‘Do you think you’d recognise Julie Edwards if you saw a photo of her, Shona?’
‘Heck, yes! I can even see her face in my mind right now, as we speak.’
‘Even thirty-odd years later?’
‘Well, I mean, I can’t say for certain, but yes, I’d like to think so.’
‘Shona, I’m going to send you over a link, right now, to this phone, and I want you to stay on the line and click on the link. Can you do that for me?’
‘What the hell, send it. Ned…Ned, get your arse up over here and have a look at this…’
‘I want you to tell me if you recognise the person in the photograph I’m about to send you, and if you do, then tell me her name, OK?’
I pull up Erin’s mugshot on my phone, click send. After a few seconds’ delay, I hear the ping of it arrive at her phone, and hold my breath.
‘No. That’s not her,’ she says, instantly. ‘That’s not Julie Edwards… I’m pretty certain it’s not her, is it, Ned?’
I hear him grumbling in the background again.Is he muzzled?‘Nah… Ned doesn’t think so either. This woman doesn’t look at all familiar to me. I suppose… I suppose the eye colour is similar, the green eyes… but Julie Edwards had this ice-white blonde hair, and the shape of her face, her nose… yeah… no… it’s not her.’
‘And you’re absolutely sure about that, Shona?’
She sucks in a breath. ‘Definitely.’
FORTY-THREE
Tilly Ward lifts her head up from the photograph of Erin Santos that I’ve placed in front of her on the table and fixes her eyes on me.
‘Oh my God!’ Her hand shoots up to her mouth. ‘That’sdefinitelyher – yes, that’s Samantha!’
‘And you’re sure about that? You’re absolutely one hundred per cent sure thatthiswoman inthisphotograph is the person you know as Samantha Valentine?’
She meets my eyes once more. ‘It’s her.’
I nod, drag my hand down my face.This is insane.
Immediately, I send Davis a text message.
Positive photo ID on Erin Santos from Tilly Ward.
But I couldn’t quite get my head around itstill. Katy Russell had identified Erin Santos as being a girl named Julie Edwards, who she went to school with, only when I sent Shona Valentine the same photo of Erin, she swore blind to me that itwasn’ther. So who’s right and who’s wrong? Both? Neither?Which the hell is it?
‘I’ve got a whole heap of old photo albums from her school days,’ Shona had told me. ‘And Julie Edwards is in some of them, though not many. For some reason, I didn’t want to have to look at her face whenever I went back through them. Like I said, Detective, there was just something about that kid that I didn’t like,didn’t trust.’
She’d promised to dig a photo out and send it to me.
Tilly had looked pleased to see me as she’d opened the door to her apartment.
‘It’s nice to see you, Dan,’ she signed to me. Or at least I think she did.
‘Hello, Tilly,’ I signed back, a little awkwardly. ‘How are you?’
‘Wow,’ she said, her eyes widening, ‘I’m impressed. Have you been taking lessons?’
I shrugged. ‘Not as many as I would like, Tilly. Can I come in?’
‘Yes, of course, please.’ She stood back from the door and I stepped inside, wiped my feet on the doormat.
‘Um,’– she looked down at them – ‘would you mind…’
