False Witness

by Michelle Davies

‘Imogen, have you been having an affair with Ewan Hepworth?’

  Grace gasped and reeled round in her seat to confront her daughter.

  ‘Don’t you dare say yes!’

  ‘Mum, I’m not having, nor have I had, an affair with him.’ She eyeballed Maggie. ‘I was tempted, though, and it would’ve served Julia right if I had.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘So she’d know what it feels like when your family goes to shit because of another woman.’

  Talk about keeping your enemies close.

  ‘What stopped you then?’ Maggie wanted to know.

  Imogen looked embarrassed and fiddled with the rings on her right hand.

  ‘Ewan wasn’t interested in me like that. He’d been texting me stuff that made me think something could happen between us, but when the opportunity presented itself, well – Ewan was very sweet and polite about it, but he didn’t want to reciprocate.’ Imogen shrugged but it was a poor attempt to appear nonchalant. The rejection had obviously stung. ‘It was probably a good thing nothing happened,’ she added airily. ‘Benji wasn’t very keen on Ewan and he would’ve hated it if I’d got involved with him.’

  ‘Why didn’t Benji like him?’ Carmichael pressed.

  ‘It wasn’t anything he said explicitly. I could tell from how he’d behave when Ewan came round to collect Poppy. If Ewan stayed for a drink Benji would get really huffy and moody and refuse to talk to him.’ Imogen cocked her head, as though she was thinking. ‘Actually, he did once say Ewan wasn’t very nice to women and didn’t treat them well, but that’s never been my experience of him. Really Benji was jealous I was giving Ewan attention.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all it was?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘What else would it have been? Benji was used to having me to himself and suddenly there’s a man on the scene getting in the way.’

  ‘How would you describe Poppy’s relationship with her dad?’

  ‘They’re really close, although I did notice her being a bit off with him recently. That was around the time she cried off coming round for tea.’

  ‘Why did she cancel?’

  Imogen shrugged. ‘I asked Benji and he said he didn’t know.’

  Maggie leaned back in her chair, troubled by what she was hearing. She had a niggling feeling that Imogen’s association with Ewan was somehow tied to what happened on that wall between their children. Benji didn’t like him and yesterday at the police station Poppy couldn’t have made it clearer that she didn’t want to go with her dad. What was behind—

  She stopped, stunned.

  The final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

  81

  The interview came up on Julia’s phone as an alert. She did a double-take as she clicked through to the Echo’s website, not believing her eyes as the headline swam in front of them. The blood drained to her lower body and her heartbeat thumped in her ears as it accelerated with shock. How could the police let Imogen get away with it?

  Her heart thudded harder at the thought of Poppy seeing the headline, let alone any of her friends and their parents. It didn’t matter that her name was omitted – they’d still know which child Imogen was referring to. Julia thought it was despicable she had been allowed to put her lies across to the public in a way that made it impossible for them to defend Poppy.

  She went downstairs in search of Ewan but the front room and kitchen were empty. Malcolm was still out after taking Dylan to school; he’d gone to meet an old neighbour from when he’d lived in Mansell and they weren’t expecting him back until later that afternoon.

  The back door in the kitchen was open and standing on the threshold she spied Ewan down the bottom of the garden. He was half shielded from the house by the kids’ trampoline but she could see he was on the phone and was agitated, gesticulating into thin air as he rammed home whatever point he was trying to make.

  She assumed it was a work call, although it was unusual for Ewan to be the one doing the shouting. In his self-employed world the client was always king, even if they didn’t warrant it.

  She backed into the kitchen. If she brought up the Echo interview Ewan might get even angrier and take it out on her. However upset she was about it, now wasn’t the time to tell him.

  Ewan stalked into the kitchen, phone clenched in his hand. White-hot anger leached from every pore.

  ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘Where?’

