The car park of the tax office was blocked by a barrier and no one answered when she pressed the buzzer, so Chloe reversed back out and parked by the shops just a few hundred metres away. She walked over to the tax office and asked at reception for Patrick Sibley, showing her police ID in order to avoid having to use any other reason for requesting to see him. Once the receptionist saw that Chloe was an officer, she didn’t ask for further explanation. She put a call through to one of the upper floors, and Chloe took a seat beneath the window as she waited for Patrick to arrive downstairs.
She didn’t really know what to expect. She remembered him well enough – and was pretty sure he would remember her regardless of how much she had changed over the years – but time had passed and there was no guarantee that she would recognise him now.
Chloe needn’t have worried. She knew him instantly, despite the hair that had been allowed to grow longer and the beard that now partially obscured his face.
‘Patrick,’ she said, standing from her chair and extending a hand. ‘You haven’t changed much.’
Patrick Sibley stared at her hand as though it was a weapon she’d just brandished at him. What had she expected, Chloe thought – a friendly hug and a catch-up over coffee? The last time she had seen Patrick she had asked him if he’d murdered Emily. The hostility she’d received was well-deserved. She knew she should apologise.
‘Neither have you,’ Patrick said coldly. ‘Still following people around, I see.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You’re in the police?’ The question was laced with scepticism, a tone that suggested he was somewhat disbelieving of the fact.
‘How long have you been working here?’
Patrick narrowed his eyes and studied her defensively. Chloe didn’t think this was something she should have taken personally; from what she knew of Patrick and was able to remember of him, he was defensive around everyone. The class loner, he had never seemed to have any friends. He had been active on social media – more often than not involved in online slanging matches with trolls who’d insulted him – but in real life he had been far less vocal and had been content (or at the very least had feigned contentment) with merging into the background, lost amidst the colour and noise of his peers.
Until he had too much to drink, apparently.
‘What do you want? I’m pretty busy.’
‘I want to talk about Emily.’
Patrick rolled his eyes. ‘For God’s sake,’ he mumbled, glancing over to the receptionist. ‘I told you everything I knew at the time. I didn’t see her after she left that party. I don’t know what happened. When will it be good enough for you?’
‘I didn’t come here to argue with you.’
‘No? Just to accuse me of murder then? Again.’
It was Chloe’s turn to glance at the receptionist, checking over Patrick’s shoulder to make sure nothing had been heard. ‘Please, Patrick. If I made a mistake then I’m sorry. But someone killed Emily that night and it wasn’t Luke. I just want to talk to you.’
‘If you made a mistake? We’ve talked already,’ he said, leaning in towards her and firing the words at her face. ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’
A wave of doubt and anxiety swept over Chloe, making her momentarily nauseous. What was she doing here? she thought. She had no evidence, no proof, just the deafening knowledge that her brother wasn’t a killer.
The words that had been typed into those emails she had received repeated themselves in her head – so few and yet so powerful: Found him yet?
No, she hadn’t, and that was exactly what had brought her here.
But was this man a killer? Loner or not, Patrick Sibley was no more guilty than anyone else, not without the proof Chloe so desperately needed. Being friendless wasn’t evidence of guilt, although Chloe realised that in her own case the same might not necessarily have been so true. She’d been without friends – true friends – for years. There had been no one to share the burden of her own personal guilt.
She felt the colour rise up through her chest and into her face like a swelling surge of sickness. What was she doing here? What was she thinking?
Patrick Sibley’s expression changed. He was enjoying her discomfort.
‘Those flowers.’
Patrick gave another roll of the eyes. Flowers had been sent to Emily in the weeks leading up to her death. Everyone – including Emily, it had seemed at the time – had assumed they were from Patrick. There had been no card with them, no message or name, but Patrick had been obsessed with Emily for ages and everybody had known it.
‘I told you at the time and I’m telling you again – I didn’t send any flowers. That girl made me look like an idiot. She knew I liked her and she enjoyed making me feel this big.’ He held up a hand and gestured with his thumb and index finger. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to her, but it had nothing to do with me.’
Chloe nodded, though she didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe anyone. Increasingly, the person she was coming to trust the least was herself.
‘If you think of anything—’ she suggested hopelessly.
‘Anything like what?’ he asked incredulously. He slowed his voice and punctuated every word with a full stop as though talking to an insolent child who refused to acknowledge what she was being told. ‘Listen to what I am telling you. I cannot help you.’
He raised an eyebrow and turned to leave her standing alone in reception; the woman at the desk casting a curious glance in her direction. There had been a time not so long ago when the unwanted attention may have made Chloe’s face flare red, but she had grown beyond that. People could think whatever they wanted of her. She didn’t care.
How’s the search going?
Found him yet?
Someone knew something about the night of Emily’s death, and she wasn’t going to stop until she found out the truth.
Chapter Twenty
Grace was disappointed. She had spent an hour and a half getting ready and had then sat waiting in the living room with a glass of wine in one hand and her mobile phone in the other. She tried calling Sarah several times, but her phone had kept ringing through to answerphone. Then it had been turned off.
Grace had been impatient at first, but then she grew annoyed. If Sarah hadn’t wanted to go out, the least she could have done was call or text to let her know. She would have saved Grace a lot of time spent getting ready, as well as the ten quid she had spent on wine down the Spar, having given up on Sarah coming back with one from the supermarket. Oh well, she’d thought, taking another sip: she would just have to drink it on her own.
But Sarah had been dressed ready to go out, she thought. Why go to all that trouble if she hadn’t wanted to? Unless she had actually gone out… with him.