A Shred of Evidence (34 page)

The police had been at the hospital, leaving only when it had become clear that Erica was on the critical list, and they were in no danger of her giving them the slip.

She might, one of them had said guardedly, have to face charges, and Colin was only too well aware of what charges he had meant. It was obvious; they thought she had killed Natalie, and then tried to kill this girl.

He had brought a nightie and dressing-gown, but they had said she wouldn’t be needing them yet. The “yet” had come a heartbeat too late.

He saw the doctor walking towards him, his face serious. And Erica wouldn’t after all be facing charges.

Morning. Patrick opened his eyes to the new day, and reviewed his situation.

They were preparing a case against him for the Crown Prosecution Service, he had been told last night. He had been charged, and eventually he would know whether or not he would go to court to answer that charge.

It had been late before they had finally let him go; Victoria had been in bed by the time he had got home. He glanced over at her as she slept. Soon she would be awake, and wanting an explanation of where he had been.

He would have to tell her. Whatever happened, what he had been doing on Tuesday night was going to come out. He had known from the moment he had seen Hannah standing there that damage limitation was the best he could hope for, but he had never dreamed of anything like this.

He had thought that she must have seen Natalie, minus her shoes, complaining about being abandoned like she had. And that even if Natalie hadn’t shopped him, Hannah had seen him, large as life, holding the shoes, and would surely have put two and two together.

He had thought she might tell someone—the head, Victoria—someone. He had hoped she wouldn’t, of course, but he had known in his water that his unwitting dalliance with a schoolgirl wasn’t going to have a happy ending.

But this? Natalie murdered? When the shock of hearing that had worn off, he had just been waiting for the knock on the door. But Hannah hadn’t gone running to the police with her story, and … well, it had seemed just possible that he had got away with it.

He would have to tell the head. He would have to give evidence in the murder trial, even if he wasn’t charged with his own offence.

Doomsday scenario? He would lose his job, his wife, and he would go to prison.

Damage limitation? Stay out of prison, because Kim could prove that Natalie hadn’t been straight with him in the first place, and he really hadn’t known that he was committing an offence, not until that last time. He had told them about her attempted blackmail. They had laughed; said that a guilty
conscience did some funny things. It seemed that she had merely been seeking his advice after all.

But that made it more likely that she would tell the truth about what Natalie had said to her, and while his conduct on Tuesday night could by no stretch of the imagination be considered gentlemanly, he could hardly have foreseen that it would result in Natalie’s death. It really was quite likely that he would not be charged with the sex offence.

But he would have to give evidence at Erica Cochrane’s trial, obviously, and it would all come out then anyway. It was just possible that he could hang on to Victoria, somehow, like he had before. There was no way he could salvage his job.

And right now, he had to tell Victoria everything, before she found out some other way. He owed her the truth, anyway.

“Where were you this time?” she asked, as soon as she opened her eyes.

“Oh, you wouldn’t credit it,” he said.

She sat up sleepily. “I don’t suppose I will,” she said. “But try me, anyway.”

“The head only called a staff meeting about the uniforms,” he said. “What did we think about the students not having to wear them during the heatwave? It went on for hours.”

She gave him a heavy-lidded look of disbelief.

“Then we all went to the pub. Mind you,” he added, “do you blame us?”

“I suppose not,” she said, her voice resigned.

Lies were so much easier. People almost always believed him when he was telling lies. He smiled at her as she closed her eyes again.

Well … perhaps he wasn’t exactly being believed. But what he had said had been accepted. And he could hardly hit her with all this when she was still half asleep, could he?

He showered and shaved, skipped breakfast and went to school, where a second and more profound shock awaited him.

Erica was dead. At first, the words meant nothing; he couldn’t take them in.
Erica?
The head asked him to keep it quiet—he was telling the staff, but not the students.

Erica was dead—killed, the rumor had it, in self-defence.
First Natalie, and now Erica. The two people he had got close to—in very different ways—since his arrival in Stansfield, were dead. Sudden, violent deaths that made no sense at all. He sat in the head’s office and stared into space, trying to come to terms with it.

“Are you all right?” asked the head.

Patrick nodded. Yes, he thought. Yes. And if a thought crept into his mind through the numbing blow of that news about the luck of the Irish, about the fact that dead women didn’t come to trial … well, it was only human, wasn’t it?

