Ted shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Billy Privett did not kill my daughter.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I could do one thing you couldn’t do, and that was speak to him as another human being. You represented something that could lock him away, the police, and you were prepared to try. I was just a grieving father. He could be more honest with me.’
Sheldon was surprised. ‘When did you speak to him?’
‘Just before the anniversary of Alice’s death. I went to his house. He let me in, which surprised me. He didn’t say anything at first. He took me to the pool room and mumbled something about leaving me for a few moments.’
‘And did he?’
Ted nodded. ‘He was respectful, until I came out of there and asked him to tell me what he knew. No, not asked. I begged him. I cried, pulled on his clothes, lost every shred of dignity I had left.’
‘And what did Billy do?’
‘Nothing, except that he looked like he wanted to tell me, but something was stopping him.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t just guilt at something he’d done?’
‘Oh, there was guilt, but there was something else too; fear. He knew damn well who killed my daughter. He was just too scared to tell anyone.’
Sheldon was about to say something, but Ted held up his hand. ‘You don’t need to tell me that he was just scared of getting caught. I’ve gone through every possibility in my head, but each time I come back to what I thought when he looked at me, and it was a certainty that he was scared of telling me.’
‘But yesterday you were angry at what his lawyer said to the camera, that he died an innocent man,’ Sheldon said.
‘Just because he didn’t kill Alice doesn’t mean that he’s innocent. He was a coward, and I can’t forgive him for that.’ Ted rose up out of his chair. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and went towards the stairs. Sheldon went after him, not sure what to expect.
Ted was quiet as he climbed the stairs. Sheldon kept a respectable distance as Ted headed straight for the room that he and Tracey had avoided: Alice’s old room. Ted undid the bolt at the top of the door and pushed it open gently, stepping aside to allow Sheldon to enter.
It was a square room, with fitted cupboards at one end and a single bed below them. There was a corkboard of photographs; teenagers having fun, family pets, some people holding beer bottles. The room was clean, and Sheldon could tell that it was cleaned often. There was a picture on the side, in front of a switched-off clock radio. He didn’t need to get too close to know that it was Alice, and that it was the one item that had been added after she’d died. Her head was cocked, smiling, the sunlight shining through her hair like a halo. Sheldon imagined Ted and Emily sitting on the bed, clutching her photograph in the room that Alice had grown up in, from a toddler full of promise to a party-loving student, all of it snatched away by one night at Billy Privett’s house.
Sheldon thought that he had been brought to the room to be reminded of Alice, but he didn’t need to be reminded, because he thought of her every day. Then Ted opened one of the cupboards and Sheldon saw folders lined up, each with a title marked out in bold red on the spine.
‘These are all the notes I’ve made from the people I’ve spoken to,’ Ted said, and then he gave a bitter laugh. ‘At least, those who would speak to me.’
Sheldon went towards them and ran his fingers down one of the spines. His fingernails looked long and dirty.
‘Can I look?’ he said.
‘I’ll bring them downstairs,’ Ted said. ‘But first you eat.’
Sheldon was confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Inspector …’
‘Sheldon.’
‘Sorry, Sheldon. You don’t look well. You look tired and hungry.’ He pointed out of the room. ‘Have a bath, relax for a few minutes. I’ll find you some clothes. I think I’ve got some that will fit. I’ll make you some food. Then we’ll talk.’
Sheldon felt tears jump into his eyes, and his mind went back to the moment on the church tower, to how that young woman had saved him. He knew Ted was right.
‘I don’t think I’ve been dealing with it very well,’ Sheldon said.
‘No need to explain.’
Sheldon smiled his gratitude, but the choke of his emotions caught in his throat stopped him from speaking.
Charlie knew he had to get rid of the knife first, and so he turned towards Amelia’s house, wanting to put the knife back in the block. Then he would call the police, tell them what he had found, and all about the two men in suits.
He followed the same route back, ducking down back alleys, dodging round the discarded boxes and junk and dogshit, the knife inside his jacket. He was able to circle the town centre without venturing onto the street, his eyes always looking out for an unlocked gate so that he could hide out of view if a police car passed the end of the alley. He emerged onto the main road further down the hill from the town centre, with Amelia’s house on the other side. He wanted to walk there casually, so that he wouldn’t seem suspicious, but just as he was about to cross the road, there were police cars bunched up ahead, blocking off the road near Amelia’s.
Charlie jumped back into the alley, the knife digging into his side. Someone had found her; the news was out.
He turned to retrace his steps, not taking as much care, just wanting to get away from where the police were. He jogged along the alleys that ran behind the terraced streets, short parallel strips that stacked up the hills. His apartment was somewhere to avoid as the two men would still be there, but he knew he had to get rid of the knife before anything. Then Charlie remembered a quarry, now filled with water, a favourite for the local kids whenever the sun came out. If he followed the line of the houses, he would get to it. So he moved quickly, one arm clenching his side to keep the knife lodged there.
A shale path went towards a bramble-covered waste ground and then curved downwards to the lip of the quarry. He checked around, even though he knew it made him look more suspicious, but he couldn’t stop himself. Charlie wanted to know who might have seen him, so he would know who might one day give evidence against him. He had never been in this position before, so he didn’t know the rules.
The quarry appeared as a cliff behind some wooden fencing twenty feet above the water. Charlie peered over. The surface was deep blue and still.
He took the knife out of the bag and looked at it one last time. The sun caught the blade and sent flashes of light to his eyes. He thought of Amelia again, of what harm the knife had done to her, and then took another look around, to make sure that no one was watching. It was quiet, just a brief moment of calm in a day that had so quickly turned his life the wrong way. Then he shook his head, suddenly angry with himself. What about poor Amelia? What had she suffered before she died?
As Charlie held his hand out over the wooden fence, towards the quarry edge, he paused. What he was doing was wrong. He was disposing of a murder weapon. Then he remembered how the evidence looked stacked against him, and so he had to act.
It didn’t take much more than a flick of his wrist and then the knife was tumbling in the air, bright silver flashes as it arced downwards. And then it was out of sight. Charlie didn’t even hear a splash.
Now he just had to work out what had happened.
Images of Amelia kept on coming back to him, and not just her body in her house. Her smile, or the elegant sweep as she came into the office most mornings, tossing her black hair and putting her sunglasses onto her head.
