A Shred of Evidence (14 page)

Kim nodded.

“She was Pink Champagne, I take it. Did the names mean anything?”

Kim shook her head. “Just silly names we gave one another when we were kids,” she said.

“So you’ve known Natalie a long time?”

“Since the juniors.”

The inspector nodded slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This must be very difficult for you. But I’m sure you want her killer found.”

Kim nodded again. She did. She wanted whoever had done that caught and dealt with. She ought to tell her, she ought to. Just tell her what Natalie had said. But she had promised Hannah, and Hannah was off sick today, so she couldn’t be released from her promise.

Kim wasn’t sure why she had promised. What the hell did it have to do with Hannah, anyway? But Hannah had always behaved as though Colin Cochrane was her own personal property, and she had promised.

It was true that it would cause an awful lot of trouble for him, and it was hard to believe that he would have done anything like that. She had rung Hannah for advice; there wasn’t much point in ignoring the advice she’d been given.

“Tell me about this drama group,” said DI Hill. “You’re a member, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That was where you’d been when I saw you on the bus yesterday?”

She had been on the bus, of course. She had to have been,
otherwise how could she have known about her writing on the seat? “Yes,” she said again.

“Natalie was a member?”

“Yes.”

If her monosyllabic replies were irritating the inspector, she gave no hint of it. She had a big notebook open in front of her, and she would jot things down now and again.

“There was a boy on the bus,” Inspector Hill said. “Right at the front. Natalie seemed to know him. Is he a member of the drama group?”

“Dave Britten. No.”

“Was he Natalie’s boyfriend?”

“Used to be,” said Kim.

“Was she seeing someone else?”

Kim shrugged.

“I have to know,” said the inspector. “Even if it’s just to eliminate people from the enquiry. I have to check. And our enquiries here have led us to believe that Natalie had had one or two boyfriends over the last two years. Is that true?”

“One or two,” said Kim. Several, actually.

“But the feeling seems to be that she may have found a steady boyfriend during the holidays.”

“I don’t know,” Kim muttered.

The inspector put down her pen and sat back. “Kim,” she said, “I know this might be hard to believe, but I was fifteen once. And I had a friend that I’d had since the juniors.” She smiled. “I have never known anyone as well as I knew her, and no one has ever known me as well as she did. Did Natalie have a steady boyfriend?”

Kim could feel herself grow red, and the silence that followed the question grew unbearable.

“I don’t know his name.”

“What do you know?”

Kim didn’t speak.

“What do you know?” she asked again.

She didn’t want to get him into trouble. She didn’t want to get anyone into trouble.

“What do you know?” Just the same question, over and
over. Not impatient, not demanding an answer. Just asking, over and over.

“She told me he was married,” she said, not looking at the inspector, trying not to let the tears come, but they were coming despite her efforts.

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“No,” she said, her voice agonized, tears streaming down her hot face.

The inspector produced tissues from somewhere, and handed them to her. “I think she did, Kim,” she said, her voice quite.

Kim shook her head. Her whole world seemed to be closing in, to have become this question. Hannah was right; she would ruin his career, his marriage. But what if he had killed her? What if?

“Kim,” said the inspector.

That was all; just her name, a slight warning in her voice. Kim didn’t have to answer. The head had said that it was up to her whether she saw the police at all on school premises. But she ought to tell her. Whatever she had promised, whatever harm it would do. Natalie had been done terrible harm. Kim raised her head. “She said he was a teacher, ” she whispered.

“Did she say which teacher?” The inspector’s voice hadn’t changed now that she had won; there was no triumph, no increased urgency, no shock, no disapproval. just the same quiet tone of voice.

“No,” said Kim, wiping the tears that wouldn’t stop coming.

“No, honestly, she didn’t, she didn’t.”

“I’m sorry this is so distressing for you,” said the inspector. “But I need to know what you’re not telling me.”

“That’s all Natalie told me!”

The sun was shining outside, lighting the office with an almost golden glow; Kim wished with all her heart that she was out there, away from this claustrophobic room.

“Whatever it is,” the inspector said as though Kim hadn’t spoken, “it can’t hurt Natalie now. Was she putting pressure on this man?”

“What?” said Kim.