Judy sat in the Walterses’ living room, with Kim, Mrs. Walters and Kim’s aunt. Mrs. Walters had packed her son off to school, untouched as he was by the events of the last two days, but she had kept Kim at home.

Kim sat on the big, comfortable sofa, between her mother and her aunt, her face unhappy, but surrounded by support and love and prepared to answer still more questions if she had to.

Judy’s night had been spent largely at Barton General, where she had waited until the medical staff had allowed her three minutes with Hannah; she had gone home then and fallen into bed to be awakened by the call that had informed her of Erica Cochrane’s death. She hadn’t gone back to sleep.

“It’s dreadful,” Mrs. Walters said, taking her arm from Kim’s shoulders, only to allow her sister to take over. “It’s just dreadful. When I think …” She looked up at Judy. “Something like this—you think it’s bound to be a man, don’t you? You think you’re safe with a woman. Kim thought Hannah was safe.”

“I know, Mrs. Walters,” Judy said, and leant over, putting her own hand over Mrs. Walters’, as they were clasped and unclasped in helpless agitation. “Please don’t distress yourself,” she said. “Hannah really is going to be all right.”

“But she had to …” Mrs. Walters looked at Kim, then back at Judy. “Hannah’s mother said that Hannah had to defend herself with a knife,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “And that woman’s dead—what’s that going to do to poor little Hannah?”

The enormity of what she had done might well hit Hannah at some point, but she had seemed entirely under control when Judy had seen her. In much better shape than either Kim or her mother. “Well, we don’t know exactly what happened yet, Mrs. Walters,” she said. “We haven’t spoken to Hannah in any detail—that’s why I just want to go over a few things again with Kim.”

Kim put her arm round her mother, her aunt’s arm still round her. Holding on to one another, now acutely aware of how suddenly people could be taken away.

Judy took out her notebook. “Kim,” she said gently, trying not to make the child feel any worse than she already did. “When you looked out of the window, after Mr. Murray had gone down to talk to Hannah, you said that she was cycling away, looking over her shoulder.”

Kim nodded.

“And that she seemed very frightened? Is that what you told my colleagues?”

“Yes,” she said, in a small voice. “I thought she was trying to get away from Mr. Murray, but it must have been …”

Judy could see the tears coming as she spoke, and waited until she had got herself under control again before she carried on.

“You’ve been very helpful to us, Kim,” she said. “I know how difficult all this has been for you—please don’t worry about these questions. I just want to get things clear.”

Kim nodded again, manfully holding herself together, and Judy moved on to the difficult part. “Now—there isn’t a right answer to this next question,” she said. “I just want your impression of what happened next—after you saw Hannah cycle away.”

“Mrs. Cochrane’s car hit Hannah’s bike,” Kim said. “But Hannah sort of threw herself off before it did.”

Judy nodded, writing that down. “Do you think Hannah cycled into Mrs. Cochrane’s car because she wasn’t looking where she was going, or that Mrs. Cochrane’s car reversed into Hannah’s bicycle?” she asked.

Kim closed her eyes. “Mrs. Cochrane’s car reversed into
Hannah’s path,” she said, after a moment. “I think.” She opened her eyes and looked a little uncomfortable. “But I could see the accident was going to happen,” she said. “I probably closed my eyes. I always do that, like when you drop a plate or something, and you know it’s going to break.”

Judy smiled. “I think everyone does,” she said.

“But I did see what was going to happen, so I suppose Hannah would have seen Mrs. Cochrane’s car, if she had been looking where she was going,” Kim went on. “And Mrs. Cochrane should have seen Hannah. It was a bit of both,” she said.

Judy smiled again at the desperately honest assessment of the situation. “That’s fine,” she said. “Then what happened?”

“Mrs. Cochrane got out, and helped Hannah up.”

“Did Hannah still seem frightened?”

Kim nodded.

“Then she got into Mrs. Cochrane’s car,” Judy said. “Did she get in by herself? Or did Mrs. Cochrane help her in?”

“I … I don’t—” Kim swallowed hard to try to stop the tears. “She … Mrs. Cochrane … she had her arm round her, but … I don’t know!” she almost shouted, in the end.

“Who opened the passenger door?” asked Judy, changing tack slightly.

“Mrs. Cochrane,” said Kim, miserably.

