‘I speak for myself,’ he repeated, louder this time. Black made a point of ensuring he was recorded discussing the absence of a solicitor, in case a lawyer came on board further down the line and tried to claim that his client had been coerced into a confession. Black asked Harry to confirm he understood he was waiving his right to a solicitor on the tape. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I mean yes.’
‘Do you know why you are here?’ Black asked him.
‘Because of the girl.’
‘That’s right, Harry, because of the girl.’
‘I never did anything,’ he protested. ‘Honest.’
‘But you saw her?’
‘Aye, I saw her, like.’
‘You were very probably the last person to see her,’ Black told him, ‘before she disappeared.’
‘I didn’t disappear her, if that’s what you reckon.’
‘What happened, then, Harry? Why don’t you tell me in your own words?’
‘I was frightened,’ he said. ‘I thought she was up to no good. You can’t have that, can you?’
‘Can’t you?’
‘Well, no.’
‘But was she really up to no good, Harry?’ Black was wondering if years of alcohol abuse had caused some form of psychosis or a schizophrenic episode in Harry. Had he really imagined Alice was up to no good on her way home after school?
‘I thought she was, and that’s why I did it.’
‘You did it?’
‘Yes, I admit it, but it didn’t really hurt her.’
‘Are you saying it was painless?’ asked Black, wondering what it was in Harry’s eyes.
‘Aye.’ He nodded his head vociferously.
‘What did you do, Harry?’ asked Black. They were surely near the end now; a confession was coming. ‘What exactly did you do? Tell me, please.’
‘I pulled my knife.’
‘You stabbed her?’ There was no mention of that in the post-mortem.
‘No. I told you. I never hurt her.’
Realization began to dawn. ‘Where was this, Harry? Behind the cottages near the school?’
‘No, man,’ he replied. ‘In the woods.’
Black sighed. ‘Not that girl, Harry, the other one.’
All that time Harry had thought Black was talking about Beth. Black took his time and carefully explained it all to Harry, who frowned at him as if he were trying to recollect events from long ago. When the detective had finished describing Alice and the fact that she had vanished around the time Harry had been seen near the Aged Miners’ cottages that same evening, Harry said, ‘I never saw her.’
‘You didn’t see her, you had no contact with her, you don’t know anything about it?’
‘No.’
‘Would you mind explaining to me why you happen to have her coat and bag, then, Harry, because that’s a bit mystifying.’
Black spent another hour with Harry, going through his account of that evening over and over, trying to catch the man out. He never did. The story always stayed the same.
‘He says he never even saw her,’ Black told Beth afterwards.
‘Then how come he has her coat and bag?’
‘Found them, or so he says.’
‘Where?’
‘There’s a waste bin in the lane between the rows of Aged Miners’ cottages. He was seen ferreting in the bins that evening, remember? Alice’s grandfather told me that. He says that’s where they were.’
‘He claims they’d just been dumped in the bin?’
‘Yeah. He thought it was his lucky day. He fished out the coat, and the bag was underneath it. They’d been stuffed in there. He took both items back to his den in the woods, figured he’d use a warm coat as extra bedding and thought there might be something of interest in the bag.’
‘What was in it when he found it?’
‘Stationery, make-up, a hairbrush, a can of anti-perspirant, some ring binders and Alice’s purse.’
‘Why would she dump all that in a waste bin, particularly her purse? It must have been the killer, mustn’t it?’
‘That’s the bit I can’t work out,’ said Black. ‘Alice wouldn’t dump her coat and bag herself. But if she was snatched by someone in that alley or near it, surely she would struggle, shout or scream. Even if someone knocked her unconscious, why would they then pause to stuff her coat and bag into the bin? She was wearing the coat.’
‘But you don’t think Harry is responsible?’ reasoned Beth.
‘If he attacked Alice, killed her there or knocked her unconscious, what would he do with her body? He couldn’t carry her off without anyone noticing, and he has no car.’
