‘You’ve been monitoring and accessing Martin’s private emails?’ Caroline asked.
‘Obviously,’ Tom replied, with a look that seemed surprised there’d be any other possibility. ‘It made so much sense. I knew which route Martin took on his runs. I knew where he’d be going. I knew Gavin would be waiting at the viaduct. There’d be traces of him being there. The emails that showed he set it all up. It seemed too good to be true. I had the ultimate opportunity. The chance to get rid of them both.’
By now, Caroline could see Amie starting to get more and more agitated. She knew Tom’s words were causing more harm than good right now, but the strength and detail of his confession was too powerful to deny him.
‘I parked up in a lay-by on the Barrowden road, as you come straight out of Seaton. It’s a narrow lane. No traffic. I saw Martin coming down the hill. Stupid little head torch bobbing about. As he got closer, I switched on my headlights, then got out of the car. He couldn’t see because of the headlights, but I had a baseball bat in my hand. As he got closer, I swung it. He didn’t have a chance. He hit the ground and started gurgling. Christ, it made a hell of a noise. A large part of me wanted to leave him there, at the side of the road. I was desperate to just get out of there. But I knew I couldn’t. I knew this was only one small part of the plan, and I needed to stick to it. The last thing I wanted was him yelling or getting back up, so I wrapped my arm around his neck and squeezed. Just squeezed. I thought he’d try to fight back, but there was nothing. He didn’t even lift his arms. He was gurgling but his whole body was limp. Then… then he just stopped.
‘I’d lined the back of the car with plastic sheeting. It’s an estate. Handy for camping. Took me ages to drag him round and put him in the back, but I managed it in the end. Didn’t want anyone seeing him. I could tell he was going. His eyes were rolling around in his head and he was starting to turn blue. I just remember his fitness watch pinging, asking him if he’d stopped exercising because he was still and his heart rate had dropped. I actually found that funny. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person. But I took it off him and switched it off. I don’t know how much data those things store. I panicked it might reveal where he was when he died. I shut the boot, got back in and kept the engine on, just in case. If someone came along, I knew I’d need to get away quickly in case he made any noise. I knew he wouldn’t, though. You know when someone isn’t coming back. I waited a bit. I wanted to make sure Gavin would be gone.
‘And that’s when I worried I’d done the wrong thing. I knew I had to keep calm, though. I needed to. So I started driving. I pulled away really carefully, I remember that. The way you do when you’ve just packed the car full. Like you’ve got a delicate load. I turned left just before Seaton and headed back round towards the viaduct, where I knew Gavin had arranged to meet him. I could see his car there, so I carried on past and went round again, more slowly this time. As I came round towards Seaton the second time, I saw his car going over the crossroads, up towards Glaston and the A47. That’s when I knew he was heading home. So I carried on round to the viaduct, and left Martin there. He looked peaceful. I know it sounds strange, but he did.
‘Then I went home. I packed all the plastic sheeting into small cardboard boxes and lit a bonfire at the end of the garden. Plenty of wood, too. And the baseball bat. I knew the plastic would stink otherwise.’
Caroline nodded to herself. Of course. The odd smell of stale smoke she’d noticed when she met Tom hadn’t been cannabis. It was the remnants of the previous night’s bonfire, tinged with burnt plastic. The dirty bastard hadn’t even washed or changed his clothes.
‘Then you deleted the email,’ she said, continuing the story for him.
Tom nodded. ‘I knew the police would probably be after the computers and stuff. I’m not daft. I only ever accessed his stuff either while I was at work, or through the work VPN so it looked like it’d come from there. I saw the email Gavin sent, calling Martin a coward for not turning up. I knew that wouldn’t look good, so I deleted it. I was still panicking a bit at that stage. The adrenaline had worn off. I didn’t think about the fact it would still be showing in Gavin’s sent items until after I’d deleted it. It was stupid. Impulsive. How the hell could a dead man delete his own emails? Then I thought, no, it’ll be okay. They won’t know when the email was deleted. They might not even discover it ever existed. Either way, there was nothing I could do about it. I had to sit tight.
‘And then when you arrested Amie, I wondered what had gone wrong. I wanted to tell you I’d found the emails before that, but I knew that would be a bad idea. I’d be admitting to accessing his emails. It’d look obvious I was trying to prove Amie’s innocence and lead you towards Gavin. It was too risky. I knew I’d done the right thing. I knew Amie was innocent and you’d let her go eventually. It was just a case of waiting, waiting until your guys found the
