Chapter Fifteen #2
Sam suspects that, given the volume of publicity How to Get Away with Murder has received, the ten grand that ties Andrei to the book’s sales is far from the total revenue by now, and she believes that somehow, Barry Brown is getting his hands on the rest. A second examination of Andrei’s bank statement has also revealed that several months ago he withdrew a large sum of cash, matching the amount Swinton’s charged to print the book.
For now, Andrei has been charged with arson, buying more time to investigate his connection to the murders described in How to Get Away with Murder.
Because currently, there’s nothing actually connecting him to them.
Not a single piece of evidence. And several of the murders didn’t even happen: Amy is still alive, as is Sean; Jono’s drowning was an accident; Sarah died by suicide; and if Basil even exists, he survived.
Betty and Melanie were the only victims of murder.
No matter how hard Harry rages, the CPS will never support charging Andrei with their murders unless they find physical evidence or he makes a plausible confession.
So, why would Andrei confess to killing Betty and Melanie when there’s so little evidence against him?
Any good lawyer would advise Andrei to give a “no comment” interview.
Something teeters on the outskirts of Sam’s memory, but she can’t grasp it.
Sam sits heavily in her chair, and for a few moments more she does nothing but think.
She can smell Taylor’s aftershave, but pushes away the memory of his visit to her home yesterday.
The feel of his fingertips on her cheek.
She fiddles with the little netball keyring.
She’d agreed to work on the book investigation and leave Charlotte’s murder with Tina, but she can’t stop herself thinking about who might have placed that tracker in Charlotte’s bag.
Her phone rings through her headphones, cutting off her music and making her jump. She double taps to answer.
“It’s Duggan.” The Geordie officer sounds like he’s in a wind tunnel and Sam presses her earpod harder into her ear.
“I’ve got the school records you asked for.
They haven’t been digitalized so I had to drive there in person.
What a fanny-on I’ve had. Anyhow, we have Barry Brown and Robert Brown both listed as former pupils there.
Wolsington College. Bobby went on to Northumbria University, then we have a death certificate. Died by—”
“Drowning, I know. Tell me about Barry.”
“Betty’s nephew, grew up in Easington Colliery, did a degree at Northumbria University but I have nothing on him after graduation, until he inherited everything from Betty’s estate and no one knows where he went after that.”
Sam frowns. “I thought Betty changed her will?”
“She told her neighbor she’d done that, but apparently the copy of Betty’s will leaving everything to the Salvation Army was never lodged with her solicitor, and never found.”
“So Barry got her money, then disappeared?”
“Yes. At least, there’s no criminal record.
I’ve submitted a request to the banks and register office, but right now it looks like he just vanished.
He likely changed his name. That’s far more effective than we like to admit,” Duggan says ruefully.
“But I heard on the grapevine that you’ve got Denver Brady behind bars and he’s Romanian? ”
“It’s early days,” Sam says, before asking Duggan to keep searching for Barry and ringing off.
Sam is tempted to spend time tracking down Barry herself, to stop Harry telling the world that Denver Brady is a man named Andrei Albescu when she knows full well he’s not.
But finding Betty’s killer and the author of How to Get Away with Murder isn’t her top priority, despite her agreement with Tina and Harry’s orders.
With Duggan and Taylor pursuing the Barry Brown lead, she decides to treat herself to a few minutes’ consideration of the case she’s burning to solve.
She makes a cup of tea, holes up in the small meeting room and goes over Charlotte’s crime scene photographs again.
Her heart races uncomfortably, and she has to sip her tea every minute or so to flush away the salty taste, but she makes her way through each image carefully.
She takes notes, then closes her eyes and lets the facts of Charlotte’s case, and only that case, flow through her.
Something needles her about Charlotte’s behavior the night she was killed.
Sam turns the sequence of events over in her mind.
She feels so close to grasping something, when Harry calls everyone into the briefing room.
