A Shred of Evidence (33 page)

She had had enough. She had finished the damn letters, left them on his desk, and gone to the car. She hadn’t been looking where she was going. She had scrambled out of the car, praying that she had done no damage.

“Oh—please,” the girl had said. “Please—he’s coming after me.”

Erica had tried asking who was coming after her, but had got no coherent response.

“Please help me!” the girl had shouted, almost hysterical with fear. “Please, Mrs. Cochrane, please! Don’t leave me!”

She had been terrified. Erica had helped her to the car.

“Drive off,” the girl had pleaded. “Please, please, get me away!”

Erica had driven off, looking round just in time to see Patrick Murray run round the corner of the building. Patrick? Was this girl afraid of Patrick? She had tried to take her home, but the girl was afraid even to do that, because “he” would find her.

Erica had taken her to her own house, allowing the girl to calm down a bit before she asked her any questions. She had driven right into the garage and had let the distraught girl
through into the kitchen, where Sherlock had come loping up to be fussed and fed. Erica had been in the middle of giving him his dogfood when the girl had got nervy again.

“Mr. Murray knows where you live,” she had said. “He might have seen us—he’ll come here. I can’t stay here.”

The girl had wanted somewhere to hide, and Erica had thought then of her own bolt-hole.

“What’s your name?” she had asked as she had driven away from Ash Road.

“Hannah Lewis.”

“Do you want to tell me what all this is about?”

No reply.

There the conversation had ended, and now Erica was making tea while Hannah looked at her books. The books had been left in the flat when she had moved in with Colin; there were too many for the house to accommodate. She would have to think what to do with them when the flat got sold, if it ever did.

“Why are you so afraid of Mr. Murray?” she asked, in the hope that a direct question might elicit some sort of answer. Her own feelings about Mr. Murray were in as much turmoil as the girl’s, but it was difficult to imagine him forcing his attentions on her.

She could see Hannah in the other room, leafing through a book, but she deliberately didn’t look at her when she spoke, busying herself with her tea-making activities.

“I saw him,” Hannah said. “On the Green. On Tuesday night.”

“You were there?” asked Erica, sharply.

“Yes,” Hannah said. “And I saw Mr. Murray. He had Natalie’s shoes in his hand.”

“Her
shoes
?” Erica echoed. Patrick hadn’t told her that bit. “What on earth was he doing with them?”

“Holding them,” the girl said. “Then he just put them down—and he knows I saw him.”

Erica had made a terrible mistake on Tuesday night, but it hadn’t been her fault, it hadn’t …

Sherry, keen to be allowed off the lead, had pulled a little as
they had neared the blackness of the unlit council depot which heralded his freedom from constraint. Erica had let him lead the way, let him pull her excitedly down the path.

She had pulled his lead tight when they reached the bottom, and she had seen the dark shape of a car parked in the depot courtyard, its engine running, the driver’s door open, lighting the empty interior. It had been facing her, its headlights dazzling her. It might have been burglars, or anything; Erica had hung on to Sherry as he strained to be allowed to go.

Beyond the car, she had seen something moving at the embankment wall opposite the depot, which had resolved itself into two dark shapes, so intimately involved with one another that at first she had taken it to be just one. Embarrassed, she had turned to go, but Sherry had barked, wanting to go on, and he was a big dog to argue with. Erica had been pulled back into the headlights against her will, as the car door had slammed, and the engine had been raced.

She had watched, almost mesmerized, as its tyres had squealed and spun on the concrete, the driver trying to accelerate away before he’d even taken the handbrake off.

Her puzzlement had turned to disbelief as the car shot backwards up the service road, and she had checked its number, in case she wanted to report the incident to someone. It had been Colin’s car; but it couldn’t have been, she had told herself, as the area had been plunged in darkness once more. He’d said it wasn’t going, for one thing. But she had known that she hadn’t been mistaken; Colin’s number plate had cost him a lot of money, and it wasn’t the kind you could mistake.

