The Verdict Page 19

  She met us in the company boardroom. Tallish in flat leather pumps, with medium-length dark blonde hair and a clear complexion suggesting regular exercise, a healthy diet and zero vices, she was a steel blade sheathed in a designer suit. Everything about her seemed figured out in advance, geared towards making the right impression for the moment at hand. She was happy to help, but on a clock.

  We refused her offer of coffee or water and got to work.

  I may have been running the investigation, but it was The Andy Swayne Show. He was both frontman and conductor, carrying the burden of our deception on his thin shoulders and setting the pace and tone of each interview. And he was loving every minute of it. For today’s turn he’d opted for the kind of no-budget dark-blue suit you’d bury an unloved relative in, a mauve-and-black tie woven from the finest polyester and, to cap his throwback cop shtick, a 1970s vintage Timex watch he’d got off eBay. He’d also tailored his voice to match. Compassionate, with enough restrained gruffness about it to let witnesses know he was on a leash, playing nice and polite strictly for their benefit.

  I was his opposite – the strait-laced, by the book, younger cop who’d been through PC camp and sensitivity training. We hadn’t agreed on these roles beforehand, merely improvised off each other until we’d found our respective places. Not that they were too far removed from reality. Swayne dug for dirt, while I sat on the sidelines, making notes and avoiding eye contact.

  I’m not sure anyone actually noticed these details. In fact, I think the whole act was more for Swayne’s benefit than the outside world’s. He’d been a broken man long before I met him, his confidence buried so deep within him it’d fossilised. Dressing up as someone else allowed him to escape himself. For a few moments he got to be a person who hadn’t completely messed up their life – even if it was only a moderately successful public servant. And for that same short space of time, I actually admired him. He may have been a fraud, but he was a sincere one, fooling himself as much as he did others.

  Swayne walked Clare through her statement.

  There’d been fifteen of them at the hen party. They’d all rendezvoused in the hotel lobby and had a cocktail before they went to their rooms on the fourth floor. Everyone doubled up except for Hazel, the bride to be. She had her own room, paid for by the others.

  They went to the spa at around 4.30 p.m. Sauna first, then a swim in the heated indoor pool. Two hours later they went out to the Paramount in Centre Point for dinner. The Paramount was a private members’ club on the thirty-first floor, where the food competed with a God’s-eye view of the West End.

  Swayne stopped her there.

  ‘Who was a member of the club?’

  ‘Penny,’ she said. ‘Penny Halliwell.’

  She was next on our list.

  ‘Did you talk to Evelyn much?’ Swayne asked.

  ‘Not really. I think she mentioned she was auditioning for a reality TV show.’

  She said the last contemptuously, and then blushed when she noticed Swayne had caught her tone. She knew it betrayed her attitude to Evelyn, that she’d thought her shallow and frivolous. To her credit she didn’t try to backtrack and undo the damage. She stayed silent, standing by what she’d said, no matter how it made her look.

  Carnavale wouldn’t want her on the stand – a career woman with an empathy bypass. That’s all the jury would see. I put a cross by her name and wrote ‘Cold, going on freezing.’ So far I’d crossed everybody off. ‘Forgetful.’ ‘Vague.’ ‘Unreliable – too pissed on the night.’

  Swayne continued with her account.

  Dinner had lasted two hours. Then they’d gone to Heaven, the famous gay club under Charing Cross arches. Penny had wangled them a table in the VIP area. They drank champagne, and then switched to their favourite tipples. Clare had taken it easy, because she had to be at the office the next day.

  She remembered Evelyn leaving them at around 10.30 p.m. Couldn’t fail to notice her, because she was the only one at the party in a green dress.

  No one in the group noticed or commented on Evelyn’s absence until around 2 a.m., when they were all debating whether to carry on drinking somewhere else, or go back to the hotel. They noticed she hadn’t touched her drink. It was still on the table – a shot of tequila, complete with salt and lemon. They wondered if she hadn’t met a man and slipped away. Not that they paid her much mind beyond that. They were drunk, happy, sentimental and distracted. The club was dark, the music loud, and the bride to be was the centre of attention. This was Hazel’s time, not Evelyn’s.