“Threatening to tell his wife, or something?”

“I don’t know,” said Kim.

“Was she the kind of girl who might do that?”

Kim shook her head.

“Tell me what she was like,” said the inspector.

Kim got herself under control. She could tell her about Natalie, she supposed. “She … she wouldn’t do anything like that,” she said. “She really wouldn’t.”

The inspector nodded. “I know you’re very shocked by what’s happened,” she said. “But—please don’t think I’m criticizing or being cruel—are you actually surprised?”

Kim stared at her. Of course she was—no. No, no, she wasn’t. Not entirely.

“No,” she whispered, after she had been made to think about it. “I worried about her.”

“Because she went with a lot of boys, or because of something more specific?”

“Because …” Kim tried to put it into words, but it was difficult. “Because she never thought,” she said. “She never thought, not really. She never thought before she did anything.”

“About the effect it would have on other people?”

Kim looked away. “Or herself,” she said. “She never knew when to stop.”

“Who was Natalie seeing, Kim?”

“She didn’t tell me who it was!” Kim shouted.

“But you think you know.” Still the same, quiet voice.

“It’s just gossip, I don’t know.”

“What gossip?”

Kim shook her head.

“If it’s gossip, I’m going to hear it anyway.”

DI Hill looked nice. She looked like Kim’s mum, in a way; she didn’t look as though she would let you wriggle on the end of a stick until you told her what she wanted to know. But that was what she was doing, and she wasn’t going to stop.

Kim looked down at her hands. “Someone … someone said that Mr. Cochrane was having an affair with one of the girls at school.” She looked up, now that the words were out. “That doesn’t mean he killed her!” she said.

“No, it doesn’t,” said the inspector. “And it doesn’t mean that it was Natalie he was having an affair with. Come to that, it doesn’t mean he was having an affair at all. Gossip’s like that.” She was writing as she spoke. “I do take gossip with a pinch of salt, so don’t worry about that.”

Kim blew her nose, and wiped away the tears.

“Thank you,” said the inspector. “And I’m sorry. I really am.”

No, she wasn’t. She’d got what she wanted.

But there was something else that Kim thought she ought to know. Possibly the only thing she had intended telling her, and she still hadn’t said it. “She … she seemed worried about something,” she said.

The inspector frowned a Little. “Did she?” she asked. “She seemed quite cheerful when I saw her on the bus.”

Kim nodded. “Maybe I don’t mean worried,” she said. “But she was … funny. In a funny mood. As if she was thinking about something else all the time.”

“Did you ask her if she had something on her mind?”

Kim shook her head. “I didn’t see her on her own,” she said.

“But there was something bothering her. Well, no, she didn’t seem bothered, just—” She broke off.

“Preoccupied?” suggested the inspector.

Kim nodded. Preoccupied. That was the word.

She wanted to tell Patrick, but she mustn’t, not even him. They had talked about what the police were doing at the school, and Patrick said that someone had chatted to him about Colin, but that he thought he was just a fan.

Erica doubted it. “What did he look like?” she asked.

“Young. Well—he looked like one of the sixth-formers, but he’s got two kids, so I suppose he must be older than he looks,” said Patrick. “Curly fair hair.”

Oh, God. Detective Sergeant Finch. He hadn’t seemed much like a fan of Colin’s last night. Erica wasn’t sure how much of this she could stand. She wanted to know what he had been “chatting” to Patrick about, but he didn’t attach any significance to it, and she mustn’t be the one to make it clear that there was any.

She felt so alone, so helpless. She began, despite her best efforts not to, to cry again. Patrick was beside her, his arm round her shoulders.

“I saw her,” she told him. “I saw her alive. About quarter of an hour before Sherry—”

Patrick patted her like a baby as she cried. “There was nothing you could have done,” he said. “Nothing. Don’t cry, there’s a good girl. Don’t cry.”

He kissed her as he spoke, little comforting kisses, and she didn’t try to stop him. They sprang apart as they heard the front door open, and by the time Colin came in Patrick was back on the other chair and the dog was looking inscrutable, his head on Patrick’s knee as though it had been there for hours.

Colin frowned. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Poor Patrick. That was the second time someone had asked him that.