Then, as her eyes had become once more accustomed to the half-light from the road above, she had seen the girl. Half naked, hopping about on one foot, still trying to get her knickers back on, for God’s sake. She had stuffed them in her pocket as Erica had approached.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Erica had demanded, grabbing hold of her arm.

“Mind your own business,” she had said, shaking her off, and had walked away, towards the adventure playground.

Erica had thought it was Colin who had been with her. What
else could she have thought? Sherry had smelt someone he knew—that was why he had been so excited. But he had smelt Patrick, of course, whom he knew just as well.

She poured boiling water on the teabags. “And you think he killed Natalie,” she said. “That’s why you’re afraid of him.”

“Yes,” said Hannah.

“You’ve got it all wrong,” Erica said brightly. “But it’s nothing we can’t sort out over a cup of tea.”

Hannah had been on the Green that night. And she was one of those girls that had hung about the house. Not just one of them, either—she was the one who had kept coming after Colin had asked them not to.

She loaded a tray with sugar, powdered milk, cups and saucers and the pot of tea. “No biscuits, I’m afraid,” she said, her voice still determinedly cheerful. “I don’t keep things like that here. Just books, a few sticks of furniture, and non-perishables.” She set the tray down on the coffee table.

Hannah had called him Colin, in the office. Not Mr. Cochrane, which was the natural thing to call a teacher. Colin.

Erica carried on making polite noises, finding out how Hannah took her tea, handing it to her.

Hannah was the letter writer.
She
was the one who had arranged to meet Colin on the Green, not Natalie.

“When you were on the Green on Tuesday evening,” she said. “You were waiting for Colin, weren’t you? Like you said you would, in that letter.”

Hannah looked back at her, then nodded briefly.

“And the other letters?” Erica went on. “You wrote them, too, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Were they true?”

“No.” Hannah looked into her teacup.

“Why, Hannah?” asked Erica. “Why did you do that?”

Hannah drank some tea. “You opened his mail,” she said. “I’d seen you do it. I knew you’d see one of them, sooner or later.”

Erica frowned. “Why did you want me to see them?” she asked.

“Because he married you,” Hannah said. “He didn’t even say he was getting married. He just did it, when we were on the Easter break.” She looked up then. “I wanted to split you up,” she said. “I wanted you to believe them.”

She had got her wish, thought Erica. She had split them up, even if it had taken Natalie’s murder to do it. She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

Hannah looked away. “I know,” she said. “But I hated you. I really did. I …” She looked back at Erica. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And I’m really grateful to you for getting me away from Mr. Murray … bringing me here. I … I am sorry about the letters—especially the one arranging to meet Colin. It was stupid. He didn’t turn up, or anything,” she added. “Don’t think that.”

“But why did you write the last one? The one he got this morning?” asked Erica, pouring her own tea, carefully, slowly, trying to keep her hand steady.

Hannah had caused it all. Everything. Everything that had happened since March, everything that had happened on Tuesday night, everything that had happened since. She had blamed Natalie. But it was Hannah’s fault. And she had been there, on the Green. All the time.

“I had to do something,” Hannah said. “I knew Colin hadn’t killed Natalie, because he wasn’t there.”

Erica nodded slightly. “Why didn’t you just go to the police?” she asked, her voice light.

“I couldn’t,” said Hannah. “I was afraid of what Mr. Murray would do.”

Erica sprinkled milk on her tea, watching it swirl into the dark liquid as she stirred. “You should have gone to the police, Hannah,” she said. “You really should.” Her spoon slowly moved round and round in the teacup as she spoke. “And there was no need for you to be afraid of Mr. Murray,” she added. “Because
he
didn’t kill Natalie.”

Colin had walked miles. Not running, not this time. Not any more. Just walking, enjoying the freedom from suspicion at last, trying to sort out his thoughts. His life. His feelings for Erica, his obsession with athletics. That was all it was, all it had
ever been. But he had never been unfaithful to Erica, not since the day they had met. Not with a woman. But athletics had amounted to much the same thing. He was obsessed by something that meant more to him than anything—much more than she did, or ever would.

