A Violent Heart, page 24
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Did you love her too?’
He frowns. ‘No!’
‘She was a commodity, then. Like Gemma. A way to make you some extra cash,’ Ball says.
‘No! It wasn’t like that. They had cooked up this idea between them.’
‘Can you elaborate on that?’
‘Gemma had told Lily what she was doing with the live sex videos and the money she was earning. Lily wanted in on the action.’
‘She’s sixteen, Chris!’ Ball says.
‘Yeah, and she can act like a spoilt brat sometimes, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She’s no innocent.’
‘We know you spoke to her after Gemma’s murder.’
‘Did not!’
‘The phone records say otherwise.’
Townsend sighs heavily and looks down. ‘She called me.’
‘Did you tell her that you killed her best friend?’ Ball asks.
‘My client did not kill her or anyone else!’ says Clarkson.
‘Chris, do you know where Lily is?’ Stu asks, getting them back on track.
‘No, of course not.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
He takes a moment to reply. Archer bends closer to the screen to see his expression.
‘The night of the shoot. I drove her home. Gemma stayed at the cottage, waiting for me. We had planned to spend the night there. Get high, and fool around.’
‘So you dropped Lily off, drove back and found Gemma’s body sprawled out on the bed?’
‘Yes. That’s exactly what happened. I swear to God.’
‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ Stu asks.
He shrugs and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know . . . I panicked.’
‘Panicked because you were photographing underage girls?’
‘No! . . . yes.’
‘So you ran?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you take the camera equipment?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. Whoever killed Gemma took it. He wrecked the place, took the cameras, and the spare drives.’
‘You sure it was a he?’ Ball says.
Townsend seems perplexed by the question. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you know who did it?’
‘For fuck’s sake!’
‘Let’s say you’re right—’ says Stu.
‘I am right!’
‘You return. The equipment is gone, the place has been turned over. Lying on the bed is your dead girlfriend. The woman you love. Why leave her?’
‘I told you, I panicked.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Is that not reason enough?’ Clarkson says.
‘I was high,’ says Townsend. ‘I’d taken a pill. My head was buzzing by the time I got back to the cottage. When I saw her lying there the drug just made it worse, almost unreal. But it was real. Her blood was on my fingers. I just ran out, got in the car, and drove.’
‘Despite being high?’
‘I wasn’t thinking right.’
‘I think we’ve heard enough,’ says Clarkson.
‘Wait. There’s something else,’ Townsend says. ‘That night while we were filming, the bottles outside the cottage were knocked over. It freaked Gemma out. I thought it was a fox, but I don’t believe it now.’
‘What do you believe?’
‘I think someone was watching us.’
Chapter 49
I
T’S 5.30 A.M. AND MALLORY is in King’s Cross Station, which is bustling with the PPE masked, the semi-masked and the unmasked travelling out of the city. It’s not unusual to see any of the capital’s mainline stations busy at this time of the morning, even so soon after a pandemic, it seems. Mallory has purchased a Starbucks soymilk latte and has merged in with a swelling crowd watching and waiting for the platform number to appear on the digital board. The train journey from London to Berwick is approximately three and a half hours with one change at Newcastle. Mercifully, the train is on time. She hears children crying nearby and a couple arguing, and prays that she will not be subjected to any of that on her journey. That said, she is covered and brought her headphones for such emergencies.
The coffee is bitter, tasting more like a lukewarm chemical concoction. Ugh! Why did she buy it? She hates Starbucks, the McDonald’s of coffee. She has a mind to take it back, but the platform number has been announced and the crowd moves towards it like unherded sheep, carrying Mallory with them. As they approach the platform, she notices a familiar head of neatly cropped dark hair, twenty feet or so ahead. Her heart sinks.
‘Shit!’ she whispers.
