I Know You Know Page 5

  “I totally agree,” Erica says. “He’s right, isn’t he, Dad?”

  “Acting’s a tough job whichever way it rolls. Amber Rowe was a great role, which did develop. Your mum played it brilliantly, she was amazing, and it guaranteed her a steady income. You can’t ask more than that.” If Olly works out he’s being gently chastised, he doesn’t show it. Jess, as ever, gets a warm feeling from Nick’s loyalty.

  The fajitas arrive on sizzling platters. As the waitresses place them on the table, Jess rubs her daughter’s shoulder. “It’s good to have you home, love,” she says. Erica leans her flushed cheek on Jess’s hand before tucking in to the food and turning her attention back to Olly. Jess smiles. She knows when she’s been upstaged. She wants her daughter to enjoy these precious moments that Jess never had. An unwelcome thought occurs to her: But what if I have sheltered Erica too much? Might it be better if she knew everything? If I’d told her about Charlie and tried to explain what my life was like? Is she too naive because we’ve wrapped her in cotton wool all these years? She glances at Nick, wanting reassurance. He’s laughing at something Erica said. Jess drains the last half-inch of her cocktail and tells herself to lighten up. The podcast has got under her skin, and dwelling on the past hasn’t helped. The answer to this evening, she thinks, is to lighten up and not worry about everything, and the way to do that is to have another drink.

  “You driving?” she asks Nick.

  He nods. He knows what she wants and he signals to the waitress. Jess is halfway down her second cocktail and feeling nicely mellow when her phone vibrates. It’s a call from an unknown number but she decides to take it because it’s an excuse to escape the Olly Show for a few moments.

  “Hello?” she says. She can’t hear what the caller’s saying because the noise in the restaurant is loud. Drink in one hand and phone in the other she gets up and weaves her way through the other tables to the door. Once she’s outside, she apologizes: “Sorry. I couldn’t hear a thing in there.” It’s dark. She stands beneath the restaurant’s awning. It glows a dull red, lit by strings of bulbs hanging from its underside. Jess is alone.

  “Is that Jessy?”

  Nobody calls her Jessy anymore. Very few people ever did. “Who’s this?” she asks, but she thinks she knows.

  “It’s Cody Swift, Charlie’s friend.”

  She hangs up and downs her drink, although she’s never felt so sober. She stares back into the restaurant, seeking out her husband. As if he has a sixth sense, Nick turns and meets her eye. She beckons and he gets up instantly.

  “That was Cody Swift on the phone. From the podcast,” she says once he is outside. She hands him her phone as if it’s tainted by the call.

  “What did he say?”

  “I didn’t give him the chance to say anything. I hung up.”

  “Good girl. Well done. Don’t cry. Come here, love.”

  Nick ushers her into a shop doorway, out of the snappy wind and out of Erica’s and Olly’s line of vision. On her phone, he goes to recent calls and presses the number at the top of the list. He puts it on speakerphone as it rings.

  “Cody Swift.”

  “Cody Swift, you little runt,” Nick says.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Never you mind. You just listen to me for a minute, and listen really, bloody carefully, because I won’t warn you twice. Do not telephone Jessica again. Do not try to approach her. If you do, you’ll have me to answer to, and it won’t be pleasant. Do you understand?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Do you understand me?”

  “Is that Mr. Guttridge? Are you Jessy’s husband?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. Listen to me carefully, because I’m not going to tell you this again. Keep. Away. From. Jess.”

  “Or what?”

  Nick hangs up and hands the phone back to Jess. “Don’t answer if he rings again.”

  She shakes her head. She’s got no intention of doing so. She was off her guard. With shaking fingers she blocks Cody Swift’s number.

  When they return to their seats back inside, Erica frowns as if she’s the grown-up and they’ve been truant. She signals the waitress and some staff gather, one of them holding a plate loaded with a tower of brownies topped with whipped cream and candles. He sets it down in front of Nick, and Erica beams as everybody sings “Happy Birthday.” Nick smiles and thanks his daughter, but underneath the table, he clutches Jess’s hand tightly and doesn’t let go. She loves that he does it, but beneath the smile she has plastered on, she’s very afraid Nick might not be able to save them from this Cody Swift thing, no matter how much he wants to.

