All the Rage (DI Fawley)

by Cara Hunter

  PW: Yeah – exactly. That’s exactly what must of happened –

  VE: So you’re saying Nadine planned it – that she deliberately set out to kill Sasha in a carbon-copy of what had happened to Faith, just to frame Patsie and the others?

  JB: Can you prove she didn’t?

  ES: So why didn’t she tell us Patsie and the others had assaulted Faith right at the start? Why wait all this time on the off-chance we’d work it out for ourselves?

  JB: You’ll have to ask her about that, Officer. Who knows what was going on in her head. She’s clearly extremely disturbed.

  PW: Right – Nadine’s fucking weird –

  DW: Patsie, please –

  JB: Does Nadine have an alibi, for example? Because my client does. As well you know. Sasha, Patsie and Isabel were all on that bus together, and you have a ticket that proves it.

  ES: It’s a great theory, Mr Beck. There’s just one problem with it. How on earth could Nadine have known where Sasha would be that night? That precise place, that precise time – how could she possibly have found that out?

  PW: That’s easy. Because she bloody spied on us, that’s how.

  * * *

  Adam Fawley

  10 April 2018

  17.05

  ‘Do you think that’s true, what Patsie said?’

  Gallagher is staring at the screen, her arms folded rigid and her foot tapping against the floor.

  ‘That Nadine spied on them? I’m afraid it’s only too feasible. Nadine was desperate to belong – I can easily see her eavesdropping on what they were up to.’

  ‘Let’s see what Isabel and Leah have to say about that. Quinn and Gislingham are picking them up separately, so they don’t get a chance to compare notes.’

  It should reassure me, but it doesn’t.

  ‘One thing I do know is that those girls will have got their stories straight long before this. Isabel and Leah are going to back up anything Patsie comes out with. Which means whatever Nadine says, it’ll only be her word against theirs. And right now we can’t even place them at the scene, never mind actually charge them.’

  Gallagher sighs. ‘A bunch of fifteen-year-old kids with half Thames Valley CID on to them, and we can’t even break their bloody alibis.’

  * * *

  ‘DC Somer?’

  It’s Nina Mukerjee, standing in the doorway of the Applefords’ kitchen.

  They started upstairs. Nadine’s room, Diane’s room, Faith’s room, the bathroom. Bagging, tagging and taking away. And now they’re in the kitchen, barely twenty feet from where Somer has been sitting with Diane Appleford, trying desperately to pretend she’s interested in an ancient episode of Law & Order.

  ‘Can you come in here for a moment?’

  Nina’s keeping her voice light but Somer isn’t deceived. They wouldn’t be calling her in otherwise.

  Diane glances up, suddenly alarmed.

  ‘It’s OK, Mrs Appleford, I’ll just be a minute.’

  Nina leads her back down the hall. In the kitchen, the contents of the cutlery drawer are laid out on the table.

  ‘I was just about to process these, but I thought you ought to see them first.’

  The knives have metal handles and serrated edges.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Diane Appleford is hesitating at the threshold, her face bleached greenish in the overhead light. ‘They’re just bloody steak knives,’ she says. ‘There must be hundreds in this sodding city. Thousands.’

  ‘I know,’ says Somer, ‘it’s just procedure –’

  ‘What am I going to say to Faith?’ she says, her voice breaking now. ‘She’s refusing to come home. She won’t even talk to me.’

  ‘Look, that may be for the best,’ says Somer, moving towards Diane. ‘Give her time. This is tough on her – on all of you.’

  There are footsteps on the stairs now, and low voices in the hall. Low enough to be discreet, but still loud enough to be heard.

  ‘You’ve got all the clothes?’ It’s Clive Conway’s voice; he’s talking to the junior CSI.

  ‘Yup, I’ve got everything that was on the list. I’ve also bagged the shoes. One set of trainers have smears of dried mud, and I think there’s other trace too, so we could get lucky.’

  ‘What do they mean “trace”?’ says Diane, turning to Somer, her eyes wide. ‘What are they talking about?’

  Somer bites her lip. ‘Like I said, it’s just procedure. Let’s just take things one step at a time.’