Harry Quinn is at the front of the crowd striding purposefully up the platform with a backpack over his shoulder. They’re on the same train. What are the chances of that? He’s the last person she expected, having assumed he’d be in Berwick already by Archer’s side. She slows her pace and allows others to hurry past. He stops, climbs into a carriage, turning to look back as he does. Mallory gasps and dips behind the person in front. Did he see her? She can’t be sure. She pictures the confrontation as he demands she leave the train and return home immediately. Fat chance. To the irritation of her fellow travellers, she cuts across them and scurries up the adjoining platform, keeping a watchful eye on the carriage Harry has entered. She sees him taking a seat. He wears his usual unfazed expression which, to her relief, suggests he hasn’t seen her. She merges back into the crowd, joining the carriage at the front of the train, putting as much distance between her and Harry as she can. Mallory dumps her coffee into a wastebasket and searches for a seat. To her disappointment, there are none available. She heads back two carriages where she finds a spot at a table with an elderly PPE-masked couple opposite who nod politely at her.
‘Morning,’ Mallory says.
The whistle sounds from the platform and people hurry to board the train.
‘Busy train,’ says the elderly man.
‘Yeah. People want out of London, I suppose.’
‘It’s the summer. Good to get into the country.’
The woman is staring at Mallory’s tattooed arms. She leans across and says, ‘If I was young again, I would get my arms painted just like that.’
Mallory smiles. ‘Thank you.’
‘They’re very beautiful.’
‘You could get my name tattooed on across your back,’ the man says to his wife.
She laughs. ‘I don’t think so, dear.’
The train rolls forward and begins to gather speed. Mallory takes out her phone and checks the WhatsApp message she sent to Tom yesterday evening. There are two blue ticks, which means it’s been received and read. And only five minutes back. She presses the dial and calls him. To her disappointment it goes straight to voicemail once more. This time she leaves a message.
‘Morning, Tom. Please call me back. I’m worried about you. I’m on the train to Berwick and should be there before 10 a.m. . . . It’s Mallory, by the way.’
She begins to scroll through the news and finds an article on Archer’s investigation in Berwick. A suspect in the case, photographer Christopher James Townsend, is being questioned. There’s breaking news. A young unnamed woman is missing. Mallory feels a knot in her stomach and hopes she’s not another tragic victim.
‘Tickets, please,’ comes a voice.
Through her side vision she sees the guard standing by their table. ‘I’ll just get it,’ she replies without looking up. She opens the ticket app and shows it to the guard. She narrows her eyes. It’s not the guard. It’s Harry. He’s holding two hot drinks in a cardboard tray.
‘Thought I’d get you a coffee before you get off. Latte, isn’t it? Extra hot? None of that plant milk rubbish, though. Just cow cream. Yum!’
Mallory sighs heavily.
‘Shift up.’
Mallory slides across to the window seat. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks.
‘Strangely, that question is on my lips, too.’
‘Is everything all right, dear?’ the elderly woman asks, eyes suspiciously watching the Irishman.
Harry takes out his ID. ‘Detective Sergeant Harry Quinn. Thank you, ma’am. I can take it from here.’
‘The police?’ the woman says.
‘In the flesh.’ He nods at Mallory. ‘We’ve been looking for this one for some time. She’s in a lot of trouble.’
Mallory takes the coffee and rolls her eyes. She takes a mouthful. It’s much better than the Starbucks, at least.
The couple are staring in silence.
Harry puts his finger to his lips. ‘Keep it between us,’ he says to them. Their eyes flare. Through their masks she can see their mouths open wide.
Mallory leans back into the seat, turns to look at Harry. ‘Enjoying yourself?’
Harry smiles at her. She wants to laugh but refuses to give him the satisfaction. ‘Before you ask, I’m not getting off,’ she says. ‘You can’t make me.’
Harry takes a drink of his coffee. ‘That’s true. But neither the boss nor I will be best pleased.’
‘Then just pretend I’m not there.’
‘Hard to do that when you keep interfering in our investigation.’
Mallory notices the couple’s eyes darting back and forth following her and Harry’s exchange.
‘I’ve just found two new victims, one of whom is a survivor. That’s more than most of your team have contributed.’
