Good Girl, Bad Girl(52)

“Tell him about Violet Jessop.”

“Who?”

“In 1911 Violet Jessop was working as a stewardess on RMS Olympic when it collided with a British warship and almost sank in the Solent. She survived. A year later she was working on the Titanic when it sank in the Atlantic. Again, she survived.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“Four years later, Violet was working as a nurse on a hospital ship, the Britannic, when it hit a German mine and started sinking. She jumped overboard and was sucked under the ship’s keel, only to be dragged out of the water with a fractured skull. Again, she survived.”

“What in God’s name are you on about?”

“I’m saying that stranger things have happened. Bigger coincidences. I think Jodie was already dead or dying when Craig Farley found her. I think someone else fractured her skull and threw her off the footbridge.”

Lenny grunts scornfully. “It’s ridiculous. More to the point, it’s dangerous. Farley hit her on the head, raped her, and he left her to die. He confessed for God’s sake.”

Turning her back, she climbs onto an exercise bike and begins pedaling, pushing buttons to set the level of difficulty. I hold on to the handlebars as though stopping her from moving. I argue, putting facts in a different order.

“Jodie was hit from behind and either fell or was pushed into the pond. The shock of the cold water brought her round and she dragged herself onto the bank. She was disorientated. Coughing. Cold. Freezing. She stumbled along the path, only to collapse, unable to clear water from her lungs. Her respiratory system failed. If that didn’t kill her, it was the subzero temperatures.”

Lenny ignores me, but I know she’s listening.

“Farley is fascinated by pornography and young girls. He has a history of exposing himself. What does someone like that do when he stumbles across an unconscious girl?”

“Any normal person calls for help.”

“Farley isn’t normal. He undressed Jodie and masturbated over her. Afterwards he realized what he’d done and panicked. He tried to clean up. He covered her with branches. He went home and dumped his clothes.”

Lenny is up out of the saddle, pedaling hard. A towel is draped around her neck.

“Someone had sex with Jodie using a condom,” I say.

“Farley.”

“Why would a rapist use a condom and then masturbate into her hair?”

“He had an accomplice.”

“Farley doesn’t have any friends.”

Lenny’s mouth has tightened into a grim line. “Are you seriously suggesting that two predators, independent of one another, defiled that girl on the same night? One hits her and tosses her off a footbridge, and the other just happens to wander by and say, ‘What luck—here’s an unconscious girl I can masturbate over.’?”

“I’m trying to make the facts fit the evidence.”

“No, you’re putting a bomb under my investigation.” She drops her voice to a harsh whisper. “You have to stop it, Cyrus! No more!”

“You asked me to review the evidence.”

“And now I want you to shut up and forget everything. Put none of this in writing. We have a confession. We have his DNA. He’s our man.”

“A minute ago you suggested he had an accomplice.”

“He didn’t.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I’ll leave that to the jury.”

Getting off the bike, Lenny wipes her face on a towel and walks away, heading for the change rooms. I follow her inside. Several women are in various stages of undress. One of them lets out a cry of surprise and holds a towel across her nakedness.

“Are you trying to get arrested?” Lenny asks.

“What about the money we found in Jodie’s locker? We don’t know who picked her up that night or how she got to the footpath.”

Lenny is packing her gym bag.

“I want to talk to Tasmin Whitaker,” I say.

“She’s been interviewed.”

“By the police, not by me. Best friends tell each other things . . . stuff they hide from adults. Secrets. People keep saying that Jodie was a normal teenager who loved dancing and music and ice-skating, but there’s more to her than that.”

“How do you know?”

“There always is.”





28




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CYRUS




* * *



“Are you hungry?” I ask.

Evie makes a meh sound.

“I could start dinner now.”

“Whatever.”

I begin pulling things out of the fridge. Filling a saucepan with water.

“You’re a vegetarian, right?”

“So?”

“Any other dietary requirements?”

She shrugs again. That’s been the story since Evie arrived; I’ve experienced the full range of her shrugs, grimaces, and monosyllabic vocabulary.

I try again. “What sort of things do you like to eat?”

“Food doesn’t really interest me.”

“What were the meals like at Langford Hall?”

“Shit.”