Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
“So where have you been, Craig? Because you’ve got to admit, it’s a bit of coincidence we want to speak to your mate, Neil, about where he was on the night his girlfriend died, and then the pair of you disappear.
Real fucking co-incidence.” Vinny stepped back, arms folded, looking like he’d been transplanted into the interview room as a gift from the nineteen-seventies.
They’d been arrested on charges of theft, breaking and entering, and handling stolen goods before they’d been passed over to us to be questioned about the murder of Chelsea Bainbridge.
“No comment.”
“Oh, aye, no comment. Coward’s attempt at a way out, that, init.” Vinny started to pace, agitated, or at least pretending to be.
I was watching on camera, rather enjoying not being the one in that pressure cooker, trying to drill out information that could crack open a case.
“Are you a coward, Craig? Because it looks like you are from where I’m standing.” He put his hands on the table and leaned forward.
Craig glared at him like he wanted to chin him, but had realised that would not be a great course of action to take.
“No comment.”
“Thought so. You see, you threw your mate under a bus when we first spoke to you. You couldn’t provide him with an alibi for any evening that week.
We found someone who could, every night except the one where Chelsea Bainbridge was murdered.
Funnily enough, the landlady at the bed and breakfast you stayed at told us that you weren’t there either that night.
Where were you, Craig? Because the way I see it, you’re either going down for robbery or you’re going down for murder? ”
Liverpool police had them down for breaking into a big warehouse in the area where they’d nicked a ton of TV’s. Us sniffing around about Chelsea’s murder had sent them into a blind panic, tearing off to stay at a caravan park in North Wales.
“No comment.”
“Maybe you need to have a word with your solicitor, because if I was you, I’d be choosing the time for the robbery, rather than murder, and let’s face it, some of those comments on Chelsea’s social media posts that you left - ” He sucked air I noisily and shook his head.
“You remember – I think my favourite was ‘I bet you suck dick good because there’s no other reason my mate’s with a whore like you’, but there were others that came close.
One about being locked in a kitchen where women belong was up there too, so I’m getting the impression you don’t like women very much – I mean, you don’t like the fact that they don’t like you. ”
While I was in Leeds yesterday afternoon, Nick and the Tech Team had found a load of comments Craig had left on several posts made by women he both knew, and some influencers, all female, trolling them.
Fat and ugly and various derivatives of those were the common flavour, which was ironic given he wasn’t exactly Brad Pitt.
“I – no comment.”
Vinny nearly had him. He’d clearly smelt blood, sitting back down at the table, all his focus on Craig. Lachy was in there with him, blending into the wall at the back, there to play a part if Vinny handed the baton onto him.
“I what? I didn’t write them? Or I don’t have social media?
Or I didn’t kill Chelsea? Because we have a bit of an issue here, Craig my friend.
The two other dead girls – they had some really horrible comments on their social media too, so we think it could be related, the three of them, some nasty women-hating men have decided to be proactive.
Is that what you are Craig? A misogynist?
Can’t get a woman so don’t want anyone else to because that’s how it looks to me.
And credit to you – staging an alibi to get us to think you’d committed another crime, fucking genius, mate.
” Vinny lounged back now in his chair, using his long legs to push himself away.
He reminded me of a lanky spider, never quite sure what to do with his limbs.
Craig looked at his legal aid solicitor, a bloke in his fifties who was probably more bothered about whether he was going to get home at a reasonable hour.
“I’ve not got now’t to do with anyone online.
I like women. I’m nice to them apart from fucking Chelsea.
She was a bitch to Neil, always on at him to buy her stuff or help with the kids who weren’t even his, so yeah, I used to give her shit online.
I didn’t have nothing to do with her dying though.
” He put his head in his hands. “Neil’s a good bloke.
He’s never done owt wrong before. The robbery, because yeah, I did that.
Someone told me there was a load of gear in there, so I told Neil I was going to break in and take it, and he told me not to.
He turned up there to try and stop me, but ended up helping me get in the van.
We slept in the van that night and then dropped the gear off at a lock up the morning before work.
” He rubbed his face. “Neil was being a mate.”
“Neil was being an accomplice. But better than being a murderer and he’s already told us all this anyway, so you don’t need to worry about dobbing him in.
” Vinny sat up, perkier now he had a confession.
“He’s a nice bloke, and I half believe him when he said he was trying to stop you. The sort of mate you want to have.”
“He’s decent.” Craig looked mortified, staring anywhere that wasn’t another human. “I was trying to look out for him with Chelsea, stop him ending up in shit because of her, and now he’s in shit because of me.”
“Spot on there, Craigy. Maybe you need to think about what sort of mate you are, have a good long look at that, but there’ll be time for that when you’re banged up.
Lots of thinking time where you’re going, mate.
” Vinny gave a big grin. “And officially, as a mate, you’re about as much use as a chocolate fucking fireguard. Congratulations.”
There were beaches in Aberwyn. Sand dunes, and acres of sand. Holidays weren’t the norm, but Gran’s mate from bingo said they didn’t want it this summer, so Gran could have it; four weeks in a static caravan on some posh resort, and a decent size too. They didn’t even have to share bedrooms.
