chapter nineteen
‘There! See!’
Rachel hit the pause button so that Connor Whitby’s angry face was frozen on the screen. It was the face of a monster. His eyes were evil black holes. His lips were pulled back in a rabid sneer. Rachel had watched the footage four times now, and each time she became more convinced. It was, she thought, quite stunningly conclusive. Show this to any jury and they’d convict.
She turned to look at former Sergeant Rodney Bellach sitting on her couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and caught him flattening his hand across his mouth to stifle a yawn.
Well, it was the middle of the night. Sergeant Bellach – ‘You can just call me plain old Rodney now,’ he kept telling her – had obviously been deeply asleep when she’d called. His wife had answered the phone and Rachel had overheard her trying to wake him up. ‘Rodney. Rodney. It’s for you!’ When he finally got on the phone, his voice had been thick and slurred with sleep. ‘I’ll be right there, Mrs Crowley,’ he’d finally said, when she’d made him understand, and as he put down the phone Rachel had heard his wife say, ‘Where, Rodney? You’ll be right where? Why can’t it wait until the morning?’
His wife sounded like a right old nag.
It probably could have waited until the morning, reflected Rachel now as she saw Rodney valiantly struggling to repress another massive yawn and rubbing his knuckles into his bleary eyes. At least he would have been more alert then. He really didn’t look well at all. Apparently he’d recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. He’d made some dramatic changes to his diet. He’d mentioned all this as they’d sat down to watch the video. ‘Completely cut out all sugar,’ he’d said sadly. ‘No more ice cream for dessert.’
‘Mrs Crowley,’ he said finally. ‘I can certainly see why you would think that this proves Connor had a motive of some sort, but I have to be honest with you, I just don’t think it’s enough to convince the boys to take a second look.’
‘He was in love with her!’ said Rachel. ‘He was in love with her and she was rejecting him.’
‘Your daughter was a very pretty girl,’ said Sergeant Bellach. ‘Probably a lot of boys were in love with her.’
Rachel was gobsmacked. How had she never noticed that Rodney was so stupid? So obtuse? Had the diabetes affected his IQ? Had the lack of ice cream shrunk his brain?
‘But Connor wasn’t just any boy. He was the last one to see her before she died,’ she said slowly and carefully to make sure he understood.
‘He had an alibi.’
‘His mother was his alibi!’ said Rachel. ‘She lied, obviously!’
‘And his mother’s boyfriend backed it up too,’ said Rodney. ‘But more importantly, there was a neighbour who saw Connor put out the rubbish bin at five pm. The neighbour was a very reliable witness. A solicitor and a father of three. I remember every detail of Janie’s case, Mrs Crowley. I can assure you, if I thought we had anything –’
‘Lies in his eyes!’ interrupted Rachel. ‘You said Connor Whitby had lies in his eyes. Well, you were right! You were exactly right!’
Rodney said, ‘But, see, all this proves is that they had a little tiff.’
‘A little tiff!’ cried Rachel. ‘Look at that boy’s face! He killed her! I know he killed her. I know it in my heart, in my . . .’ She was going to say ‘body’, but she didn’t want to sound like a loony. It was true, though. Her body was telling her what Connor had done. It was burning all over, as if she had a fever. Even her fingertips felt hot.
‘Well, you know what, I’ll see what I can do, Mrs Crowley,’ said Rodney. ‘I’m not making any promises about whether it will go anywhere, but I can promise you this video will get into the right hands.’
‘Thank you. That’s all I can ask.’ It was a lie. She could ask for a lot more. She wanted a police car with a shrieking whirling siren to race to Connor Whitby’s house right this second. She wanted Connor handcuffed, while a grim-faced burly police officer read him his rights. Oh, and she did not want that police officer to tenderly protect Connor’s head when they put him in the back of the police car. She wanted Connor’s head smashed over and over, until it was nothing but a bloody pulp.
‘How’s that little grandson of yours? Growing up?’ Rodney picked up a framed photo of Jacob from the mantelpiece while Rachel ejected the video cassette.
‘He’s going to New York.’ Rachel handed him the cassette.
‘No kidding?’ Rodney took the cassette and carefully replaced Jacob’s photo. ‘My oldest granddaughter is off to New York too. She’s eighteen now. Little Emily. Got herself a scholarship to some top university. The Big Apple they call it, don’t they? Wonder why they call it that?’
Rachel gave him a sickly smile and led him to the front door. ‘I have absolutely no idea, Rodney. No idea at all.’
6 April 1984
On the morning of the last day of her life, Janie Crowley sat next to Connor Whitby on the bus.
She felt strangely breathless, and she tried to calm herself by breathing in slowly with slow, deep breaths from the diaphragm. It didn’t seem to help.
Calm down, she told herself.
‘I’ve got something to say,’ she said.
He didn’t say anything. He never did say much, thought Janie. She watched him studying his hands resting on his knees, and she studied them herself. He had very big hands, she saw with a shiver, of fear or anticipation or both. Her own hands were icy cold. They were always cold. She slid them under her jumper to warm them.
She said, ‘I’ve made a decision.’
He turned his head suddenly to look at her. The bus lurched as it went around a corner and their bodies slid closer, so that their eyes were only inches apart.
She was breathing so fast she wondered if there was something wrong with her.
‘Tell me,’ he said.