Polly lasers her eyes at Miles. ‘Is thatCaira’svoice?’ She doesn’t need her brother to answer to know that itisCaira Kennedy’s voice – they all know what it sounds like. About five years ago, Caira took part in a documentary calledGuardian Angels, which followed her and five other social workers in their day-to-day efforts to keep children safe against a backdrop of abuse and neglect. After her murder, the series was cynically rerun on TV and clips from it were regularly spliced into news reports. Polly and her family have all seen the series, and they all know Caira’s voice. There’s no doubting the owner of the voice that just played on the laptop – it’s Caira Kennedy.
Miles stares out of the window towards the garden, where a blackbird twitches about on the grass. ‘Well, it sounds a lot like her. Alotlike her.’
‘What does it mean?’ Polly says. ‘Did she send it?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Pol,’ Carl says.
Itisa ridiculous suggestion, of course. She just blurted out the question without thinking. Polly was in court when pictures of the murder scene, including Caira’s body, were shown to the jury. An expert witness explained that the line around her neck had been caused by a ligature, rather than the human hand, and the scratch marks above and below it were caused by Caira’s fingernails as she’d tried to slacken it. Is Caira still alive? Of course she isn’t. But Polly can’t immediately think of another explanation. ‘What’s going on, then?’ she asks.
‘It’s an impersonation of some kind.’
‘It’s a damn good one.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Carl says. ‘The police will sort it. One thing we know for sure is that we’re dealing with a very sick individual.’
For a while they just sit, the grimness of it soaking into them. There have been a great many gloomy conversations held around their dining table this year, all of them concerning Miles, and now, even with the trial behind them, here they are in the shadow of another.
‘I don’t like it,’ Miles says. His hands form a V around his face and hold his head, as if his neck can’t bear the weight of it. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’ He’s quiet again for a moment, and Polly can sense the thought as it gestates in his mind. She knows him so well that she can guess the words – or the rough meaning of them – that are about to spill from his mouth. He looks at her. ‘Let’s get out of here, now. I don’t want to wait – the next available flight. I want to be as far away from here as possible.’
Part Two
Chapter 10
Miles
Getting everything organised for the trip took longer than Miles had hoped. The soonest flights were fully booked, and both Polly and Elis had work commitments that needed to be fulfilled before they could leave. In fact, Polly seemed to have a long list of reasons to delay their departure. But, thanks to Miles’s persistence, they sorted it all out in the end. Their travel is booked, as is their first hotel – four nights in Queenstown. After that, they’ll figure it out as they go along. Miles likes the idea of that: the freedom. This trip will be exactly what he needs. It’ll be great to spend some quality time with the people who have been there for him during his ordeal, especially his sister and Elis, who has been unbelievably supportive. And it’ll be a chance for Elis to properly get to know some of Miles’s other friends.
It’s now a whole week since Miles’s acquittal, and he’s busy packing the last of his things into his suitcase. They’ll be going early in the morning, and Miles can’twaitfor take-off. Leaving the country will be the final step towards normality after the nightmare of the trial. He’d expected things to get back to something close to normal as soon as a not guilty verdict was delivered, but it hasn’t quite worked out like that.
For a start, he’s been feeling strangely down, like he’s being confronted with Caira’s death for the first time. Nothing makes a man more self-absorbed and inward-looking than being charged with murder. The strain of it is so intense that it leaves no room for empathy. And it’s only now that he’s experiencing what might be described as delayed grief – a lingering sadness at what happened to her. Miles was with Caira the night she died, and now he can’t help but spend hours thinking about it: the terror she would have felt in her final moments, the tragic loss of her life, the pain it must have caused her family.
Also, Miles still hasn’t left the house since he got back after the verdict. For the whole week, he’s been holed up, never once venturing outside. It just doesn’t seem like a wise idea. And it’s not simply due to paranoia on his part. The reporters may have largely stopped knocking, but Miles can’t shake his conviction that photographers might still be lurking out there somewhere, waiting for him to emerge. The media certainly hasn’t lost interest in the case. On Sunday, a whole bunch of new stories dropped online, and Caira’s face once again peered out from the front pages of the newspapers. Some focused on her job:TV Angel’s career hell, a headline read. One had a lengthy interview with Caira’s ex-boyfriend, Ben Knight, who spoke of his grief at losing who he described as his soulmate. The way Ben told it, their relationship – and thedomestic blissthat they shared – had merely been put on hold and they’d been destined to get back together.
But the worst article dropped a couple of days later – only twenty-four hours after they booked their flights to New Zealand. One of the papers had been tipped off that he was going on what they described as a luxury getaway. The way it was reported made it sound as if he was revelling in his newfound freedom, when the truth was the opposite – he was desperate to escape this feeling ofthe world closing in on him again. There was also an element of betrayal to wrangle with; someone with a close knowledge of his life had tipped off a reporter. He should have made it clear to everyone he knows that they need to be tight-lipped about their plans. Too many people found out about the trip, and eventually one of them sold him out.
