‘Do you have a name?’
‘Don. He didn’t give his surname.’
‘How did he suggest getting justice?’
‘Doxxing people, exposing what they’ve done on social media. That sort of thing. He stopped coming to the victim support group after a while, but we kept in touch, and he invited me to a group.’
‘The Discord group?’
‘That’s the one. I didn’t do anything at first. Just observed, have a bit of a chat and then, about a month ago, Don sent me the court file for Tabitha’s case. Not just her case but her pre-sentence report. Everything. He then asked if I wanted justice, and I said yes.’
‘Did you know what Don meant by justice?’
‘I thought he meant scare her. Shake her up a bit. Get her to apologise for taking my wife from me.’
Henley could hear the whirl of the fans in the computer tower behind her as Laurence choked back tears. She passed him the box of tissues.
‘She never apologised you know,’ said Laurence. ‘Not once. Her pre-sentencing report said that she was remorseful, but she never said, “I’m sorry for killing Sherri”. And, at one point, she blamed Sherri. Said that she ran out into the road. That she was on her phone, not paying attention. Bitch.’
‘You received a text message on Sunday 17 October at 9.28 p.m.. The number wasn’t saved in your contacts,’ said Henley. She tapped her pen against a highlighted message on the transcript. ‘“All good. On train now. Arriving at Forest Hill station. 10.04 p.m.”. Who were you meeting?’
‘Don. The plan was that I was to pick him up at the station, go to the Ashcrofts’ house and confront her.’
‘Was Don alone?’
‘No. When I arrived at the station, I could see someone with him. I didn’t think anything of it and then he brought him to the car.’
‘Could you describe this person?’
‘No. He had a hoodie on. He kept his head down and had his back to me. I asked Don who he was, and he said it was someone who was on our side. He didn’t give me a name. I then … I don’t know panicked. It was all well and good talking about confronting her, but I’d started to see more things in the chat. Disturbing things.’
‘Like what?’
Laurence stood up, walked to the corner of the room and pressed himself against the wall. Henley let him, knowing that the microphones would be able to capture his voice. ‘It was a video of a woman. She was on the floor and screaming, never heard anything like it and she was covered with feathers.’
‘Who posted the video.’
‘I’m not sure, but I just thought about that video, and I couldn’t do it. Whatever they wanted to do, I just couldn’t do it.’
‘So, what happened next?’
‘I told Don no. That I’d changed my mind,’ Laurence said, returning to his seat. ‘But he told me it was too late. I told him I was going home but he … took out a knife and put it to my stomach. Told me again that it was too late.’
‘At the last interview we showed you footage of your car on Lordship Lane shortly before the attack on the Ashcrofts.’
‘That was my car, but I wasn’t driving. Don told me to get out of the car. He had a knife, so I did. He told the other guy to get in which he did and then they drove off. I thought he was just trying to frighten me, not that I wasn’t already scared as fuck, but I thought he was going to come back. But he didn’t.’
‘So, what did you do?’
‘Nothing at first. Just stood there like a mug and then I went to the pub. The Dartmouth Arms. I had a couple of pints, tried to get my head together and then I got an Uber and went home. I’m sure they’ve got cameras, and you can check the Uber app on my phone.’
‘We’ll do all of those things,’ Henley replied, suddenly feeling exhausted by the lengths to which Laurence had gone to get some kind of justice for his wife. ‘How did you get the car back?’
‘Not that night but in the morning, I got a text from a different number. Telling me to pick up the car.’
Henley turned over the pages of the phone report and ran her finger through the messages. ‘6.49 a.m.. “Thanks. Keys behind the wheel. Driver’s side.”. There’s no location,’ she said.
‘I got a location notification after the text. He’d left the car in New Cross. I can’t remember the road name, but the car was parked next to an allotment. I got the train there and found my car. Windscreen shattered. Bumper fucked up. I just got in and hoped that you lot didn’t stop me.’