  Swayne pushed Vernon James’s mugshot across the table to her.

  ‘Did you see or meet this man at any time that night?’

  ‘No,’ Clare said.

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Positive. I would’ve remembered.’

  He asked her for her personal observations about Evelyn.

  ‘I’d say she was probably a nice person.’

  Jesus, I thought. Not another one. Luckily Swayne had had enough too.

  ‘You implied she was stupid earlier,’ he said.

  ‘The two aren’t mutually exclusive,’ she said.

  I wanted to laugh there – in complete agreement.

  ‘We didn’t have a lot in common,’ she added. ‘Maybe if…’

  Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a tear ran down Clare’s face and the rest of whatever she was going to say was curtailed into a stifled sob. It seemed to take her by surprise, as much as it did us. She looked from Swayne to me and back to Swayne, blinking and confused, like she’d woken up from a deep sleep to bright lights and strange faces.

  She patted herself for a tissue, but didn’t have one. Swayne took out a packet he carried around with him for moments like these – of which there’d been a couple. She took one and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I barely got to know her…’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Swayne said.

  I changed my cross to an emphatic tick. If she cried when – or if – Carnavale decided to use her, he’d have his first star witness. She looked good in tears.

  ‘I thought about Evelyn afterwards, thought about her a lot,’ Clare said. ‘And, this’ll sound strange, but I realised I’d never met her before that night. I thought I had. Somewhere. But I hadn’t. The only thing I really know about her is that Vernon James murdered her. How sad is that?’

  Penny Halliwell had organised the hen party and shared a hotel room with Evelyn. She’d also been the first person to be notified about the murder.

  We’d arranged to meet in the restaurant of the Architectural Association on Bedford Square, off Tottenham Court Road. She worked for a music publisher on the same block.

  Even if the place hadn’t been almost empty, recognition would’ve been instant. The detective who’d interviewed her had written ‘Myra Hindley’ in brackets next to her name in the notes accompanying her statement. One look at her and I understood what he meant.

  It was probably the hair that did it. A peroxided bouffant, complete with a batwing fringe which exposed the middle of her forehead and covered her temples. Or maybe her interrogator had been struck by her passing resemblance to the infamous Hindley mugshot – that dead-eyed, faintly pouty expression where the Moors Murderess looked like she was about to blow her photographer a kiss before telling him where she’d buried his kids. Either way, I got it. She was definitely not Carnavale material.

  We sat at a small corner table meant for two. Penny was tell-tale nervous. Darting eyes, involuntary blinking, hands fidgeting from her empty teacup to imaginary lint on her black jacket. Swayne did his best to put her at ease, layering on the avuncular charm; nothing-to-worry-’bout-luv, just a few questions and we’ll be on our way; you’re not under arrest. She responded to the last with a thin laugh that was meant to be ingratiating, but was too short and shrill to mask her stress.

  We got started.

  After they’d come out of the hotel spa, they went to thei
r respective rooms.

  Evelyn and Penny had changed for dinner. Then Evelyn had gone to the bar for a couple of ‘liveners’ – shots of silver tequila. She’d said she was a bit nervous about the evening ahead and how it would go, because she didn’t know anyone that well.

  Penny barely noticed Evelyn after they got to the restaurant. She was too busy making sure everything ran smoothly and on time; and then catering to Hazel’s every need. Hazel was her best and closest friend. They went back fifteen years. Like me they were satellite town refugees, Norwich being their dark star.

  They’d stayed in Heaven until closing time, at around 3 a.m. Some of the party had left for their hotel beds. She, Hazel and a couple of others had gone off to a private drinking den on Dean Street. They’d stayed out until just before five. Then they’d gone back to Hazel’s room, where Penny had fallen asleep.

