‘Matthew might have argued with Luke, but why would that have made him want to hurt his own sister?’
Chloe’s face tightened. She pulled her long blonde hair back from her face and knotted it up in a messy bun. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted quietly. She reached for the file again and removed another photograph. ‘Emily’s ex-boyfriend,’ she said, putting his photograph beside Matthew’s. ‘Callum Ware. My God, did this boy love himself.’
The picture showed a teenage boy in a beanie hat, flicking his fingers in a V-sign and smirking smugly for the camera.
‘In what way?’ Alex asked.
‘Take your pick.’
‘Why have you got him down as a suspect?’
Chloe sat back in her seat, taking her eyes from the photograph of Callum.
‘Emily had finished with him not long before she started seeing Luke. I don’t think Callum was used to girls dumping him; he did the dumping. It didn’t go down too well, I don’t think.’
Alex found herself wishing that this conversation had followed the pattern of the previous discussion she and Chloe had had about Luke and Emily, and that wine had formed an element of proceedings. It might be earlier than most people’s breakfast time, but normal hours no longer applied to Alex. Last time, the wine had been enough to just about blur the edges of Chloe’s irrational thought processes, but now, in the stark sobriety of the morning, Alex was unable to avoid the desperation in the young woman’s face. Alex realised this was no longer just about seeking justice for Luke. For Chloe, proving her brother’s innocence had become an obsession.
But she didn’t want to be the one to shatter Chloe’s dream of finding an impossible truth. It was nice to believe that all mysteries would finally be resolved one way or another, but Alex was experienced enough and old enough to have accepted the sad truth that sometimes, no matter how much will and good intention were involved, some secrets were never exposed.
And sometimes it wasn’t necessarily a sad thing. Sometimes the truth was painful. Destructive. Sometimes it was better to remain ignorant of the thing you had always felt you needed to know.
‘Chloe, none of this is evidence, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Patrick Sibley,’ Chloe said, ignoring Alex and reaching into the file for a third photograph. ‘He had a thing for Emily; everyone knew about it. He sent her flowers a couple of weeks before she died.’
‘Where have you got all these photographs from?’ Alex asked, glancing at the picture. Chloe’s documentation of other people’s details was beginning to look like borderline stalking.
‘The Internet. People put them up because they want them to be looked at. There’d be no reason otherwise.’
The defensive tone with which Chloe’s words were spoken cut a chill through Alex’s office.
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
She must have realised how irrational this all seemed, or else Alex’s questions wouldn’t have prompted such a reaction.
‘I believe that you think Luke is innocent,’ Alex said, trying to pacify her. ‘I believe that you want the truth, but I also think you know deep down how difficult that truth might be to find. There was an investigation, Chloe.’
Chloe gave a bitter laugh. ‘It lasted less than a fortnight. It was full of holes. Look at it. Please. I know I’m asking a lot, but if you won’t help me no one will.’
Alex sighed and sat back in her seat. ‘Have you already looked at it? Or are you too scared of what it might reveal?’
As soon as the words left her mouth, Alex regretted them. She heard them in the way Chloe had heard them, laced with a severity Alex had never intended. The reaction on Chloe’s face was enough to reveal their impact. She reached for the photographs, gathering them quickly and shoving them back into their file.
‘Chloe, I—’
‘Forget it, please,’ Chloe stopped her. ‘I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I should never have mentioned it. Please forget I ever told you.’
Without making further eye contact, Chloe left the office. Alex cursed herself, wondering how many more people she was going to drive away before the week was out. She pitied Chloe, but resurrecting this case now was inviting trouble. They had a murder investigation on their hands, a current case that needed their full focus.
Outside the office, Chloe stopped at the end of the corridor, her heart pounding against her ribcage. No one was going to believe her. Without evidence, people would just think she was crazy. Alex had probably already started. She had seen the DI’s face as she’d talked her through each of the men she thought might have had an involvement in Emily’s death; she had seen the scepticism and the doubt in the other woman’s eyes.
Until someone believed her, Chloe knew she was on her own.
Chapter Eighteen
On the computer screen beside Detective Constable Daniel Mason there was a still of Lola Evans and Ethan Thompson entering Nando’s at just gone quarter to seven on the Saturday night: the last known sighting they had of her.
‘Can’t really miss them, can you?’ Dan said.
Alex knew what he meant. The young couple were easily identifiable: Ethan with his unconventional dress sense and Lola, rake thin and lost-looking.
‘How long were they at the restaurant?’ Alex asked.
‘Just over an hour.’
Alex nodded. This matched the information Ethan Thompson had given her.
‘What sort of waitressing job had Lola been working that started so late?’ Dan wondered aloud.
Alex shrugged. ‘I suppose plenty of restaurants in the city wouldn’t start to get busy until late.’
‘Just goes to show how out of touch I am,’ Dan said with a half-smile. ‘I’m ready for bed by ten thirty these days.’
Alex studied the still on the screen. ‘Did she even make it to work?’ she pondered. ‘Did she meet with someone before she reached there? We need to find out where “work” was.’