‘He’s telling the truth, then?’ offered Beth.
‘Possibly,’ said Black. ‘Though he claimed there was no money in the purse when he found it, and I’m sure that was a lie. The rest of his story sounded plausible, so I’m inclined to believe it.’
That evening, when Beth got home, she couldn’t settle. Her restlessness drove her to an early-evening run through the park, despite her aches and pains. As she ran, random thoughts seemed to tumble through her mind, in no particular order. One minute she was thinking about Alice Teale and her short, tragic life; the next her thoughts drifted to Simon Nash and how his unknowing fiancée would have reacted once she learned he was having an affair with a seventeen-year-old pupil. That got Beth thinking about her own ex-boyfriend and how her whole future would now be entirely different without him. When Jamie did marry, have children then grow old, it would not be with Beth, as she had once imagined. Worse, it would be with her, and that thought made her run faster as she reached the lake. As she reached the end of her first lap, she focused her mind on poor Alice again and the mystery of her final moments before she was taken, beaten, strangled then her lifeless body thrown down on to the rocks. She pictured the girl lying there, and it was almost too much to bear. So, too, was the frustration of knowing they weren’t quite there yet. It had taken them too long to pick up on the fact that Jessica Pearce had seen Simon Nash squeezing himself into a small car. What else had they missed? There was a nagging, gnawing thought that it was something that might be staring her right in the face and still she couldn’t see it.
She ran harder then.
Go back, she thought, to the moments when Alice was last seen.
Pause, rewind, play, she told herself, as she recalled the words of the PE teacher then used them to imagine exactly what Jessica Pearce had seen when she looked out of that staff-room window and watched Alice walk away from the building.
There was something off about it. Beth knew it but she couldn’t quite pin down what it was.
In her frustration, she ran even harder. As she powered forward, the exertion of running faster than normal made her regret wearing two layers on such a mild night. She was hot and sweating now, but she continued to run.
She was on her second lap around the lake when it hit her.
She ran back to her flat and was on the phone to Black before she had even showered. She could tell he was surprised; first that she’d called him, then by the breathlessness in her voice.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she panted. ‘I’ve been thinking about what Jessica Pearce saw from the staff-room window, and a thought just struck me. The night Alice Teale disappeared was the same evening that DI Monaghan had his leaving do.’
‘I didn’t go to that.’
‘He knew everyone. The pub was packed, but it didn’t matter. It was so mild we sat outside in the beer garden. It was the hottest day of the year so far. More than twenty degrees.’
‘That is uncharacteristically mild for the north-east of England.’ Black couldn’t help but wonder what she was getting at.
‘But when Alice Teale left school that night she was still wearing her parka, with the hood pulled up.’
Black thought for a moment. ‘I suppose she was fond of it, but you’re right. It was very warm that day and she had a fair walk home.’
‘
Why didn’t she carry it or stuff it inside her bag?’
‘Teenagers can be strange about the things they wear.’
‘Usually, they pride themselves on not wearing coats at all, especially round here.’ She paused for a moment, thinking about it some more.
‘What is it?’
‘I think we should go and see Miss Pearce again,’ she said, ‘and ask her exactly what she saw that night.’
45
Rob managed to recover from the surprise of answering the door to two detectives and offered them tea. ‘I’ve just boiled the kettle.’ Jessica Pearce’s fiancé wasted no time in making himself scarce, disappearing into the kitchen. While he was gone, the three of them sat at the dining table, which was wedged up against a wall with a large window, so they overlooked the tiny square below, which had flats on all sides. These were new-build apartments that had sprung up on a site that used to house a single pub and its car park. People were crammed in here, existing with very little space, on the first rung of the property ladder. There was just enough room for the table and three chairs, a sofa, a tiny coffee table and a TV. From what Beth could make out through the open door, the galley kitchen was even smaller. One person could cook in it, as long as no one tried to get by them.
