‘Lilah, I need you to talk to me.’
Hill continued to pick at her nails.
‘I know you’re not a cold-blooded killer, that you would never have killed Belinda Raeburn unless you felt compelled to do so …’
Hill didn’t react, didn’t even blink, her attention glued to her fingers.
‘Now I don’t know who’s got at you, what they’ve said or done to make you kill, but there’s no point in you taking the fall for them. If you were coerced – forced, blackmailed, threatened – if someone made you do this, then the courts will have to take that into account.’
It was a good offer, the best she was going to get, but still Hill didn’t look up. Helen was sure the suspect understood what she was saying, but something was preventing her from engaging. In spite of the gruesome events of the morning, this saddened Helen – she was sure Hill was at heart a decent person, who’d somehow ended up in a terrible place.
‘Please try and understand the seriousness of the situation, Lilah …’
Helen softened her tone, trying to appear as friendly and unthreatening as possible. And now Hill finally stopped fidgeting.
‘There’s no way you can wriggle out of a murder charge, no way you can claim it was an accident. I was there, I saw you do it. Plus, we have two witnesses who’ll confirm that the car used in the attack was stolen yesterday from the Hertz depot by someone wearing a burgundy hoodie. The same hoodie you were wearing when you deliberately ran all those red lights yesterday. The same hoodie you’re wearing today.’
Hill blinked, the weight of the evidence against her starting to make itself felt.
‘It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t even manslaughter. It was premeditated, cold-blooded murder.’
Another reaction, that final word punching through.
‘It’s the most serious charge there is. And there’s no way you can avoid it. But you’re still young, Lilah, which means you have a choice—’
If Helen could’ve taken the young woman’s hand in hers, she would have done. She meant every word she was saying, desperately hoping their fragile suspect would make the right decision.
‘You can choose to spend the rest of your life behind bars, hated, reviled, misunderstood. Or you can come clean.’
Helen let this register, before continuing: ‘Tell me what happened, tell me what pushed you into this awful corner, and I can help you. This doesn’t need to be the end, Lilah …’
Hill’s shoulders started to shake, tears filling her eyes. Helen could feel the pent-up misery, the desperation. She had never seen anyone look so despairing, so stricken, so hollow before.
‘If you help us now, if you serve your time, make reparations, then you still have a chance, a chance to have a life, a meaningful life …’
A stifled sob, half expelled, half swallowed. Hill looked like a woman at war with herself, torn between confession and denial.
‘So, please, take your time, start at the beginning. Tell me who made you do this.’
Helen’s hand was laid palm up on the table, as if urging Hill to share. Helen desperately wanted this to be over, for their suspect to finally bare her soul.
‘I can’t …’
Helen could feel Hill backing away from her, as she stuttered out the words.
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t, I’m sorry.’
‘If you’re scared, if you’re concerned for your safety, we can help—’
Hill dropped her gaze, picking at her nails viciously. She seemed desperate, possessed almost, wanting to pull the skin from her fingers, to make herself bleed.
‘Lilah, talk to me. I’m your only hope here, the only person who can help you …’
Another stifled sob as the self-harm ramped up. It was like the young woman wanted to destroy herself, but Helen had to reach out to her, to give her one last chance.
‘Whatever’s happened, we can deal with it. You and me together. So, please, tell me what’s worrying you.’
She moved in closer, almost whispering now.
‘Tell me what you’re afraid of.’
There was a long pause. Helen watched Hill intently, desperate to see some signs of softening, some willingness to co-operate. But when the young woman looked up, the tears now dry in her dull, deadened eyes, Helen realized that she had already made up her mind.
‘I can’t.’
Chapter 112
‘Why isn’t she talking? She must know she can’t wriggle out of this.’
Helen was back in the incident room, the team crowded around her. They’d clearly all been hoping for a confession, for a breakthrough in this troubling investigation. Helen had had to disappoint them, but was not content to accept defeat, pulling the entire unit together to review the evidence and plot their next move. Everyone had responded, everyone except Joseph Hudson, who seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Helen didn’t miss his presence today, however. She needed the whole team pulling together at this critical juncture – even now she was pleased that it was DC Reid who’d asked the question, an erstwhile ally of Hudson’s.
‘I don’t know for sure,’ Helen replied. ‘It may be that she thinks she can pass this off as a hit-and-run, an accident of some kind, and that the less she says, the less she incriminates herself. But I don’t think it’s that, not really. You can hear from the recording that she sounds scared. Whoever’s behind this clearly has a hold over her.’
‘Because she feels they can get to her, even though she’s in custody?’ DC Malik queried.
‘Possibly, but there are other ways of exerting pressure, of commanding loyalty.’
‘You think she’s grateful to whoever’s behind this?’ DC Edwards asked. ‘Glad that her partner was killed?’
