Chapter Eleven #2
Richie scoffs and inserts a fingernail between his back teeth, fishing for some food that’s apparently lodged there.
He removes the finger and examines the retrieved morsel that’s now under his nail.
The convict’s colorless eyes meet Sam’s gaze and hold it.
Without blinking, Richie runs his tongue up his finger, collecting the moist lump on the tip and pulling it slowly back into his mouth.
Sam keeps her face neutral. Taylor shifts uncomfortably at her side.
“Already told you lot exactly what Denver says in his book,” says Scott.
“Which, by the way, everyone got to read before me, even though it’s about me.
Wasn’t until my new lawyer printed it off on paper and it was classed as legal documents that I got to read it.
No point asking me questions, pretty boy.
How to Get Away with Murder is spot on.”
“What makes you think Denver killed Melanie?” Sam asks. Her heart rate is steady, her mouth free from the salty taste that she’s become so used to.
“You thick or just stupid?” Scott hisses. “Like what Denver says: he fucked with our shopping, then came in and killed her. Denver did it. So my question to you lot is when you gonna let me outta here?”
“Can you tell me, precisely, what was strange about your shopping?” Taylor asks.
With an eye-roll, Scott replies, “Just like what Denver says: he sent us steak, wine and prawns. We cooked the steaks right up. I never knew what to do with a prawn. Weird-looking things—still have their eyes in. Our Bella—that’s the dog—we gave her the prawns.
The posh wine tasted like shite. Gimme a cold tin of Foster’s any day.
That’s what I’ll have for my first free drink: a cold tin and Bristol City on the telly.
Wanna join me, love?” Scott winks at Sam.
She ignores him, but she feels an uncomfortable heat bloom across her chest as the creep’s eyes roam her body. Taylor sits up straighter, clenching his fingers around his pen. Sam refuses to allow Richie’s lechery to put her off her stride.
“Mr. Scott, does the name Charlotte Mathers mean anything to you?… Nigel Mathers?… Jack Mathers?” she asks. Her words are calm, controlled.
“Never heard of ’em,” Richie says. “Are they Denver victims, too? I only read my chapter—that’s all my lawyer was allowed to give me. To be honest, I’m not a big reader anyway.”
“Mr. Scott,” Taylor replies, “almost every detail that Denver mentions in How to Get Away with Murder is information that’s in the public domain.
The evidence brought forward at your trial was compelling, the jury’s verdict unanimous.
Denver’s account doesn’t explain a lot of details that speak to your guilt.
For example, your bloody fingerprints on the washing machine, your footprints around Melanie’s body and the fact that you fled the scene and were apprehended at a friend’s house, hiding under the bed—”
“I’m done talking to you, you fuckin’ toff.” Scott takes a long sniff and then spits a glob of phlegm on to Taylor’s shiny shoe.
Sam hears Taylor’s pen crack in his hand, and leans forward.
“Mr. Scott. Richie—may I call you Richie? As my colleague said, almost every detail in How to Get Away with Murder is in the public domain. It’s in your best interest to tell us how Denver might know things that only the perpetrator and the police should know. ”
“You mean the earrings. The papers never mentioned Mel’s earrings.
No one knew about those being taken except the killer and that just proves it wasn’t me,” Scott says, letting his eyes rest unashamedly on Sam’s breasts.
I should have worn my Nordic sweater, she thinks, then almost smiles at the thought.
Since when has chunky, oversized clothing kept women safe? Beside her, Taylor tenses.
“It could be argued that you took Melanie’s earrings. They were portable items of value that you could sell to support yourself while on the run from police,” Sam says.
“There weren’t any earrings on me when I was arrested,” Scott says, in a way that indicates to Sam that he’s been coached by his legal representative.
“Perhaps you hid the earrings before your arrest. You had days to do that. Or you sold them,” she challenges.
“Whatever, bitch.” Richie’s eyes wander the room; he’s clearly unbothered. The thought of this man walking free makes her skin prickle, but she needs to keep her mind in the room, so she pushes on.
“Just tell us who you told about the earrings, and if that leads us to Denver Brady, we’re all better off,” Sam says.
“I’m innocent. You know it. Pretty Boy there knows it. The whole world knows it. Fuckin’ outrageous keeping me in here. We’re gonna sue for millions. Wrongful imprisonment, reputational damage—the lot!”
“I’d say the reputational damage was taken care of by you, Mr. Scott, when you beat up your girlfriend,” Taylor says.
Richie fires up immediately. “She was a fuckin’ nut job, Mel. She gave as good as she got. I had scratch marks all up my arms all the fuckin’ time. She knew what buttons to push. Read the book. Denver says that Mel confessed to starting our fights.”
“Yes, I know there are women like that. Psychos.” Sam lets her comment hang, avoiding Taylor’s outraged glare. “We have a common goal here. For you to get out of prison, we need to find Denver. Help me to help you. Tell me everything.”
“My lawyer told me to tell you what I remembered.” Richie scratches his head, then cleans his fingernails on his bottom teeth.
