I Know You Know Page 7

  I had better luck when I contacted Annette Ashby, Scott’s mother. When I first approached Annette she was already aware of Owen Weston’s article expressing doubts about Sidney Noyce’s guilt, and she admitted to harboring doubts of her own about his conviction. Doubts she hadn’t wanted to voice until now. This is what she said on the phone:

  “I knew Sidney. I used to chat to him in the Tesco car park sometimes. I didn’t think he would harm a fly, but when something like that happens you doubt everything you ever knew. By the time he was convicted I was sure he’d done it.”

  Annette agreed to meet so that I could record an interview and suggested we get together in a coffee concession in a shopping outlet center on the outskirts of Swindon, the town she lives in now. The coffee bar is in the middle of the mall. When I arrive, I don’t spot Annette at first. It’s not until a woman approaches me that I realize it’s her.

  Annette has changed a lot. Physically, she’s smaller and frailer than I remember. She still has a spark in her eyes, but it seems dimmer than before. That’s time and grief, I suppose. She still gives good hugs, though. It reminded me how she would throw her arms around Scott at any opportunity, though by the time he died, he’d grown old enough to perfect the art of wriggling away.

  What follows are clips from a recording of our conversation.

  “Annette, hello! Is that really you?”

  “You’re all grown up, Cody Swift. Look at you!”

  “You recognized me right away?”

  “You’ve still got that up-to-no-good look about you.”

  “Really? I’m not sure that’s a good thing!”

  Over coffee, Annette and I get reacquainted. She tells me she moved away from the estate in the immediate aftermath of the murders. She went to Swindon because she had a brother there and she’s done well for herself. She tells me she’s recently retired. She does a bit of voluntary work and spends time with her daughter Cally—Scott’s younger sister—and her grandchildren. She describes how Scott’s death still affects her:

  “It feels like a part of me is missing, like I got broken and I can’t be fixed until I join him again on the other side.”

  “Can you talk to me about the day of the murders?”

  “Apart from the heat, the day felt normal. I was watering my pots on the balcony when Charlie called round about mid-morning to ask if Scott wanted to come and play. Course Scott did! You three were like the Three Musketeers that summer. Inseparable.”

  “Did Charlie and Scott say what they were going to do?”

  “They were going to call on you, of course. Then there was the plan to go to the lido. When they told me about it, I thought it was nice that Jessy was bothering to have a family outing for Charlie. I didn’t ask questions. Nobody had a mobile back then, so it wasn’t so easy to double-check plans. Jessy had a landline, but I didn’t want to disturb her and her fella. I should have.”

  “Once they’d gone, did you see Scott again that day?”

  “I never saw him again. I thought he was having a nice day out swimming. They said they would be back before dark, and that was good enough for me. Scott never let me down before. He might have been naughty in other ways, but he was always home when he said he would be. We let you boys run around the estate that summer and all the summers before it because life felt more innocent back then. We believed we knew our community and you boys were brought up to be streetwise. More fool us. The next time I saw Scott was at the morgue.”

  That word sinks in for both of us, and as it does, it seems very odd to be in this random coffee shop in this unfamiliar town, talking about the murders. Wrong, somehow, yet a reminder of how life shuffles on past any event, however traumatic, and you need to try to hold on to its coattails and keep moving with it, even if you feel as if that’s the last thing you want to do.

  “Can you talk me through what happened for the rest of the evening?”

  “Sorry, Cody, love, this bit’s hard. Even now.”

  “Take your time.”

  Annette describes a timeline for the evening that dovetails with the one my mother described. She mentions one complication that was missing from Mum’s account:

  “Once I realized they weren’t with Jessy, I thought the boys might have gone to Scott’s dad’s house. It was only a twenty-minute walk away, you’ll remember, he lived up by Purdown.”