‘That’s a little unfair,’ Harry retorts. ‘They’ve been working hard.’
‘So have I.’
‘I know you have, and I appreciate everything you do. Even Grace does. She’s taking your calls and listening, which, to be honest, I never expected to see in my lifetime. You know she was never your greatest fan.’
‘She should be grateful. I’ve told her story. She’s become a cult figure in the world of true crime, all thanks to me.’
‘Yeah, that’s the last thing she wants, by the way. And it doesn’t help that your listeners are writing to Charing Cross nick asking for signed photos. It’s become a bit of a joke and some senior officers are mightily unimpressed.’
‘Maybe she should learn to use that glory for her own good.’
Harry snorts a laugh. ‘You can propose that one. Make sure I’m there when you do.’
Mallory turns and looks out the window quietly seething.
‘All right, I’m sorry for being flippant.’
Mallory shrugs.
‘So, tell me, considering we agreed for you to keep your distance, what is it you hope to achieve in Berwick-Upon-Tweed?’
Mallory finishes the coffee and thinks about what to say. Of course she’s there to follow the story to make the best possible podcast that she can; however, she is also travelling to see Tom. She’s convinced something is wrong and only she can help. Can Archer? Can Quinn? She turns to look at him and smiles. ‘You know me. Just chasing a story.’
Chapter 50
W
HEN THE TRAIN ARRIVES IN Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Mallory takes the opportunity to ditch Harry Quinn before he asks any more invasive questions. As much as she likes him, and she does like him, she is still smarting that he’d spotted her in King’s Cross, despite her best efforts to be elusive and hide from him. That aside, she is also pissed that he’d had the nerve to come looking for her with a coffee in hand as if he’d planned the whole thing. Typically cocky. When the train stops, she makes a call to Tom, and hurries off the carriage with a thin goodbye smile at the Irishman. Moments later, she jumps into a cab outside the station with Tom still not picking up his phone.
She knows where he is staying. Bruce had pretended to be a delivery service and sweet talked the estate agent into revealing Tom’s new address. Tom has recently moved to the town and rents a property somewhere. It wasn’t difficult to hack into the local estate agents’ systems and see who had rented which property. There wasn’t a large selection, so the search was swift. Mallory gives the cab driver the address and is on her way to Tom’s new home now.
‘Here we are,’ says the cab driver, ten minutes later, driving off the A1 and up a narrow country lane. ‘The old Strother farmhouse. Never have much call to come out here anymore.’
It’s an ugly property. A rickety grey pebble-dashed house that has seen better days.
‘Who lives here?’ she asks on the off chance he might have met Tom.
‘I’d had heard a rumour in the village someone had taken it on but no idea who.’
Mallory pays the man.
‘Do you want me to wait? Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.’
‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’
‘Have a good day, then.’
‘You too.’
Despite the warm temperature, there’s something about this place that gives her a chill. A gravel path leads to the front door. Her feet crunch on the stones as she gingerly makes her way to the house. The windows are draped in dirty net curtains, making it impossible to see inside.
‘Tom!’ she calls. ‘It’s Mallory.’ But there’s no response.
She raps at the front door, gently at first, then harder. She waits, ear pressed to the wood, but no one comes. Crouching down, she peers through the letterbox. The hallway is sparsely furnished and looks as if it has not been updated in twenty years or more. The carpet is threadbare, the stairs are stripped wood. Underneath them is a doorway, a storeroom perhaps, or entrance to the basement. Her nose wrinkles at a musty, damp smell laced with cleaning fluid. She pulls away but stops when she hears something from inside. A thumping sound. She peers through letterbox again but sees nothing.
‘Hello!’ she shouts. That noise again but more urgent. ‘Is someone there?’ The noise of an approaching vehicle drowns out any sound. Mallory turns to see an old blue Land Rover Defender pull up outside the house. Tom Elston is at the wheel, his expression thunderous.
He climbs out of the car. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Mallory is struck by his anger but also how unwell he looks. His face is gaunt and grey, like a corpse. His breath is laboured, his chest wheezing.
