Authors: Janice Frost
“Like I told you, I don’t do this anymore, and I know I’m not to blame for what Taylor did to me. I’m not the same person I was and, do you know what, I’m glad of that. I’ve got a new life now; I’m in control, I’m in charge, no-one tells me what I can and can’t do. My family did me a big favour telling me they were ashamed of me; it allowed me to discover things about myself that I might never have known: what I could achieve, who I might love. And I have found someone to love, you know? Her name’s Tanya and my family wouldn’t approve of that either.”
Ava was confused. Was Roxy trying to say that Taylor had done her a backhanded favour by releasing her from the expectations of family and culture? As if reading her mind, Roxy said, “And no, it’s not what you’re thinking, that I owe him for setting me free or anything like that. These hideous scars are a daily reminder of just how much he damaged me. Fuck, I’m not going to say something pathetic and corny like, ‘the scars inside are still there,’ but that’s pretty much what it amounts to. Selfish or not, I’ve no desire to revisit what happened to me, let alone stand up in court and announce it to the whole world.”
Ava was silent for a few moments because she genuinely did not know what to say, then she leaned forward and forced Roxy to look her in the eye.
“Did you know Amy Hill, Roxy? Did you warn her what Taylor’s like?” There was no doubt that the question unnerved the truculent, vulnerable woman in front of Ava. She looked like someone whose guilty secret had just been exposed.
“Have you been keeping a watchful eye on him? Is that why you chose to study at Stromford, the last place on earth you’d be expected to choose, given Taylor’s presence here? You’re not selfish at all, are you? You’ve been trying to protect other potential victims from a sexual predator.” Ava leaned back, convinced she’d hit the nail on the head.
“You’re good,” Roxy conceded. “But there’s a slight twist in Amy’s case.”
“Go on.”
“Taylor started seeing her when she was fifteen. Amy wasn’t naïve like I was; Taylor wasn’t her first sexual partner, although I think he was the first who wasn’t of an age with her. She was besotted with him. What girl wouldn’t be — you fucked him, right? Never did anything for me, mind, but then my tastes lie elsewhere as I’ve said.
Yes I warned her off him, but she laughed me off, told me she knew exactly what she was doing and she considered herself old enough to give her consent whatever the Law maintained.”
Ava said, “I take it his interest in her was short lived?”
“Yes, and he must have realised how stupid it was of him to have picked a local girl.”
“How did Amy react?”
“She was furious. She came to me with a plan, saying that she was going to blackmail him and that she would use my name — my former name — as leverage. I warned her not to be stupid, but Amy was a stubborn girl. The most I could do was beg her not to reveal my new identity or whereabouts, which she agreed to.”
Something Anna Foster had said about Amy Hill’s selfish behaviour towards her mother popped into Ava’s head. Richard Turner had hinted that Amy was ‘on the wild side,’ not easy to control, that despite Nancy’s having tried to keep her on a very tight leash, she had rebelled and spent evenings, sometimes whole nights, away from home. In her own way, she too had been straining at the restraints of family and convention, and when the story of her murder was told, if her killer were caught, she too would be judged harshly and her status as victim diminished as people judged her by her behaviour. The two cultures were not so different after all.
A current of anger shot through Ava. At the same time she felt exasperated. If Amy had been blackmailing Taylor for money to pay for designer clothes and visits to beauty spas, that gave him a possible motive for murder. He might have feared an escalation in her demands, particularly as he was set to become considerably richer if his boasts about publishing houses bidding for his novel had any substance. Damn the man and his perfect alibi.
The intensity of their conversation was broken suddenly by the sound of the front door banging and a cheery voice calling “Roxy! You home?” A punky young woman strode into the room.
“Fuck’s sake, Rox, haven’t you got the fire on? It’s as cold as a witch’s tit in here.”
“It’s been condemned. Bloke came this morning to do a service. He’s going to get in touch with the university accommodation office and let them know.”
“Who’s your friend?” the woman asked, noticing Ava for the first time.