  Purdown is the parkland you can see if you drive into Bristol on the M32 motorway. It runs alongside the motorway between Filton and Eastville and is dominated by a tall communications tower and a yellow mansion house. Both are local landmarks. Annette continues:

  “I went up there, to his house, because nobody had answered the phone all evening. It was after I rang the police that I went. I didn’t want to wait for them to arrive and I didn’t have a car, so I ran. Malcolm—that’s Scott’s dad—he wasn’t in. Nobody was, and I don’t know what got into me, but I thought they might have taken Scott. You know, kidnapped him, like you read about. It was just so odd for Malcolm and Sal to be out on a Sunday night. No car in the drive, no lights left on, I couldn’t hear the dogs barking, nothing. It was gone midnight by the time I got back to the estate and I was so stupid, I told one of the police officers what I was thinking.”

  I spoke to Scott’s father, Malcolm Ashby, about this. Here’s a clip from our conversation. Malcolm is speaking from his home in Australia, about that night:

  “I was at work and my partner Sal was at a barbecue. She took the dogs with her. I don’t know what got into Annette. First thing I knew about any of it was when I arrived back at the depot at the end of my shift and a squad car and two coppers were waiting.”

  Scott’s dad was a coach driver. He had been out all day and evening taking a sports team halfway across the country for a tournament and arrived back at the depot at half past midnight. He continues:

  “The police drove me back to the estate and I joined the search. I can’t really describe how desperate it felt. Every time somebody came back with no news, you felt as if a piece of you had been taken away. We searched all night and into the next morning. We weren’t going to stop until we found them. We concentrated on the estate, and the area around the sluice gates and under the motorway overpass. Some people went up to Purdown to search the old gun pits. Nobody thought to look by the dog track that night, and I wonder if that was my fault because I told them Scotty used to like to take our dogs walking on Purdown with me, so the police concentrated the search on that area. I wish I’d never said it. If I could take one thing back in my life, it would be that. It might have saved Charlie’s life even if it was too late for Scotty.”

  “Were you angry with Annette for pointing the finger at you?”

  “She could point the finger at whoever she liked if it would have got our boy back. No, I wasn’t angry. What would be the point? I knew how she was feeling. We had that in common that night and we still have it in common now. Nobody else can understand what a parent is going through.”

  Malcolm Ashby’s words tell us everything. This isn’t just a story about a brutal crime; it’s a story about people who will have to live the greater part of their lifetime with grief and with regret.

  It might also be a story about people who thought they’d got closure, because the police and justice system had worked for them, but who could be wrong.

  After our conversation, Annette and I parted a little awkwardly. It had been an intense couple of hours. As we stood in the car park outside the mall, ready to say our goodbyes, Annette rubbed my arm awkwardly and I was struck by how difficult it must be for her to see me as a grown man when her son’s life was cut so short. We exchanged a few more words before we went our separate ways.

  “What about you, Cody? How have you fared over the years? I see you’ve done well for yourself jobwise and all that, but what about in yourself?”

  “I still miss them.”

  “I’m not surprised. Thick as thieves, you were. They’ll always be with you, Charlie and Scot
t. They always will. Just not the way you want them to be. They’ll be in your heart, though. That’s how I think of it and it helps me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend? Kids?”

  “I have a girlfriend.”

  “Keep her close, darling. Keep her close.”

  “I will.”

  “Take care now.”

  “You too, Annette.”

  Next week on It’s Time to Tell, we will be moving away from the personal and taking you right into the heart of the official murder investigation. In Episode 4 we meet the detective who led the investigation and hear what he has to say. I promise you, it will be gripping.

  Before we go, we have news. I’m also happy to report that our little podcast has been steadily growing in popularity since we launched it. Episode 2 of It’s Time to Tell was downloaded an amazing fifteen hundred times and has been recommended on Overcast! Heartfelt thanks from Maya and me to Overcast and to everybody who has taken the time to listen. Please continue to listen, share and recommend using #TimetoTell on your social media channels. You can spread the word the old-fashioned way by telling friends and family, too.

