Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
“Can you tell us where you were, Justine? On these dates?” Wrigley pushed the piece of paper with the dates and times of the murders of the five Aberwyn girls closer to the woman who sat opposite him.
I knew he was becoming frustrated, although that was only because I’d worked with him for so long and could read how tense his shoulders were, of how he clenched his hand.
There were eight of us watching the events unfold in the interview room, or rather, watching the events not unfold.
Justine Bellamy, also known as Kelly Anne Marsh, had been assessed by two Liaison and Diversion mental health practitioners, who’d concluded that she was fit to be interviewed.
She wasn’t showing any signs of being floridly psychotic, so she wasn’t experiencing psychotic delusions.
Her history of mental illness had been considered, but currently she was assessed to be coherent, rational – she knew where she was and what she’d been arrested for.
But she was currently refusing to speak.
“I understand you don’t want to talk to me, Justine. Or do you prefer I call you Kelly-Anne?” Wrigley sat back, pretending to be as relaxed as he was with his grandchildren.
“Justine.” It was the first word she’d spoken.
“Okay, so you can speak. You’re just choosing not to.”
She smiled at him, then checked her well-manicured nails.
I’d noticed them when she’d walked into the interview room, short, tidy, painted yellow with what I thought were red polka dots on them, like specks of blood on a spring day.
Justine was nothing like Kelly-Anne. Justine was well put together, even after a night in a police cell.
Her face was clear of make-up, and I’d been told she’d requested some moisturiser which had been given, an odd thing to consider after you’d been arrested.
We had enough evidence to charge her. DNA from Evelyn Smith had been recovered from the garage, fast tracked overnight; the knife we’d found was consistent with the weapon in all five murders, as well as Charlie Mason’s death; the garage had offered up treasures from the Aberwyn girls – clothes, mobile phones, jewellery – all circumstantial but stacking up as evidence against Kelly-Anne Marsh, as she was still legally known.
Her brief knew this. Her advice would be to co-operate and admit to the murders, looking for a lenient sentence. A not guilty plea when there was so much in the way of evidence, with a motive that was sad but strong, would not go down well with judge or jury.
“Justine, what can you tell me about the women you killed? We know you did it – everything ties together and the more we investigate, the more we see how you did it. Why you did it. What can you tell me, Justine? What are your insights? I’m curious.
” He was animated, playing the part of a captive audience.
“No comment.”
At least she was speaking now. She’d spent three years as a selective mute, her medical records showing that she’d gone months without talking. This had coincided with her eating disorder, leading up to her being sectioned, which was when she met Charlie.
“Ask her about Charlie Mason,” I said, pressing a button so Wrigley and Nick could hear the question in their ears. “Ask her about him being her first real friend.”
“Let’s go back a bit in time, back to when you were seventeen and still Kelly-Anne Marsh.
You were sectioned under the mental health act, and admitted to Lindridge Psychiatric Hospital in Leeds, where you met Charlie Mason.
He was your first real friend, wasn’t he?
” Wrigley sat up straighter, folded his arms and waited.
One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Justine still didn’t say anything.
I itched to be in the room, to be the one speaking with her.
I knew she would see a connection between us; we’d both been Daniel’s assistant, one of the most eminent professors in the field of criminology.
That role of his assistant was coveted; he opened doors to the higher plains of academia and to be his chosen one was a special thing.
I had preceded Justine, but I hadn’t chosen the path she wanted. I rejected it. And in her eyes, she was only his protégé because I’d turned that position down.
Second best.
Wrigley repeated the question.
Still no answer. No response. She looked at her nails, blocking everything else out.
“You’re not helping yourself, young lady.”
She smiled at him, tapping those nails on the table. “No comment.”
Wrigley stood up, looked at his watch. “It’s now ten thirty-three am, and myself and DS Nick Sweeting are leaving the room. Interview paused.”
He bustled into the peanut gallery and looked at me.
“You’re up, Mac. Get her talking. We’ve got her and we’ll charge her after this, everyone’s happy with that.
But - ” he sighed, shaking his head. “Books will be written about her. She’ll be the subject of TV documentaries, there’ll be dickheads who swear she couldn’t do it and how it’s a miscarriage of justice, all of that palaver.