“Your lawyer is right, Richie,” Sam says.
“He’s a clever bloke,” Richie says, and Sam wonders if that’s true, given that no lawyer worth his salt would allow a client to speak to the police unrepresented.
Richie leans forward, inches from Sam’s face, and she automatically switches to breathing through her mouth. Taylor’s knee presses up against hers under the table, as if promising to keep her safe.
“I’ve been having these memories since I read my chapter,” Richie says. “Flashbacks. Of a voice with an accent talking to Melanie in our house.”
“What kind of accent?” Taylor asks.
“Romanian, maybe, like my cellmate. All sound the same don’t they, foreigners?” Scott says. “But, yeah … I think Denver is a foreigner. Probably come ’ere illegally on a dinghy.” Richie sniffs loudly.
“Go on,” Sam says.
“I remember a man knocking on the door. Saying something about his dog, Tony. Stupid name for a dog. I was well out of it, but I remember the geezer was lanky. Like, really tall. With black hair.”
“Anything else?” Taylor asks, scribbling wildly in his notebook.
“No. I’ve told you everything now. But this is the most important thing, son: I didn’t kill my Mel.
I knocked her about a bit but a saint woulda knocked Mel about.
Catch the fucker what killed my girl. Do ya fuckin’ jobs.
” Then, without another word, he stands up and the guard escorts him from the room.
As they drive back toward London, Taylor hums along to the Libertines’ “Time for Heroes” and Sam marvels at the young man’s diverse taste in music.
He sings along quietly to Northern Soul, hard rock and country on the radio, skipping channels to avoid the overplayed rubbish that she hates too—“Viva La Vida” makes her soul die a little each time she hears it and Taylor’s thumb changes the station before the vocals have time to kick in.
She remembers the songs her mother used to sing as they drove together to school.
Once the family moved to Clapham, the singing stopped.
Not just because her mother no longer drove anywhere—her father sold the car immediately—but because her dad’s new role in the Met came with strains and stresses he didn’t know how to handle.
His moods became more frequent, his frustrations and fear bursting through without warning.
Sam and her mother trod on eggshells around him, but soon enough, one cracked.
From then on, whenever her mother sang, the words were slurred and Sam turned up her own music to drown out the sound.
That was when Sam discovered that heavy metal and hard rock were the perfect way to shut out the world around her.
Disturbed, In Flames, Audioslave—their angry voices, their pain-soaked lyrics somehow soothed her.
Taylor taps the brake as the slow line of traffic halts once again, jolting Sam out of her memories.
“What were you saying, Taylor?” Sam asks. “I was in my own world there.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know the look by now.” He smiles, and she returns it.
“I was just saying that we need to tell DCI Blakelaw and DI Edris what we’ve learned about Denver potentially being a tall, dark-haired man with a foreign accent.
God, I’m loath to help Richie Scott out of jail.
But it’s potential evidence that Denver may have murdered Betty and Melanie. ”
“It’s not evidence at all,” Sam says stoutly. “Scott could have made it all up. We’ll not mention anything he said today. Not to Harry, not to Tina, not to anyone. This is completely irrelevant to the case unless it’s connected to Charlotte Mathers—which it isn’t. Yet. So, we say nothing.”
Taylor peers at her, uncertain. “Aren’t we obliged to share our findings, boss?”
“We say nothing,” she insists.
“There’s a chance Richie Scott is innocent of Melanie’s murder, though,” Taylor argues. “If that’s true, Denver now has two victims that we know of. It’s looking like Denver really is a serial killer.”
“There’s also a chance Denver killed Mel before Richie got to deal the final blow,” Sam says, “but otherwise Richie Scott would eventually have killed Mel himself. He almost killed her more than a dozen times. Richie Scott belongs in prison. Do you know that in 2021, of the eighty-one thousand women in the world who were murdered, forty-five thousand died at the hands of an intimate partner or family member? Forty-five thousand, Taylor.”
“That doesn’t sound right, boss,” Taylor says tentatively.
“It’s not right,” Sam replies. “It’s appallingly wrong.”
Sam’s stomach churns as she imagines that man on the loose again. Free to find a new woman to prey on. To coerce. To abuse. To kill.
Taylor Swift’s voice fills the car and Sam notices that Taylor is trying his hardest not to sing along like the closet Swiftie she knows he is.
When the verse arrives at the point where Romeo kneels to the ground and pulls out a ring, Sam takes a deep breath and launches into tuneless but powerful singing.
Taylor laughs then joins in, both knowing every word and bellowing each one at the top of their lungs.
As the song finishes, Sam and Taylor grin at each other.
“Charlotte Mathers loved Taylor Swift too,” Sam says, and the joy of the moment drains away as their minds turn back to the dead child. “We need to push that arson lead again, Taylor—surely Sussex Police have found something.”
“And if the person who burned down the place where How to Get Away with Murder was printed turns out to be a tall man with a foreign accent, like Richie Scott said?” Taylor asks, and an unexpected sense of foreboding begins to brew deep in Sam’s stomach.
Now that would be too much of a coincidence.