I Know You Know Page 6

  The kid’s name is Cody Swift. They are gathered in his family’s tiny living room in a fifth-floor flat on the Glenfrome Estate. Fletcher estimates the room is only about eight by fifteen feet maximum. It’s dominated by an easy chair, an oversize sofa, and a TV that sits on a chipped, mahogany-effect cabinet. A perilously narrow vase stands in the corner of the room, containing dried feathery grasses dyed in unnatural colors.

  Cody’s wearing shorts and a Magpies football shirt. The soles of his bare feet are grubby, and he’s suntanned enough that Fletcher can tell he spends a lot of time outside. The back of his neck is dark bronze. He’s got mud-brown hair, buzz cut. His little face has a stubborn quality that’s slightly mitigated by a delicate freckled nose. He’s clasping a cushion across his abdomen. His parents sit beside him. Danny has perched on the edge of the coffee table and Fletcher’s standing in the doorway. The window is wide open, but the room’s as hot as a toaster.

  Fletcher wouldn’t be here at all, because the deputy investigating officer wouldn’t normally be expected to do interviews, but he had no choice. “We’re going to be under scrutiny,” Smail told him that morning. “The detective chief constable has requested that somebody senior is present at all important interviews.” The expression on Smail’s face made it clear that while they were going to obey the order, he thought it was an overreaction. Fletcher wasn’t surprised to hear it. The DCC was a nervy, press- and politics-sensitive sort.

  Smail did his bit by visiting the bereaved parents personally to assure them that everything possible would be done in “his” investigation. He wasn’t lying. “Everything’s being thrown at this,” he said after emerging from a meeting with the top dogs. “Unlimited budget.” Fletcher thought Smail sounded self-important, as if he himself was the reason the money was flowing, not the two dead boys.

  Now Smail has tucked himself in back at the station and sent Fletcher out onto the front line in his place. Fletcher is frustrated. He feels he’s wasting his time standing in on an interview that a well-trained detective constable could easily handle. He should be sitting down with Smail right now, making decisions on how to direct inquiries and proceedings. The beginning of a major investigation is always chaos, but this is the first time Fletcher’s borne any personal responsibility for creating order out of the mayhem. He wants to prove his worth and he can’t do that standing here watching Danny interview Cody Swift, the third boy in the friendship. The one who got away.

  “Can you tell us what you did yesterday?” Danny asks the lad. “With your friends.”

  The mother starts to answer for him, but Danny says, “In his own words, if you don’t mind.”

  “We went to the dog track,” Cody says.

  “You went to the dog track?”

  “Yes.” He keeps his gaze fixed on Danny like a hard little man, though he flinches almost imperceptibly when his parents chip in with recriminations.

  “You’re not bloody allowed there, you know you’re not,” his dad says.

  The man’s skinny but looks strong. He’s wearing a pale gray V-necked T-shirt. A few white chest hairs emerge at his neckline. The skin on his face is red and rough, and what remains of his receding hair has been slicked back. It’s so oiled that the tines of a comb have left furrows in their wake, revealing the dull white of his scalp. Deep lines score his forehead and his cheeks sag and bristle with a few days’ worth of stubble. His eyes are dark, sharp, and wary. He’s smoked nonstop since Danny and Fletcher arrived, lighting one cigarette from the last. Fletcher estimates he’s ten years younger than he looks.

  “We told the boys not to hang around there. Time and again we said it,” Mrs. Swift says.

  “Charlie likes the dogs,” Cody says. He doesn’t look at either of his parents.

  “Does he? That’s nice. Is there one dog in particular he likes?” Danny asks.

  “He likes them all.”

  “You said you was at the play area.” Mrs. Swift isn’t happy. “That’s what they told me, Detective.”

  “That’s okay,” Danny says. Fletcher is willing her to shut up so the kid can talk uninterrupted, but she’s a bag of nerves. Danny keeps his eyes on Cody. “What do you do when you go to the track, then?”

  “You can get in round the back. Where the fence is split.”

