having that date?” Fletcher holds up the back of his hand to her, fingers spread, and she pouts at his wedding ring. “Is it something boring, then?” she says.
“I’ve got a person of interest in and I want to interview him quickly. He’s a voluntary attender, but he has special needs. It won’t be in his interest to keep him and his family hanging around.”
“His interest or yours?” she asks. She’s no fool. She’s good at her job, one of the best. She is exactly what Fletcher needs. He doesn’t reply, and she sighs and shifts the weight of her files from one arm to the other. “Have they requested representation?”
“Not yet, but I’m going to strongly recommend that they do.”
“You’re being extremely helpful.”
He ignores that.
“Come on, then,” she says. “Lead the way!”
As she trots beside him on the way to the interview room, Danny meets them in the corridor and lets them know that the Noyces have agreed to Valerie acting as the appropriate adult. Fletcher can feel his stars aligning. He tries not to let his excitement show. When he introduces Julie to the Noyces, he notes that Sid Noyce is looking a bit agitated, but Fletcher’s confident Julie is the right person to calm Noyce down.
Fletcher mainlines instant coffee while he waits for Julie to finish speaking with the Noyces. By the time she invites him and Danny back into the room, the atmosphere has shifted from earlier. Noyce is fidgeting as if he’s waiting in the headmaster’s office and Julie’s expression has transformed from flirtatious to combative. That’ll be because she’s just realized she’s got the prime suspect in the double murder on her hands, thinks Fletcher.
Once formalities are over and Fletcher is sure the machine recording the interview is working, he gives Noyce his best friendly smile. “How are you doing, Sidney?”
“Fine!” Noyce says and immed
iately slaps his hand over his mouth as if he’s remembered something. His eyes swivel to Julie. She and Valerie Noyce look tense.
“That’s great,” Fletcher says. “Are you comfortable?”
Noyce’s eyes bulge. He looks at Julie and she inclines her head slightly. “No comment?” Noyce says. Julie winks at him and he beams.
“How old are you, Sid?” Fletcher asks. “You don’t mind me calling you Sid, do you?”
Noyce’s lips curl in and then unfurl. Fletcher knows how hard it is to maintain a “no comment” interview even if you don’t have learning difficulties. Julie gives a small shake of her head for Sid’s benefit and he repeats, “No comment.”
Attaboy, thinks Fletcher, but he leans back in his chair and frowns. Fletcher wants Noyce to think he’s disappointed him. He asks a few more benign questions and Noyce answers “no comment” to each one. Each time he does, he seems to gain a little more confidence, grinning at Julie, who nods back at him reassuringly, and Fletcher glowers a little bit more. Fletcher’s got to hand it to Julie, she had only a few minutes to gain Sid’s trust and she’s done that. She would have made a good detective, he thinks.
He asks a few more questions. They remain deliberately mundane, though Fletcher knows Julie won’t let him get away with that for long. Fletcher is waiting for signs that Noyce is not finding it quite so much fun to give a “no comment” response. Fletcher keeps his voice flat. The questions are small and detailed. Boring. He needs to take time to work up to the interesting stuff. In fact, he wants to stretch time out, pull it like a piece of elastic right as far as it will go just before snapping. He’s playing a delicate game, because if he takes too long or strays too far off topic, he runs the risk of Noyce becoming totally uncooperative or Julie stopping proceedings. She is already looking dubious.
Fletcher breaks off from questioning and falls silent. He spends a few moments pretending to consult his notebook. Noyce fidgets. Julie’s eyes are narrow slits. Noyce throws his head back and stares at the ceiling. He lets out a big sigh. Now, Fletcher thinks. Step it up a gear now. He asks Noyce where he was on Sunday and what he did. He asks how Noyce knew the boys and what his relationship was like with them. He asks general questions and detailed ones. He speaks in a more upbeat manner. He maintains a friendly demeanor. He performs faultlessly. Noyce seems reenergized and comes back with “no comment” answers every time.
I Know You Know Page 18