When Fletcher has worked through this first tranche of more focused questions, he peels the top page off a sheaf of papers he’s holding and peers at the second one as if it has important notes on it. It doesn’t. It’s empty, but the gesture has the desired effect because Noyce scowls at the back of it. “Aren’t we finished yet?” he asks. He sounds tired.
“We’re just trying to get to the truth of this,” Fletcher says. He chooses his words carefully, echoing what he said to Noyce in the car earlier, putting emphasis on the word truth and hoping it will jog Noyce’s memory. “That can take some time.”
Noyce squirms in his seat. He hangs his head and his forehead collapses into a frown. Fletcher watches him like a hawk. It might be now, he thinks. Come on. Noyce looks up. The lights have come on behind the eyes. Fletcher speaks before Noyce has a chance to. He wants to get the right question in at precisely the right moment.
“Sidney, earlier you said you saw Charlie’s and Scott’s bodies. Can you tell me about that?”
Noyce looks elated. He knows the answer to this and he thinks it’s his “get out of jail free” card. Fletcher is confident Noyce will ignore the “no comment” instruction and he hopes to God he’s right because he’s missed his moment if not. Julie can sense a shift in atmosphere. She moves her hand as if she’s going to lay it on Noyce’s arm but thinks better of it. Fletcher keeps his poker face on. It’s out of your control now, honey, he thinks. Noyce sits up as straight as if he has a rod in his back and meets Fletcher’s eye firmly and with excitement like the kid in class who is certain of the answer to a math problem: “I hurt them,” he says.
Valerie squeezes her eyes shut and Julie looks as if she’s been thumped.
“Can I go now?” Sid says. He’s smiling.
“Just a couple more questions, if you wouldn’t mind,” Fletcher says. He has to be very careful what he asks. “Where were the boys when you hurt them?”
“At the back of the stand.”
“Which stand?”
“The dog track.”
“How did you hurt them?”
“I left them so hurt they were dying.”
“Why did you do it, Sidney?”
“I’m not allowed to talk to them or touch them or follow them.”
“And does that make you angry?” Fletcher is asking the same question he put to Noyce in his bedroom and praying silently that it produces the same answers.
Noyce nods.
“Can you give us an answer for the tape, please?”
“I get angry and sad.”
“You told me there is something you do when you get angry, do you remember what you said?”
“I hit.”
Danny looks at Fletcher, who nods. He wants to stop this before Noyce gets a chance to deny hitting the boys. He thinks they have enough for an arrest. Danny moves around the table toward Noyce and says, “Sidney Noyce, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby. You do not have to say anything, but anything . . .”
As Danny reads Noyce his rights and Noyce’s smile fades, first into confusion and then dismay, Fletcher sits back in his chair and feels absolutely satisfied. He meets Julie’s eye and she gives a disappointed shake of her head. Does she sense a setup? He doesn’t think so and he doesn’t care. Noyce has only confessed to what he’s done. His guilt is not in doubt for Fletcher.
Fletcher speaks into the tape recorder to say that the interview is over. He is so looking forward to telling Smail that he, Fletcher, has obtained a confession to the murders and has the suspect in custody.
Danny needs two burly officers to help him restrain Noyce and get him to the custody suite. He gets his tour of the jail now, Fletcher thinks.
It’s Time to Tell
Episode 7—The Many Lives of Jessica Paige
“When I look in the mirror at the end of the day, I think, did you try to help somebody today? If the answer is yes, I can live with myself.”
My name is Cody Swift. I’m a filmmaker and your host of It’s Time to Tell, a Dishlicker Podcast Production. The clip you just heard is Jessica Paige in her role as tough girl Amber Rowe in TV soap opera Dart Street. In this episode, we’re going to be asking: Who is the real Jessica Paige? Maya and I have continued our efforts to contact Jessica in the hope she might agree to an interview, but we have had no success, so you’ll be hearing mostly from people who knew Jessica back in 1996.
“When they were little, we brought up our kids together, we did everything together, but Jessy turned into a party girl. Going out became like a drug to her. She never came out with us, though. The pub wasn’t good enough for her. She was always off to some nightclub or restaurant. She showed off about it. Sometimes a car used to pick her up. But she never really talked about who she was with. She said she had a boyfriend, but I don’t remember her mentioning his name. Me and the other girls used to think he was really rich. We were jealous of her. She started keeping to herself a few years before Charlie died, so that was when we drifted apart. It was like she thought she was better than us. I missed her and my daughter missed Charlie.”
That’s the voice of Kirsty Brown, another teenage mum who knew Jessy on the Glenfrome Estate. The next clip you’ll hear is Doris Russo, who lived in the flat next door to Jessy and Charlie:
“I used to babysit for Charlie a lot. I sat for him for free, but Jessy asked me so often after a while I had to say no. It was stopping me seeing my own grandkids, and I didn’t think it was fair on him, her being out so much. I didn’t want to encourage it. I don’t know how she managed after I stopped. She didn’t have many friends on the estate. She kept herself apart. Charlie was a lovely boy, though. He loved to have a story read to him.”