  He’s describing the area where we discovered his friends, Fletcher thinks. Danny will be thinking the same, but he doesn’t give it away. “How do you know about that place?”

  “We just found it.”

  “Do you watch the races from there?”

  “Sometimes we hide under the stands and watch. Sometimes we go to the kennels.”

  “Did you go into the kennels yesterday? You can tell me. You won’t get into trouble.”

  The kid gives a tight nod and a half glance toward his dad.

  “The kennels are in a locked area, aren’t they? So who let you in?”

  Cody’s dad’s hand moves from his belly to his belt buckle. It’s a subtle movement, but Cody clocks it and reacts to it. He tenses up. Fletcher can’t decide if the man’s movement is a coincidence, an innocent gesture, or a warning for Cody. Ted Swift looks like the kind of man who wouldn’t think twice about giving a kid a thrashing.

  “I don’t know,” Cody says.

  “You mean you don’t know his name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But this person let you into the kennel area?” Danny asks.

  Cody nods again.

  “So he must have recognized one of you?”

  “He recognized Charlie.”

  “Just Charlie?”

  “Charlie knew lots of blokes there.”

  “What did you do at the kennels?”

  “We hung around for a bit. Charlie was helping with the dogs, but after a bit the track boss came. He doesn’t like us there, so we had to scarper and he bollocked Sid. After that, we went to the play area. Then Mum called us in for tea and we had a sandwich.”

  “And I grounded him,” she chips in. “Because he ripped his new T-shirt. But he never said they’d been at the track. Never mentioned a word of it.”

  “Bloody little liar,” his dad says. Cody swallows, but he keeps his gaze on Danny. He’s a brave kid who’s going to be a hard man. Fletcher has seen it happen before. If you get to know them well enough, their skin thickens right in front of your eyes.

  “Why did the track boss bollock Sid?” Fletcher asks. “Was he the one who let you in?”

  Cody shakes his head, but they both know he has let that slip.

  “What are the names of the people you saw at the track?”

  “I don’t know. Only Sid.”

  “Sid who?”

  He shrugs.

  “Is Sid a trainer?”

  “He helps the stewards.”

  “Do you know his second name?”

  “We call him Sid the Village.”

  Our confusion must show, because a small smile flashes across Cody’s face. It is slightly cruel. “Because if Sid’s out, it means somewhere there’s a village short of an idiot,” he says. He cackles. His dad gives an amused snort at first, but catches himself and cuffs the back of Cody’s head. That cuts Cody’s laugh short and he tries to shrug off the blow by giving his head a rub. He attempts to give Danny good eye contact again, though Fletcher thinks there’s a touch of defiance in his gaze and a thin wash of tears.

  “I’m sorry, Detective,” Mrs. Swift says. “We brought him up better than that, honest.”

  Fletcher looks at Cody with interest. He thinks there may still be something the boy’s not telling, but he doesn’t think Danny’s going to get it out of him here and now.

  Danny senses this, too. He tries a soft touch. “Son, you’ve been really helpful. We’ll talk again, maybe tomorrow. I’m really sorry about your friends.”

  The kind words release tears from Cody’s eyes. He looks up at Fletcher. “They said Charlie was alive when you found him.”

  Fletcher nods. He has no ide
a how the kid knows that. He wants to say that Charlie died peacefully, but he can’t lie. Not about the death of a kid.

  “I was with Charlie when he passed away,” he manages. “He said a word to me. He said ghost. I think that’s what he said. Does that mean anything to you, son?”

  Cody shakes his head and his chin trembles. All traces of his bravado disappear as he covers his face with both hands and sobs so hard his shoulders shake. Danny stands, signaling an end to the interview, and Fletcher is relieved to see Cody’s mother take the lad in her arms. Ted Swift’s head hangs low and heavy. A slender trail of smoke rises from the cigarette between his fingers and disperses in curls and tendrils into the stifling air.

  It’s Time to Tell

  Episode 3—The Other Mothers

  OPERATOR: Police, emergency?

