“Okay… I’m aware of the voicemail. Can I listen to it?”
“Of course.”
She pulled out her phone and unlocked it, handing it to me. I dialled the voicemail service listening to the recorded message, before hitting a button on the keypad and listening again.
“Okay, so she says she wanted to speak to you about the CCTV footage, but she gets cut off?”
“Yeah, it’s a bit strange. There’s that noise. It’s like she was hit or something.”
I looked up sharply. “And where were you when you received this message?”
“Here. Amanda and I helped the girls with the evening stables, then we had a meal together and I’d gone to bed. I left my phone downstairs. I picked up the message the next day.”
“Okay. I may need to take your phone please.”
“Of course. Honestly, it only ever brings bad news. What’s happened to her? She was shaken by the… Well, by what had happened…”
“I can’t say at the moment what’s happened. However, I will get in touch if I need anything and I’ll return your phone as quickly as possible.”
“Thank you…”
* * *
“So?”
“So, what John?” He was trying to rile me. I wish he would spit out what he wanted to say. I was tired of his games.
“What do you think? You’ve listened to the voicemail; it sounds like she was struck heavily at the end of the call.”
He was right. We had passed the voice mail message to the technical team who had cleaned up the audio. There was a distinct sound which certainly could have been Hilary Wessington being struck on the head, followed by her moan and the sound of her falling out of the chair onto the floor. What this meant however was unclear. Who had hit her and why? And, most importantly was she walking around somewhere with amnesia, or sadly, more likely where was her body?
* * *
“She was attacked.”
“Kate, you can’t be sure about that?”
“Amanda, you listened to the voicemail, she called me and then there was that thump and the line went dead. Look at the way the police were about it, there is no way she would have come all the way across here unless she had a damn good reason. Hilary was attacked.”
“There were a lot of people baying for her blood online…”
“Kate, there were a load of horsey teenagers on Instagram who idolised Olivia and so they started to threaten Hilary, but do you honestly think that any one of them would have really done something to harm her. And what about Sally. She said she had gone abroad, left to work in Germany. But if she hadn’t left…”
“So now you are suspecting Sally of foul play…”
“No… But…”
“But what Kate? We have to leave this to the police.”
“Why did she call me? Hilary made it clear she didn’t want to see me again, why was she suddenly on the phone to me, apologising.”
“She’d had a drink and wanted to clear the air.”
“No… It was something about the CCTV. That was what she said… She was playing that when she called me, it was still on the computer screen. But what? I need to see the CCTV images!”
“What? You must be joking…”
“I’ll call the police officer who left her number. We can ask her to look at it.”
“She will tell you to go away, possibly not as politely as that.”
“We have to try…”
I grabbed Amanda’s phone and dialled the number left to me by DCI Jarvis. It rang for a few seconds before she answered. “Hello, it’s Kate Bishop here, you came to our yard in Cumbria earlier.”
“Mrs Bishop. How can I help you?”
“Look, when Hilary, Miss Wessington left me the voicemail she said she noticed something about the CCTV. I think it may have been about my husband. Could I see the images?”
There was a long pause. “Mrs Bishop, you have to realise that I cannot just provide you with CCTV footage from an active investigation.”
“But…”
“No but’s. I’m sorry, but it just isn’t possible.”
* * *
“There is no way they will give you the footage. Of course, they wouldn’t do that, it’s an active investigation. The only thing Kate could do is ask the lawyer to apply for a copy as part of his defence, but, if it is like you told me there’s nothing on there to see. Didn’t you say that it shows Adam collecting the murder weapon? It sounds pretty clear cut to me.”
“Dan… There must be something though, Hilary made that call.”
“Mandy, Hilary called Kate because she felt guilty about being rude. It’s clear she had been drinking and just happened to have the CCTV images still on her monitor. I promise you, there will be nothing there which can help Adam and it will only upset Kate to have her watch her husband walking to kill that poor girl.”
“Dan! Don’t say it like that. You make it sound like you think he did it?”
“Look, I want to believe he’s innocent, but, weigh up the case. He had attacked her earlier in the day and…”
“Dan, I know… For fuck’s sake, I don’t need you to go over it again. For me, please, is there anything we can do?”
“Christ Mandy… Okay. Right, I shouldn’t do this.” He sighed. “The CCTV system was cloud-based, wasn’t it?”
“Cloud what? What are you talking about?”
“Christ! You Luddite… The CCTV system saved it’s images on a remote internet server, in the cloud?”
“I don’t know? How the hell would I know where the images were saved?”
“Listen. When Hilary let you in, she showed you the CCTV images on screen didn’t she?”
“Yes…”