  As they walk back to the car, the kids ahead of them, she says, without thinking first, “Do you think I should call Felix?”

  Nick stops dead. “Are you joking?” He keeps his voice down, but only just.

  Jess knows she’s made a big mistake. Neither of them has mentioned that name for years, and that’s the way it should be. The cocktails have loosened her tongue. Nick made only one condition when they got together: that Jess never have contact with Felix Abernathy again. Ever.

  “I don’t mean it. I don’t know why I said it. I’ve had too much to drink. I’m being silly.”

  “Felix Abernathy doesn’t interfere with you or our family. What’s the matter with you? Have you forgotten what he’s like? I’ll sort out Cody Swift. Leave him to me.”

  “You’re right,” she says. “Sorry. You’re right, darling.” She kisses him tenderly and is relieved to sense him letting go of some of his outrage. “I really am sorry,” she repeats. She doesn’t want to hurt him. “I’m a bit pissed and the phone call stressed me out. I don’t know where that came from. Forget I said it.” She kisses him again.

  “Gross!” It’s Erica, fifty yards ahead, standing beside the car with her hand on her hip. “Come on! It’s freezing!”

  Nick unlocks the car and its lights wink brightly. The kids scramble in. He looks at Jess with an expression that is both hurt and wary before putting his arm around her and squeezing her shoulders as they walk to the car. Her apology is accepted. She is so relieved.

  She never told Nick it was Felix who helped her before, when Dart Street got the media interested in her. It was early days for Felix’s PR business at the time, but he already had good contacts and other, juicier stories he could trade for silence. Jess would have turned to Nick if she could have—God knows she knew better than anyone the dangers of involving Felix Abernathy—but there were and are some things Nick is just too good and too nice to handle effectively. That’s when you need somebody like Felix. Somebody who is prepared to bark and bite.

  In the car on the way home, Jess is glad it’s dark because nobody notices her blinking back tears as they drive. It’s not like her to let her emotions overwhelm her in public—control is something she has had to learn to be very good at—but Felix Abernathy is one person who truly frightens her, and she’s got a feeling she’s going to face a choice very soon: call him or see her family ripped apart.

  Chapter 5

  Fletcher is lost in thought as he waits to speak to Chief Constable David Tremain about the Cody Swift podcast. Since reporting that Swift contacted him, Fletcher has been summoned—as he knew he would be—to discuss it.

  He has given a photograph of the signet ring found with the skeleton to Danny and asked him to run a search on the missing persons database. The four-leaf clover on the ring has predictably earned John Doe a nickname: Lucky.

  It’s quiet in the waiting area. The DCI’s secretary is typing up an audio recording, so the only sound is the clatter of her nails on the keyboard and the huffy noise she makes when she needs to pause and rewind.

  Fletcher likes quiet. He didn’t used to. He used to feed off noise and chaos as if it were a silvery bait ball and he an ocean predator gorging on it. Not now. He’s become more reflective over the years, though he knows his silences can be frustrating. “I’m not a bloody mind reader,” his ex-wife used to s
nap at him, rapping her fingernails on the kitchen island, staccato sharp so that he winced. “I can’t know what you’re thinking unless you communicate it to me! It’s a form of torture, John, honestly. It’s not like I’ve got a spare husband I can chat to.” Until she did.

  She never understood how Fletcher grew to need the silence because he believed the things he dealt with day to day were best kept to himself. What would their life have been like if he’d gone home every evening and told Jane and the boys exactly what he’d been doing that day? How do you sit at the table and tell your family about the day’s rape or murder or beating as you pass the vegetables and mashed potatoes? Why would any man do that? It would have destroyed his marriage just as the silence did in the end, though probably quicker.

  “He’s ready for you now,” Tremain’s secretary says. She watches out of the corner of her eye as Fletcher makes two attempts to get up.