“Did she shut the door? Before she went back round to the driver’s side? Or did Hannah close it herself?”

“I think Mrs. Cochrane closed it,” Kim said.

“Think?” Judy asked, her voice gentle.

“Mrs. Cochrane closed it,” said Kim.

“Good,” said Judy. “You’re doing fine, Kim.”

But Kim wasn’t, of course, doing fine, and the slender hold that she had had on herself gave as tears dripped down her cheeks again. “I didn’t know she was in danger,” she sobbed.

“Kim, you mustn’t blame yourself,” said Mrs. Walters, cradling her in her arms, rocking her backwards and forwards like a baby. “Hannah’s going to be all right—you heard the inspector.”

Judy watched as the girl cried miserably on her mother’s shoulder. What a great job this was, she thought.

“I think we could all do with a break,” she said.

“Good idea,” said Kim’s aunt. “I’ll get some tea for everyone.”

Tea. That would make everything all right.

The murder room had been packed up, the team had been stood down and had gone back to normal duties—within the textbook three days, no less. This was usually a moment to celebrate, an excuse to go across to the pub and tell one another how clever they had been. Not this time, thought Lloyd. This time the prime suspect was dead, and they had another investigation on their hands. But not one that needed a murder room.

He had been proved right; he had known in his bones that Cochrane had been telling the truth, and he had indeed. But he had still allowed himself to be taken in by appearances, something that he warned junior officers about over and over again. Mostly, he would say, things are just the way they seem, but not always—beware of that. Despite his own good advice, he had still been looking for a man for Natalia’s murder, and had thought that he had found him when Murray’s involvement was made plain.

He had discovered Cochrane’s unknown alibi witnesses, and had believed that he had cracked the case. But Murray’s interview had sidelined everything, and he had felt like a player who had been taken off just after he had scored a goal.

But then he was, and always had been, a little detached from this enquiry. He hadn’t been there when the body was found; he hadn’t been at Erica Cochrane’s flat where Hannah had been discovered lying unconscious, and Erica Cochrane dying.

Someone had to go and talk to Cochrane, who was owed some sort of explanation of these terrible events. And since his staff were involved in the real business of the day, Lloyd thought that he had better go himself.

He wasn’t looking forward to it.

* * *

Kim’s mother’s arm was so tight round her shoulders that Kim seriously doubted if she would ever let her out of her sight again, but she wished she could speak to the inspector alone, just for a moment. It would hurt her mother’s feelings if she said that, though, so she didn’t.

Not that she had anything to say that her mother couldn’t hear; she would just feel better without an audience, really. She looked at the inspector, who in turn looked at Kim’s mum, not speaking, until her mum realized that it might be better if she wasn’t there.

Kim didn’t know how she had done that, but she had known that she would.

“I think I ought to go and give Janice a hand,” her mother said, taking her arm away, and patting Kim on the shoulder. “Is that all right, love?”

Kim smiled, her mother left, and now she was alone with the inspector, and she didn’t
know
what to say. But she had seen Mrs. Cochrane just after Mr. Murray had left the office. She had looked so sad. So hurt. And later, Kim had thought Hannah was running away from Mr. Murray; she had told the police about
him
, because she had thought that nothing short of being afraid for her life would have made Hannah accept a lift from Mrs. Cochrane.

But perhaps she hadn’t accepted a lift. Perhaps Mrs. Cochrane really had bundled her into the car when Hannah was still dazed from the accident. It just hadn’t looked like that. If anything, Mrs. Cochrane had seemed reluctant …

She couldn’t say that. She couldn’t. But as it turned out, she didn’t have to.

“Kim,” said the inspector quietly. “When you said you didn’t think she was in any danger … It wasn’t Hannah you meant, was it?”

Kim shook her head, tears coming into her eyes to be angrily blinked away. “Hannah hated Mrs. Cochrane,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper that the inspector had to lean over to hear. “She had … you know, a thing … about Mr. Cochrane. And she hated Mrs. Cochrane.” She looked at Inspector Hill, expecting disbelief, but all she found was
someone who was listening. Not dismissive, not shocked just listening. “I think … I
thought
,” she amended, “that Hannah wanted to go with her. And I thought that was because she was so afraid of Mr. Murray that even Mrs. Cochrane would do.” She shook her head. “But I’ve no right to say that,” she said. “I was so far away, and … and …”