Bystander’s guilt. The complex cousin of Survivor’s. Because on a rational level, what could she have done? She didn’t have a sixth sense or a crystal ball. Six Valentine Street was just a house like any other the day Holly Kemp trooped up its path. But then guilt is rarely rational. I still feel guilt that my mum died, and yet none whatsoever for wishing that Frank Hickey would.
I pull a file from my bag, resting it on my lap. ‘We’re going to need you to think about it now, Serena.’
She stares at the file, knowing instinctively what it is – the document that’s come to define her existence as clearly as her birth certificate. ‘You want to go through my statement again?’
‘Just tell us about that afternoon.’ We don’t want her thinking in terms of her statement. The exact words she committed to paper. We want to see what the passage of time has added or subtracted. We want every doubt she’s ever had since, every tiny detail that’s emerged during the 3 a.m. horrors. ‘I’ll probably take a few notes. I know that can be distracting, but honestly, don’t let it put it off your stride.’
‘My stride? It might be more of amble. It was a long time ago.’
‘It was. A long time for Holly’s loved ones to be wondering what happened to her.’ Parnell lays the guilt on with a trowel.
‘I’d say it’s obvious what happened to her, wouldn’t you?’ A pinch short of arsey. ‘I saw Holly Kemp on Christopher Masters’ doorstep and she was never seen again.’ She bobs her head from side to side, as if bored of repeating the same mantra. ‘That’s it. That’s all there is. I said it a hundred times in 2012. I can’t say it any different now.’
‘Pretend this is the first time,’ I urge. ‘Go back to the beginning.’
‘The beginning?’
I smile. ‘I don’t mean what you had for breakfast that morning. Let’s start with what brought you to Clapham that day. You lived North at the time, right?’
‘Yes, I was teaching in Edgware. Riverdale Primary. That was a great school. I mean, it’s OK here. There’s a good management team and the kids are lovely, but . . . oh, forget I said anything. It’s fine, it’s just different. It’s an inner-city school whereas Riverdale – Edgware, really – had that sweet suburban feel. I’m just being a snob, ignore me.’ She flaps her hands, flustered. ‘Anyway, I was picking up tickets, in answer to your question. I was a real gig-goer in those days. I don’t get the chance much now because of my daughter, but back then, if I didn’t see live music at least once a week, I broke out in hives.’
‘My eldest son’s the same,’ Parnell says. ‘Keeps moaning that he can’t afford the deposit for a house, yet he somehow manages to keep Ticketmaster afloat.’
She laughs. God bless Parnell and his universal rapport. I’ve been to two concerts my whole life and I was policing one of them.
‘I’d bought tickets off eBay, collection only,’ she goes on. ‘Lady Gaga. They’d sold out on all the official sites, so the only option was to pay double and cross your fingers you didn’t get conned. But, you know, Lady Gaga – I thought she was worth the risk and the two-hour round trip.’
‘And was she?’ I ask.
‘Er, that would be a no. I arranged to meet the guy in The Northcote and he didn’t turn up. I waited for around forty minutes, kept dialling the number he gave me, but, of course, no answer. I was going to get another vino and wait a bit longer but then I thought, What are you doing, you idiot? He’s not coming. You’ve been had. I headed off, cursing myself for wasting £180. It was nearly a week’s rent.’
I know The Northcote. I once dated a performance poet – yeah, I know – who lived fairly close by. For three relatively dull months, we got drunk on relatively good wine, drenching the fact that we didn’t have anything in common in £30 bottles of The Northcote’s finest Chablis. A performance poet with a gold AMEX. I was going through an odd phase.
My point is, I know the area. The layout.
‘OK, you said in your statement that you travelled to Clapham Junction that day. Presumably you were headed back the same way?’ An immediate ‘Yes’. ‘So what brought you down the side streets then? Down Valentine Street? Why didn’t you just head straight back down Northcote Road?’
She suppresses a tiny grin. ‘I was avoiding someone. I’d been seeing this guy a few months before, and I’m not proud of it, but I’d kind of ghosted him, although I don’t think we used the term back then. He worked in one of the Italian restaurants and I didn’t want to risk him seeing me.’ A girl after my own cowardly heart. ‘So I cut down one of the side streets. Ended up walking a ridiculously long way around. I can’t remember the name of the street now, but it led onto Valentine Street.’
‘And this was what time?’
‘Four p.m., give or take.’
Bang on, give or take.
Parnell shifts in his kiddy-chair, pointlessly trying to get comfortable. ‘Talk us through seeing Holly. I know it’s been a long time, I know it’s hard, but as much as you remember.’
I’m not sure she is finding it that hard. The reminder of what happened, yes. The detail, no. For a woman who claims she blocks out memories at whim, she’s doing a remarkably good job of dragging them back front and centre.
‘I’d just turned onto the street. There was a great big hedge bordering the house on the corner . . .’ Christopher Masters’ house; the hedge acting as a shield when the time came to move the bodies. ‘And a girl was walking towards me – Holly Kemp, I later found out.’
‘That must have been fleeting,’ I say, scribbling furiously. ‘What made you so sure it was Holly?’
Parnell jumps on board. ‘I was thinking that. I know this makes me sound like a complete old fogey, but Holly Kemp – she was attractive, but she looked like a million other girls; the hair, the lips, the lashes. And yet you knew straight away it was her when you saw her in the paper.’
‘One hundred per cent.’ We wait for more. ‘There were a couple of things. First, it was raining – not heavily, but she didn’t have an umbrella and neither did I and I felt bad for her. I mean, it didn’t matter about me, I was my usual scruffy self . . .’ Which on first impressions means she might have ditched a second coat of mascara that morning. ‘But she looked so glamorous. She had this blonde salon-flicky hair and she was wearing this gorgeous white coat – well, it was off-white, cream, I suppose.’ She makes a sweeping motion with both hands. ‘It had this huge fur collar, belted, stunning. I half-thought about asking her where she got it. But anyway, I had a coffee in my hand; I’d bought one when I left the pub, and as we passed, I’d tripped, and a tiny bit splashed on her coat. Tiny, though. I’m talking microscopic. Most people would have said “Don’t worry about it” but she really scowled at me. That’s why I remembered her. Anyway, I carried on walking past and next thing, I heard the gate bang.’
I’m confused, my mind already in reconstruction mode. ‘So how did you see Masters at the door if you’d walked past by then?’