  Tremain indicates Fletcher should sit. He’s a dapper man, always has been. He has starched collars and crisp creases in the front of his trousers. Being around Tremain makes Fletcher hyperaware of his own dishevelment, though he doesn’t attempt to adjust any part of his appearance.

  Neither man speaks at first because the first episode of the podcast is playing on Tremain’s computer. Cody Swift’s voice comes through loud and clear: “I find the photograph very moving. We were the best of friends. It reminds me in the strongest possible way why I should pack away any moments of doubt about pursuing this investigation because Charlie and Scott deserve the truth.”

  Tremain lets the last few minutes of the podcast play out. He turns it off and sighs. “Did you listen to this?”

  “I did.”

  “What did you think?”

  “So far, so mediocre.”

  “That’s a more relaxed approach than I was expecting.”

  “Cody Swift chatting with his mum doesn’t worry me too much.”

  “I’m going to disagree, John. I think we have to be proactive. Any ideas?”

  “Leave him be. He’ll hang himself if we give him enough rope.”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  “Nobody on the Glenfrome Estate will talk to him.”

  “I’m not so sure about that either. Did you read Weston’s article?”

  Fletcher nods. As far as he is concerned, the article said nothing that should worry them. He remembers Owen Weston from the courtroom. The reporter got under Fletcher’s skin with his moral outrage and his persistence, but it didn’t get him anywhere in the end and Fletcher doesn’t believe things will be any different this time around. “Weston’s blowing smoke. He’s trying to get attention by coming up with an innocence theory because it’s all the rage.”

  Tremain’s expression suggests he is doubtful, but Fletcher has said what he thinks and he doesn’t feel the need to elaborate or defend his position. He looks steadily at his superior officer. Tremain has been around in the force for as long as Fletcher has, but he stepped away from detective work to seek promotion ten years ago. In Fletcher’s opinion, that dulls your street instincts and has an effect on your psyche like agar does for bacteria, breeding neurosis and self-regard in equal measure. For twenty years, since the day Tremain dealt an immutable blow to Fletcher’s career, they have coexisted professionally with the mutual admiration of cats and dogs.

  Tremain sighs. “Hoping Weston and Swift spontaneously go back down their burrows is not what I’d call a proactive approach. I’d like you to talk to Swift. Cooperate with him, or appear to cooperate. Obviously, it’ll have to be within the restrictions on what we can legally share.” Tremain tweaks the knot of his tie. “Swift told you that he was expecting to get Howard Smail on the record?” he adds, and Fletcher nods. “So, if we don’t cooperate with Swift directly and Howard Smail breaks his silence, his voice is going to be the only one representing the police. It’s the kind of PR we could do without, don’t you think?”

  The smile he offers Fletcher is a rictus grin. Power dances behind his eyes. Fletcher has no choice but to agree. Privately, Fletcher believes Smail fell too far from grace too long ago for anybody to pay attention to him now, but it would be unwise to argue with Tremain.

  “Of course, boss,” he says.

  When he gets back to his desk, he’s hoping to find out if there’s been an ID on John Doe, but Danny’s away from his desk. Fletcher calls Cody Swift and bows to the pressure that Swift applies to meet in person. There’s no need for a face-to-face, they could easily do this over the phone, but a meet in person is a bone that’s easy to throw, and Fletcher knows there can be value in giving what you can easily afford to. He’s also curious to clap eyes on Cody Swift after all these years. He wants to know who that grubby little kid with the sharp eyes and bruised knees became.

  Fletcher makes sure to control the venue of the meet, though. If you can control where an interview takes place, you are part of the way to controlling the interview itself. Location matters. Fletcher’s wife announced she was leaving him when they were in the Costco car park. He didn’t see it coming. He remembers acutely the humiliation of loading bags into the boot of the car while she explained across the laden shopping trolley that their marriage was over.

  “Well, why are we buying in bulk then?” was all he could think to ask.

  “Because I’m taking it with me to Almondsbury!”

  Fletcher stopped packing the car. He detected a hint of possibility in his wife’s eye as she described how she had a new love and how they planned to build a new life together. Listening to her, he was seized by a feeling of disorientation and loss, as if he was being left behind in life’s gloaming.