This is a case that our names will be tied to forever, this is a part of my legacy.
” He rubbed what was left of his hair. “I want closure.”
I understood. Wrigley’s career was nearly over. Long summers of watching his cricket team, followed by winters of sport on TV, Pam finally getting him to start the list of jobs in the house awaited him.
“Who’s going in with me?” I looked around the room. There’d be no one who’d say no.
“Who do you think?”
“No one else. I need to seem like her, a psychology graduate. If I’m with another cop, I become part of that team.” It broke protocol, but it wasn’t the first time.
“Try it.” Wrigley nodded at me. “Anything to get her talking and you have more in common with her than they rest of us. She could see you as an ally.”
“She’ll see me as a rival.” She knew about me. Daniel had told her who I was, another of his assistants with a different identity, another one who had been a victim, another one with imposter syndrome.
I went into the room forgetting that everyone was watching me, judging how I carried this out, having an opinion on everything I did in there, how I looked, how I spoke, what I said.
“Hello, Justine.” I sat down on the chair Wrigley had vacated. “For the benefit of the tape DS Mia McAllister has entered the room at ten forty-seven am.”
“I wondered when they’d send you in.” It was the most she’d said in two hours.
“The boss gets the first go. Was Dolly like that? Did she have the first go at you? Was it Dolly who poured vodka down your throat that day when they trapped you in the cellar, or did she hold you down?”
Justine smiled at me, a gentle, peaceful sort of smile.
“You know about being held down, don’t you Miss Mia? Little Wren, I think you were called.” Her voice was almost hypnotic, calm, musical.
The sort of voice that called out to you to take a short cut home even when you knew it wasn’t safe.
The sort of voice that had me paralysed with fear.
“You read Daniel’s notes.” Because, despite everything, he wouldn’t have told anyone about what happened.
“Of course I did. Didn’t you?”
I was on the backfoot. “No. I didn’t, I respected patient confidentiality. I don’t understand why you didn’t.”
“Because it doesn’t matter in the end. I was never going to leave and move to another university, that wasn’t the point.
My thesis has been submitted, I’ll be awarded the PhD in a few months, even if I’m in prison, even if its posthumously.
Because you never know, do you, darling little Mia.
” Her eyes danced with mirth as she watched me.
“You did kill them. You’re confessing to that.”
She shrugged. “You tell me. But you only got a master’s degree.
You chose not to pursue academia after that and joined this motley crew.
A shame – for Daniel really. He adores you.
I’d say you were the child he never had, but I don’t think he sees you that way.
I think he sees you as something he could never have. ”
“He never had you either. Did that disappoint you?”
A flicker, just a flicker across her face, and I knew I’d managed a punch back.
“I wasn’t interested.”
“You don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend?
You spent all of your time at the university, unless you were stalking the girls who bullied you when you were at Aberwyn.
Tell me about them, Kelly-Anne, because at the moment they’re victims. Poor, defenceless victims, killed by someone who should’ve been their friend.
But you didn’t see them that way, did you?
They weren’t defenceless when you knew them; they were the perpetrators.
Tell me how you found them, Kelly-Anne, tell me how you lured them away.
Did you bump into them – what a surprise!
– and arrange to meet, go for a walk, or search for a lost dog?
Did you know they’d trust you, because they remembered you as being weak and pathetic, no harm to anyone apart from yourself because you were such a mess?
Survival of the fittest, isn’t it, but somehow you survived, because you weren’t the fittest. You were resilient though, and fuelled.
” I paused, watching her as she studied her nails.
“They’re pretty. Your nails. Do you have them done professionally? ”
She looked up at me. “Every week. Same salon. I can recommend them.” Less disinterest now.
“Where did you go for the rest of your work? A nose job, fillers, I’m guessing lips too because you look quite different than you did when you were Kelly-Anne, although you’re still Kelly-Anne, aren’t you?
Justine’s just who you hide behind.” I prodded, not sure how she was going to react, wondering if she’d retreat back into herself.
“The end result is amazing. You look fantastic.”