‘Ah, yes. The newly qualified teacher who was stalking Sasha Spencer-Lyles.’
‘I think the correct term now is “early career teacher”, sir. The Spencer-Lyles made a formal complaint against him. We found scrapbooks with photos of underage girls – mostly his pupils – clearly taken without their knowledge and a sort of diary in which he wrote down his thoughts and fantasies. Some of it shows unequivocally how envious he was of Joshua Knoll.’
Ian’s brain has gone into overdrive. ‘Where did you find this?’
‘Under the mattress of all places, would you believe it?’
‘Did you have a section 8 PACE warrant?’
‘No, his girlfriend recently kicked him out because she’d found out about his obsession with Sasha Spencer-Lyles. She allowed us to search her house. That’s where we found the scrapbook, diary and photos.’
‘Great work, er … Gail. Well done!’
Ian thanks her for letting him know and ends the call. He smiles to himself, briefly. He’s genuinely pleased to hear the progress his colleagues have made on the case. And it looks as though Iris is off the hook. At the same time, it also looks as though he didn’t need to step down from the case after all.
Sighing, he opens his pack of Embassy. ‘Shit!’ he says. He forgot to buy another packet at the pub and he’s down to his last fag. His lucky cigarette. When he opens a fresh pack, he always takes out one of the cigarettes and pushes it back into the pack upside down. He smokes this one last, making a wish before he lights up. (Nothing too unrealistic. No point in wasting his wish on world peace or a lifelong supply of Black Bush. He usually wishes for something for Millie or Jo or himself.)
Someone once told him this tradition of the upside-down lucky cigarette had something to do with the brand Lucky Strikes and American soldiers during the Second World War. He tries now – and fails – to remember the details. Jo often jokes that perhaps his last cigarette, if it really is lucky, isn’t the one that will kill him. It wasn’t even funny the first time.
His head is all over the place. It’s the lager. He knows the investigation is crouching in a recess of his mind, ready to pounce on him. He’ll have to sift through his thoughts at some stage. The case, the arrest, his removal from it.
He puts the cigarette in his mouth with one hand and crunches up the empty packet in the other. What should he wish for? That Iris will be OK? Thathe’ll be OK – perhaps he could wish for a juicy murder case further down the line so he can have another shot at being an SIO? He hasn’t told Jo yet that he’s been taken off the inquiry. He went to see Superintendent Hall two days ago. He has told his best mate, but he still hasn’t told his wife, even though he usually tells her everything. He sighs. He’ll do it in a minute when he goes inside.
He lights up. He knows what to wish for. That they’ve got the right man in custody. Because something about this doesn’t sit right with him. He should know better by now than to trust his intuition, but Ian can’t shake the feeling that Harry Tomlinson isn’t Joshua Knoll’s murderer.
Chapter 27
Carla
NOW
Brayworthy is four or five miles away from Holtleigh. It’s a much larger village with two churches – three, if you count the ruined one – playing fields, where they hold the occasional cricket match, and a village hall big enough to hold parties, albeit rather lame ones, if the events I’ve attended there are anything to go by.
My mobile rings a couple of times as I’m on my way home from running some errands, but it’s inside my handbag and hasn’t connected to the car speaker for some reason, so I ignore it for now. I see the sign informing me I’m entering the village of Brayworthy and telling me to drive carefully. I haven’t seen my partner or my stepdaughter for a week now. It feels like much longer. I miss them. I’m being drawn to them like metal to a magnet. It’s not the same at home without them, without Margo’s incessant chatter and Daniel’s tuneless humming. I’ve exhausted the repertoire of edible meals I can concoct. Ash has threatened to buy me an air fryer and Olly has offered to pick up a takeaway this evening, if I lend him my car. That says it all.
A thought jabs me, demanding attention. If Daniel and I split up, would I get to see Margo? I call her my stepdaughter and think of her as my daughter, but technically she’s not either. Daniel has repeatedly asked me to marry him, but I don’t want to get married again. I don’t think my marital track record is promising, for a start, and also the logistics of it all scares me. When I divorced Ash, I chose not to go back to my maiden name. I thought that keeping Ash’s name would make things easier for Olly and Iris. If I married Daniel, he would expect me to take his name. Carla Duffy. Then I’d have the same surname as my stepdaughter, but a different surname to my son and daughter. Unless I double-barrelled it: Ashford-Duffy. Or Duffy-Ashford. But then I’d have a sort of compound of my husbands, not my own name at all. I know, I know, it’s a pathetic reason not to get married, but it gives me a headache just thinking about it.