But even more unsettling is the content of his inbox. Even though most of the abuse and trolling died off after a day or two, he continued to receive the Caira voice notes. Three more arrived, making four in total. Each one essentially a repetition of the first message, a vague threat, signed off with the same four words:this is not over.Everyone Miles talked to seemed to be in agreement about how they were created; the recordings were made using some kind of AI voice simulator. Each was sent from an email account set up in Caira’s name. Miles found it particularly menacing how much thought had been put into these communications. And the most recent was chilling for the way it referenced his upcoming trip:Have fun on your holiday, Miles. This is not over.
He has forwarded the messages to the police, but so far, he hasn’t received a meaningful response other than an email explaining they are looking into it. He wishes they would hurry up. The sooner they identify the person sending them, the better, because, at the moment, the question is starting to eat away at him. Who is harassing him, and why?
When he arrives in New Zealand, he will allow his mind to clear. When he gets to the most distant land possible, where no one knows who he is, he will be at peace. He’ll check his emails less frequently. He will engage in healthy, mindful pursuits and activities. He will reconnect with all the things he took for granted about a normal, carefree existence.
In the meantime, though, the emails have got him thinking back over the trial again, reliving it day by day. What if his harasser was in court, watching him? When the trial washappening, Miles was preoccupied by a completely different question. All he could think of, when he looked around at the jury, at the public gallery, was: did they believe him? Would they find him not guilty? Now, when he relives the experience, a different question is on his mind. Who in that courtroom was so convinced by his guilt that they would never be able to accept his innocence, whatever the outcome? Who there had already convicted him in their own mind? Who had established a loathing of him that couldn’t be undone by any verdict?
Chapter 11
The Trial
The first day of the trial is likely to remain the most vivid in Miles’s memory. The build-up to it was so intense, and when it finally came, it seemed utterly surreal. He had been partly prepared for the experience; his plea hearing ten months earlier was in the same courtroom, with a similar level of media interest. But that day was more about navigating his way to the court – the photographers and camera crews. Now, it was all about what happened inside the court. How this played out would determine how he was going to live the rest of his life.
It began at 10 a.m., with the jury being selected and sworn in. It was a slow process that gave Miles a chance to examine his surroundings and get a feel for what they were up against. Miles found it unnerving that the Crown had three barristers for the prosecution, compared to his two for his defence. Sitting behind the Crown’s KC on the front bench were two junior barristers. One of them, a pale woman named Victoria Penning, would later get involved to a certain extent, getting up now and again to read out some transcript or set of agreed facts. But the other, a nervous-looking man of about thirty named John Paul Bridges, didn’t seemto have a role at all beyond watching the trial. When Miles asked what he did, Eleanor explained that Bridges was what’s known as a disclosure junior, who wasn’t really required to be in court and probably wasn’t being paid to attend the trial. The way Miles caught Bridges staring at him from time to time made him think that maybe there was something personal for him about this case, although Eleanor assured him there wasn’t. Looking back now, Miles isn’t so sure.
When the jury was sworn in, it was time for the prosecution to open its case. It was clear that, for the media, this was the key moment. They scribbled their notes more vigorously for the next hour than at any other point of the trial. They, and the public, had waited for the best part of a year to hear the juicy details they so hungrily desired, and now, the Crown’s senior barrister was about to lay it all out – exactly what the prosecution thought had happened to Caira and why they were so certain Miles was a murderer.
The lead prosecutor, William Cox KC, was exactly how Miles had imagined a senior barrister to be: broad, bellied and booming, with eyebrows so grey and unkempt that they matched his fraying old wig. When he stood to open the prosecution’s case, he did so while holding a picture of Caira, which he raised aloft to show the jury. ‘This woman,’ he began, ‘was a beloved daughter, cherished sibling and doting auntie. She was forty years old when she met the defendant, Miles Deverill. And she was, to coin a phrase popular with her millennial generation, living her best life. Caira Kennedy had a job that she found purposeful and rewarding, and, due to her warm personality and infectious sense of humour, she had a wide group of friends. She was single, and she enjoyed being single. As a gregarious character who loved meeting new people, she enjoyed going on dates. But the arrangement of one of these dates began a chain of events that would ultimately prove fateful for Ms Kennedy, and her happy life was to be prematurely brought to an end.
‘That chain of events began in November of last year, when Ms Kennedy met the defendant, Miles Deverill, on an online dating app. The two of them hit it off, regularly chatting via WhatsApp, and eventually made a date. That date took place on the third of December. It was a typical first date, the sort of which most of you will have experience. Thanks to CCTV footage, receipts and phone data, we have a very clear picture of what they did. They went out for dinner – steak frites for him, and pan-fried sea bream for her. Afterwards they went for drinks, and then Miles Deverill walked Ms Kennedy home to her flat on Victoria Crescent. Ms Kennedy went inside, and so too did Miles Deverill. We know he entered her flat because Miles Deverill’s fingerprints and DNA were found in the hallway and living room.
‘Miles Deverill became the last person known to have seen Ms Kennedy alive. It was at that point that the trail of Miles Deverill’s movements – as recorded by CCTV, phone data and receipts – went cold until the next morning.
