“We need a plausible story, Adam. I’ll go back upstairs and we’ll have countless witnesses to Sean’s assault on me. I just need a bruise,” Sam says. “It looks better if it’s me that got hurt. We can play the old chivalry card—God knows it’s good for nothing else.”
“No!” Taylor barks. “This has already gone too far. I’ve hit a man and you’ve tampered with evidence and destroyed police property. We should just go to the DCI and confess.”
“You do that and we’llbothbe fired,” Sam retorts.
“Maybe that’s exactly what we deserve,” Taylor hisses, and he storms out, slamming the door.
Sam groans and looks around the empty room. She kneels down next to the steel table and wraps her hands around its leg. She takes a deep breath, moves her head back and then thrusts her face hard toward the cold metal. The pain makes her ears roar. Somehow she’s caught the high eyebrow bone and her eyes flood with tears. The skin is already throbbing.
It’ll be a perfect bruise by tomorrow.
Sam quickly endsthe call with DI Duggan and emerges from the lift as dramatically as she can, crying and folding herself on to the fourth-floor sofa. Chloe Spears and another woman jog over and together they administer a cold compress to Sam’s eye as she explains how the interview with Sean Lister went very wrong.
“He smacked me right on the eye,” Sam whimpers to Chloe. “Bastard. Taylor had a right job restraining him.”
“Want me to write up the report for you? Can you see OK?” Chloe asks.
“I’ll manage the report,” Sam says—though, of course, she won’t. Several people come over to ask if she’s OK, and once she has enough witnesses to her injuries, she makes her way back to her desk and pops two paracetamol. Taylor is sitting at his desk, holding his head in his hands and watching her out of the corner of his eye. Chloe hovers in the background.
Sam refuses to let Sean Lister waste another second of time they could be spending working on Charlotte’s case. She pours herself a cup of water, downs it and speaks with as much authority as she can muster.
“DC Spears…” She waves Chloe closer. “I assume you’ve been told you’re joining our team?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Spears confirms. “And congratulations on being made joint SIO. Also, your sister called for you, ma’am. She said it’s urgent.”
“SIO?” Taylor spins in his chair, sounding hurt. “You didn’t tell me.” Sam shrugs and smiles at him, wincing as the expression reaches her throbbing bruise. “Ma’am, there’s something I need to—”
“Look, I have a theory I want to run by you both,” Sam cuts in. Can you come with me, please?” As she stands, the throbbing over her eye increases and she adjusts the cool-pack she’s holding there.
The tiny meeting room in the corner opposite Harry’s office is vacant and they sit toe-to-toe. Spears’s perfume is light and floral, and reminds Sam of her mother, which she finds soothing. She sits back in her seat and waits until everyone is comfortable and paying attention.
“Even before Sean Lister came forward, something was really bothering me about Bobby—Denver’s cousin,” Sam begins. “I felt like he was in Denver’s book twice. Sure, Denver talks about him alot, but I thought Bobby had popped up somewhere he shouldn’t. It took me a while to spot the clue. I’d focused only on the murder we know Denver really might have committed—”
“Betty Brown,” Taylor says, his eyes flicking to the pack on her face. The concern in his gaze makes her cheeks hot.
“Exactly. The detail about Betty’s broken fingers was not in the public domain and the family were never told.” Sam adjusts the ice pack. “We haven’t been able to find anything on Daisy. Jono died in an accident. Sean is alive and Richie Scott could be lying, as he was convicted of murdering Melanie and stands to gain significantly if—”
“And Denver himself says Basil survived,” Taylor bursts in. “I’ve searched high and low for him and I’m certain nothing was reported to the police. The old man must have kept it quiet.”
“Mmm…” Sam feels more heat in her cheeks at another mention of this victim whose chapter she’s not yet reached. She decides to plow ahead. “We also know that Denver lied about torturing Betty, actually minimizing the harm he did to her in his version of events, which is odd for a man who’s boasting about being a serial killer. I read Betty’s chapter again and again. Then I read the bit about Bobby again and again. That’s why I’ve come to believe that Betty Brown was Bobby’s mother. Betty is Denver’s aunt.”
Taylor and Chloe stare at Sam, stunned into silence. Sam sips some water, enjoying a flush of pride at having solved the mystery of the missing victim. After a moment, she can see that her conclusion may take some more explaining. She strokes the little netball in her pocket, soothed by its smooth roundness.
“Bobby died, right?” Chloe checks.
“Yes,” Taylor confirms. “But Denver doesn’t tell us how.”
“But he does tell us when,” Sam says, “and that’s the clue we needed to spot.”
“I spotted it,” Taylor says. “Bobby died in July.”
“And what happens in July?” Sam asks them both.
“Glastonbury,” Chloe guesses. Sam smiles but shakes her head, then opensHow to Get Away with Murder.She turns to a page with a folded-down corner and points to a highlighted paragraph:
“… their boy graduated from university, only to fall in a river on his way home from the ceremony.”
“Graduation,”Taylor declares, his mouth open. “Betty’s son died after graduation, which is in July—the same month Bobby died.”