‘I’m sorry to bother you at home like this,’ said Black, ‘but we couldn’t leave it.’
The teacher seemed sceptical that she could help them but said, ‘Okay, so what did you want to ask me?’
‘I’m not sure exactly,’ he began, exchanging a look with Beth.
‘Then how can I possibly help you?’ She didn’t bother to disguise her irritation, and Black saw a glimpse of the woman who snapped at her girls.
‘What I mean is,’ Black said, ‘it depends on any explanation you can give for something strange that happened shortly after you witnessed Alice Teale walking away from the school.’
‘I didn’t see what happened after Alice walked away from school.’ As she said this, her fiancé returned with a tray with mugs of tea, which he set down on the table. ‘As she was going down the path, I saw Rob pull into the car park. I turned my attention to him. He got out of his car and walked towards the school. I waved, then I turned away to wash my tea cup. When I turned back, Rob was coming down the path and Alice was gone. She must have passed through the cut between the Aged Miners’ cottages.’
‘I can’t believe I walked right past her,’ said Rob, and he looked quite shaken by this realization.
‘I told you that,’ said Jessica.
‘You told me you were the last to see her before I picked you up. I thought you meant moments before I got there. I didn’t think you meant just as I got there.’
‘Well, you saw her, too.’ She rolled her eyes, as if her fiancé was an idiot. ‘I’d have thought you’d have worked it out.’
‘I saw a girl, yes.’ It was his turn to get annoyed. ‘But I thought the missing lass was older.’
‘How could she be older?’ His fiancée frowned at him and he looked as if he was about to continue the argument, but thought better of it in front of them.
‘Wait,’ Beth interjected. ‘How old did you think Alice Teale was, Rob?’
He seemed a little distracted, like he didn’t really want to resume bickering with his fiancée. ‘I don’t know, seventeen or eighteen or something.’
‘She was,’ snapped Jessica.
‘Whoa,’ said Beth, and raised a hand to stop them arguing. ‘Wait a moment. Rob, are you saying the girl you saw wasn’t seventeen or eighteen?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘she wasn’t. The girl I saw was much younger.’
The tea went cold while they processed the new information they were receiving. They cross-examined him and his fiancée to get to the bottom of this discrepancy between their accounts of what had happened that night. It took a while to be absolutely certain of the order of events but, eventually, it became clear. Jessica Pearce had witnessed only one girl leaving the school late that evening and she was absolutely convinced it was Alice Teale who had walked down that path, right by her fiancé. Rob confirmed he hadn’t seen anyone else apart from that same figure, but the girl he saw had been significantly younger than Alice.
When pushed, he offered, ‘I’d say thirteen, or maybe fourteen, fifteen at the absolute most.’ And when his fiancée gave him an angry look: ‘You can frown at me all you like, love, but I’m telling you, she was never seventeen.’
He seemed so convinced that Black focused on the teacher. ‘Can I just ask – and no one is doubting your genuinely held belief that the person you saw leaving that day was Alice – what was it that made you so sure it was her and not someone else?’
‘It was her,’ she said helplessly. ‘I’d know her. I’ve known her for years – through PE lessons, netball teams, hockey teams, the sixth-form club and the school plays.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So you’d know her anywhere, but did you actually see her face that night? She was walking away from the building, wasn’t she? Did she turn back towards you? Did she look up to the staff room and catch your eye?’
‘Well, no.’
‘Then how could you possibly know for sure that it was Alice?’
The question seemed to momentarily flummox Jessica Pearce and she had to take a moment to recollect. She finally offered: ‘Because of what she was wearing,’ then she said: ‘Because she always wore it.’
‘The coat?’
‘She has this oversized green parka with a hood and she always carries that big, floppy bag on her shoulder.’
‘So that’s how you knew it was Alice?’ asked Beth.
‘Yes.’
