Good Girl, Bad Girl(14)
I interrupt him. “Why are you so determined to keep me here? You don’t even like me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re frightened of me.”
“No.”
“Really? How is your wife? Has she asked you for a divorce yet?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Are you seeing a counselor?”
“No.”
“Liar! Are you having an affair?”
“No!”
“Is she?”
“Of course not.”
“She is!”
“Shut up, Evie.”
“Is he an old boyfriend or someone new? Someone she met at work. A colleague.”
“That’s a red card.”
“I overheard you talking to Davina. You told her that you didn’t want your wife going back to work, but you couldn’t afford the mortgage on a single wage. You said her boss was a sleazebag. Is he the one?”
“Please stop,” groans Guthrie.
“Let me go.”
“You’re not ready.”
“Who was that man who came to see me today?”
“A psychologist.”
“What did he want?”
“He came to look at you.”
“Why?”
“I think he can help you.”
“Can he get me out of here?”
“Maybe.”
I know he’s telling the truth, but not the whole truth. The idea makes me shake with dread and excitement.
“Is he coming back?”
“I hope so.”
I do too, but I say nothing.
7
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Two photographs of Jodie Sheehan dominate the front page of the Nottingham Post. One shows her dressed in her school uniform with her hair neatly brushed and the barest hint of makeup. Jodie is smiling cheekily at the camera, as though someone behind the photographer has made her laugh. The second image captures her in motion on the ice in a costume that sparkles with sequins.
“Ice Princess” is the banner headline, above a subheading: “Missing Jodie, 15, Found Dead.” Farther below is a breathless commentary, describing the discovery of Jodie’s body and the search for clues. As expected, she is portrayed as a fairy-tale victim—Little Red Riding Hood snatched from a lonely footpath by a crazed beast who had been lying in wait for her.
There are quotes from neighbors, schoolfriends, and fellow skaters, all of whom are shocked and saddened.
“I can’t believe it could happen here.”
“This is such a nice area.”
“We look out for each other.”
“Who would do such a terrible thing?”
I often wonder how people can live in such a state of innocence. Then again, what is the alternative? Fear. Suspicion. A siege mentality.
Inside there are two more pages of photographs, some showing lines of police searching the meadow or the crowds of onlookers and the glowing white tent amid the trees. This is just the beginning. Certain crimes generate their own energy, like bushfires racing across treetops, moving faster than the wind, sucking oxygen from every other story. They consume the news cycle until they burn out or some other tragedy takes their place. Angel Face had been like that.
Overnight Guthrie has sent me some of Evie Cormac’s files. There are thousands of pages: admission records, ward notes, psychiatric assessments, escapes, and offenses.
I begin pulling up the earliest newspaper stories about the discovery of Terry Boland’s body. He was murdered in a house in Hotham Road, north London, where his body lay undiscovered for two months, until neighbors complained about the smell and the landlord was summoned. Police broke down the door and found a mound of rotting flesh tied to a chair. Fingerprints were impossible, given the state of decomposition, and whoever killed Boland had cleaned the house so thoroughly—bleaching floors, vacuuming rugs, and wiping down every surface—that only one set of prints remained, which didn’t show up on any police database until Angel Face was printed six weeks later.
It took facial recognition technology to reveal the victim’s identity. A computer-generated photograph was released to the media and triggered a call from a woman in Ipswich who identified Terry Boland as her ex-husband—an unemployed truck driver, aged forty-eight, born in Watford, twice married, twice divorced, with a history of petty crime and low-level violence.
Two Alsatians were found in a kennel in the rear garden of the house. The animals were in surprisingly good condition given how long Boland had been dead. Clearly someone had been feeding them, which generated the theory that the killer, or killers, might have returned to the house, showing more compassion for the dogs than for the man they killed.
When details of the torture were leaked, the murder took on a greater sense of urgency. Various theories emerged, including foreign crime syndicates or money laundering or a drug deal gone wrong.
Without any new leads to feed the story, the media became more interested in the fate of the dogs, which were given names, William and Harry. The Sun and Daily Mirror ran competing campaigns to find them new homes. Hundreds of readers offered to adopt the animals, while others donated money, until the Alsatians risked becoming the richest dogs in England before the deputy mayor of Barnet Council stepped forward and adopted them, promising to use the donated funds to build an animal shelter.