  Penny checked out at 11.40 that morning. Before she left, she noticed Evelyn’s things were still in the room, and she found a note on her bedside table:

  @ Private party @ Suite 18. Evey x

  That’s when she realised Evelyn hadn’t been back. But she was too hungover and knackered to think about more than getting home and going back to bed. She left the note where she’d found it.

  All pretty much what she’d told the police, when they’d come round her flat later that day.

  Swayne looked back over her statement. Or pretended to. He was just buying time, letting her stew a little. Penny rubbed her fingernails. They were painted black.

  ‘What drugs did you do that night?’

  The question might as well have been a slap for what it did to her. She sat up, eyes wide, mouth agape. Her hand started trembling.

  To be honest, it threw me too. I was glad Penny was too shaken up to notice the shock on my face.

  ‘You’re not under oath,’ Swayne said. ‘And this is all off the record. But I do need to know.’

  ‘I… I… did some coke.’

  ‘What about Evelyn?’

  ‘No,’ Penny said.

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Who else did coke?’

  ‘I… I… I’d rather not say.’

  ‘I don’t need names,’ Swayne said. ‘A ratio or percentage’ll do.’

  ‘Why d’you need to know?’

  ‘A member of your party disappeared right under your noses – forgive the pun. No one seems to have noticed. Or cared one way or another,’ Swayne said. ‘We’ve established that Evelyn left Heaven at around 10.30 p.m. The place closed at 3 a.m. She was gone over four hours. I just need to work out why and how that could happen. Now I have. Coke makes you feel like you’re the centre of the universe, top of the world. Of course you wouldn’t have noticed.’

  Silence.

  Swayne had his answer. Most of them had done coke.

  He let her dangle for a while, while he went back to her statement. She was blinking like crazy now.

  ‘Why did Evelyn leave the club?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did someone say something to upset her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. I would’ve heard about that.’

  She glanced at me, quickly, then looked away. I knew she was holding something back. A fellow omitter. Takes one to know one, and all that.

  Swayne opened his file now and turned over some stapled documents.

  ‘What else can you tell us about Evelyn?’ I asked her.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Swayne stop what he was doing.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You shared a room with her for a bit. What did you talk about?’

  ‘Hazel, the wedding…’ And then she smiled, and I saw that some of her red lipstick had come off on the tip of her canine. ‘When I say “the wedding”, I mean the Wedding. As in the Royal Wedding. Kate ’n’ Will’s.’

  And she pulled a dismissive, conspiratorial face, as if she were sure I found the subject matter crass too.

  Then something clicked.

  I remembered my first week at Cambridge; the daily get-to-know-you parties, trying to make conversation with the cooler than thou types. The universal icebreaker was, ‘What did you do in your year off?’ And you were meant to listen while the stranger you were hoping to find common ground with told you about their gap year, and then you told them all about yours. Except I hadn’t had a gap year. I went straight from school. So I’d tried another tack. Music. But grunge was the big hip new thing then, and I knew close to nothing about it. What I’d heard sounded like bad heavy metal – the only heavy metal there is. I said I was into Paul Weller. They looked at me like I’d just beamed in from Planet Sad.

  And suddenly I felt for Evelyn. The deepest empathy. She’d spent the last few hours of her life with a bunch of people who didn’t give a toss about her.

  ‘None of you liked her much, did you?’ I said.

  I heard Swayne catch his breath.

  Penny opened her mouth in surprise. That red-tipped canine again.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘I can’t say I liked her. No. I mean… OK. This… this’ll sound horrible but I… I thought she might’ve been a bit of a slapper.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s just an opinion I had.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Something she wrote on her Facebook page that day – “No VPL tonight”.’

  ‘What’s VPL?’ Swayne asked.

  ‘Visible panty line,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, frowning.

  I’d seen Evelyn’s Facebook page. She’d posted two pictures of herself in her green dress – from the front, and from the back – both taken in the mirror with her iPhone. Under the backshot, she’d written ‘No V-P-L 2nite!’

  So she’d worn a thong instead, I thought. Big deal.