At first, it looked like making friends would be something that didn’t happen but that was okay. There were books to read and seashells to collect and ice creams with chocolate flakes and raspberry sauce on top. But a friend did happen. Evelyn.
Evelyn was pretty and friendly and quiet and for the first two days, it felt magical.
Someone on the same page, who liked reading and making games and drawing too.
They played hide and seek and made sand angels because of course, there was no snow.
Those first two days were great and then Morgan turned up and Evelyn and Morgan knew each other from last summer, and Evelyn wasn’t as interested in her new friend.
“It’ll be okay,” Gran said, opening another bottle of gin to have with her friend Michelle. That was what they did each day, get pickled. But it was better Gran getting pickled here than back home in Warrington. “More kids will turn up soon, maybe some boys you can play football with.”
Which would’ve been fine, except football wasn’t a special talent and there were more pretty shells to find and maybe shells were for little kids and not ones who were thirteen and about to go into year nine.
More kids did turn up as more schools broke out for summer.
Chelsea Bainbridge’s family were loud and chavvy, even Gran called her that.
Evelyn was scared of Chelsea. There were Ronnie and Reggie, Chelsea’s brothers and they didn’t mind who played football.
They were going to be professional footballers and drive around in Range Rovers and have models for girlfriends and to do that they’d need to be famous and have money because they had faces like they’d were bulldogs chewing a wasp, according to Gran.
Luke and Emily were there too, but they didn’t really bother with the rest of the kids. Chelsea said their parents were snobs and didn’t like them mixing with normal people, but maybe their parents had the right idea, but then Chelsea was okay compared to Dolly.
Dolly was the Queen of Evil from day one.
She’d been going to Aberwyn since she was six and thought she knew everything about it and everyone there.
She made nasty stuff up and called people names and teased them, starting rumours and whispering when someone was near, so they thought she was talking about them.
Morgan and Brooke joined in with Dolly, but Chelsea was the worst. Maybe she was scared of Dolly, that if she didn’t pretend to be friends with her, she’d say bad stuff about Chelsea too, but Chelsea wasn’t scared of anyone, because everyone was scared of her mam, who was unpredictable unless she was out of it on her medication.
Evelyn and Dolly and Brooke and Chelsea and Morgan and Sophie.
It was Sophie that hurt the most because Sophie was kind all the rest of the time, so that was the biggest disappointment, that day when they pretended to all be friends, no one being left out, apologies chanted together than didn’t sound like apologies but more teasing.
Let’s go to the big house together.
You know where the big house is, don’t you?
You don’t know anything.
Let’s go and hang out there, you can sneak out your gran’s gin. We all know she’s an alky.
Alky, a fucking alky. Who has an alky of a gran?
It carried on, weakly laughing along and dreams about being alone and collecting seashells or playing football.
Then they got to the big house, an old half ruin with furniture still inside and a table set for dinner, frozen in time. It would’ve been amazing to look round, but Dolly wanted to play a game with Gran’s gin.
Only, the game wasn’t fun. Being the centre of the game wasn’t fun.
Being held down, made to drink the gin, and then they pulled off every stitch of clothing, yelling and throwing the clothes around, and the gin made everything hazy and there might’ve been something else in the gin, a tablet because Chelsea said she took a benzo from her mum’s bag because it would be fun to see what happened when it was mixed with alcohol.
They laughed at what was under the clothes and made fun and said horrible things but then the memories were hazy, until there was no one else there and it was dark and cold because there were no clothes, no heat and just the littlest bit of light from a high up window because they were in the cellars.
I was locked in, the door barricaded, something heavy in front of it that I couldn’t move. I shouted at them, pleading with them to let me out, but all I heard were cackles of laughter and heavy thuds at the door, stones being thrown, maybe.
“Morgs, what are you doing?” It sounded like Sophie.
“Seeing how hard I can hit the door.”
I waited for them to go, still hearing laughter, still hearing them talk about the rest of their day, going to beach, talking to the boys.
I found the door in the darkness, but there was something blocking it.
Something put there on purpose what was heavy.
Exit unavailable. Vomit everywhere, piss too and something scratching round.
So daydreams of being back at home in the tiny bedroom, shared with a brother even though it was wrong, but that was better than being here so going somewhere else as a dream was better.
Cold, so very cold and lonely, pushing at the door to get out.
By the time freedom came, it was morning, and someone had moved whatever had been blocking the door, or maybe I’d already been insane back then and I’d imagine it.
There were some clothes just outside, left in a pile.
Enough to cover up and then run back to the caravan.
It was probably Sophie who left them. Not Dolly. Dolly would’ve put them in the sea.
The police hadn’t been called. Gran was passed out on the sofa. No one had been missed. I went back later and collected all of the stones that Morgan had thrown to save them for a rainy day.
Kids will be kids, they said. Girls will be girls.
Meek, vulnerable, gentle.
Sugar and spice and all things nice.
That’s what little girls weren’t made of.