“This is Detective Sergeant Ava Merry. She’s investigating Amy Hill’s murder.” Turning to Ava, she said, “This is my partner, Tanya. She knows everything.”
Tanya said, “Are you going to arrest that bastard professor?”
“He has an alibi,” answered Roxy.
“Then have you come to your senses at last and decided to report what he did to you to the police?” Roxy shot her girlfriend a look that required little interpretation. Ava decided to take her leave. “You have my card,” she said to Roxy, “Stay in touch.” It was Tanya who showed her out.
Neal was still sitting in the driver’s seat waiting for Ava twenty minutes after parking his car in a side street close to the address Ileana had given him for Maya. He had texted Ava straight after leaving Anna Foster’s shop, and half expected her to be at the meeting point before him. She was only coming from the station, after all. From his radio, he knew that there had been no incidents to hold up the traffic more than usual. This was the second time Ava had turned up late; last time it had been a bogus emergency dental appointment. What would be her excuse this time, he wondered?
As he was wondering and drumming his fingers unconsciously on the steering wheel, he saw a flash of red in his left wing mirror and as he looked over his shoulder, Ava’s Ford Escort pulled into the space behind his. “At last,” he muttered under his breath, stepping out of the car.
* * *
“Explain later,” he said, as Ava joined him on the pavement, mouth open to speak, expression apologetic. “I’ve tracked down Simon Foster. Follow me.” His voice was stern, but driving here, he had been in the grip of an excitement he had not felt so far on this case: the familiar buzz of knowing that finally he had a lead that just might open the whole thing up. As they descended the two terraced streets to Maya’s address, he explained about his conversation with Ileana outside Anna’s shop. He had hoped the news would prove as thrilling to Ava as it had to him, but she seemed distracted, her only comment being that it was a ‘solid lead.’ Perhaps she was feeling guilty about her tardiness.
Well, with good reason.
They were heading for a mid-terrace house in an area of town that was populated by an eclectic mix of students, recent immigrants and low earners unable, in the present climate, to get a foot on the property ladder. The houses had been bought up by the dozen a few years before the recession hit, when the university was still in its planning stages and prices in the county were below the average for the rest of England — as indeed they still tended to be. Neal thought of his own comfortable house in the more sought-after Uphill area, which would have been out of his price range in many other parts of the country.
Despite the paucity of architectural styles (every street looked the same, row after row of terraced houses) and the lack of landscaping (not a tree in sight), numerous interesting, small, independent businesses were thriving. A Chinese supermarket, Polish and other Eastern European food shops and an Indian takeaway were testimony to the growing diversity of the city’s burgeoning population.
“Here it is,” Neal said, pausing outside the number he had been given by Ileana. Net curtains at the window obscured the room within, but Neal thought he caught the shadow of a figure moving. Or was it just his eager imagination playing tricks? After knocking three times and receiving no response, they slipped round to the back of the house, via a narrow passageway, to a small backyard that offered a view through the kitchen window to the living room beyond.
Ava said, “Two up, two down. Think he’s hiding upstairs?” Rather optimistically, she tried the door handle, forgetting for the moment that they had no right to enter uninvited. Above them, the upstairs curtains were open, but there was little light on this side of the house this late in the afternoon and besides, unless Simon stood by the window and waved, there was no way of knowing if he were inside. Neal gave a frustrated grunt.
“He’s in there, I’m sure of it,” Neal called out, looking up at the bedroom window, “Simon! Open the door, or I’ll have this place surrounded and be back with a warrant.”
Neal looked around, amazed that his yelling had not produced an army of nosy neighbours across the walls marking out the boundaries between the back yards. Then it hit him; of course, to a lot of people in this area, the police weren’t friends and protectors. Some of them probably had good reason to fear or at least be suspicious of a police presence so near their back door. He wished he could reassure them, but the truth was, arrests in this area tended to be more numerous than elsewhere in the city, and besides, today he was not on a mission to bolster police and community relations.
“Sir!” Ava’s cry jolted him, despite his already heightened tension. “Round the front!” Neal didn’t stop to question how his sergeant had heard the front door open and close; he was hot on her heels as she bolted past him.