  ‘You thought she was crude and crass, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘Unsophisticated, non-too-bright Evey, with her cheap green dress. Right slapper, eh? With her reality TV ambitions. Maybe the kind of girl you might’ve been if you hadn’t moved to London. Is that it, Penny?’

  She was tearful.

  I’d got her absolutely right.

  But I’d messed up in the process. And badly.

  Before we started the interviews, Swayne told me we weren’t to draw attention to ourselves. We didn’t want to be remembered. Carnavale was bound to call some of the people we were talking to as trial witnesses. They’d probably recognise me in court, but they wouldn’t necessarily be able to place me if I kept a low profile now – not in the heat of the moment, being cross-examined in a murder trial. I’d just gone and guaranteed that Penny Halliwell wouldn’t forget me in a hurry. And that could cause big problems further down the line.

  ‘Look, can we please forget what I said?’ she croaked. ‘I was out of line. I’m sorry. I didn’t know her well enough either way. I’d only met her once or twice before that night.’

  ‘Once or twice?’ Swayne jumped in, before I could say anything.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, almost relieved to be talking to him again. ‘I can’t exactly remember. Hazel introduced us, I think.’

  ‘She was Hazel’s friend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right.’

  We were seeing Hazel Ellis later.

  Penny looked around the room again, quickly, then down at the table. Swayne closed the file. We were done here.

  ‘I’m really sorry about what happened,’ she said, eyes going from me to Swayne. ‘I feel bad about it. Really bad. We all do.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Swayne said, reaching into his pocket for the tissues.

  ‘I can’t help but feel… responsible. In some way.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Swayne said. ‘Evelyn died because she was killed by a sick and twisted man. No other reason. It’s not fate, God, or karma. And it’s certainly not you or anything you did, or could’ve done differently. It’s just what
it is, and what it’s always been. Bad people doing bad things. That’s it. That’s all.’

  Fifteen minutes later Swayne and I were on Tottenham Court Road, heading for the Tube.

  Swayne was furious.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘She was holding out on us.’

  ‘Bollocks! That was personal with you.’

  ‘It got results.’

  ‘It got us nothing, Terry!’ he snapped and abruptly stopped walking. We were almost at the Tube entrance. ‘If you think you can do this better than me, be my guest.’

  I looked at him like he was bluffing.

  ‘You bet your life,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘You know what makes a good lawyer? Solicitor, barrister – whatever? They never get personally involved. And they fake every emotion. So whatever crap you’ve had in your past, deal with it in your own time.’

  I could have pointed out that he’d told me I was getting fired at the end of the trial anyway, so his advice was just hot air. But I didn’t want to push him so he walked out on the case when we still had interviews to do. For now, I needed him more than he needed me. Who else was I going to find to get me to the places he had?

  We took the Central Line to Shepherd’s Bush. It was packed with a lunchtime crowd, all sweaty and uncomfortable.

  ‘Tell me you don’t feel just a little bit sorry for Evelyn,’ I said.

  ‘Welcome to London, Terry. No one gives a shit about anyone here. It’s eat or be eaten. I heard this story once. A man got on the Circle Line to go to work one morning. Had a heart attack and died in his seat. He slumped against a window, eyes closed. His body went round and round all day until the Tube shut at midnight. Nobody noticed until the cleaner came in at end of play.’

  I’d heard that story once too. Tom Cruise told it in Collateral. Except that was in LA. And it probably hadn’t happened there any more than it had here.

  Hazel Ellis lived in Croydon.

  Poor her.

  I’d lived there too, when I first moved to London; a ground-floor bedsit on Montague Terrace. One light socket, no heating, an ingrained smell of burned fish, and a brown stain on the ceiling. It was all I could afford. It was either that or go back to Stevenage. So I stuck it out and saved up for somewhere better. I worked two jobs – catalogue telesales by day, door-to-door gas company sales by night. Within nine months I’d done a midnight flit to Battersea. I still owed my old landlord £375.