  Immediately Julia wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Ewan didn’t like being questioned on his movements – she’d learned that the hard way when she queried his going out three nights a week to play squash with a friend she’d never heard of, someone called Gus. Ewan hadn’t taken kindly to her challenging it and had raged so loudly at her that Dylan had come into their bedroom crying for him to stop.

  ‘Why do you do it, Julia? Do you get a kick out of winding me up?’

  She shrank away from him.

  ‘You don’t have to know every fucking thing that I do.’

  He grabbed his keys from the table.

  ‘If the police call or come round, you don’t tell them anything, especially if they ask where I am.’

  ‘Why would they ask about you?’ she asked, alarmed.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Julia, will you just back off—’

  ‘But—’

  His hand was a blur as he struck her swiftly across the side of the head.

  Winded from the shock and her temple throbbing in pain, Julia staggered across the kitchen to clutch the counter for support. Ewan had never hit her before and she couldn’t believe he had just done so.

  ‘I don’t think you should be here right now,’ she said hoarsely.

  ‘Come on, Jules.’

  He took a step towards her but she shook her head. He looked sorry for what he’d done, his face veiled with concern, but for once she wasn’t falling for it.

  ‘Please go.’

  When he reached the doorway to the hall he turned back, as if he’d changed his mind. She flinched, certain he was going to hit her again.

  ‘You’re really scared of me, aren’t you?’ His tone was devoid of any emotion; it was like a stranger standing there in the guise of her once-loving husband. ‘It’s really pathetic and unbecoming, Julia.’

  She gazed up at him, too frightened to speak.

  ‘I suppose you’ll tell your dad and Cath that I hit you. Well, be sure to tell them you pushed me to it, because you know you did. Don’t try to deny it. I wouldn’t have done half the things I’ve done if you weren’t such a crap wife. So remember that, when people try to tell you things I’ve done. It’s all down to you.’ He looked her up and down, contempt stamped all over his face. ‘I could’ve done so much better.’

  As the front door clicked shut behind him Julia slid to the floor and cried.

  82

  Maggie raced into the incident room and flung herself down in front of her computer, ignoring the startled looks from others. She spied Belmar across the room and hollered to him.

  ‘I need your help. Yours too, Nath.’

  Curiosity piqued, the pair of them crowded behind her as she began frantically tapping out words on her keyboard.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘Statements from Violet Castle’s mates.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’

  Accessing the case file on HOLMES, Maggie found the statement given by Violet’s flatmate, a girl called Lila. Scrolling down, disappointment set in. The information she hoped might confirm the first part of her theory wasn’t there.

  ‘Tell us what you’re looking for and we might be able to help,’ said Belmar.

  ‘I want to confirm the nickname Violet went by.’

  Burton came up behind them.

  ‘Someone wasn’t listening properly in the briefing,’ he chuckled. ‘Umpire said she was known as Ruby, because of her red hair.’

  Maggie swivelled round in her chair to address B
urton. ‘As in “Ruby Tuesday”?’

  His eyes widened as he caught her drift. ‘You mean . . .?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Maggie, adrenaline accelerating through her veins. ‘We need to talk to Lila, now.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Belmar. ‘You can fill me in on the way.’

  ‘Will someone please tell me what’s going on?’ pleaded Nathan.

  ‘I will in a minute,’ said Burton. To Maggie he added, ‘What else do you need?’

  ‘Start cross-reffing everything. Dates, phone numbers, associates. And tell Umpire I think I know why Poppy Hepworth pushed Benji off that wall.’

  83

  Two things were abundantly clear to Maggie as she observed Lila Morris. The first was that someone had beaten the girl to a bloody pulp in the last week or so. The black eyes she’d been given were still swollen but yellowing, same for the bruises smattering her cheeks, temples and, most disturbingly, her chest, made visible by the clingy, low-cut top she was wearing. There were claw marks on her shoulders and down her arms, etching the handful of tattoos already marking them.

  The second thing that was clear was that she wasn’t going to tell them who’d inflicted the injuries no matter how hard they tried to persuade her.