  Fletcher tells Cody Swift they can meet in his car, in one hour, in the underground parking area of the middle-class mecca that is the Cribbs Causeway shopping mall on the outskirts of the city. It’s a good location because it’s bland and offers an illusion of subterfuge that Fletcher feels Swift might enjoy if he’s playing private investigator. Fletcher’s been told to get Swift onside, so he’ll do his best. He sets off for their meeting immediately in order to arrive early. He’s already parked and watching the entrance when Swift appears exactly on time.

  Swift is driving a battered old Land Rover. He parks it badly. Fletcher signals to him and Swift climbs into Fletcher’s car carrying an armful of recording kit. He’s taller than Fletcher thought he would be, and he looks nervous.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Swift says. He takes a good look at Fletcher, almost drinks him in with his eyes, before he catches himself and starts to fuss with the kit.

  “Wait a minute, son,” Fletcher says. “We’re off the record in the first instance, as we discussed on the phone. Nothing’s changed.”

  Swift’s hands fall still. “You’re right. I want you to know that I respect the boundaries.”

  Fletcher narrows his eyes but doesn’t reply with the sarcastic rebuttal he’s composing in his head in case Swift is recording secretly. Twenty years ago he found Cody to be a smart but slippery sort of boy, and Fletcher believes that nobody changes too much over the years, no matter how much they want to or claim that they have.

  “What can I do for you?” he says.

  “Honestly?”

  Fletcher nods.

  “All I want is the truth, Detective.”

  Fletcher’s heart sinks a little. Not because this isn’t a noble aim, but because he wonders when the hell Cody Swift lost the streetwise skills he was honing when he was a kid and became such a cliché. “Son, you need to be careful when you look under stones. This case was solved twenty years ago.”

  “I’ve come back here to discover the truth.”

  “There was an arrest and a trial and a verdict. That’s the truth.”

  “Not everybody believes that. Did you read Owen Weston’s article?”

  Fletcher is too experienced to let it show that Swift’s words provoke a small but unwelcome feeling of foreboding in him. He has to work to keep his tone even when he replies. “The articl
e is conspiracy theory nonsense. Justice was served. The outcome of that case was sad and the murders might have been avoidable, but sometimes we have to live with that. It’s best to leave it alone.”

  “I believe I owe it to myself and to the other families to try to get to the truth. What’s the harm in trying?”

  “Because other people might not want to relive this.”

  “But I’m not police. I’m one of them. I was there. I think people will be willing to share with me.”

  Fletcher sighs. “You need to be very careful.”

  Swift’s hyped up now and takes this as encouragement. “But you think it can be solved?”

  “It has been solved.”

  “Unless somebody tells me something new,” Swift says. “Unless they want to talk after all these years.”

  Fletcher sighs again. “Even if they talk, you need to ask yourself why. Ask yourself what they have to gain. And watch your back. Look, son, people have been getting on with their lives. Is it fair to make them relive the past based on what boils down to fantasy-based suspicions from one individual? Weston is retired now. He never broke a big story. He is a bitter man.”

  “The truth is worth fighting for,” Swift says. “Isn’t that why you do what you do and why you’re here?”

  “I’m here to explain there’s very little I can share with you. I would love to, but my hands are tied.”

  Cody reaches for the door handle. “That’s exactly the response I was expecting, but thank you for your time.”

  Fletcher doesn’t like his tone or the way he slams the door shut behind him. That is all we need, he thinks as he watches Swift make his way across the car park. That weaselly kid he and Danny interviewed all those years ago has got himself an education and a good job, and now he thinks he’s on the side of the angels.

  Danny speaks quietly and calmly. His mischievous quality, which doesn’t do him any favors professionally, works well with youngsters. The boy is folded up in a corner of the sofa, all skinny limbs and wide eyes. Fletcher thinks he looks semi-feral.

  “Now here’s the thing,” Danny says. “The more you can tell us about what you and your friends were up to yesterday, the better the chance we have of finding out who did this to them. I reckon you’d like to help us catch that person.”