13 Minutes (22 page)

Bennett had a brown folder in front of her – an ominous item that clearly held some truth in it that Aiden wasn’t sharing. Why had he clammed up like this? Surely he knew it couldn’t do him any good?
Unless maybe he’s guilty
, a small serpent voice said quietly in the back of Jamie’s mind.
Unless maybe that.
He crushed it.

‘Mr Kennedy refuses to acknowledge the question.’ She opened the folder and carefully took out two grainy printed photographs. There were time stamps at the bottom of each but from where he was sitting Jamie couldn’t read them. He saw Aiden swallow hard, though. That wasn’t a good sign. His own heart was starting to race and he wasn’t even the one under suspicion.

‘Since you are, by your silence, sticking to your previous story, let me show you what CCTV cameras picked up that night. For the benefit of the tape I’m now showing Aiden Kennedy stills taken from those cameras.’

A slight shuffle in the seat beside him. Jamie remembered Aiden’s phone search again.
Oh god, what did he do?

‘Your car was caught by a camera on Elmore Road. For clarity, that’s the main road that runs parallel to the river, the park and the woods. The footage shows your car on Elmore Road in the early hours of Saturday 9th of January. Here –’ she pushed the first picture across ‘– it can be seen turning from Elmore Road into the visitors’ car park for the woods. The time stamp at the bottom of this picture shows that was at twelve thirty-seven a.m. After you’d taken Rebecca home. When you told us you were going straight home. You didn’t leave the car park until . . .’ She passed Aiden the second picture, where a car could be seen turning into the road again. ‘Five forty-five a.m.’

Jamie’s breath caught and suddenly, despite the dry too-hot warmth of the room, he felt cold. He felt caught in a magician’s trick.
While you were over here concentrating on saving a dying girl, over HERE –
voilà
! – your young friend was making his getaway!
His memory of defending Aiden to Becca by saying he wouldn’t be so stupid as to lie to the police was turning to ash.

‘I didn’t leave my car the whole time,’ Aiden said quietly. He glanced at Jamie and then sat up and leaned his elbows on the table. ‘If there’s a camera in the car park you’ll see that.’

‘But there isn’t, Aiden. So I’d have to take your word for that.’ Bennett’s eyes didn’t leave Aiden’s. Jamie might as well not have been there. ‘And as you’ve already proved, your word is not something I can trust.’

There was a long moment of silence as Aiden grew more tense and Caitlin Bennett leaned back in her chair and folded her arms as if she had all the time in the world to break the boy.

‘I didn’t hurt anyone,’ Aiden said eventually. ‘I sat in my car, smoked some weed and fell asleep. I didn’t see any other cars or anyone or anything that would be of any use to you, so I didn’t see the point of telling you I’d been there. And I didn’t want to own up to possession of cannabis.’ He looked up at her then, all earnest blue eyes. ‘I mean, would
you
tell you any of that?’

Aiden’s surliness had evaporated. Jamie kept staring at the photos. They were gritty and real and they made his stomach turn. They looked like pictures of some wrongdoing, sneakily taken in the middle of the night.

‘The same way you didn’t tell us you knew Nicola Munroe?’

‘That was different! I didn’t remember that I’d met her! I couldn’t tell you something I didn’t remember!’

Another long pause.

‘Look,’ Aiden said, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. But I do know Tasha – well, I used to – and I asked her out once when I was at school and she was epically shit about it – which I presume you already know. And I figured if I told you I’d smoked some weed and fallen asleep in the car park then none of it would have looked good for me. So I didn’t tell you, and when you asked about the Nicola thing, I didn’t know how to tell the truth.’

‘I can almost understand that. Almost,’ she stressed. ‘But what I don’t understand . . .’

She paused again and Jamie couldn’t help but be impressed. She was one step ahead of Aiden all the way. She was tying him up in knots.

‘What I don’t understand,’ she continued, ‘is why you lied to Becca. You told her you were going straight home and the following day you didn’t say anything different. I would have thought – if you were innocent – the first thing you’d do was tell her you’d been there. Shock reaction. The need to share. Your “
holy shit
” moment when Natasha was found so close to where you’d been. But you didn’t tell her. You didn’t tell anyone. Why not?’