He smiles and nods as people file in, patting one or two amicably on the shoulder.
Despite the team’s exhaustion, it’s clear Harry is in a good mood.
Chirpy, even. He no doubt expects that he’ll soon be able to tell the press that he’s bagged a serial killer.
In the meantime, he’s gathered them to say he wants them all focused on Charlotte Mathers.
“I’m sorry to do this, folks, but we need one last push to get this over the line.
I’ve no choice but to ask for overtime this weekend, please.
” Harry keeps his tone light and talks through the stony silence, describing how they are all playing a vital role in securing justice for a child.
He ends by literally applauding the officers as they begin to leave the room and she notices that he’s humming under his breath.
“Detective Inspector Hansen,” Tina Edris says to Sam as they walk out, “you need to stand up for yourself. You’re supposed to be on a phased return. The DCI has already made you joint SIO. You can’t work weekends, too. I say this as an ally, not a rival; nor a friend.”
“Tina—” Sam begins, but the other woman just holds up her hand and walks away, giant bucket bag banging against her hip.
Sam rests her forehead on her arms and leans on her desk.
She hates to admit it, but Tina has a point.
Just like Dr. Thomson has told her, it’s too much.
Sam yawns deeply and sits up, her eyes landing on Charlotte’s photograph on the whiteboard.
Fourteen years old, Sam thinks. Dead. Strangled.
Posed like a doll, on a tree trunk. For a man’s pleasure.
And I’m sitting here, yawning. Sam chides herself.
She rises to her feet. This isn’t about Denver Brady, she thinks.
This isn’t about How to Get Away with Murder.
It isn’t about the Romanian in a cell downstairs.
It’s not even about the brutal murder of a nice old lady from the North East. This is about a girl.
A child. That beautiful child with the green eyes.
She’s all that really matters. Screw the rest, Sam thinks.
“Ma’am,” Taylor says, coming over from his desk as he sees her get up. He speaks in a low voice. “I was thinking, it’s going to be another late one. I’m going to grab some food and I thought—”
“No, thanks, Taylor,” Sam says, and gathers up her things. She’s already decided where she’s going and it’s not out for dinner with her trainee.
Sam orders an Uber and steps out at Jessica and Jamil Patel’s home.
Using the map that DC Chen had built from CCTV alongside her phone app, she traces Charlotte’s precise route to Holland Park and arrives at the entrance.
Dog walkers are everywhere and she wishes she’d brought little Toni—he’d love the park.
She’s been teaching him how to play fetch, using treats and a squeaky ball. Next time, she thinks.
Sam follows in Charlotte’s footsteps, going in through the gate and taking an immediate left, passing the miniature hedges and flower beds.
The path sweeps around in a large arch and Sam follows it until she comes to a small path shooting off to the left.
It leads away from the main route and has lower-level solar lighting, rather than the tall, overhead streetlights of the larger path.
Why would you go this way, Charlotte? Sam thinks to herself.
It might have saved the girl a few minutes, but surely…
? She must have been really worried about Nigel. But why?
Sam takes the footpath until she comes to the oak trees.
A pair of green parakeets sit preening each other on a branch.
The park is less cultivated here, and feels more wild and natural.
The grass is longer and the bushes provide a lot of ground cover.
The path rises slightly and drops back down, creating a hidden area of undergrowth to Sam’s left.
She has no trouble finding the tree. There’s a mountain of teddy bears and flowers beneath the oak that mark it out.
Sam walks over the grass, stands in front of the tree and looks around.
At night, this place would be invisible from the main path.
Why would any girl come this way? Even if Charlotte was highly concerned for her father.
Unless she was with someone? A raw section of trunk catches Sam’s eye.
She steps closer, recognizing the spot where the love heart with CM + DB used to be.
The forensic team have carved away the branded bark, but the tree will bear the scar forever.
The pieces are all in front of her—she can feel it.