‘I wanted to see you and make sure you’re OK.’
‘How did you know I was here? Is anyone else with you?’ He’s jittery and tense, his eyes scan the area looking for signs of other people.
‘It’s just me. I promise.’
His thick, bushy eyebrows are knotted into one, his eyes – although sunken – have a wildness about them. ‘You need to leave. Now.’
‘I came all this way to see you. The least you could do is invite me in for a coffee.’
He frowns and shakes his head. ‘I won’t ask you again.’
‘But—’
‘No buts!’
‘Who’s in the house?’ she asks.
Tom flinches. ‘No one’s in the house. I live alone.’
‘I heard someone.’
His eyes narrow. ‘What exactly did you hear?’
Mallory shrugs. ‘Just a noise. I called through the letterbox.’
Tom turns away and shakes his head. ‘This place is overrun with mice and rats. In fact, I’ve just been to the landlord to discuss the matter.’
‘There’s been another murder, Tom. Here in Berwick.’
‘What of it?’
‘And a girl has gone missing.’
‘And?’
‘Why are you here, Tom? Why Berwick?’
He lets out a long breath. ‘Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough and maybe deserve to get away from all the shit back home and find some peace of mind?’ A pained expression clouds his face. He closes his eyes, drops his head and folds his arms. ‘I need to be alone. Please, just leave.’
Guilt sweeps through her. She has seen Tom like this before in the hours she has spent listening to him tell his story. Yet something is not quite right.
‘I can help you,’ Mallory says.
Tom laughs darkly. ‘You know the problem with you is you just don’t know when to give up.’
‘Comes with the territory.’
Tom goes to the rear of the Land Rover and opens the back door.
‘Let’s go inside. We can talk some more. I really just want to help.’
Tom sighs and gestures towards the house. ‘Lead the way.’
Mallory blinks and can’t believe he’s agreed. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ he replies, tossing her a set of keys. ‘Open the front door. I need to carry some shopping in.’
Mallory smiles as she catches the keys. ‘Wonderful!’
She turns and makes her way to the house, rifling through the keys. ‘Which one is it?’ She hears his feet crunching on the gravel, rapidly. In the downstairs window she sees a reflection. Something swinging through the air towards her. She gasps, swerves to dodge the blow but it’s too late. The pain rings madly through her skull as she falls to the ground.
Chapter 51
A
RCHER IS NOT IMPRESSED WITH Quinn’s news that Mallory Jones has arrived in Berwick.
‘I don’t know why I’m so surprised,’ she admits.
‘I get the impression she thinks she’s doing us a favour.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Gone to see a friend, she said.’
‘Convenient having a friend in the same small town where you’re urgently “chasing a story”.’
‘That’s what I thought. She’s hiding something.’
‘Any idea what?’
‘We’ll figure it out.’
They’re driving through the countryside to Springhill Lane in a marked police car Archer had booked and borrowed for the day. Quinn had arrived just over one hour back and after introductions and updates from Stu and Ball, they headed out to talk to Simon Cooper.
‘Makes a change from the big smoke,’ Quinn says, admiring the scenery.
‘Not missing all that lovely concrete back home?’
‘In a few more days, perhaps. I like the countryside but it’s all a bit too quiet for me.’
‘I think that’s it,’ Archer says, pointing to the grey cottage almost two hundred metres ahead. She indicates left and turns into the drive, parking behind the Škoda people carrier. ‘At least he’s home.’
Quinn knocks on the front door. They wait but there is no answer. He knocks a second time as Archer peers through the living room and kitchen windows. There’s a tray of cat litter on the floor and the remains of breakfast dishes on the kitchen counter but no sign of life or movement. She walks around the perimeter of the house. At the rear is a narrow pathway leading to two outbuildings. She hears a hissing and rustling at her feet and sees a fierce-looking black and white cat with a scarred face and a missing ear. It watches her suspiciously from the edge of path, and flinches when Quinn appears.