  More good news is that It’s Time to Tell has found a private sponsor. We are delighted to be bringing you future episodes in conjunction with this sponsor, who wishes to remain anonymous, but to whom we extend our most heartfelt thanks. With our sponsor’s help, we’ve been able to set up a simple website where you can find timelines of the case, photographs of some of the people involved, and other information that we’ll post as and when it’s relevant. The website address is www.timetotell.com.

  If you have any information about the case you’d like to share with us, the website also has our contact details, and we would love to hear from you.

  To finish, here is a clip from Episode 4. This is ex–Detective Superintendent Howard Smail, the man they said would never agree to speak to us, talking about why he decided to break his silence:

  “I’m not as vulnerable as if I was in the UK, but people can reach you. They won’t like me talking about the case at all, let alone about internal decision-making. It’s not what you do. Ever. It’s taboo. I’m persona non grata anyway, but this will make it worse. Ask yourself if that’s something you would willingly bring on yourself.”

  Chapter 6

  Jessy doesn’t know what Felix’s surname is until he slaps his gold Amex card down. From where she’s sitting, the card’s upside down, so it’s hard to see, but she thinks it reads Abernathy. F. G. Abernathy. Posh, she thinks, or Scottish. Not that he sounds as if he’s either.

  Jessy is sitting at a table in the private members’ area of a nightclub. She and Felix have shared a bottle of champagne. “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode is playing loud enough to make you feel like your eardrums are going to burst. “I love this song,” she says, but she doesn’t know if he can hear her. She snuggles closer to him, rubbing her arm against his. “What’s your middle name, then?” she says. This time she shouts right up close to him, brushing his ear with her lips. It’s velvet soft.

  He looks at her with a hint of a smirk. He doesn’t seem drunk at all, though she knows if she stands up, the room will spin around her. “That would be telling,” he says. “What do you think it is?” He’s been like this all night. Coming forward, backing off, treating her keen, treating her mean. She loves the game of it. It makes her feel something: little fireworks are going off inside her body.

  All day long, she’s been sitting with Charlie. It’s what she does every day of her life. She hasn’t even got a TV to keep them both occupied. The only thing to look at in her living room is a gas fire she can’t afford to turn on. Her benefit check scarcely covers food, rent, and utilities. The flat they’ve been allocated on the Glenfrome Estate is as crap as the last place they had to leave because the building had been condemned. There’s not enough room indoors, there’s nothing to do within walking distance, and the elevators break so often she has to lug everything up flights of stairs almost every time she goes shopping. At least Charlie doesn’t need a pushchair anymore.

  She tried to play with Charlie today, but he was being annoying. He’d been up since half past five and she managed to ignore him until eight, but then he went manic. Wouldn’t listen to her, talked back to her, refused to eat the cereal she got for him even though there was nothing else, so she ended up screaming at him, wishing she was anywhere else except stuck in that flat with him. She said that to him, she was stretched so tight she couldn’t help herself, but she felt guilty about it afterward. She wishes it were better between them, like she imagined it would be when she was pregnant. She wishes he had been a girl. She thinks a girl would have been easier. More fun. She wishes she had money so they could go out and do something nice. The zoo, maybe. She wishes people on the estate didn’t look down their noses at her because she had Charlie when she was a teenager. Slut, one of the married mothers hissed at her the other day outside the butcher. Slag.

  In the end she had to get out of bed and improvise to keep Charlie entertained this morning. She found a can of fruit salad in the cupboard and laid out a row of the little fruit cubes on the table. “Watch this,” she said and she sucked the cubes up one by one, without letting her lips touch them. Charlie loved it, but he couldn’t do it himself. Not enough suction. It made him smile, though, and after that they were friends again and made a fortress out of what little crap they could find in the flat, but inside she was screaming that her life must be worth more than this. Has to be. Or what is the point?

  So, as much as she loves Charlie, this grown-up game with Felix feels like a different world. It feels like the kind of thing she should be doing at her age. Faster, better, more brightly lit. Electric.

