Chapter Forty-Two
THEY WERE IN BARNSTAPLE POLICE STATION. Venn had gone home briefly to shower and to grab a couple of hours’ sleep, but he’d still got here early, arriving at almost exactly the time that the girls had died the Monday before.
It was low tide, and he had a whiff of the nearby River Taw when he got out of the car, that estuary smell of mud and rotting vegetation. It was already hot.
Jake had been in the police cells overnight.
Ross had stayed in the farmhouse with him until the van arrived to bring him in.
Bob and Tessa Brennan were still there. They might face lesser charges, but Venn had no fears that they’d abscond.
Where would they go? Besides, there were cows to be milked, and even without that responsibility, they’d want to be close to Jake.
From the start, they’d been protecting their son. Trying to save him.
Venn had spoken to Ross on the phone in the early hours of the morning, after dropping Cath and Alex at the hotel.
According to Ross, Jake had been compliant, almost relieved while they were waiting for transport.
His mother had packed a bag for him, as if he were a boy about to go on a school trip or a stay in hospital.
They hadn’t spoken. Not about the girls’ deaths.
Even Ross knew better than to question a suspect informally when he was the only officer in the room and there was no solicitor present.
Jen Rafferty arrived into the briefing room next.
She was still buzzing because they’d found the Armstrong boy unharmed.
It was clear at once that Alex hadn’t been physically harmed, and he’d seemed emotionally unaffected too.
Venn thought that might come later, when he was older, when he understood what had happened to his sister.
Venn couldn’t share in Jen’s euphoria. He was still thinking of the dead young women.
They decided that Matthew and Jen would run the interview. Ross would be looking in, watching and making notes. The Brennans had hired a solicitor, a local man who was stocky and square, with a red face, who looked more like a farmer than Bob Brennan did.
Jake seemed very tired. He couldn’t have had much sleep, perhaps even less than Venn. He was wearing shorts and a clean white polo shirt, flip-flops on his feet.
‘Why don’t you tell us what happened that morning?’
The solicitor had said that Jake would plead guilty to manslaughter. Venn thought he knew the story – in the end it was the only narrative that made sense – but he needed it in Jake’s own words. It took the young man a little while to start speaking, and Venn had to prompt him.
‘You saw the note Hannah left for you, didn’t you? And you followed her to Tide House?’
Jake nodded. ‘I’d come back to the house for a coffee.
It was still very early, and my parents weren’t around.
I went to take a mug of tea up to Hannah, but she’d already gone.
I saw the note. I could tell she was angry about the way Lottie had behaved, posting those videos, mocking the festival.
I thought she might need some help. I wanted to support her, but mostly, I went to tell her that Lottie wasn’t worth making a fuss over, that Mum and Dad were cool about it.
They could see that Lottie’s posts wouldn’t affect the business. ’
He paused for breath and Matthew waited for him to continue.
‘I could hear the girls before I saw them,’ Jake said. ‘Lottie must have woken up early too. They were on the path that led to the beach.’
He paused and it seemed to Matthew that he was still trying to make sense of what had happened that morning. Perhaps he’d spend his life trying to make sense of it, because they could never know how things had played out for certain.
‘Maybe Lottie had wanted to swim in the sea,’ Jake went on.
‘She was a swimmer apparently. Or Hannah had suggested they go to the beach together, thinking it would be a good place for them to talk. When I got close to them, they were on the path near the old mill. They were standing still then, yelling at each other. I mean really yelling. Screaming. I’d never seen Hannah get that angry.
It was as if she was seeing Lottie for the first time.
’ He stared across the table at Jen and Matthew. ‘As if she hated her.’
‘Could you tell what they were fighting about?’ Matthew asked.
‘It was about the Kinzalow girl. The daughter of the American couple who were glamping with us. I knew the story already. Hannah had told me the accident was all her fault. If they hadn’t been drinking and she hadn’t interfered, trying to pull Elizabeth back from the edge, Elizabeth might not have been so damaged by the fall.
She’d always said that Lottie must be the best friend in the world, because she’d lied for Hannah about what really happened.
She’d covered it up.’ He paused. ‘Lottie took a video of the accident. She said she could have posted it for the world to see, but that she never would, because Hannah was her friend.’