And that was why he hadn’t been able to retire gracefully, to move into the comfortable world of TV celebrity, fleeting though it probably was, insubstantial though it doubtless was. It was pleasant, clean work with a pay-packet that so outweighed its responsibilities as to be laughable. But he hadn’t been able to let athletics go.

Love wasn’t like that; if a loved partner died, the survivor mourned, then moved into the next phase of his life. Obsession was like that. Never letting go. And they had thought that he could have murdered a fifteen-year-old girl, because of this obsession. He had almost begun to believe that he had.

He had gone home, then, not sure if Erica would want him back, not sure if he wanted to go back. He wasn’t going to turn into another person; he wasn’t going to stop being obsessive overnight. But now that he knew that he was, perhaps they could live with it. Or perhaps he could do something about it. Just facing it, on Tuesday night, when he had made himself ill, had helped.

But Erica wasn’t there, even if he could have explained all that to her. The dog was; he was pleased to see Colin, and Colin had to admit that he was pleased to see him, because his presence meant that Erica was coming home. He wasn’t sure that what he and Erica had was love, but it deserved another chance, whatever it was.

He foolishly imagined that it would be Erica when he heard the doorbell, but she would have her key, of course. He opened the door to Inspector Hill and Sergeant Finch, and thought for one ghastly moment that he was being sucked back into the fantasy.

Not Natalie’s fantasy; he knew that now. Someone else’s. Natalie had just got sucked in too, and she had died for it. And he still didn’t know whose fantasy it was.

“Mr. Cochrane, is your wife here?” the inspector asked.

“Erica? No,” he said. “What do you want with Erica?”

“Do you know where she is? It’s very important.”

He frowned. “Not for certain,” he said.

“If you know where she might be, then tell us,” said Finch.

Colin shook his head. “I want to know why you’re looking for her,” he said.

“We just want to speak to her,” said Inspector Hill.

Colin’s mouth fell open, and he stared at them. They didn’t just want to speak to her. They were looking for her. Urgently. “Erica?” he said. “You think Erica had something to do with …?”

“Just tell us where she is, Mr. Cochrane—please,” said Inspector Hill. “Before the situation gets any worse than it is.”

Worse? There couldn’t be a worse. But … she had been so certain that he had been with Natalie. So totally unprepared to believe his protestations. Oh, dear God. What had she done?

“I think she might be at her flat,” he said. “It’s been on the market for months, but … she goes there sometimes.”

He gave them the address in a daze, listened as Finch relayed the information on his radio, watched them walk down the path, get into their car and go.

He would never have believed that the nightmare could reach such depths.

Hannah could hear the frantic banging on the door echoing through the almost-empty flat, hear her own name being called, Mrs. Cochrane’s name being called, as the nylon knot was pulled tighter and tighter round her neck. Her oxygen-starved brain could barely take in what was happening, but they were
there
, outside the door. The police were
there
, and she summoned all her strength for one last desperate effort before consciousness finally ebbed.

Then faraway voices. Just voices. She couldn’t see.

“She’s alive. What about the other one?”

“Just. Ambulance required at …”

In and out of consciousness then, as more people arrived, more voices.

“She’s coming to. You’ll be all right, love, don’t try to move.”

Dim shapes. Someone comforting her, someone examining her head.

“I don’t think the head injury’s too bad.”

A stretcher.

“She … she tried to …” It hurt to talk. Her throat hurt. Her voice sounded odd. But she had to tell them.

“Don’t talk, love. You’ll be all right, don’t worry.”

The ambulance. Now she was fully conscious, fully aware. She tried to tell them, but they told her not to talk. It didn’t hurt so much now; she wanted to talk.

She had a lot to say.

Colin sat in the waiting area, alone now that the doctor had left.

They were operating, but the doctor’s prognosis had been less than optimistic. Erica had lost a great deal of blood; in her weakened condition the operation itself might kill her, if that girl hadn’t already done the job.

The doctor could, and had tried to, explain the medical problem, but no one could begin to make him understand, or believe, the circumstances. The police had said that the girl had also been admitted; Colin didn’t even know her name to ask about her, but he gathered that it was whoever had been writing those letters, and that they thought Erica had tried to harm her in some way.