“I came to see how Erica was,” he said easily.

Colin sat down, tight-lipped. He looked at Erica, then at Patrick. “I have to speak to Erica,” he said pointedly. “Alone.”

“No sooner said,” said Patrick amiably, getting up. He gave Erica and the dog a final pat each. “Take care of yourself, love,” he said. “See you later, Colin. I’ll show myself out.”

Colin waited until the front door closed before he spoke. “I thought I’d better find out if you had come home,” he said.

“I hadn’t gone far,” said Erica tiredly. “I just couldn’t face school.”

“Or me, it would seem,” said Colin.

Erica sighed. “Or you.”

“Mrs. Ouspenky’s boyfriend’s in the clear, Sage,” said DC Marshall as Tom Finch walked into the murder room. “He was in a Happy Eater between ten and eleven last night, halfway to Doncaster. He has six fellow diners, a tankful of DERV, and a timed and dated receipt to prove it.”

“Good,” said Tom, though it didn’t sound as though Marshall had been obeying the instruction to be discreet. Never mind. “One less to worry about,” he said.

“Tom—just the man,” said Bob Sandwell. “Those clothes you sent over to the lab?”

Tom looked at Sandwell startled. “They can’t have checked them out already,” he said.

“No, but they found something in the pocket that’ll interest you.” Sandwell pushed over a piece of paper encased in plastic. “It’s been laundered,” he said. “But it’s legible. It’s not been for fingerprints yet, but there doesn’t seem much hope.”

Tom took it. A typewritten letter, faded, but as Sandwell had said, legible.

It began “Dear Colin,” and was dated the sixth of September. It said that the writer would wait for him on the Green, at the adventure playground, that evening. It went into graphic—not to say pornographic—detail about what the writer and Colin had done together the last time they had met, and what they would do this time. If it had ever been signed, the signature had been laundered away.

Tom smiled broadly. “Bob Sandwell, I could kiss you,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have let you read that—it’s got you over-excited.” Sandwell took it back. “I’ll get copies made,” he said. “and send this off for prints.”

“So, he didn’t go anywhere near the Green, didn’t he?” Tom said, jubilant. He and Sherlock should set up in business together. Together, their noses would conquer the world.

“Maybe he didn’t,” warned Sandwell.

Tom pulled a disbelieving face. “With all that on offer?” he said. “Has the DCI seen it?”

“No, it’s just come in.”

“Do us a copy. I can’t wait to see his face when he reads this,” said Tom.

Colin hadn’t really expected to find Erica there, never mind Patrick Murray. Still, at least he had confirmed to Erica that the car really had broken down.

“He said it only took an hour to fix it,” said Erica.

“Erica, you can’t believe I had anything to do with what happened to Natalie,” he said wearily. “You just can’t.”

She looked at him steadily. “I know you didn’t kill her,” she said.

“I didn’t do anything with her!”

“You left her there, Colin!”

Colin closed his eyes.

“You just … left her there,” Erica said again, her voice accusing.

He opened his eyes slowly. “How … how do you know that?” he asked.

Erica frowned. “How do you suppose I know?” she asked.

Natalie must have spoken to her. My God, no wonder she thought the worst. “It … it isn’t how it seems,” he said. “It’s not what you think. Whatever she said, whatever she told you, I wasn’t having an affair with her, Erica. I swear to you. She’s been writing these letters—she sent one yesterday, saying she’d meet me there. That’s all. I swear. That’s all.”

“Are you still trying to tell me it was all in her mind?” Erica asked “It was just a teenage fantasy? Nothing to worry about?”

Yes, he thought helplessly. Yes. “It’s the truth,” he said, his voice weak. “What did she say to you?” he asked.

“She told me to mind my own business.”

“I’ve never had anything to do with her! Whatever she said, you must believe me.”

“She didn’t have to say anything!”

“She must have—and it’s lies. All lies.”

“I knew you’d do this,” she said. “I knew it.” She looked away.

“Erica—it’s all in her imagination.”

“Go away, Colin,” she said. “Go back to school.”

“What?” he said. “How can I go back to school when you’re accusing me of God knows what?”

“If you won’t leave, I will,” she said. “I know what I saw.”

“You didn’t see me,” said Colin.