My mother, Julie Swift, has something to add:
“Scott’s mum and I always used to say, Jessy loves Charlie but she doesn’t know how to handle him. It was because she was just a kid herself when she had him, and she had no family of her own to help.”
In the last episode of It’s Time to Tell, crime reporter Owen Weston told us about a period of seventy-two minutes—which he referred to as “the lost hour” in one of his articles—during which Jessy Paige was unable to account for her actions on the night of Charlie’s and Scott’s murders. I asked Detective John Fletcher about this. You’ll hear his voice first.
“In her statement to police, Jessica Paige claimed that she could not remember what she did between 22:13 and 23:25 on the night of 18 August 1996. She stuck to that story. Jessy Paige was seen leaving the Paradise Casino at 22:13 in a vehicle driven by an unidentified male. She arrived back at the Glenfrome Estate in a taxi just before 23:30. We never discovered precisely what she did during that period of time. Staff at the casino testified she was drinking heavily while she was there, and witnesses stated that she appeared to be inebriated on her return to the estate.”
“Do you have any thoughts on what she might have been doing?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. She might have been having a good time.”
“Did you consider her a suspect at any point?”
“She was ruled out as a suspect after Sidney Noyce’s arrest because the evidence against Noyce was very strong. It would have been pointless and cruel to pursue lines of inquiry against Jessica Paige at that point. She needed to be left alone to grieve. Our job was to ensure that justice was served and the case against Noyce was as watertight as possible. We had our man.”
Ex–Detective Superintendent Howard Smail has a different view.
“I know Jessica Paige is a liar because she lied about me. I think she did know what she was doing during the seventy-two minutes she was unaccounted for.”
“Can you talk to us about that?”
“While John Fletcher was going rogue and bringing Noyce into the station for questioning without my knowledge, I was at the Glenfrome Estate with David Tremain—he was Detective Chief Superintendent then; he’s gone up in the world since—and we were giving a press conferenc
e.”
I remember the press conference. I watched it from our balcony. After the murders, me and all the other kids on the estate were kept inside. We became little ghostly faces behind windows. We looked out at the world with less innocent eyes and we felt afraid. Our families did, too. From our balcony it looked as if the reporters were swarming around the two police officers like flying ants that had just hatched from a crack in the concrete. Smail continues:
“At the end of the press conference, I was told that Charlie’s mother, Jessica Paige, wanted to speak to somebody. David Tremain suggested that because we were already on site, it might play well if that person was me. The force was becoming a bit more media savvy back then. We were actively trying to demonstrate good relationships with the community on the estate, and a senior officer pressing hands personally is a good thing. Historically, the police were not welcome at the Glenfrome. You’ll know that. So I made my way up to Ms. Paige’s flat and I went alone because I had been assured that the family liaison officer would be in the flat with Ms. Paige. That was important, because you never met with a witness or possible suspect on your own. We always worked in pairs. When I knocked on the door of the flat I expected to say a few words of condolence and reassurance and listen to what she had to say before leaving her in the capable hands of the liaison officer. Job done. Except it didn’t turn out that way. After I knocked on her door, Ms. Paige opened it herself and invited me in. I entered her hallway. It was a very cramped space. She began talking quickly and incoherently. She seemed manic. I asked her where Lynn, our liaison officer, was, and she told me Lynn had popped out to get some supplies. At that point, I knew I should leave the property and I tried to do so, telling Ms. Paige I would meet Lynn downstairs and return with her, but Ms. Paige grabbed my arm. I’ll never forget it. She held me so tightly I’d have had to wrench my arm away to get out of her clutches. It could have hurt her. But before I could think what else to do, she collapsed and I caught her in my arms. She was absolutely distraught. It was the rawest display of grief I think I’ve ever seen.”
Howard Smail and I were having this chat over Skype. On screen, he shakes his head in a gesture that is weighted with regret. The image pixelates and reassembles, and when it does he is looking directly at me.
“What would you have done?”
It’s a no-brainer. Even my ten-year-old self was drawn to Jessy Paige. She didn’t project the same sort of authority as the other adults I knew. It felt as if there was no distance between us kids and her, and that stirred something in me at the time. It wasn’t something you experienced much as a kid. Not when and where I grew up. What did she stir in me? The beginnings of adolescence, maybe? Maya tells me that we feel lust before we have a name for it, and I know I felt jealous when I saw Jessy hanging off her boyfriend, but I don’t think it was that. I think I was sensitive to Jessy’s vulnerability even then. And her energy. She was the only adult I knew who not only didn’t follow the rules but was brazen about it. It was intoxicating to me. The answer is easy: “I would have stayed with her and tried to comfort her.”
Smail nods, as if that answer absolves him somewhat.