‘But it could have been someone else?’ Black gently offered the possibility. ‘Somebody who simply put Alice Teale’s coat on, pulled the hood up over her head and made sure she had the girl’s bag on her shoulder?’
‘I …’
Beth could tell she was about to rebuff that idea as preposterous, but then she seemed to hesitate and give it some thought.
‘I’d say it’s more than likely,’ said Beth, ‘since Rob just said there’s no way that girl was seventeen.’ She could see the confusion in Miss Pearce’s face. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
The PE teacher turned to her fiancé, and he gave her a helpless look, as if to confirm he was not mistaken and couldn’t go along with her account. It was clear he had been the only one to see the girl’s face before she disappeared.
‘I suppose …’ It was a reluctant concession which went against her instincts, and perhaps she was worried this would make her seem like a liar in the eyes of the police.
‘It’s the explanation we’ve been searching for,’ said Black, and he glanced at Beth. ‘Why else would Happy Harry have found her coat and bag dumped in the bin like that, and how could Alice have vanished between the end of the path and Simon Nash’s car? The only answer that makes any sense is that it wasn’t Alice at all.’
‘But why would someone do that?’ asked Miss Pearce.
‘They wanted everybody to think Alice walked away from the school that night,’ said Beth. ‘And she didn’t.’
‘That’s right,’ said Black. ‘She never left.’
46
The headteacher was surprised to receive a delegation that morning. As well as Beth and Black, Miss Pearce was waiting for him and, for some reason he was yet to understand, her fiancé. Despite his bafflement, Mr Morgan let them into his office, where they explained the confusion surrounding the conflicting eyewitness accounts about Alice Teale.
It was soon clear that he didn’t understand his role in any of this. ‘I’m sorry, but how can I help you? I didn’t see the poor girl leave.’
No one did, thought Beth, so perhaps Simon Nash really had been the last person to see her alive, but that still wouldn’t explain the reason for Rob’s sighting of a different girl in her coat. If Nash was telling the truth, there was still a twenty-minute gap in Alice Teale’s final hour that was unexplained, and they needed Mr Morgan to h
elp them account for those crucial missing minutes.
‘Is there some pretext we could use to get all your pupils into the same place?’ asked Lucas. ‘The school hall, perhaps?’
‘We could do that,’ said Miss Pearce.
‘I don’t think it’s a very practical idea to corral twelve hundred children together in one place,’ muttered the headteacher. ‘For health-and-safety reasons, we split our assemblies into smaller groups, because there are far too many pupils.’
‘Do that, then,’ said Black.
‘And what will the pretext be?’ he asked.
‘That you need to talk to them about safety at school,’ offered the PE teacher, ‘in the context of what happened to poor Alice?’ It struck Beth then that Alice Teale was likely to be known as ‘poor Alice’ from now on.
‘Wouldn’t that alarm them?’ said Morgan.
‘I don’t think anything is likely to alarm them more than the murder of their fellow pupil,’ said Beth.
‘No. Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. We can certainly organize that for you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Black.
‘If you want Rob here to look at the faces of every girl as they walk into the hall,’ Morgan noted, ‘it could cause a bit of a logjam in the corridors.’
‘Let’s admit them in class-sized groups, one at a time, then,’ suggested the PE teacher. ‘We bring out a class and get them to line up outside the hall for a few moments before letting them in. We can say we’re also doing a uniform check. There’re bound to be one or two girls in every class wearing hoop earrings or make-up.’
‘Or with their skirts well above the knee,’ the head conceded. ‘It could work, I suppose.’
‘While I’m berating them for uniform infractions, Rob could stand off to one side and take a good look at their faces. Maybe one of them will be the girl he thinks he saw.’ Black noted her use of the words ‘thinks he saw’ and wondered if she was still sceptical, or perhaps a little resentful that her fiancé had undermined her story.
‘Is Rob known here?’ asked Black. ‘By the students, I mean.’
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