  * * *

  Adam Fawley

  11 April 2018

  10.08

  The call comes through to the incident room at just after 10.00 the following morning. The stains on Nadine’s trainers were blood. Sasha’s blood. Most of us still can’t believe it. But as Alan Challow always says, forensic evidence doesn’t lie.

  ‘This is going to destroy her mother,’ says Somer sadly. As if it needed saying.

  ‘I still think there’s more to this than meets the eye,’ says Gallagher. ‘Those girls – they have to be involved somehow –’

  Ev makes a face. ‘Isabel and Leah just parroted “no comment” to every single question we asked – it’s like they’re in some sort of bloody cult or something.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ says Gis. ‘But I still think their fingerprints are all over this. Especially Patsie’s.’

  ‘Not literally, though,’ observes Baxter. ‘The partials on the handbag don’t match a single one of ’em.’

  ‘More’s the bloody pity,’ mutters Quinn.

  But something Baxter said triggers a niggle in my mind, and when the meeting is over, I take him quietly to one side. Because it’s not worth making a song and dance about this in public. Not if I’m wrong.

  * * *

  Interview with Nadine Appleford, conducted at St Aldate’s Police Station, Oxford

  11 April 2018, 11.55 a.m.

  In attendance, DC V. Everett, DC E. Somer, Mrs D. Appleford, Mrs P. Marshall (solicitor), Ms S. Rogers (designated Appropriate Adult)

  VE: Interview resumed at 11.55 on April 11th 2018.

  ES: Now, Nadine. Since we last talked to you we’ve spoken to Patsie Webb, and she’s admitted that she and her friends were the ones who attacked your sister. We’ve interviewed Isabel and Leah as well, and they’re all going to be charged with Actual Bodily Harm. Do you understand, Nadine? We know it was them. We know what they did and how they tricked you.

  NA: [to her mother]

  I told you, Mum, I didn’t do it – it wasn’t me –

  DA: I know, sweetheart, I know.

  ES: And you still maintain you weren’t at the river the night Sasha died either?

  NA: No, I told you.

  VE: You didn’t see her – you didn’t talk to her –

  NA: No – I never even went out. I was at home all night.

  ES: Your sister says the washing machine was on when she got home. Could you explain that for us?

  NA: [shrugs]

  Dunno. I don’t remember.

  VE: As you know, we conducted a search at your house yesterday. Various items were removed and sent for forensic analysis. This included a pair of trainers found hidden under some other clothes at the bottom of your wardrobe.

  DA: They weren’t hidden – she’s just messy – she’s a teenager –

  VE: Nadine? Were you trying to hide the shoes?

  NA: [silence]

  ES: Forensic tests on those shoes indicate that someone has tried to clean them with household bleach, which is a rather unusual thing to use on training shoes. Was that you, Mrs Appleford?

  DA: [pause]

  No. It wasn’t.

  ES: Was it you, Nadine? Did you try to clean something off your shoes?

  PM: You’re entitled to say ‘no comment’ at any time, Nadine.

  NA: No comment.

  VE: Could you speak up, please? For the tape?

  NA: [louder]

  No comment.

  ES: [passing across a piece of paper]

&n
bsp; These are the results of the tests on the shoes, Nadine. There are traces of blood on them. Not very much. But it’s there. And it’s Sasha’s.

  NA: [silence]

  ES: But that only proves you were present when Sasha died. It doesn’t necessarily prove you actually did anything. So what happened, Nadine? How did you end up there that night?

  NA: [silence]

  VE: Patsie says none of the other girls were even there – that you killed her, all on your own. She says you knew Sasha would be going home that way that night because you’d been spying on them. Eavesdropping on their conversations. Is that true?

  NA: It wasn’t like that.

  VE: So what was it like?

  NA: [shakes her head]

  ES: Why won’t you talk to us, Nadine? Did Patsie trick you again, is that it? You shouldn’t be taking all the blame, not if Patsie tricked you.

  NA: It wasn’t –

  PM: [preventing her]

  You don’t have to answer that, Nadine.