  CALLER: Yes, I’m calling to report my son is missing.

  OPERATOR: Okay. How old is your son?

  CALLER: He’s eleven.

  OPERATOR: When did you last see him?

  CALLER: This morning. Late morning.

  OPERATOR: Have there been any arguments at home today or this morning, anything like that?

  CALLER: No, everything was fine. It was normal.

  OPERATOR: Have you been in touch with your son’s friends or other family members or anybody like that?

  CALLER: We’ve called everybody. Nobody’s seen him. We think he might be with another boy who is also missing.

  OPERATOR: Have you searched all the places you think they might be?

  CALLER: We’ve searched everywhere. We can’t think of anywhere else. We’re worried because it’s dark now. They said they’d be in before it got dark.

  OPERATOR: Have either of the boys disappeared before, that you know of?

  CALLER: No. It’s the first time, for Scott, anyway. I don’t know about Charlie. It’s like they’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.

  My name is Cody Swift. I’m a filmmaker and your host of It’s Time to Tell, a Dishlicker Podcast Production. What you just heard was a clip of a 999 recording made to police on the night of Scott’s and Charlie’s murders. The call was made by Annette Ashby, Scott’s mother, at 23:37 on Sunday, 18 August 1996.

  In the last episode of It’s Time to Tell, you met my mother, Julie Swift. This week I’ll be introducing you to the mothers of Charlie and Scott, my two best friends whose lives were brutally cut short on the day that call was made.

  If Scott and Charlie and I were inseparable friends, the relationship between our mothers was more complicated. Mum and Annette Ashby got on well. Here’s Mum talking about Annette:

  “Annette was lovely. She was very caring; she was sensible. She tried to bring her kids up right. It wasn’t easy for her because she was on her own, but she worked hard to give them everything they needed. At one time, she was working three jobs at once. She kept up good relations with Scott’s dad even after he walked out and moved in with that woman who worked for the council. Annette did it for the children. She said she could change husbands, but they couldn’t change their dad, so she was going to do her best to make sure they all got along together. That was Annette all over. She’d take the coat off her own back if she thought you looked cold. Lovely lady. She didn’t deserve what happened.”

  My own recollection is that Mum and Annette would always have a chat when they came across each other, and a laugh. They laughed a lot. But things were different with Charlie’s mum. Here’s my mother again:

  “Jessy Paige. Oh, yes. There are words you don’t like to use, and a few of them spring to mind. A stunner, she was, and I think it went to her head. She had Charlie when she was a teenager, but as far as I could tell, she didn’t do much with herself since she had him apart from sit around the estate living off benefits. I know it’s not easy being on your own with a kid, especially when you’re young, but you’ve still got your two hands, and there’s no excuse for not keeping things clean and tidy and teaching your kid right from wrong. Jessy didn’t seem to care about anything apart from her social life. She let Charlie run wild. I don’t think she knew half the people that boy hung around with. Annette and me took him under our wings a bit, whenever we could. We had to be careful not to make it obvious, because Jessy would have bitten our heads off if she thought we were showing her charity. She was proud in that way, lazy but proud, and she went out too much. She was always begging people to babysit Charlie for free. People said she ran with a fast crowd and there was talk about how she got the money to go out all the time when Charlie was always in shoes and trousers two sizes too small for him. People talk. We knew each other’s business on the estate, and the way she behaved attracted attention. And in the end it was the going out that was the problem, wasn’t it? If Jessy hadn’t gone out and left the boys that night, they’d still be with us. I have no doubt about that.”

  My partner and producer, Maya, and I have made efforts to get in contact with Jessica Paige since we began work on this podcast, but she hasn’t returned our calls. On one occasion I managed to speak to her briefly, but she hung up on me. I completely understand why she might not want to revisit the case, and I respect her privacy, but her story is so central to this podcast that I made the decision to try to approach her in person. I’ll be honest, invading her privacy in that way took me some way out of my comfort zone, but overriding my concerns was the hope that she might agree to tell her side of the story.