It hasn’t been a problem until now, not being married to Daniel. But I’d have no right to see Margo if Daniel left me for good, no claims whatsoever to custody. And what would it do to her, poor baby? She’s already lost one mother – to cancer.
Her voice echoes in my head as Daniel practically dragged her out to his car that day.
‘Mummeeeee,’ she’d screamed. Over and over. She was crying and so was I, although I was trying not to, doing my best to reassure her it would all be OK.
The narrow country lane meanders up the hill, past chocolate-box cottages with thatched roofs and fields. I slow as I approach the Knolls’ house – Hilltop House – which is, unsurprisingly, right at the top, set back from the road. Hilltop House is massive. I know because I’ve been in it, had the guided tour. There’s both a sitting room and a den. The bedrooms have en-suite bathrooms – all five of them – and those at the back of the house have stunning views over Lower Buryknoll Wood, Exmoor and beyond – as far as the Bristol Channel, a thick blue brushstroke underlining the horizon. Yvonne and Richard have an office each. Oh, and Richard has a man cave in the basement, next to his wine cellar. They even have a boot room. I’m not kidding.
Yvonne and I don’t share the same ideas when it comes to home décor. She goes for thick floor-to-ceiling drapes, shag pile carpets and old, dusty rugs, dark antique furniture, a chandelier in the hallway, William Morris wallpaper, hideous portraits of long-dead ancestors, that sort of thing. I like bright, airy and practical; wooden floors and tiles; warm colours; painted walls; photos and magnets on the fridge.
The gate is open. There’s a white banner hanging across the front door. It has large black capital letters on it, but I can’t make out the words from here. The curtains are drawn in one of the windows on the first floor. Yvonne and Richard’s bedroom? It’s the middle of the afternoon. I picture Yvonne in bed, popping one Diazepam after another to ease the pain, refusing to face reality for a little longer. I know she’s living every mother’s worst nightmare right now and I feel sorry for her, in spite of everything.
As I pull up against the pavement opposite, the front door opens and she comes out. If I drive away, I’ll attract attention to myself, so instead I slouch down in my seat, feeling very self-conscious. What am I doing here? I was on my way to see Daniel and Margo. I’ve made a detour.
After a second or two, I sit up a little, just enough to steal a peep at Yvonne. She’s wearing a short skirt and a smart checked jacket. The obligatory high heels – I’ve never seen her wear normal shoes. Her back must give her gyp. Last time I saw her, standing on my doorstep, she looked bedraggled. Broken. I can’t see her clearly from here, but she seems to be standing straighter, walking more purposefully. She strides towards her Range Rover parked in the driveway. I can’t help thinking that, a bit like her shoes, an SUV is a very impractical choice of car round here, where you can’t always squeeze past a car coming the other way along these country roads. I watch as she opens the door, folds herself into the car, closes the door and pulls out of her driveway. I slouch again, holding my breath, as though I might give myself away if she hears me as much as sees me. She drives right past me without registering me and I only start breathing again when she rounds the bend and disappears from view.
I do a U-turn in the road and as I swing the car round to the Knolls’ side of the street, I can make out the wording on the banner. JUSTICE FOR JOSH. I stop the car for a moment and scan the house and its front garden. I wonder if there were journalists in front of the house, standing on the lawn, trampling on the flower beds, hounding the family for interviews. Locals were curious about this case – not at first, when Josh went missing at the end of the summer – but after his body was found, it became a story. Murders don’t happen often in this neck of the woods – oops, bad choice of words – so it made for good headlines. I remember one of those headlines, from theNorth Devon Echo– STABBING SHOCKS SLEEPY VILLAGE. It made me picture the inhabitants of Brayworthy walking around with their hands outstretched like zombies or somnambulists, completely unaware of any danger. It was as if it took a brutal murder to wake them up. Briefly, parents were afraid for their children, fearing that the murderer might strike again.
But it seems to me that the interest in the case dwindled rapidly and life soon resumed as normal. Perhaps the death of an eighteen-year-old boy isn’t deemed newsworthy enough. I imagine the banner, like the reward the Knolls are offering, is part of an ongoing effort on their part to keep people talking about Josh’s murder. The Knolls have no doubt been dealing with their problems since his death, as we have been dealing with ours. A lot of fallout for everyone concerned.
I drive to the bottom of the hill, and pull up in front of Mrs Duffy’s house. Daniel’s mother has always been perfectly civil to me, but she and I have never been close, not the way Ash’s mum and I are. Mrs Duffy has never even invited me to call her by her first name.
