Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(82)

Tristan laughed. They set off back to Ashdean, and he logged on to the app and started to scroll through the video files.

“Okay. I have the footage from the day Layla Gerrard was abducted. The video files are in hourly increments. I’m just downloading the file from three p.m. to nine p.m.”

When the footage was downloaded, he clicked on it and started to scroll through it at high speed. Kate glanced over from driving. The view from the camera stayed the same, the piece of road with the overgrown play park and the edge of the underpass. He paused it when a dog walker went past and then the postman on his bike. As the light began to fade, a black van appeared in the shot and slowly drove past the camera toward the underpass, and out of shot.

“Shit,” said Tristan, slowing it down and then winding it back. He played it again and paused the video when the van appeared. On the side was written OMV SECURITY. It was a black van with tinted windows. Kate had that feeling, a tingling in her belly, that had long been dormant; it was the thrill of having a breakthrough.

“What time is that?” asked Kate, trying to look at the tiny time stamp in the corner and keep her eyes on the road. She could barely contain her excitement.

“Time stamp is 5:25 p.m. when the van pulls past . . .” He scrolled through the footage. “He must have been waiting there out of shot for almost an hour. It’s a dead end at the underpass. He turns the van around and passes the camera in the other direction at 6:23 p.m.”

He ran the footage back and paused it. The letters OMV showed on the reverse side of the van.

“He must have been waiting at the underpass, grabbed Layla, and had her inside when he drives away,” said Kate. Tristan quickly googled the company.

“OMV is a company who delivers cash to ATMs,” he said.

“We need to share this with Varia,” said Kate. The realization that all they could do now was pass on the information dampened her excitement a little. Tristan took screenshots of both videos and loaded them up into a new email.

Just as he sent off the email, Kate had a call. It was from Gary Dolman, the ghostwriter who had worked on No Son of Mine.

“He’s based in Brighton,” said Kate when she came off the phone. “He says we can meet him tomorrow, at his house. He can answer any questions we have and talk about writing the book with Enid.”

“I’d be up for that, something to focus our minds while we wait to hear back about this security video. Looks like things are moving,” said Tristan.

Kate nodded and tapped her phone against her teeth, nervous about the prospect of meeting him.

“What? You don’t want to go?” he added.

“I do,” said Kate. “He wanted to talk to me when he was writing the book. I kept saying no, and things got nasty . . . I think I told him to go f himself. I was drinking at the time.”

“How did he sound on the phone?”

“Fine. Normal.”

“He was a tabloid journalist, so maybe he’s lost track of how many people told him to go f off,” said Tristan.

Kate laughed, but as a member of AA, she knew she now had to apologize to Gary and make amends.





49

Gary Dolman lived on the Brighton seafront in a small end terrace house. When he opened the door, he was all smiles as he welcomed Kate and Tristan. He was in his early fifties, with a pierced nose and eyebrow. And his silver hair was topped with pink. He showed them through to an office crammed with bookshelves, which had a large bay window looking out to sea.

“I can’t believe after all these years, I finally get to meet you,” he said, indicating they should sit on a large sofa.

“Thank you,” said Kate. “I owe you an apology for the last time we spoke, when you asked me to take part in the book. I was very rude. I’m sorry.”

He waved it away. “It’s all good. I know how the press hounded you. If it’s any consolation, I wasn’t happy with how the book turned out,” he said.

“Why?”

“Before we get settled, would you like tea or coffee?” he asked. They both asked for tea, and Gary left the room.

Kate looked around the office. There were several framed front pages of the Sun and the News of the World. There were two headlines about a well-known actor who had been caught snorting cocaine and a supermodel seen taking drugs with a rock singer; the third had the headline “No Son Of Mine.” Underneath it was the now-famous look on Enid Conway’s face as she left the High Court in London, after Peter had been found guilty and jailed for life. She wore a smart navy-blue two-piece jacket and skirt, and her short, dark hair was perfectly coiffed, but her face was streaked with mascara-smudged tears, and she pressed the small white square of a hankie to her mouth. The News of the World had been the only newspaper to use a photo of Enid instead of Peter to announce the guilty verdict, and for this reason it had been all the more powerful. Kate went up to the pages.

“I didn’t know he wrote this headline,” she said, peering at the small print. “I wonder why he gave it up? He was obviously good at his job.” She heard how the last sentence came out of her mouth, with a tinge of bitterness in her voice.

“Let’s be careful. Once a journalist, always a journalist,” Tristan said.

“Good point,” said Kate. She looked out the window at the sea and the twisted, burned-out remains of the pier, which seemed to perch on the calm waters like a deformed spider. She felt mixed emotions about Gary Dolman. She had apologized and done her duty as a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but she thought back to the time of Peter’s arrest and the court case. How he had hounded her for comments, quotes, and a story. He had accepted her apology, but didn’t he owe her one?