And that was a kind of threat in itself. A reminder that if Hannah stopped being Lottie’s friend, the video would be posted. It would go viral. Paul Armstrong would be implicated.
‘Can you access the video?’ The digital team had been working on Lottie’s phone, which had been in the pool with her, but this had happened more than two years before and she’d taken so much material that they hadn’t found it.
‘Sure, if you have a laptop. Hannah sent me the link.’
The four of them had gathered around the screen and Jake set off the video. The room was windowless, and Jen had switched off the overhead light, so they sat in the gloom, the only light from the glass above the door that led into the corridor.
There was Lottie, her face spotlit by a torch.
She looked weird and witchy as, Venn thought, was intended.
Her face all sharp angles, her hair white and wild.
She was doing the voiceover as she had in the films taken at MillsFest. Her words had a manic energy that suggested that she’d been taking more than alcohol.
The background was misty. When Lottie moved her position and focused the camera and the torch on the other girls, Venn could see drizzle. They were all wearing jackets and hoods. Boots on their feet. After weeks of sunshine, it seemed odd to see them wrapped up against the cold.
The light was back on Lottie, and she was talking.
‘Here we are – the Three Furies – determined that we’ll live a life less ordinary. Less tedious. What game shall we play tonight? What dare shall we dare?’
Neither girl answered. It seemed to Venn that Lottie was always the star of the show. She continued in a loud, sombre, theatrical voice. ‘Elizabeth Kinzalow, my friend and fellow Fury, it’s your turn to devise the challenge.’
For the first time, Venn saw in detail the girl who, despite now being thousands of miles away, had always been at the centre of the investigation.
She pushed back her hood, so he could see her face.
Dark hair, strong features, lively eyes.
A confident young woman in need of adventure.
He could imagine her climbing mountains or sailing solo round the world.
‘I challenge you, Hannah Armstrong, to leap down the embankment to your doom!’ The accent was American despite the five years she’d spent in the UK.
The camera and light shifted again to show the steep slope to the railway line below.
‘Hannah Armstrong,’ Elizabeth continued, ‘will you accept the challenge?’
‘No!’ Hannah sounded panicky. ‘No way! You’re crazy. It’s too high, too steep.’
Even on the shaky video, Venn caught a glimpse pass between Lottie and Elizabeth. He thought this had been a set-up, decided in advance. A joke or a piece of mischief. Or a way of humiliating Hannah, putting her in her place. They must have known she would refuse.
‘Then I will undertake the challenge myself!’ Elizabeth threw up her hands to the sky, and stood, posed, triumphant, while Lottie filmed her. She walked slowly and deliberately towards the edge of the slope.
She seemed totally unafraid, and Venn wondered if this too was planned. Again, it felt rehearsed. Did Elizabeth intend to scare Hannah, but to pull back at the last minute? Or perhaps she’d been practising the jump and she knew she could do the stunt safely.
‘No!’ Hannah sounded hysterical now. ‘You’ll kill yourself. Lottie, stop her!’
The camera turned back to Lottie. She must have been holding her phone at arm’s length, because now the film showed not just her face, but a little of the background. A hut made of corrugated iron, moisture dripping from the ragged-edged roof.
‘Elizabeth Kinzalow has accepted the challenge.’ Her voice was slow and firm.
There was background sound, a scuffle, before the camera was fixed on Hannah and Elizabeth again.
Hannah was scrambling towards Elizabeth, intent on pulling her back from the edge.
There was no commentary at this point. Time seemed to go very slowly.
The scuffle between the girls developed like a kind of dance, with each shifting position.
Hannah’s arms were on Elizabeth’s shoulders.
Although the outcome was known and inevitable, Venn felt unbearably tense.
Suddenly, Hannah lost her footing on the damp ground.
She slipped so her heavy boots shot forwards, catching Elizabeth’s legs, pushing her off balance, tipping her towards the slope.
The film showed the American struggling to regain her footing, before she fell and disappeared slowly from view.
It occurred to Venn that if the film had been edited just to show the last few seconds, it might seem that Hannah’s kick had been deliberate.
There was a moment’s silence and then Lottie said, in her normal, schoolgirl’s voice – a little smug, almost gloating – ‘Oh shit, Hannah. What have you done?’