  ‘I keep telling you, I didn’t know their name, it was a punter I’ve not been with before,’ she said, swinging her bare legs onto the stained sofa and crossing them. She put a pouch of tobacco on her lap and began the process of making a roll-up.

  ‘It’s GBH,’ said Maggie. ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.’

  ‘I’m not bothered so I don’t know why you are. Besides, that’s not the reason you’re here. It’s Ruby you want to know about, not me.’

  Her voice belied her tough exterior. It was soft, fragile. Young. Maggie hated to think of what had happened to Lila in her childhood that led her into prostitution even before she was out of her teens.

  Home for Lila was a studio flat that was dominated by a sofa bed she and Ruby used to share. The girls had done their best to make the place homely, covering most of the grotty carpet with a brightly coloured rug and by pinning posters and sparkly scarves to the peeling wallpaper, but an underlying sense of dilapidation lingered nonetheless.

  ‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ said Lila, licking the edge of a Rizla. ‘I should’ve noticed sooner she was missing but I thought she was in London, ’cause that’s often where she took herself off to when things got a bit much.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Belmar.

  ‘Sometimes doing this makes you feel like you aren’t human, that you’re no better than the shittiest animal. You’ll get a john who won’t even look at you, who acts like you’re disgusting or worse, and it makes you wanna die inside. I’ve been doing this for –’ Lila paused and did a weary count on her fingers – ‘eleven months but Ruby was longer than me and it was getting to her.’

  Maggie pulled two printouts from her bag and laid them neatly on her lap, face down. Lila eyed them warily.

  ‘I want to ask you about Rushbrooke,’ said Maggie. ‘Did you know Ruby was taking clients into the school grounds?’

  ‘No chance. An’ before you ask, I ain’t never done that. Not where kids go,’ she said, her nose wrinkling in disdain. ‘I’ve been nearby, though – sometimes when a john don’t have a car we can use, I’ll take them to that new estate, the one that’s half built.’ She caught Maggie’s eye. ‘Don’t you look all hoity-toity at me. It’s not illegal, what I do. You should know that, being the police an’ all.’

  ‘Yes, I am aware prostitution is legal,’ said Maggie, ‘but owning or managing a brothel and pimping out girls isn’t. It’s illegal if you’re being procured to have sex with strangers for money. Who do you work for, Lila?’

  ‘I shan’t tell you and you can’t make me. Besides, my clients call me direct so really I’m pimping myself out, aren’t I?’

  ‘Did Ruby work for the same person?’

  ‘I told you, I won’t say.’

  ‘Are you sure Ruby never mentioned going inside the school with a client?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever seen Ruby with this man?’

  Maggie found the head shot she’d printed off the Internet and held it up.

  Lila’s features shuttered. ‘No.’

  She was clearly lying but, instead of pushing her, Maggie nudged her foot against Belmar’s – his cue to change tack.

  ‘Was it because of her hair she was nicknamed Ruby?’ he asked.

  It was a question Maggie had primed him to pose, because she already knew the answer but wanted to see how Lila would react.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  Maggie stepped in.

  ‘Not because she was Ruby Tuesday to your Lady Jane? They’re both titles of Stones’ songs, right?’ She pointed to the wall above Lila’s head and a poster for a long-finished Rolling Stones tour featuring the band’s infamous lips-and-lolling-tongue logo.

  A look of fright flitted across Lila’s face but she tried to brazen it out.

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  Maggie handed the second printout to Lila.

  ‘Did you leave this message on Facebook under the name Lady Jane? We know it’s your nickname: we’re questioning some of Ruby’s clients down the station at the moment and one of them has confirmed it. Apparently he’s familiar with your services as well.’

  Lila twitched as she thrust the piece of paper back at Maggie.

  ‘I ain’t done anything on Facebook.’