“Why can’t I get it?” she mutters. “Why can’t I solve it?”
Sam looks from the scratched-away love heart to the cards and teddies, flowers and letters, their ink running inside of plastic packets.
She picks a few up. Notes from friends, teachers, strangers.
Sam replaces each one and begins arranging those that have fallen over into a neat pile.
Sam’s breath catches when she picks up a card titled “Niece.” She prizes it open, but the ink has run and is no longer legible.
“Why didn’t Charlotte call you that night, Jack?” Sam asks aloud. “Was it just because she knew you were out? Or…”
Mind whirring, Sam pulls her phone from her pocket and opens a map application, typing in the name of the pub in Brenham where Jack Mathers was the night his niece died.
Over five miles away. Feeling like a rookie private investigator, Sam googles how long it would take to run that distance.
Between thirty and seventy-two minutes for the average person, Google says.
“Well, that’s helpful,” Sam mumbles frustratedly to herself.
Jack Mathers couldn’t have left the party for more than an hour without his absence being noticed.
His phone didn’t disconnect from the pub’s Wi-Fi at all, even though he claims to have left to go to a shop.
No witnesses reported him being sweaty or out of breath, so he can’t have run.
The pathologist confirmed that it would have taken at least fifteen minutes to murder and pose Charlotte, and then there’s the carving of the love heart on the tree, which would also have taken time.
The love heart on the tree …
Sam feels the pieces slotting slowly into place, and lets her eyes continue to roam to the wound on the trunk where the carving was.
She remembers that the expert confirmed the carving itself was fresh, and that it would have taken at least half an hour to make, and required tools.
That’s a long time to risk lingering at a crime scene, with a bag of chisels and a dead child beside you.
It must have been carved before the murder.
Sometime earlier that day. But that would only have been possible if the killer had known Charlotte’s route in advance.
Sam’s skin prickles and she knows she’s close to something.
She lets her mind run over the sequence of events once more.
Someone concealed a tracker in Charlotte’s school bag.
Carved the love heart. Then waited for Charlotte to walk through the park on her way home.
Charlotte only came this way because it was an emergency and she was concerned for her father, who wasn’t answering the phone.
No one could have known that Nigel would fall asleep and fail to pick Charlotte up that particular night …
It clicks.
Just like that, Sam knows who murdered Charlotte Mathers. She knows how. She even thinks she might know why.
“My God,” she says under her breath. She gives herself a moment, staring skyward and letting the tears come.
She takes deep lungfuls of air, feeling a new, heady lightness in her chest, then pulls out her phone, a trembling finger hovering over the call button.
Call Taylor, she thinks. Get a warrant, make an arrest. She’ll be the hero who solved Charlotte’s murder.
She’ll prove everyone wrong who thought she wasn’t up to the task: Tina Edris, Dr. Pete Thomson … Even herself.
Tina’s words roll through her mind once again: Blakelaw has only made you joint SIO because he needs plenty of heads in line to roll before his own.
Then Sam pictures the moment she told her godfather about DS Lowry grabbing her and sliding his fingers up her inner thigh.
She remembers the look in Harry’s eyes as he sighed and asked her if it was a case of he said, she said.
“You know I believe you, Sam, but we both know how these things go,” he’d said.
“I only want what’s best for you.” She’d thrown up in his wastepaper bin.
He’d taken her home, told her to leave it with him and he’d see that it all just went away.
Sam remembers finding out a few days later that Harry had pulled strings, called in favors and seen Lowry transferred to another police force.
Transferred with promotion, that is. Sam remembers the weeks that followed.
The nightmares, the depression, the fear.
Then the giant panic attack at work that saw an ambulance called and Sam carried out of the fourth-floor office, not strong enough to return for six months.
Sam takes a deep breath.
“Fuck Prozac,” she says, “and fuck Harry.”
Sam hits dial.
It’s time to start doing things differently. It’s time for her to take back control of her own story.