Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
‘I hadn’t had much sleep. Too wired, I guess, and I knew I’d have to be up early to set up for the festival.
Mag’s okay, but Jim’s a monster. You really don’t want to piss him off.
He’s got a reputation. People say he knows some dead dodgy guys.
I got to the site at about seven and started moving the stuff across from the Fisherman’s into the field.
The Brennans helped with a tractor and trailer.
Hannah turned up early too and was there with Jake.
I didn’t ask about Lottie. I didn’t want them to know I’d been attracted to her.
Besides, she didn’t seem like someone who might be good in the mornings. ’
‘When did Lottie arrive?’
‘She got to the beer tent at about midday. She might have been on the field before then.’
‘Taking more videos?’
‘You saw those?’ Daniel smiled. ‘Of course, I looked her up when I got home that Saturday night. Saw her Insta site and all her followers. Her posts from the festival.’
‘A bit cruel?’ Ross asked.
‘Nah, just a bit of fun.’
‘Did you serve her when she came into the beer tent?’
‘Sure. She looked eighteen, didn’t she? Not my responsibility.’
‘Let’s move on.’ Ross was finding it hard to concentrate now. His mind kept turning to Jen and where she might be. Time, he thought, to cut to the chase. ‘Let’s get to the end of the day. Sunday, the last night of the festival. Hannah and Lottie had some sort of argument. What was that about?’
Daniel gave one of his slightly patronizing shrugs. He was more relaxed now, though surely he must realize that they were approaching his danger zone, the time of the young women’s deaths, the time when he had no alibi?
‘I think Hannah had seen some of Lottie’s socials. The jokey posts about the festival.’
‘And that made Hannah angry?’
Daniel gave a little smile. ‘She didn’t have much of a sense of humour.’
‘So, she decided to stay in the farmhouse with Jake that night, and you left the site with Lottie.’ Ross didn’t phrase that as a question.
A silence that stretched. Outside there was the noise of a lawnmower, though surely it had been too dry for grass to have grown for weeks? Some sort of odd ritual. A habit.
‘I offered to walk Lottie back to Tide House,’ Daniel said. ‘When we got there, she asked me to stop for a drink. I’d been working all day, and I was gasping so of course I agreed.’
‘And you fancied her rotten and you’d seen her skinny-dipping the night before. You had the house to yourself, and you thought you had a chance with her.’
‘I was nervous. It was ridiculous. But she was dangerous, you know? Sad and dangerous at the same time.’
‘Sad?’ It seemed to Ross a strange word to use.
‘Yeah. She was upset that Hannah had fallen out with her. “Everyone thinks I’m so mean. But none of it is personal.” She said something like that.
“Hannah wants me to leave. She’s never really liked me, but she had no other friends, and I was the only one to pay her any attention.
She owes me big style.” Lottie had been drinking all day of course, but I didn’t think she was that kind of drunk.
You know, when you start sort of hallucinating, making stuff up.
’ He looked up at Ross. ‘She might have been using. And not just a bit of weed. You know … I went into the Tide House kitchen to make her some coffee. That’s why you might find traces of me there. ’
Ross had drunk far too much beer in his time, before he’d hooked up properly with Mel, and she’d straightened him out.
Mostly in the rugby club after a match, either celebrating a win or drowning his sorrows.
He’d felt he’d had to keep up with the old guys, because the superintendent, Oldham, had been one of the drinkers.
It would have looked weak to turn down a pint, not to stand his round.
But he’d never hallucinated. Besides, Sal Pengelly had found cocaine in the girl’s system, on top of the booze.
No wonder she was spaced out. ‘How long did you stay?’
‘All night,’ Daniel said. ‘It was just starting to get light when I left.’ He looked directly at Ross.
‘We didn’t have sex. We slept in the same bed, and I held her all night, but nothing else happened.
I could tell she wasn’t up for it, and whatever you think, I would never force it.
Your CSIs won’t have found any evidence of that in her bed.
’ He paused. ‘We talked. About parents and having to live up to their expectations, and how easy it is to screw things up.’
‘Had she screwed up anything in particular?’
‘Friendships, I think. She was hurt at some of the things Hannah had said. Really hurt. She was crying and crying, and I couldn’t get her to stop. That was how I knew she’d stopped pretending. I went to sleep in the end. Just for a couple of hours. I don’t think she did, though.’
‘She was still awake when you left?’
‘Maybe she’d been dozing. But she woke up when I got out of bed.’
‘And she was still alive?’
‘Of course she was still alive!’ His voice was shrill.
‘What time was that?’
‘I’m not sure. It wasn’t properly light. Around dawn.’
‘What did you do then?’ Ross thought he might be a fool, but he believed Daniel.
And if all this was true, then at least they had a more accurate time of death for both the women.
There’d always been the possibility that Lottie had been killed on the Sunday night.
Now, it was clear that they’d both died early on the Monday morning.
‘I made her a coffee, but she didn’t drink it.
She said the way she was feeling, she needed more than coffee.
I didn’t know whether she meant booze or coke or both.
’ Daniel stopped and looked out of the window.
His voice was bleak. ‘She asked me to stay. The last time I saw her she was sitting in bed, a sheet half over her. The make-up she’d worn the night before had smeared across her face. And she still looked fucking gorgeous.’
‘But you didn’t stay?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘I walked back up the drive to pick up my car and I started the drive to Torr.’
‘But you didn’t go home?’
‘No. I couldn’t face it. The parents. They moved down here to save their marriage.
A fresh start. But it’s been even worse.
More rows. More silences. They live separate lives – Dad in his expensive suits heading up to London, Mum exercising until she drops in the hope that it will stop her thinking.
Still trying to live up to the expectation that they should be living the dream in their house by the sea.
And I was supposed to be the dream son – sporty and academic.
Clean-living, like my big sister. I’ve been a disappointment. ’
Ross knew what it was like to be a child in a house full of tension. He was about to say that he understood, but Daniel started talking again.
‘Besides, I wanted to think about Lottie. She clung on to me when I left, kind of pleaded with me to stay. I should have done. I could tell she was desperate for company. But I wasn’t sure that I could take her on.
She wanted someone to save her. That’s what she said.
It sounds mean, but I didn’t think I was up to that. I’m not really saviour material.’
‘If you didn’t go home, what did you do?’ We know now that you weren’t crashed out in your mate’s house.
‘I didn’t get as far as Torr. I parked up at Baggy Point and went for a walk along the headland.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘It was still very early. Only just light.’ A thought came to him.
‘I paid for the parking, though. Those bastards get you with a fine even if it is the crack of dawn. I paid on my phone. You have to key in your registration number, so I guess there’ll be a record somewhere.
I wanted to be on my own.’ He paused again.
‘It seemed as if I’d reached an important moment in my life.
I know it sounds crazy, but that night with Lottie shifted the way I thought about things.
I don’t know how to put it. Some kind of epiphany.
Almost a religious experience. I wanted something more.
Something different. I wanted to be different. ’
‘But you lied about meeting up with Lottie that night.’
‘I’d been in her bed!’ Daniel was almost screaming. ‘She died very soon after I left her. I was shit-scared. Of course I lied.’