Steele’s quick. ‘Why’d you brush it off?’
‘The friend – he was a bit lovesick himself, apparently. I got the impression he likes thinking she was scared of something and that he was her knight in shining armour. Whether or not it was the case, who knows? The other friends didn’t notice anything.’
Steele nods. ‘OK, well, Cookey’s out working through the main London agencies – not literally, I hope – but I’m not holding my breath. It’s a needle in a haystack.’
Parnell stands up, heads straight for the incident board. ‘You know, we can come up with alternative suspects all the livelong day – aggressive ex-boyfriends, obsessed punters – but it all comes back to one major problem.’ He points at the photo of Holly’s skull, his finger over the bullet hole. ‘She was shot in the head. Executed. That isn’t a domestic gone bad, or a stalker client. That’s . . . that’s different. Guns are different. I’m assuming nothing’s come up on the farmer?’
‘No, but how about this for a theory?’ says Renée, folding her arms. Seth’s nodding by her side, signalling his input. ‘Spencer Shaw had form for burglary – well, conspiracy to commit burglary, right? What if he and Holly tried to burgle the farmer’s house? Something goes wrong. Holly gets shot. Spencer can’t admit what happened, because he’s going away for a long time if he does. He agrees to bury Holly’s body in return for the farmer’s silence.’
My reaction’s instant. ‘But there must be thousands of farms between London and Cambridgeshire. Why that one? And in any case, if that’s what happened, he’d bury her miles away, surely? Not right there at the scene of the crime. It doesn’t make sense.’
I sound more scathing than I mean to. It’s not a bad theory, really, just freckled with flaws. Renée doesn’t take offence, though. Twenty-plus years of sitting in brainstorms like this gives you a hide thicker than a truck tyre.
‘Masters could have made a gun,’ says Flowers, tentatively, as if it’s just occurred to him. ‘Between Google and his hardware store, he’d have the instructions and the ingredients.’
‘So we’re back at Masters again.’ I say it quietly, but not quiet enough.
Steele gives me an arch stare. ‘Any reason we shouldn’t be? This is all fun and games, but you know Masters killing Holly is still our most likely outcome.’
‘Because of the gospel according to Serena Bailey.’
‘Which, as far as we know, we have no reason to doubt.’
‘We do now. She wasn’t marked absent from school that afternoon and her old boss said it’s unlikely it wouldn’t have been recorded.’ I could leave it at that, but Susie Grainger’s words are itching my ears: Say what’s on your mind. ‘Just hear me out, OK? Serena says she saw Holly at around 4 p.m. outside Masters’ house. She’d waited in The Northcote for Mr No-Show for around forty minutes before heading back, so that means she must have got there not long after 3 p.m.’ I pause, taking a quick breath. ‘Edgware, where her old school is, to Clapham, is the best part of an hour’s travel, so that’s her leaving school around 2 p.m. that afternoon. But Mrs Gopal, the head teacher, said that would be unusual unless an emergency came up, and she also said Serena was an exemplary teacher, completely devoted. So would an exemplary teacher really have bunked off early just to collect concert tickets?’ Steele’s face is stony but she’s taking it all in. Her eyes haven’t left mine for a second. ‘I’m not saying she’s lying about seeing Holly. I don’t know what I’m saying exactly. But something smells off – not a stink, just a whiff.’ I bring my hands together in prayer. ‘Can we at least request her bank records? Pretty please. If something puts her in Clapham that afternoon, you won’t hear another peep out of me, I promise.’
‘I should be so lucky.’ She wrinkles her nose, thinking about it. ‘Yeah, why not? Benny-boy, get on it.’
While she’s feeling generous, I keep pressing. ‘You know, she left Riverdale just before Easter that year. I’d need to check the dates but I guess that makes it late March, early April – a month, month and a half tops after her Holly ID. Presuming she had a notice period, she must have pretty much resigned straight away.’
Parnell shrugs. ‘Something like that could trigger a “life’s too short” mentality. Maybe she wasn’t happy there? Just because Mrs Gopal loved her doesn’t mean she loved Mrs Gopal.’
‘True. But also, I don’t think Mrs Gopal had the first clue why I was there. She certainly didn’t mention Holly or Masters, and it’d be the obvious leap to make if Serena had told her about it. Or told anyone in the school, for that matter. Don’t you think that’s odd?’
Steele rubs both cheeks. ‘This whole bloody case is odd. This accomplice business, for one thing.’
‘Oh, Brandon Keefe has an aunt in Cambridgeshire,’ says Swaines, suddenly animated. ‘I’ve just been looking at him; good old Facebook again. It was his birthday last month and he got a message with a load of birthday cake emojis from an Auntie Mel in Yaxley, which is about twenty-five miles north of Caxton. It’s a link.’
‘That’s not a link, it’s a coincidence.’ I check myself quickly. ‘OK, OK, it’s a notable coincidence. But come on, if you look at anyone’s Facebook . . .’
‘Except yours,’ interrupts Emily. ‘I mean, Cat K? What’s that all about? And you don’t even have a profile picture. How’s anyone supposed to find you?’
They aren’t, that’s the point. I spend enough of my life trying to keep my secrets secret, without putting it all out there for the whole universe to see. I only really have the account for work – it’s staggering how open some suspects are on social media – and to gaze at the occasional photo of Finn.
‘My point is twenty-five miles isn’t a solid link. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re a small island. Name any place in the UK and I bet I’ll know someone who lives within twenty-five miles of it.’
Steele swoops. ‘Or maybe don’t. This isn’t a geography lesson.’ She stares at me, head cocked. ‘You’re not convinced by this accomplice theory, I take it?’
Truth is, after today; after Church Guy, after Holly’s friends, after the saga of Riverdale’s absence records, and the wholly unsanctioned meeting with DI Susie Grainger, I’d kind of forgotten about Accomplice Theory. Which, I suppose, suggests I’m not entirely convinced by it. While I can conceive it in my head, I don’t feel it in my gut.
‘I don’t know, boss.’ I grasp around for something more constructive. ‘Where’s this accomplice now? Why hasn’t he carried on killing? I mean, isn’t that the only reason Masters would keep quiet about him? For the pleasure of knowing his good work was being carried on? And have you read my report from the Jacob Pope meet? He said Masters was an independent kind of guy. Fiercely independent. That doesn’t exactly scream “accomplice’’.’
‘First, how do we know the supposed accomplice hasn’t continued? We sure as hell don’t have a consistent method of killing to work with – Holly’s cause of death has blown that well out of the water. And second, would that be Dr Jacob Pope, PhD Psychology, you’re referring to? Or Jacob Pope, the piece of shit who killed his girlfriend?’