  We had heard that Jessica volunteers at an animal rescue shelter once a week, so I took a trip over there. The shelter was in a one-story building in a car park on the edge of a main road outside Bristol. It was surrounded by fields. I arrived a few minutes before the end of Jessica’s shift and waited outside the building. She appeared not long afterward. I ran over to intercept her. You’re about to hear a clip of our conversation:

  “Jessica?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “It’s me. Cody Swift. Do you remember me? Can I help you with that?”

  Jessica was carrying a basket containing a bruiser of a tabby cat. She put it down. She wore her long hair in a neat ponytail. She looked trim and well dressed in dark jeans, knee-high leather boots with a low heel, and a short, quilted jacket. Her makeup was discreet and flattering. She looked every inch the yummy mummy. She stared at me in a slightly brazen way, and that was the moment when I caught my first glimpse of the old Jessy Paige.

  “I remember you, Cody Swift. You always could put on those perfect manners, but I’m not talking to you no matter how nicely you ask. I’ve told you that.”

  “Please, just a quick chat, a few minutes of your time? I’m investigating the murders of Charlie and Scott for my podcast and I want to make sure that the listeners get to hear your voice and your side of the story.”

  “The case was solved.”

  “I don’t think it was solved. I think they might have put away the wrong guy. Sidney Noyce could be innocent. That matters to me, and it should matter to you, too. It’s why I’m doing this. I want to hear from people who were involved at the time. That’s why the podcast is called It’s Time to Tell.”

  “And I’ve said all I’m saying.”

  She picked up the cat basket, the weight of it making her lopsided as she walked toward a snazzy red Mini parked on its own about seventy-five yards away. I followed and called after her.

  “Can I give you one of my cards, Jessy? So you can get in touch if you change your mind? You’re the only person who can speak for Charlie.”

  She stopped suddenly, surprising me. I skidded to a halt beside her. For a moment I felt hopeful she might open up to me, because she looked as if there was a lot bottled up inside her, but she decided against it and walked away.

  “Please! Get in touch whenever you want, Jessy! Jessy! I’m here to listen, Jessy!”

  Her car backed out of its space fast, gravel chippings flying.

  It’s a shame that Jessica didn’t want to talk to us. Not everybody thought she was a bad person or a bad mother back in
1996. I was only ten years old, but I was one of her biggest fans.

  Back then, all of us called her Jessy, Charlie included, because she said she hated being called “mum” or “Miss Paige.” She acted more like a friend to us than a mother. She told terrific jokes, she had a big laugh, and she talked to us boys as if we were adults. She didn’t dress like the other mums, and she let us play ball in her flat. Sometimes she joined in our games. Once she bounced with us on Charlie’s bed until the mattress fell through the base and she laughed so hard she cried. We loved her, no matter what our parents thought. We saw a side to her that perhaps, in retrospect, she never showed the other adults. Not the ones I knew, anyhow.

  When people described Jessy in derogatory ways after the murders, they weren’t describing the Jessy Paige I knew. I heard the talk, as kids do, and I thought: why don’t they talk about how funny she was, and how nice? It goes without saying that I was judging her from a child’s perspective, and my standards probably fell far short of the adults’, but I couldn’t see the bad in her.

  I asked my mother if she thought that people, and some of the women in particular, might have been jealous of Jessy.

  “Might have been. Perhaps because she did all the things you weren’t supposed to do. She went out, had a good time; she got involved with a few fellas along the way, though none of them seemed to hang around. But in the end, you’ve got to ask yourself, do you behave like that when there’s a kid to raise? Family comes first, son. Family always comes first. Look what she lost because of it.”

  Mum wouldn’t say much more, but it sounds to me as if Jessica Paige broke a code of respectability. The estate may have had its share of social problems, but many people there adhered to a set of standards and a way of life they were proud of.

  We’ll keep trying with our efforts to start a conversation with Jessica Paige so she can tell her side of the story.