Back out front, ahead of them, a young lad was racing along the pavement, not stopping to look back. They took up the chase, Ava in the lead before she started to drag her left leg. Before long she was limping outright. Neal ran past her when she was forced to stop, catching a flash of the pain and anger in her eyes.
Foster was fast, Neal gave him that, but Neal was faster; he did not carry his fitness routine to extremes like Ava, but his running and trips to the gym kept him in shape. Simon had soon slowed to a virtual halt. Neal could hear his laboured breathing long before the boy doubled over, gasping for breath.
Out of puff himself, Neal stopped alongside him and read him his rights, cuffing him as he did so. Walking Simon back along the street in silence, Neal saw Ava, still red with anger (and possibly shame), struggling to her feet.
“Leave your car here. You can’t drive on that foot,” Neal said, no hint of pity in his voice. He was about to order her to have her ankle seen to by a properly qualified practitioner, when he caught the look of pain on her face and checked himself. Leading Simon Foster by the arm, he could offer her no assistance as she limped back to his car.
* * *
Back at the station, Simon was placed in an interview room while Neal briefed Ava on his conversations with Anna Foster and Ileana.
“It seemed a bit too much of a coincidence that they ended up in the same town,” Ava commented. “Did Simon find out about his sister before Anna had a chance to discuss it with him and Nancy?”
Neal said, “Nancy turned up unexpectedly at Anna Foster’s book group on a night that Simon just happened to be there. She didn’t expect Simon to recognise her, but seeing Nancy again must have awoken some long-suppressed memory in him.”
“Amy looked upon him as a kind of benign stalker according to Becci. She felt no sense of threat from him. Maybe she felt a kind of bond with him, even though she had no idea he was her brother,” Ava speculated, but Neal looked sceptical.
“Bit weird, I know, but strange things do happen.”
“Like a ten minute journey stretching to half an hour?” Neal remarked.
Ava coloured, “I can explain, sir. I was following up a lead on Christopher Taylor. Sir, he was being blackmailed by Amy Hill.”
Taken aback, Neal stared at her. “That’s an interesting piece of information, Sergeant, and I’m looking forward to your explanation of why you’ve obviously been investigating Taylor when his alibi is rock solid. I realise your feelings towards Taylor are complicated, but he’s not our killer and he’s not what we should be focusing on right now.”
“But, sir, it could be relevant. Taylor had motive.”
“And that can explain how he came to be in two places at once? “Neal’s back was up.
If she’s going to continue working with me, she’ll damn well have to shape up,
he thought.
Her complicated feelings about Taylor are undermining her objectivity.
Cutting off her reply, he said, “Save it for later. We have a suspect to interview. And by the way, Sergeant, straight afterwards I want you to make an appointment with the police doctor. I need to know that you are physically fit for duty.”
The atmosphere between them was strained as they entered the interview room where Simon was sitting waiting. He had said nothing on the journey to the station, only stared out the side window, his head bowed, perhaps ashamed to be seen in the back of a police car, even though it was unmarked. He did look up briefly as they settled in the chairs opposite him, running his eyes discreetly over Ava. Men tended to do that when Ava entered a room. But Simon was politer than most — his eyes did not linger.
Neal took the lead, “You know why you’re here Simon, don’t you?” Simon Foster nodded. It was not enough. “Simon?” Neal prompted.
“You think I killed my sister,” the boy said. He looked Neal straight in the eye. There was a keen intelligence in his gaze, no hint of defiance or challenge.
“No-one has accused you of anything yet Simon, but taking off the way you did wasn’t very clever. Care to explain?”
Simon Foster was a good-looking boy with the kind of symmetrical features that would make him strikingly so as his lingering acne cleared and his features matured. He was in need of a more flattering hairstyle than his mop of shoulder length thick, dark hair. At least his glasses were trendy; perhaps Anna Foster had helped him choose them, or one of those assistants at the opticians who were good at that sort of thing. There was a certain vulnerability about him also, not weakness, just a sort of ‘little boy lost’ look, like that celebrity physicist who was always on TV that Maggie and most of the women at the station were always drooling over.
