When he returned, the bank manager placed the forms on the table and handed Diane a fountain pen, indicating where she should sign.
Grumbling under her breath, she snatched it from his hand and scrawled her signature across the bottom of the page, her hand curling round on itself at an awkward angle as she signed one form after the other.
‘My husband normally deals with this sort of thing.’
‘I’m afraid that as you opened the account with your daughter, we require your signature to close it,’ said Parsons. ‘I do apologise.’
The formalities complete, he led them back along the corridor and out into the bank’s main room, the cashiers now busy with a steady stream of customers who filed through the doors.
‘If that’s all, Detective?’
Kay nodded. ‘Thank you, Lady Griffith. We’ll be in touch.’
‘I’ve no doubt you will be.’ Diane glared at Gavin and jabbed her finger at him. ‘Just you make sure all that jewellery is returned intact. I know exactly what my late mother gifted to my daughter.’
She spun on her heel and stalked from the bank without a backward glance.
‘Bloody charming,’ said Gavin.
Forty-Six
Kay stood to one side on a bare brick doorstep while Barnes rang the bell and peered through the frosted glass of the front door.
‘They should be in,’ he said. ‘I phoned her mother to let her know you wanted to talk to Eva.’
After going through the statement Eva Shepparton had given to Barnes and Gavin, and the subsequent events since the discovery Sophie Whittaker had been pregnant when she’d been murdered, Kay wanted to speak to the teenager herself.
Barnes had said at the time he’d felt the girl was hiding something from them, and Kay was inclined to agree.
She knew she was missing something, something that tied everything together, but she couldn’t fathom what, and it bothered her.
She roused herself from her thoughts as the front door was opened and a woman in her late forties peered out.
‘Mrs Shepparton?’
The woman’s face softened a little when she recognised Barnes. ‘Detective. Sorry to keep you waiting. Will you come in?’
‘Thanks. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Kay Hunter.’
‘Hello.’
The woman shook hands with Kay and then gestured towards the end of the hall. ‘I thought we’d chat in the kitchen, Detective Barnes. Do you want to go through?’
‘Thanks.’
Kay followed Barnes along a brightly decorated hallway, a staircase off to the left against the wall where the house adjoined the one next door. The front door slammed shut in their wake and Eva’s mother called over their shoulders.
‘I’ve just put the kettle on. Take a seat and I’ll sort you out with a hot drink. Detective Hunter, this is my daughter, Eva.’
As Kay entered the kitchen, her eyes fell upon the scrawny teenage girl sitting at the worktop, her brown eyes wide at the sight of the two police officers.
‘Hi, Eva. Do you remember me? Detective Ian Barnes.’
‘Hello.’
‘This is Detective Kay Hunter. She’s my boss. Would you mind answering a few questions for her?’ He held up his hands apologetically and glanced at Mrs Shepparton. ‘It’s about girl stuff, so if it’s all right with you, I might take my cup of tea and step out into the garden, if that’d make you more comfortable?’
‘Thanks, Ian,’ said Kay. She smiled at Eva. ‘It’s all right. I wasn’t here when he spoke to you last, so I just want to go over a few things in your original statement to clarify them – I’m hoping it might help me find out who’s responsible for Sophie’s murder. Okay?’
The girl peered over her shoulder at her mother, who gave her a reassuring nod, and then turned back to Kay and Barnes.
‘Okay.’
‘Great.’
Barnes took the mug of steaming tea from the girl’s mother and moved across the kitchen to the back door. ‘See you in a bit.’
Kay waited until the door closed behind him, then took the stool Mrs Shepparton indicated to her, nodded her thanks, and opened up her notebook.
‘Eva, when my colleagues spoke to you, you indicated to them that Sophie was pregnant.’
‘She was, it’s the truth.’
‘We know. The thing is, we need to find out who else knew. Obviously, Sophie told you because you were a good friend to her and she could confide in you, but do you know if she told anyone else?’
Eva shook her head. ‘She’d only found out the day before. I think she was still in shock.’
‘Can you remember her exact words that day when she told you?’
The girl’s brow furrowed. ‘She said that she was scared, and I asked her why. I thought she was nervous about taking the purity pledge, but then she said she’d taken a pregnancy test the day before and it was positive. She said “they’ll kill me when they find out”, and I figured she meant her mum and dad because, like, they’d spent so much money on the ceremony and everything. I mean, I know her mum can be a silly old cow—’
‘Eva!’
Kay held up her hand to Eva’s mother and gestured to the teenager to continue.
‘Well,’ she said, and shrugged. ‘She is. But I told Sophie it didn’t matter – by then, she’d already told me she was planning to run away with Peter.’
‘You knew about that?’
The girl nodded, and then blushed. ‘I helped her move some of her clothes from Crossways Hall to his place.’
Kay paused and made a note on a clean page. Already, the girl had told her more than she’d ventured to Barnes and Gavin.
‘Do you know who the father was, Eva?’
Her eyes locked with Eva’s as the girl rocked back on her stool, her mouth open.
Kay waited.
Eventually, the teenager’s shoulders sagged.
‘It’s okay, darling, you can tell the detective,’ said Mrs Shepparton. She reached out and clasped her daughter’s hand in hers. ‘Just tell the truth. You want to help Sophie, don’t you?
A fat tear escaped Eva’s left eye and trickled down her cheek. She withdrew her hand from her mother’s