  NA: No, I want to. It wasn’t a trick.

  VE: What was it then?

  NA: She said to be there, that night. At the river.

  VE: Patsie?

  NA: [nods]

  ES: You arranged to meet her.

  NA: Not just her. The others as well. She said they were sorry about Faith and this was a way to make up for it. We were all going to be blood sisters.

  ES: Blood sisters?

  NA: You know, like on the telly. They said to bring a knife. We all had to bring our own.

  ES: So you took one from the kitchen at home?

  NA: [nods, not looking at her mother]

  VE: What happened when you got there?

  NA: I was waiting at the bus stop near the Vicky Arms. They’d walked up from Summertown.

  VE: Who had, Nadine?

  NA: Patsie and Isabel and Sasha. Not Leah. Leah wasn’t there.

  VE: And what time was this?

  NA: About 9.15. They said I had to be there by 9.00. Patsie had torches and stuff in her bag.

  ES: Did Sasha say anything when you all met up?

  NA: No. But she didn’t look happy, I don’t think she wanted to be there. She kept looking at her watch like there was somewhere else she was supposed to be.

  VE: Then what happened?

  NA: We went along the path to the river. Isabel went first, then Sasha, then Patsie, then me. Then suddenly Patsie was grabbing Sasha from behind and Isabel was ramming a carrier bag over her head, and then they got out some of those plastic things and tied her up. Sasha was falling over in the mud and she was trying to scream but you could see she didn’t have enough air. Then Patsie got her phone out and started filming it but she could hardly do it for laughing, and then Isabel said ‘Don’t forget the hair’.

  ES: ‘Don’t forget the hair’?

  NA: [nods]

  ES: Why did she say that – do you know?

  NA: [shakes her head]

  VE: What did Patsie do after Isabel said that?

  NA: She pulled up Sasha’s head by the hair and yanked some out at the back. Sasha was really really crying. She had really nice hair.

  ES: Then what?

  NA: Patsie told me to get out my knife and cut her. Sasha. I didn’t want to, I was scared and I felt sick, but she said I had to and if I didn’t we wouldn’t be blood sisters and I’d be next. So I did. But it was just a little one. On her leg. Patsie and Isabel were still laughing – they were like, hysterical, like they were on drugs or something. Then Patsie looked at the cut I did and said it was pathetic and I had to do another one. So I did and there was more blood this time. Iz put some of it on my face.

  [begins to weep]

  Sasha was crying really bad. Calling for her mum. But they were just laughing and saying things like ‘that’ll teach you’, ‘stuck-up bitch’, stuff like that.

  [wiping her eyes]

  She didn’t know how much they hated her. She thought they liked her but I heard them talking about her when she wasn’t there. They were really pissed off because she was prettier than them and Patsie thought she was trying to get off with her boyfriend.

  [looking at each of the two officers]

  I’m not making this up – I don’t know his name but I heard Patsie talking about it. She went, like, totally apeshit.

  VE: We know, Nadine. We’ve spoken to him, and he told us the same thing.

  ES: So what happened next?

  NA: Isabel started kicking her and Patsie joined in. I tried to make them stop but Patsie said they’d do the same to me if I didn’t shut the fuck up.

  VE: How long did that go on?

  NA: I dunno. It felt like ages but it probably wasn’t. Then Patsie said I was a useless loser and gave me the handbag and told me to fuck off. To fuck off home and dump it somewhere on the way.

  ES: What about Sasha’s phone?

  NA: She threw that in the river. There was a notebook too and she threw that in as well.

  VE: And then you went home.

  NA: [nods]

  ES: And Sasha was still alive at that point?

  NA: [nods]

  I don’t know what happened after that. I thought they’d all just go home. I threw up on the way back, and I had blood on my clothes and mud and stuff, so I put it all in the washing machine.

  [weeping again]

  I’m so sorry. I’d do anything to take it back. I can’t stop thinking about it –

  ES: What happened the next day?

  NA: When I got to school I saw Patsie and Iz but Sasha wasn’t with them and didn’t come to assembly either and I started to feel really sick. Then Patsie told me that if I said anything they’d give the police the video on the phone and I’d be the one who went to prison. Because I was the only one on the video.