Aiden was chewing his bottom lip, his eyes darting left and right at nothing in particular, but Jamie knew the signs that he was thinking hard. Looking for a way out of something. Suddenly it struck Jamie. It was so obvious. And it wasn’t murder or attempted murder, that was for sure.

‘You weren’t alone, were you, Aiden?’ he said. The boy looked up.

‘I’ll ask the questions, Mr McMahon.’ Caitlin tried to interrupt but Jamie wasn’t going to stop. He knew why Aiden had lied.

‘Did you have another girl in the car with you, mate?’

Aiden’s shoulders slumped and suddenly Jamie’s question had the policewoman’s attention.

‘Was there someone else in the car with you?’ she asked.

Aiden stayed quiet for a moment longer before finally starting to speak.

‘Becca can get so jealous. She’s insecure, you know? If I’d told her, she wouldn’t have understood. She’d have thought it was something more. You saw how she can get.’ He glanced up at Bennett. ‘Like she did when you told her Nicola Munroe had my number in her phone. She thinks every girl is a threat or something. So I don’t always tell her if I hang out with other girls. It’s easier that way.’

‘So who was the girl?’

‘Her name’s Emma. She works in the bar on Queen Street. JoJo’s. It doesn’t shut till one a.m. and sometimes I go in there after finishing at Jamie’s. We got talking one night and kind of became friends. She’s pretty cool. Into the same sort of shit as me.’

‘And she was with you in the car park that night, after you dropped Rebecca off?’

‘I planned to go home. That was true. But I wasn’t tired and it can get cramped in my mum’s place so I thought I’d just stop in and say hi. It was quiet for a Friday so her boss said she could go early. The rest you’ve got on the pictures. We went back to my car, we smoked, we talked shit and fell asleep.’

‘Does this Emma have a surname?’

‘I don’t know it.’

A knock on the door interrupted them and a uniformed officer came in. ‘A word, ma’am?’ Bennett nodded and suspended the inteview before stopping the tape before getting to her feet.

‘Hasn’t that answered all your questions?’ Jamie said as she turned to leave. ‘Can’t we go now?’

‘We’re still doing tests on Mr Kennedy’s car. And until we’ve confirmed his story I wouldn’t look so pleased with yourself, Mr McMahon. One girl is dead and another, as you know better than most, is very lucky to be alive.’

He smarted at that. She was right. And she was just doing her job. If he and Aiden had to sit here for a few more hours, it wouldn’t hurt them. His work deadlines, maybe, but that was it. And once Aiden was in the clear, they’d race through to the end anyway.

As she closed the door, the room slipped into the awkward silence of a doctor’s waiting room. How long were they going to be here? After a few minutes, Jamie felt his bladder twitching. Aiden might not have touched his tea, but Jamie had drunk two cups.

‘Could I . . . perhaps?’ He looked at the po-faced sergeant, who was clearly bored babysitting them from the other side of the table, and pointed at the door. The sergeant had the air of a man who knew he could be in here for some time until someone remembered they were there. ‘Bathroom?’ Jamie finished. He held up a his empty teacup and felt immediately stupid, like he was being an Englishman abroad and trying to make himself understood to a scathing Spanish waiter.

The sergeant nodded. ‘Two doors down on your left.’

Jamie had expected an escort, but he wasn’t the suspect. And as they were down in the basement of the building, there probably wasn’t much trouble he could get into on this floor. He nodded his thanks and left.

He hadn’t expected Bennett to still be in the corridor. She was standing near the toilets with her back to him, focused on watching some colour footage on an iPad with the policeman who’d interrupted them. He took a couple of steps closer.

‘And he’s not on here at all that day?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I know that coat. I’ve seen that coat somewhere.’

‘So have I,’ the policeman said. ‘Sandra on the front desk has one like it.’

‘That’s not where I saw it.’

‘Where, then?’

‘We need to go,’ she said. ‘First, we need to see Sandra.’

She turned around and almost walked straight into Jamie.

‘Sorry,’ he said and pointed towards the toilet entrance which she was currently blocking. ‘I was going in there.’

She pushed past him and he watched her go, small and curvy but with absolute drive. He’d never met a woman like her. Not that it mattered, given the situation. He had no chance, he decided. Her contempt for him was absolutely clear.

