Adam Fawley
10 April 2018
17.05
`Do you think that's true, what Patsie said?'
Gallagher is staring at the screen, her arms folded rigid and her foot tapping against the floor.
`That Nadine spied on them? I'm afraid it's only too feasible. Nadine was desperate to belong `“ I can easily see her eavesdropping on what they were up to.'
`Let's see what Isabel and Leah have to say about that. Quinn and Gislingham are picking them up separately, so they don't get a chance to compare notes.'
It should reassure me, but it doesn't.
`One thing I do know is that those girls will have got their stories straight long before this. Isabel and Leah are going to back up anything Patsie comes out with. Which means whatever Nadine says, it'll only be her word against theirs. And right now we can't even place them at the scene, never mind actually charge them.'
Gallagher sighs. `A bunch of fifteen-year-old kids with half Thames Valley CID on to them, and we can't even break their bloody alibis.'
* * *
`DC Somer?'
It's Nina Mukerjee, standing in the doorway of the Applefords' kitchen.
They started upstairs. Nadine's room, Diane's room, Faith's room, the bathroom. Bagging, tagging and taking away. And now they're in the kitchen, barely twenty feet from where Somer has been sitting with Diane Appleford, trying desperately to pretend she's interested in an ancient episode of Law Order.
`Can you come in here for a moment?'
Nina's keeping her voice light but Somer isn't deceived. They wouldn't be calling her in otherwise.
Diane glances up, suddenly alarmed.
`It's OK, Mrs Appleford, I'll just be a minute.'
Nina leads her back down the hall. In the kitchen, the contents of the cutlery drawer are laid out on the table.
`I was just about to process these, but I thought you ought to see them first.'
The knives have metal handles and serrated edges.
`What's going on?' Diane Appleford is hesitating at the threshold, her face bleached greenish in the overhead light. `They're just bloody steak knives,' she says. `There must be hundreds in this sodding city. Thousands.'
`I know,' says Somer, `it's just procedure `“'
`What am I going to say to Faith?' she says, her voice breaking now. `She's refusing to come home. She won't even talk to me.'
`Look, that may be for the best,' says Somer, moving towards Diane. `Give her time. This is tough on her `“ on all of you.'
There are footsteps on the stairs now, and low voices in the hall. Low enough to be discreet, but still loud enough to be heard.
`You've got all the clothes?' It's Clive Conway's voice; he's talking to the junior CSI.
`Yup, I've got everything that was on the list. I've also bagged the shoes. One set of trainers have smears of dried mud, and I think there's other trace too, so we could get lucky.'
`What do they mean `њtrace`ќ?' says Diane, turning to Somer, her eyes wide. `What are they talking about?'
Somer bites her lip. `Like I said, it's just procedure. Let's just take things one step at a time.'
* * *
Adam Fawley
11 April 2018
10.08
The call comes through to the incident room at just after 10.00 the following morning. The stains on Nadine's trainers were blood. Sasha's blood. Most of us still can't believe it. But as Alan Challow always says, forensic evidence doesn't lie.
`This is going to destroy her mother,' says Somer sadly. As if it needed saying.
`I still think there's more to this than meets the eye,' says Gallagher. `Those girls `“ they have to be involved somehow `“'
Ev makes a face. `Isabel and Leah just parroted `њno comment`ќ to every single question we asked `“ it's like they're in some sort of bloody cult or something.'
`Yeah, well,' says Gis. `But I still think their fingerprints are all over this. Especially Patsie's.'
`Not literally, though,' observes Baxter. `The partials on the handbag don't match a single one of 'em.'
`More's the bloody pity,' mutters Quinn.
But something Baxter said triggers a niggle in my mind, and when the meeting is over, I take him quietly to one side. Because it's not worth making a song and dance about this in public. Not if I'm wrong.
* * *
Interview with Nadine Appleford, conducted at St Aldate's Police Station, Oxford
11 April 2018, 11.55 a.m.