  ES: They’d have gone to prison too. The video would prove they were there.

  NA: [silence]

  I didn’t think of that.

  * * *

  Adam Fawley

  11 April 2018

  12.19

  Gallagher joins me at the video screen in the next room.

  ‘Somer’s doing really well,’ I say, glancing up. ‘I hope you’re telling her that. She doesn’t have enough confidence in her own abilities.’

  She gives me a look. ‘I have, but thank you, I’ll make sure to tell her again. I’ve also told her to take the afternoon off. She looks completely exhausted.’

  On the screen, Nadine is sobbing in her mother’s arms, and people are getting to their feet. They must have decided to take a break.

  ‘Have you heard from forensics?’

  Gallagher nods. ‘There are small traces of Sasha’s DNA on one of the Applefords’ kitchen knives. Which ties in with Nadine’s story, but as Patsie’s lawyer will immediately point out, could just as easily corroborate Patsie’s version of events. And without a murder weapon we’ll struggle to prove which of them actually killed her.’

  ‘What about Patsie’s mobile? Any sign of that video Nadine said she took?’

  ‘The phone’s gone to the lab, along with her laptop. I suspect the video she took is long gone, but if we’re lucky she won’t have deleted it so thoroughly that digital forensics can’t find it.’

  I shake my head. ‘What if there never was a video? Because all their phones were off, weren’t they – we know that. So it doesn’t really add up.’

  She frowns; this obviously hadn’t occurred to her. ‘She could have put the phone on flight-safe mode?’

  ‘That’s one possibility. But these girls are clever, especially Patsie. She’d know how difficult it is to really delete stuff. Especially anything to do with the Cloud.’

  ‘So you think Nadine is lying?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I think Patsie was bluffing – she just pretended to video Nadine so she could blackmail her into staying quiet.’

  She sighs. ‘And if there’s no video, Patsie’s lawyers will just say that’s yet more proof Nadine’s the one who’s lying.’

&n
bsp; She takes a seat next to me now. ‘What worries me is that even if we do manage to place Patsie and Isabel at the scene they’re bound to say that as far as they were concerned it was just another “prank”. That they left Sasha alive and well, and Nadine must have gone crazy after that and ended up killing her. Patsie’s already telling anyone who will listen that Nadine’s weird.’

  I nod. ‘And Nadine’s got a far more credible motive. Even though Brotherton’s evidence backs her up, it’s going to be tough to convince a jury that those girls would have killed Sasha over something so apparently trivial. Not when they were supposed to be BFFs.’

  Gallagher smiles. ‘I’m surprised you know what that means.’

  I laugh drily. ‘I have hidden shallows.’

  She looks back at the screen again. Nadine is being led out of the door by her mother. ‘We need to find a way to help that girl, Adam, because right now, everything’s against her. And as DS Gislingham continues to remind me, those bloody girls are playing us for fools.’

  There’s a knock on our door now, and Baxter appears round it. ‘Ah, there you are, boss. I sent those prints over to forensics like you asked and got them to do a rush on them. They’ve just got back to me. I think you’ll want to see this – looks like you were right.’

  As the door swings shut again behind him Gallagher looks at me and raises an eyebrow. ‘Care to share?’

  * * *

  * * *

  Adam Fawley

  11 April 2018

  12.25

  The incident room is crowded now. People are perched on desks, eating sandwiches from the Tesco across the road. And at the front, by the whiteboard, is Baxter.

  ‘So,’ asks Gallagher, ‘what’s all this about?’

  Baxter turns and points at an enlargement of Isabel Parker’s bus ticket.

  ‘The DI asked me to get some more tests done on this and it turns out he guessed right. There are two sets of prints on this thing.’

  Quinn frowns. ‘Don’t bus drivers hand the tickets out? So they’ll be his, right?’

  Evidently Quinn doesn’t spend much time on public transport. As if you couldn’t guess.

  ‘The tickets are issued straight from the machine,’ says Asante quietly. ‘Only the passengers handle them.’