‘Maybe, though I sense she’s torn about that, partly relieved, partly guilty. So, if it’s not gratitude, and it’s not purely fear, then it must be because admitting to murdering Belinda Raeburn is somehow better, more acceptable, than revealing the truth.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘Think about it. Amar Goj stood to lose everything, so he took action. Belinda Raeburn and Robert Downing too. Lilah Hill’s life by contrast seemed set fair. She was grieving her husband, sure, but she was actually liberated by his death. His murder could not be explicitly linked to her, there’s no suggestion she ordered it, so even if there was a quid pro quo, even if she had promised to kill Raeburn in return for Martin Hill’s death, she wouldn’t have to go through with it, unless she genuinely feared for her own life if she refused, or if there was some other sword of Damocles hanging over her, compelling her to commit a desperate act.’
‘You think we’ve missed something on her?’
‘I think we’ve barely scratched the surface. We need to go way back, looking at former lovers, friends, jobs, any family issues. We need to turn her life upside down. She’s got no criminal record, no previous brushes with the law, but there must be something we’ve overlooked, something shameful, or criminal, or ruinous. I can’t think of any other reason why a basically decent, ordinary woman would willingly take a stranger’s life.’
‘Why Raeburn anyway?’
Edwards had now raised his head above the parapet.
‘Why was she targeted? Surely … surely the point of this whole thing is that none of the links in the chain can be connected? The perpetrators don’t know their victims, can’t be linked to each other in any way. But these two can. They were both suspects in ongoing investigations, now perpetrators. It seems untidy, doesn’t fit the pattern. Why would the architect of all this mayhem draw attention to their scheme like that?’
‘Maybe they don’t have a choice,’ Helen replied firmly. ‘Maybe we’ve got them rattled now. The whole scheme works perfectly only if the perpetrators are never identified. The original plan must have been for the murders to go unsolved, to appear as random carjackings or hit-and-runs or racist attacks, but as soon as the real motives and real perpetrators are identified, it st
arts to unravel. Belinda Raeburn was a potential weak link. She killed to protect her job, her relationship, her livelihood, but lost everything anyway. There was nothing to stop us targeting her now, persuading her to tell all, so better that she be silenced. Maybe she was deemed to be vulnerable, that Hill and Downing would be more resilient in holding out. I think whoever’s behind this is cleaning out the stables …’
There was a brief pause as the team considered this, then DC Malik returned to the fray.
‘So, what now, guv?’
‘Well, I think we probably all agree that this whole enterprise is the work of one individual or body. That it wasn’t Downing, Hill and Raeburn forming some kind of sinister collective to solve their problems …’
‘We’ve looked into that, extensively,’ DC Bentham offered. ‘There’s no evidence of any contact between the different perps.’
‘So somebody else is coordinating this – contacting them, threatening them, giving them targets, timings and crucial information about their victims’ movements. There’s no reason why Raeburn should have known that Martin Hill used that cut-through every day, nor that Lilah Hill should have known where Raeburn went to the gym. Somebody must have given them that information, given them a set of instructions. How?’
‘We’ve examined their phone histories, messages, emails,’ DC McAndrew offered. ‘I can’t see any common contact, any overlaps, at all. It’s possible they might have some covert means of communication, a burn phone or whatever, in which case it’s going to be virtually impossible to chase it down.’
‘But someone would still have needed to give them the phone,’ Helen insisted. ‘Or the details of a dark-web chat room, or whatever. Someone would still have needed to communicate with them, directly or digitally. So how did that first contact take place?’
There was silence as they processed these thoughts, searching for answers.
‘Surely it has to be Blythe?’ DC Malik ventured tentatively.
This was what Helen had been thinking, but she was glad someone else had said it.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, they all had regular weekly appointments with him. Confidential, private meetings …’
‘In his very discreet city-centre office,’ DC Reid overlapped.
‘He’s got no assistant, right?’ McAndrew added.
‘So there’d be no record of who came and went, who he’d been seeing,’ Malik agreed. ‘Or what state they were in when they left. Whether they were angry, upset, scared …’
‘What’s more, if they were smart,’ Helen added, a new thought occurring, ‘they would continue to see him afterwards. Best not to alter their weekly schedule in any way, to draw attention to themselves … which means he could continue to keep an eye on them, or perhaps even enjoy their discomfort, their anguish, post the killing.’
It was an unpleasant notion, but one Helen instinctively felt was right.
‘How are we doing on Blythe’s alleged data breach?’ she continued.
‘No joy so far. No other breaches or cyber attacks were reported at that time, so unless it was a one-off … obviously, we’ll need to examine Blythe’s systems, but so far we haven’t been able to raise him.’
‘So right now we’ve only got his word that there was a data breach. He might just have been buying himself time. What do we know about Blythe specifically?’
This question was aimed at DC Bentham.
‘Not very much, to be honest. Local boy, brought up by his mum after his parents’ divorce. Did well at school and university and has been a practising psychiatrist for nearly fifteen years. No partner, no kids, has a flat in Upper Shirley. Doesn’t post, tweet or insta. Keeps himself to himself.’
‘Any criminal record?’
‘No. No previous, no cautions, nothing. He was questioned a few years back following an incident with his ex, but, honestly, that’s the only interesting thing about him.’
‘Who was the ex?’
‘Gina Brown.’
‘And what do we know about her?’