“I tried to move her to the sitting room and onto the couch, but she seemed to be in pain—walking was difficult for her—so I helped her sit down right there in the hallway. That’s when the liaison officer let herself in and saw us there, when I was cradling Ms. Paige as I tried to help her sit down safely. It was the biggest mistake of my career, though of course I didn’t know that at the time. At the time it felt like I was doing the right thing and I was relieved to see Lynn. She helped me move Ms. Paige to the sofa where she’d be more comfortable and Ms. Paige sat there with a soft toy, a teddy bear in her arms. I expect it had belonged to Charlie. She held that bear like it was a newborn baby and wept all over it. It was hard to watch. She made the allegation against me shortly afterward. If it had stayed as a ‘he said, she said,’ my career might have survived that, but unfortunately they had Lynn as a witness to our physical contact and somebody fed Ms. Paige the security code for the door to the police accommodation where I was staying and she claimed she had spent nights with me there. I was stitched up thoroughly. Sewn up tight. It was the end of my career. So I know she’s a liar.”
“But she seemed grief-stricken that day?”
“You can still be grief-stricken if you killed. Even if you did it on purpose.”
“Are you implying that Jessica Paige murdered her son?”
“I’m pointing out that showing signs of grief is not proof of innocence. To love somebody is not a guarantee that you could not be driven to murder them if a particular set of circumstances occurred.”
“Why do you think she lied about you and her?”
“To get the heat off her and whoever she was with that night. They never identified him. Some crucial evidence went missing in that respect. Ask John Fletcher about that.”
I already know about the missing evidence from Owen Weston. The CCTV tapes from the casino were stolen from Detective John Fletcher’s car on the night he was due to examine them. I have a question for Smail:
“Does this mean you believe Noyce was innocent?”
“No. I don’t know if he was or not. But if I had been able to continue to run the investigation I would have slowed things down and pursued every line of inquiry until I was entirely satisfied that we’d gathered enough evidence that the case against Noyce was cast iron and we’d explored the other persons of interest. Jessica Paige was one of them. Here, this is what I wrote in my policy book on the morning before the press conference.”
I watch as Smail riffles through the stack of photocopied pages.
“Here it is. ‘Actions recommended: investigate Jessica Paige’s movements during the seventy-two minutes unaccounted for. Paige asserts she cannot remember what happened during this period of time, possibly due to intoxication. Examine statements as to Paige’s fitness as a parent and look into habits, lifestyle, and associates.’”
“Is seventy-two minutes long enough to make you suspicious of her? Really?”
“You’d be surprised what you can do in seventy-two minutes. And let’s not forget, this woman went on to be a very successful actress. She knew how to be more than one person, even back then.”
Owen Weston, during our conversation back in his conservatory, held a similar view. This clip is from the end of my conversation with Weston, by which time we were surrounded by yellowed copies of all the articles he published on the case back in 1996. I had picked up a clipping illustrated with a photograph of Jessy at Charlie and Scott’s funeral. You’ll hear my voice first:
“Jessy would never have hurt Charlie and Scott. I remember her.”
“You remember a version of her, I’m sure, but you were ten years old. You had no idea what the adult world was like for somebody like her. How could you? How could any child? She would have presented very differently to the adults who knew her. A common comment about her was that she was hidden, guarded, that she only let people see what she wanted them to see.”
I look at the grainy photograph. It’s a picture of Jessy as grieving mother. She’s in a black coat and her hair is piled on her head. She looks distraught. Weston says he remembers me from the funeral.
It’s a comment that makes me catch my breath. Some memories are a warm bath you can slip into; others assault you. Scott and Charlie’s funeral was one of the worst days of my life. I don’t think I had truly accepted that my friends were never coming back until the hearses containing their coffins arrived at the estate. There was one car for each small coffin. Flowers were displayed on and around Scott’s, so many that there were petals pressing against the glass. Charlie’s had three bouquets on it; one of them spelled out SON.
Jessy stood alone beside Charlie’s hearse while people crushed around Scott’s mum and dad, my parents and me closest of all. By then, people were saying it was Jessy’s fault the boys were dead, because she was supposed to be looking after them.
The undertaker held his top hat in his hands while everybody assembled. He placed it on his head before he started walking in front of the first car. The hat was tall and silky. He wore a black jacket with tails and a black cravat. In his gloved hands he held a walking stick that was dark and shiny. When he began to walk, the cars followed at a crawl and we followed on foot. The procession was big, and people along the route to the church joined us. Everywhere, there were faces in windows as we passed by. When we got to the church, not everybody could fit in. In the chaos, I slipped away from my mum and held Jessy’s hand, just for a minute.
I have wondered since then why there was a joint funeral for Charlie and Scott. Mum had an answer:
“Annette Ashby felt sorry for Jessy. She said whether what happened was Jessy’s fault or not, Charlie deserved a good send-off. And the Ashbys didn’t want Scott to go alone. They got the boys plots next to each other at the cemetery.”
In the next episode of It’s Time to Tell we are going to share the findings of our investigation into “the lost hour.” Meanwhile, if anybody listening has anything to share, please reach out via our website, timetotell.com. We would love to hear from you. And please continue to spread the word about It’s Time to Tell. The number of downloads for the podcast are still increasing beyond our wildest expectations, and we are working hard to deliver quality content in return. However, we have sadly lost our private sponsor in the past few weeks, as we had some editorial differences. Maya and I felt that editorial integrity was our priority, so we severed the link. This does mean that your support for It’s Time to Tell is as important as ever, and we have set up a link on our website if any listeners would like to donate. To deliver quality content we need as much support as we can get.
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