It was easy to be misled by a face like this, Neal knew. He had been in the room with convicted psychopaths who tugged at your heartstrings with their sweet expressions and sincere assertions of innocence. It was their gift, just another tool in their box that they could employ at will to appear normal. A skilful interviewer learned to use another set of tools to expose them for what they were: cunning dissemblers with no heart or conscience.
“I know that now,” Simon answered, quietly. “I went a bit crazy for a while. I was going to come to you when I got my head sorted out. But it’s true, isn’t it? I wouldn’t be sitting here now if you thought I had nothing to do with Amy’s death.”
“Did you have anything to do with Amy’s death?”
“No. God, how can you even think that? I’d only just worked out who she was — might be. It was all so mixed up and I kept having these sort of flashbacks. I thought I was going mad. I felt this need to look out for her, keep her from harm just until I could get my head round it all.”
“When did you last see Amy?”
“The evening she . . . she . . .” Simon couldn’t bring himself to say it, “. . . disappeared.”
“Had you been following her all day?”
Simon hung his head in shame.
“I saw her in the morning, going into a house up the hill. She’d been there a couple of times before and I’d checked who lived there. It was a professor at the university.”
Neal pointedly avoided looking at Ava, but he was aware of her leaning forward in her seat, and the sudden shift in Simon’s gaze to Ava’s face confirmed that she had reacted.
“Did you find out the name of this professor?” Neal asked, pre-empting his sergeant.
“I can’t remember now, but I think he teaches English at the uni. That’s what Em — Amy was studying. I assumed she was either involved with him or getting extra tuition from him, or something. She only stayed about twenty minutes or so.”
He has an alibi, Neal reminded himself, sensing Ava’s excitement. “Where did she go after leaving her professor’s house?” he asked.
“She went shopping on the Eastgate.”
Ava gave Neal a knowing look. Neal knew exactly what she was thinking. The Eastgate was where the town’s most exclusive shops were located; designer boutiques and brand names abounded. He’d heard Maggie bemoan the fact that she didn’t earn enough to shop there. If Ava were right about the blackmail, the professor must have been paying handsomely for Amy’s silence.
“She had a lot of shopping bags,” Simon continued. “In the middle of the afternoon, she went to the new patisserie on the Long Hill.”
It was a favourite of Amy’s; the same one Nancy had taken her to for lunch a few days before she disappeared, Neal remembered.
Again, Simon looked down, “I followed her in. I sat down at a table near the one she’d chosen. She came over and joined me.”
The silence that followed Simon’s words was electrifying. Ava was not just leaning forward in her seat now, but practically jumping out of it. Neal made a mental note to talk to her later about the need to contain her emotions.
“You spoke with her?” Neal asked; his voice steady.
“I thought she was coming over to tell me to fu . . . to get lost,” Simon said, “but she wasn’t annoyed at all; she was amused. I can remember the exact words she used, ‘why don’t we have a coffee and a nice pastry and you can tell me why you keep following me?’ I almost got up and ran out, but she seemed . . . so okay with it that I just agreed.”
“Did you tell Amy about your suspicions that you were brother and sister?”
“No. I was going to but at the last moment I bottled out. I told her she reminded me of my sister who’d died when I was very young, that following her made me feel close to Emily.”
Neal saw Ava roll her eyes. Needless to say his sergeant would never have fallen for a line like that. He asked Simon, “And she believed you?”
“I think she felt it too,” Simon answered, then perhaps picking up on Neal and Ava’s questioning looks, he added, “The bond between us. I think she kind of sensed it. I know she wasn’t scared of me. I know she didn’t feel any sense of threat from me.”
Neal had to admit that Simon did not fit the profile of a typical stalker. He had never had a romantic relationship with Amy, nor did he crave one. He simply wanted to know if she were his sister and to keep her safe. Maybe he felt partly to blame for her disappearance.