‘Well, she’s married to a Mark James, they live down in Bournemouth, but previously she’d been engaged to Blythe. It ended badly, to put it mildly. She broke it off and Blythe was not happy, apparently feeling betrayed, spurned. A few months later, this happened—’
He handed her a printout of an article from the Southampton Evening News. Helen took in the date, July 2018, then the name underneath the photo – Gina Brown – before raising her eyes to the image itself. As she did so, her hand went to her mouth.
Captured in the photo was the same young woman whose picture she’d seen lovingly framed in Alex Blythe’s office. But this time the subject was not grinning and posing for the camera. Instead, she was staring directly forward, shocked, desperate, anguished – the lower half of her face blistered and raw, freshly ravaged by a terrible acid attack.
Chapter 113
‘I can’t talk right now. I’m sorry, I just can’t …’
Gina Brown was hiding behind the front door, hoping that if she didn’t engage, Helen would turn tail and retreat. But there was no question of that – Helen had broken several records, not to mention laws, burning down to Bournemouth in record time. There was no way she would be denied access, however shocking or upsetting her sudden appearance might be.
‘It is vitally important that I talk to you, Gina. About what happened to you, about your relationship with Alex Blythe …’
The mere mention of his name seemed to cause Brown physical pain, her whole body reacting, as she continued to hug the door.
‘I’ve got nothing to say about that and as you can tell I’m trying to get the baby down …’
The raucous strains of a baby’s cries could be heard from upstairs.
‘Then perhaps your husband could take care of it. Is he home?’
Gina hesitated, which gave Helen the opportunity she needed.
‘Please, Gina. I wouldn’t be here unless I had to be. It’s a matter of life and death.’
And now, finally, the seriousness of the situation seemed to sink in; Helen’s fearful hostess reluctantly stepped aside to let her enter.
‘I should start by saying that nobody knows I’m here. And that everything you tell me is off the record …’
Gina nodded, but said nothing, cradling her mug of tea. The pair of them were sitting in her modest living room, surrounded by the trinkets, photos and souvenirs of a happy family life. Whatever she’d been through, whatever she’d endured, clearly Gina Brown had survived, prospered even, carving out some happiness for herself. Tonight, however, she looked far from content, appearing cowed, tearful, even afraid.
‘Alex Blythe is unaware of our interest in him, or that I’m having this conversation with you. The last thing we want to do is to upset or alarm you. Genuinely, you’re perfectly safe, Gina. All I need from you is some information.’
Gina stared into her tea, but made no attempt to drink it.
‘What do you want to know?’ she muttered, seemingly determined not to make eye contact.
‘How did you and Alex first meet?’
Another reaction, but this time it was not fear Helen saw. It was embarrassment.
‘I was his patient …’
‘Right, you went to see him because …?’
‘Because I had a problem. I … I’d had a nasty motorbike accident the year before. I was on some fairly heavy pain medication during my recuperation and well, I found it hard to wean myself off it afterwards.’
‘You engaged Alex Blythe’s services to help deal with your addiction?’
A doleful nod.
‘How long did you see him for?’
‘Professionally, three months or so. Personally, much longer …’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, I was motivated to get off the medication, so the treatment worked. I was so grateful to him, I felt he’d given me back my life. Turned out he felt the same.’
‘Because?’
‘Bec
ause he was lost, at sea …’
‘How so?’
‘He was directionless, unhappy. You have to understand that from the age of six it was just him and his mum. She’d tried for years to have a baby, had gone through several rounds of IVF, then on the last throw of the dice, she conceived. Alex was her little miracle and she worshipped him, gave him whatever he wanted, told him whatever he wanted, day after day after day. Then suddenly she was gone. Late diagnosis breast cancer. Died just before his twenty-second birthday.’
‘Leaving him alone in the world.’
‘After that, he didn’t seem to have anyone. The odd flirtation, I guess, but nothing serious. Then we met. I was so happy, so pleased to be “normal” again, that I doted on him. For a time, I thought we were happy, that we might have a future, which is why I let him persuade me to get engaged …’
‘But your heart wasn’t in it?’
She shook her head. ‘Alex didn’t want to be loved, he wanted to be worshipped. And he was very controlling, would get very cross if I didn’t behave exactly how he wanted me to …’
‘Because no one had ever called him on this behaviour, because he’d always been indulged?’
‘Maybe, I don’t know. I’m not the psychiatrist …’ The bitterest of humour, laced with anger and hurt.
‘So you decided to get out?’
‘I was deeply unhappy, felt trapped, suffocated even. Then one day I met Mark, at my singing group. And he was so genuine and gentle and kind – and I fell in love, properly in love with him.’
The hint of a smile. Helen cast an eye to the ceiling – the baby was quietening down and she could hear Mark’s footsteps as he walked back and forth, trying to pacify the infant.
‘What happened then?’
Now Gina hesitated, as if scared to reopen the box.
‘Gina?’
‘Look, I could have handled it better, I – I did see Mark for a bit whilst I was still with Alex. I just didn’t know what else to do. Alex was so happy, so gung ho about the wedding, telling colleagues, acquaintances, anyone who’d listen, about what a great couple we were, what an amazing day it was going to be. He was making more and more plans, spending more and more money, so one day I just came out and told him that I wanted out.’
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