  Frustrated, Maggie was about to say they could check Lila’s devices but her phone rang. The caller was Umpire, so she excused herself and went into the hallway outside Lila’s flat to answer. The space smelled of rotten food and damp and where there should’ve been carpet there were old sheets of newspaper.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘With Lila. Did Burton fill you in?’

  ‘He did and that’s why I’m ringing,’ said Umpire. ‘I need you and Belmar out of there now to assist with a search.’

  Maggie frowned. ‘Search for who?’

  ‘Poppy Hepworth. She’s missing.’

  84

  Alan locked up his office and went home. He didn’t tell anyone he was leaving – they’d find out the reason soon enough.

  He went straight upstairs and into the back bedroom, which was filled with boxes he hadn’t bothered to unpack despite moving in three years ago. They were filled with his parents’ books, paperwork, and the dinner set they were given for their silver anniversary. He didn’t have the heart to throw the contents out but nor did he have the space downstairs to put them anywhere.

  It was the same with their old tallboy chest of drawers. Unwieldy and probably riddled with woodworm, it was hardly worth him hanging on to but it was his mum’s favourite piece of furniture and so for sentimental reasons he didn’t want to part with it. He pulled open the top drawer and rooted around for the writing pad his mum always kept in there, and a pen.

  Alan returned downstairs and sat on the sofa, resting the sheaf of paper on an old magazine. Then he began to write.

  It wasn’t so much a confession as a truthful account of what really happened on the wall and everything that had happened since. He left nothing out – Gus, Ruby, the Pavilion, and Poppy’s confession to him that morning. Every detail filling up eight pieces of paper and by the time he’d finished his hand hurt.

  Alan set his notes down next to him on the sofa and stared at them. The right thing would be to give them to the police and accept the consequences, but was he ready to do that?

  Yes, he was. The time had come to put an end to the whole sorry saga. He would have a shower, smarten himself up, then hand himself in to the police.

  Standing under the streaming hot water, he could feel the tension washing away. He actually felt good about the decision he’d made. Finally the boy’s mother would be getting the justice she deserved.

  He dried himself off in th
e bathroom, then fastened the damp towel around his waist to head into the bedroom, stepping over the clothes he’d discarded on the floor on his way.

  The doorbell rang as he pulled on a clean T-shirt. He moved stealthily to the window to see if he could spot who was on the doorstep, but the angle of the bay meant he couldn’t tell. But he heard more than one voice, so he knew it wasn’t Mr Lincoln again, coming back to use his shoulder for another self-pitying cry.

  It was probably house-to-house chuggers, who he hated even more than the ones who stopped him in the street. It felt intrusive, being asked to cough up on his doorstep. He pulled on a pair of jeans and headed downstairs ready to tell them to sod off, but as he yanked the front door open his heart leapt into his mouth.

  ‘What are you lot doing here?’

  ‘Don’t sound so pleased to see us,’ said Gayle, smiling.

  Alan barely had time to react before Freddie launched himself forward. Stunned, Alan hugged his son back, then he reached an arm out to grab his youngest daughter, Kyra. His eldest, Lacey, hung back, trying to look as though she was unmoved by seeing him, but as tears began to steadily roll down her cheeks she stepped forward to be enveloped into the same embrace with her siblings.

  ‘I’ve missed you all so much,’ said Alan tearfully, raining kisses down on his children’s heads. ‘I can’t believe you’re all here.’

  He looked up at Gayle, who was also in tears.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘I was worried when we spoke earlier and then when I tried calling again and you didn’t answer I thought you might’ve –’ Her voice cracked. ‘I would never have forgiven myself if the kids never got to see you again. I told their schools I needed to pull them out for an emergency and we drove straight down.’

  Alan was too choked to respond. His family had come for him. He couldn’t believe it. As he ushered them into the house, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, he remembered the notes on the sofa.

  ‘Go into the kitchen and I’ll stick the kettle on. There’s some Coke in the fridge. I wasn’t expecting guests, so the house is a bit untidy. Just give me a second to clear a bit of space.’