  “Gabriel?” she says. “Like the angel? Is that your middle name?”

  Felix likes a bit of a tease, up to a point. That’s her sense, anyhow. Living with multiple foster families has helped her judge the limits of others pretty well. She smiles in return when she sees Felix’s lips twitch. They’re full lips; they look right on him. He’s got one of those timeless faces: strong bone structure, cheeks flat and broad, prominent eyebrows that frame dark, teasing eyes. If Jessy saw him on the street, she’d swear he was Italian, because he looks like she thinks a Roman emperor should look, though his accent’s pure West Country.

  “Gabriel!” he says. The lip twitch turns into a laugh and he downs his drink. He puts two cigarettes in his mouth and lights both at once. The ends glow as he inhales. They mesmerize her. He passes one to her. They’re French. Unfiltered. She knows to take only a small toke or she’ll end up coughing half to death like she did the first time he offered her one. That set him off laughing as well, a proper belly laugh. They smoke together and he puts his arm around her shoulders and she leans right into him. It feels nice. His hand falls over her shoulder and she’s hyperaware that his fingers are resting on the top of her breast. She turns her face to his.

  “I’ll bet you’re no angel, though,” she says.

  It’s a cheesy line, she knows it, but she gets what she wants because his answer is to bend his head down and kiss her so hard she almost gags at first, before she gives in to it. It’s a drunken, Gauloises-flavored, teeth-clashing filthy sort of kiss. It’s sort of gross, but she knows she wants it more than anything she’s ever wanted.

  “Who are you, anyway?” she says when the kiss breaks off. “What do you do exactly?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he says. He puts his finger under her chin and lifts it. As he studies her face, she realizes Felix Abernathy is the first person she’s ever met who feels like he might offer a ticket out of her life.

  “You ever done any modeling?” he asked her earlier that evening. She was arguing with the girl who was tending bar, because the bitch shortchanged her and Felix appeared right beside her as if from nowhere and smoothed the situation over, pressing cash into Jessy’s hand to make up for what she was short. She tried to refu
se it and was too embarrassed to admit she was especially bothered because it had been the last of her child support money. Her friend Kirsty had helped her justify a night out: “That money’s for you, too. It’s no good to Charlie if it’s doing your head in staying in all the time.” It was all the encouragement Jessy had needed.

  Jessy and Felix go outside when they’ve finished their cigarettes. Felix’s car is parked in a dark corner. He takes her around the front of it where they’re in the shadows, and leans her against the bonnet and kisses her hard. When the kiss breaks off, he doesn’t say a word. He flips her around, bends her over, lifts up her dress, and pulls down her panties. He crunches his hand tightly into her hair at the nape of her neck, and gives her what he calls a “good seeing to.” He says that to her while he is going at it. She feels crushed against the car by the weight of him, but she wants him enough that she doesn’t care.

  Jessy can tell it isn’t the first time he’s done this with a girl. She’s not stupid. She knows what men want. She’s heard words like these before, though she’s never understood why men want to talk to her like that. Felix finishes up with a grunt and a shudder, and a hard squeeze of one of her buttocks that hurts. He smokes while she puts herself back together and then he gives her a lift home. On the drive back to the estate he has one hand wedged deep between her legs as he rolls the wheel with the other, and he promises to pick her up the next night.

  She is relieved he doesn’t want to come up to the flat. She doesn’t want him to see how she lives. She takes a moment to make herself look respectable before she lets herself in because Doris from next door is minding Charlie. Jess opens the door to find Doris asleep on the couch, leaning at a diagonal, mouth open as if she is dead, still in her housecoat.

  Jessy pulls off her heels, trying not to stagger too much. The sex is still making her body thrum, or maybe it’s the Bacardi and Cokes she’s had, probably both. She takes a hard look at Doris before she wakes her. I don’t want to end up like that, she thinks. Doris had four kids of her own and would be the first to tell you they’d sucked the life out of her.