Thirty-Five

Becca, Hayley and Jenny were called out of English before the lesson had even really started, and now they sat in a row in the Head’s office staring at DI Bennett, who was leaning against the back of a chair in front of them and watching them silently. Ms Salisbury was behind her desk shuffling papers around, but Becca was pretty sure she wasn’t doing any actual work. How could she be? Becca’s palms were sweating. What were they doing here? What did Bennett want?

‘Are we waiting for Tasha?’ Hayley asked when the silence became unbearable, only the tick of the Head’s old carriage clock carrying over Jenny’s twitches and foot-tapping.

‘She’s on a free,’ Becca muttered.

‘I don’t need to speak to Natasha,’ DI Bennett said and moved away towards the window as if looking out at something. A coat that had been hidden from view by her body was folded over the back of the chair. Silver-grey and shiny with a hood trimmed in red fur.

‘What are you doing with my coat?’ Jenny asked, frowning.

Bennett turned, and Becca, her heart thumping, thought she looked like a cat who’d just spotted a mouse in the middle of a kitchen floor with nowhere to hide. Behind her cool exterior there was a hint of excitement.

‘That’s not yours,’ Hayley said. ‘Yours has that cigarette burn on the sleeve.’

‘You were wearing your coat in the hospital, when I met you?’ Bennett asked.

‘I think so,’ Jenny said. ‘Probably. I wear it a lot.’

‘Thank you.’ Bennett smiled. Becca couldn’t see anything reassuring in her expression. ‘I couldn’t remember which of you it was.’

‘Do we all look the same to you?’ Hayley said, with a hint of contempt that Becca knew was aimed at her. She definitely didn’t look the same as the gorgeous blondes, but it still surprised her that she’d speak like that to the policewoman. If Jenny was nervous and twitchy, Hayley was the opposite. Bennett did a good line in impenetrable, but Hayley was the ice queen. She sounded bored and was looking at Bennett as if the DI was just an inconvenience. Becca’s heart thumped and she hunched over slightly, trying to make herself invisible. Forgettable. Something was going on here, something to do with Jenny, and she didn’t want to be sent away before she found out what it was.

‘A blonde girl wearing a coat matching this one was caught on CCTV footage taken in the One Cell shop in Brackston Shopping Centre on 14th October last year.’

‘So?’ Jenny wiped her nose. Her foot tapped on the floor. Becca watched Bennett taking it all in. Logging it.

‘Were you in the shop that afternoon?’

Jenny laughed and tugged at a strand of her hair. ‘I don’t know. How am I supposed to remember a random day in October?’

‘Try.’

‘No,’ Jenny said, after a moment. ‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘You suddenly sound very sure.’

‘I got my iPhone in the summer, so why would I go into a phone shop in October?’

‘Loads of girls have that coat,’ Hayley said. ‘Loads of
women
have that coat.’ A small smirk formed on her face and it didn’t take a genius to read its meaning. An elegant
fuck you and swivel
to the detective.

‘What does it matter, anyway?’ Jenny said. She looked slightly teary. Maybe she was starting to come down from whatever she’d been snorting all day. ‘I need to get back to English. Mr Garrick is waiting for us. We’ve got exams.’

Becca suddenly couldn’t breathe. A phone shop. The text Tasha got. An unknown number. Meet in the
usual place
. That’s what Bennett was needling Jenny about. She thought Jenny had bought that pay-as-you-go phone. Why didn’t she come out and say it? Why was she just standing there, looking thoughtful? Becca was building up the courage to say something, to point out the links, when the detective spoke again.

‘You can go back to your lessons now,’ she said. ‘Thank you for your help.’

Becca was stunned. That was it? She had to find Tasha. She had to tell her. Hayley sauntered to the door, Jenny in her wake, and Becca hurried behind them.

‘One moment, Rebecca.’

She turned. ‘Yes?’ As the two Barbies scurried off, heads together, Becca almost blurted everything out. But then she bit down on it. She needed to talk to Tasha first and she didn’t want to say anything in front of Ms Salisbury. The Head Teacher would tell her she was being ridiculous. She’d say anything if it meant the school would stop being the focus of unwanted attention.

‘If you’ve been trying to reach Aiden Kennedy today, then you should know he’s at the station helping us with our inquiries.’

Helping us with our inquiries.
She knew what that meant. That meant they thought he’d done something. Something bad.

‘Have you arrested him?’ she asked, her mouth drying.

‘No. He’ll be released later. I just thought you’d want to know.’