`So, officers,' says Woodley, turning on his big smile, `how can we help?'
* * *
The uniformed PC shows Nadine and the other two women out of the room, but Somer is still sitting at the interview table.
`What is it?' says Gallagher as she gathers up her files. `There's something on your mind, isn't there.'
Somer frowns. `It was just something Diane Appleford said. About that night.'
Gallagher stops what she's doing; she's already worked out that this woman's instincts are worth listening to. `Oh yes?'
`She covered it up really quickly, but there was just a moment `“ as if something had occurred to her `“ something she realized straight away she wouldn't want us to know.'
Gallagher considers. `Well, you've spent more time with her than I have. I say go with your hunch.'
`But I can hardly come right out and ask her, can I? She's already clammed up `“ she's not going to tell me now.'
`But you know Faith, don't you, and pretty well, from what I hear. If there was anything odd about that night, she would know. Why not ask her?'
Somer makes a face. `I'm not sure about that. The state she was in last time I saw her `“ I don't want to upset her more than we already have `“'
`Then ask that friend of hers instead. Jess, isn't it? Perhaps she can do it for you.'
* * *
Adam Fawley
10 April 2018
12.18
`Well, if you ask me, that's our motive, right there.'
It's Quinn, ballsing it out as usual. He's lucky Somer isn't in the room because I doubt she'd be letting him get away with it. But wherever she is, it's not here.
`As far as I'm concerned, what Woodley told us proves it `“ Nadine did have a motive to kill Sasha. And if you add to that the evidence from the handbag `“'
`We don't know they're her prints,' begins Everett. `They're just partials.'
`Who else's could they be, for fuck's sake?'
The mood is getting fractious and Gallagher steps in to calm things down. `OK, DC Quinn, we've heard your view. Sergeant `“ what's your take?'
Gislingham looks up. `Well, it's pretty clear Nadine was desperate to get into Patsie's little clique. Woodley said she's been struggling to fit in ever since she arrived. Though it must have been tough, poor kid, arriving at a new school where everyone already has their own mates.'
`But it was definitely Patsie's group Nadine wanted to be in?'
Gislingham nods. `They're the cool kids, apparently. The `њLIPS girls`ќ. Everyone wants to be in their gang.'
`Bet they don't any more,' mutters Baxter, but he's at the back like me, and only I can hear him.
`And they rejected her?'
Gislingham nods grimly. `Worse than that. Apparently they'd started picking on her. Taking the piss out of her hair, her weight, stuff like that. Though it was mainly the other three `“ it sounds like Sasha tried to distance herself a bit.'
`And the school didn't do anything about it?'
`Woodley said every time they tried Nadine bent over backwards to deny anything had happened. And the girls were way too clever to get caught.'
`Surprise, surprise,' says Ev darkly.
Gallagher turns to Gow. `What do you think, Bryan?'
He laughs. `About the teenage brain? How long have you got? Look, any parent will tell you the same thing: they don't function the same way we do. Nadine Appleford was under acute stress without the mental capacity to process it or the maturity to put it into context. All the usual peer pressures around looks and boyfriends and definitions of `њsuccess`ќ, added to a complete lack of any sort of supportive network at school and a home environment that's been thrown into complete disarray over the last few months.'
Everett looks uncomfortable. `Faith didn't set out to cause any trouble `“'
Gow nods. `I agree. But she has, all the same. Nadine's had to cope with a brother becoming a sister, moving house, starting a new school and a mother who's been understandably distracted. Being rejected by Patsie's group in such a spiteful and public way would have been the last straw.'
`And yet she told her teachers nothing happened.'
Gow shrugs. `That's how kids operate. She probably kept telling herself things would change `“ that if she hung on in there and didn't grass them up they'd come round eventually. And in the meantime all the petty little cruelties mount up until at some point it's all too much and she snaps.'
`But where does Sasha come in?' says Gallagher. `If it's Patsie's gang, why would Nadine take it out on Sasha? Especially if Sasha was the only one who was nice to her?'
`Could just have been the wrong place at the wrong time,' says Quinn. `Nadine happens to be on Cherwell Drive that night, sees Sasha at the bus stop and decides to have it out with her. Perhaps she approached Sasha precisely because she wasn't as much of a cow as the rest of them. But then something goes wrong, Nadine loses it `“'
`And the cable ties?' says Ev. `The knife? She just happened to have that stuff on her?'
Gallagher looks grim. `I'm with you, Everett. I'm seriously struggling with that. The only possible explanation is that it was premeditated `“ that Nadine had planned it all in advance. But that doesn't make sense: how on earth could she have known Sasha would be there that night?'
`And even if she did, how did she get the body all the way from the road to the river?' says Baxter. `Because I can't see Sasha agreeing to go along that path with Nadine in the pitch dark whatever excuse she came up with. I bloody well wouldn't, that's for sure.'
`Look, we don't even know where Nadine was that night,' says Ev. `She may have a perfectly good alibi `“'
`She doesn't.'
It's Somer. She's at the door, her mobile phone in her hand.
`I just spoke to Faith's friend, Jess Beardsley. Faith went to the cinema that night. Phantom Thread at the Phoenix on Walton Street. She left the house at 7.15 and didn't get back until 10.45.'
`So that's over three hours when Nadine could have been pretty much anywhere,' says Gallagher wearily.
`I'm afraid it's worse than that. Faith said that when she got back home the washing machine was on.'
Quinn frowns. `So?'
`That's why Faith's so sure it was the same night. It stuck in her mind because their mother's always on at Nadine about doing her own washing and she never does. That night is the one and only time Faith can remember her doing it without being nagged.'
Gallagher shakes her head sadly. She's about to say something else when the door swings open again to reveal Tony Asante. He looks round until he spots Ev.
`Ah, DC Everett `“ there's someone downstairs who wants to talk to you. Looks a bit jittery about it though, so it might be a good idea to get down there before he has second thoughts.'
* * *
He still looks nervous, an hour later, after they've finished. Even though they've told him again and again that he's done the right thing `“ that the truth would have come out eventually anyway, and on something like this it's far better to jump than be pushed.
Everett sees him to the main door and gives what she hopes is a reassuring smile.
`It'll be OK. Really. Though it probably doesn't feel that way right now.'
`Yeah, I know. Just remember what I said, yeah?'
She nods. `Don't worry. I'm well warned.'