Chapter 9
NINE
DAN
Her eyes dart between them, frantically searching their faces for answers. I watch from the camera link in the next room as she drags her palms down her face.
‘We’re doing our best to locate her, Tilly,’ Davis reassures her. ‘Let’s sit down, take this one step at a time, OK?’
‘I don’t understand.’ She retakes her seat on the plastic chair. ‘Why hasn’t she come forward? What’s happened? Where is she?’
‘It’s OK, Tilly.’ Parker’s voice is soothing, which is partly why I’ve decided to place him this side of the screen, along with the more experienced Lucy. His self-effacing demeanour helps put people at ease whilst belying the dangerous weapon he conceals with him at all times – his sharp mind.
‘That’s why we’re here, to get some answers, find out what’s happened, OK?’
‘Yes.’ Her puffy eyes drop along with her volume. ‘Of course.’
‘What can you tell us about your friend, Samantha Valentine, Tilly?’
‘What can I tell you about her?’ She says it as though she doesn’t specifically understand the nature of the question.
‘Well, for instance, how long have you known her, where did you meet?’
‘We met in the bookshop, where I work, around four months ago.’ Her mouth forms a small, slightly wan smile. She has a pretty smile though, and her teeth are small and neat and white, but not so white that it’s the first thing you notice.
‘We’re both avid readers, though Sam’s more into romantic fiction, fantasy stuff and what-not, whereas I prefer biographies and historical novels.’
The duty solicitor begins scribbling in his notepad.
‘Look, please, I want to say, now, on record, that I never meant to kill Milo Harrison.’ Her voice is a shaky plea.
‘I really didn’t intend to hurt him, or anyone…
I acted in self-defence!’ She removes her glasses, rubs her eyes.
‘He had a knife! And… I just… there was a knife on the kitchen work surface and… I can’t remember exactly, but we, or she – Samantha – picked it up, and then somehow I was holding it, and then when he came at me, came at us both, I just…
’ She makes a single stabbing motion with her hand – her left hand.
‘I just wanted to stop him from hurting her… I’m not a murderer!’ She breaks down again. ‘Am I going to prison for this?’ I can feel her distress coming through the screen. It’s uncomfortable viewing.
‘Which hand were you holding the knife in, Tilly?’
She wipes her nose with the back of her sleeve. Wearing standard custody uniform of a grey shirt and sweatpants that look at least two sizes too big for her, she reminds me of a child who forgot to bring their PE kit to lesson and had to wear something from lost property.
‘Sorry, can you repeat that? I… didn’t catch it…’ She taps her ear.
‘Of course, I’m sorry,’ Davis apologises. ‘Which hand were you holding the knife in when you stabbed Mr Harrison?’
‘My left hand.’ Her voice is brittle with emotion. ‘I’m left-handed.’
This tallies up with what Vic Leyton had initially surmised at the crime scene. Only Tilly Ward isn’t denying that she stabbed Milo Harrison, whether it be with her left hand or right. She’s admitted to inflicting the fatal wound. This is about intent – and motive.
‘Samantha is left-handed too, coincidentally.’
My eyebrows instinctively rise.
‘Is she?’
‘We don’t have much in common,’ she sniffs. Her face is a melted mess of tears and mucus – someone offer the poor girl a tissue, for goodness’ sake! ‘But that’s one thing we do share.’
Davis leans in a touch across the table.
‘We’ve done some initial investigations, Tilly, and some of the information you have given us doesn’t appear to be correct.’
She looks at once both shocked and confused.
‘I’m… I’m sorry? What isn’t correct?’
‘The information you gave us about Samantha living at Stockwell Gardens with Milo Harrison.’
Her eyes dart between them both.
‘I don’t understand. Sorry, what do you mean, “isn’t correct”?’
‘No one called Samantha Valentine lives at that address, Tilly.’
‘Yes, she does,’ she says, with a degree of conviction beneath the confusion. ‘She lives at Stockwell Gardens. I pick her up and drop her off there all the time.’
‘Have you ever been inside the apartment before, Tilly, prior to yesterday, I mean?’
‘Actually, no, I haven’t. Usually I’ll wait around the corner for her whenever I pick her up and I always drop her a little distance away so that he, Milo, won’t see us. To be honest, after everything she told me about him, I was frightened of him myself.’
‘But she told you that’s where she lived, apartment 31, Stockwell Gardens?’
‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that?’ She taps the hearing aid again. ‘Sometimes this thing plays up a bit.’
‘It’s OK, Tilly. Take your time. You say you knew Samantha lived at 31 Stockwell Gardens, that’s where she told you she lived…’
‘Why do you keep asking me about her address?’ Her growing frustration is evident. ‘I’m sorry,’ she immediately apologises. ‘But… doesn’t she live there then? Is that what you’re trying to say…?’
‘Ah, there you are, Riley!’
I swing round from the computer as my boss, Superintendent Gwendoline Archer, enters the room with something of an uncharacteristic flourish.
‘So, are we any closer to a charge yet?’ She sidles up next to me and leans in to watch the screen. ‘What’s it going to be, murder, or manslaughter with diminished? She’s admitted to fatally stabbing the victim, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes, ma’am, she has. This isn’t a case of if she did it, it’s why she did it. The account she’s given us so far seems genuine, minus this all-important elusive witness, Samantha Valentine, who apparently can corroborate everything.’
‘… Elusive?’ Archer says without diverting her eyes.
‘… Well, as yet we can’t locate her, ma’am, if indeed she exists at all.’
She pulls back from me a touch.
‘What do you mean, if she even exists at all? She either does or she doesn’t.’
‘Well, no one by that name lives or has ever lived at the address of the deceased, ma’am.’
She looks intrigued.
‘No one has seen anyone fitting the description of Samantha Valentine given to us by Tilly, either in or around the apartment or with the deceased, and initial CCTV appears to back that up, though Tilly here is claiming that they’re a cohabiting couple who’re engaged to be married – it doesn’t make sense.
We’ve checked local hospitals and women’s refuges to see if anyone by the name Samantha Valentine has turned up there, but…
nothing so far. There’s no contact number in Tilly’s iPhone for her, and there’s no photo evidence or anything from social media.
The phone is with the tech team now, ma’am, but so far we haven’t found one single piece of evidence that links any of these three people together in any tangible way.
’ I face her. ‘It’s quite unusual to say the least.’
‘You think it’s a wild goose chase?’
‘I don’t know yet, ma’am. I’m not sure what to make of it.’
She flashes me a wide-eyed look, as though my perplexity pleases her on some level.
‘Tilly Ward’s account sounds legit. In my opinion, she comes across authentic.
And well,’ I nod at the screen, ‘look at her! She’s a tiny, thirty-six-year-old who works in a bookshop and wears a hearing aid.
She has no previous, her record is spotless, and she has no history of violence or mental health disorder.
By the accounts coming in from her colleagues at Waterford’s bookshop, she’s a perfectly nice, unassuming, ordinary, shy type of person who seems to have got herself mixed up in something tragic… ’
‘… And yet?’
‘And yet, what, ma’am?’
‘And yet I’m sensing there’s an “and yet” coming, Riley…’
Admittedly, my boss knows me pretty well.
‘I think we should put an APB out on this Samantha Valentine, get the name out on social media. Let’s see what, if anything, comes back from it.
If she exists, then someone knows her, maybe knows where she is.
Milo Harrison is dead, he’s no longer a threat to her, if he was ever one to begin with, so why hasn’t the witness come forward to back up Tilly’s story, the friend who allegedly saved her life? ’
‘How long have we got left with her?’
‘Less than nine hours, ma’am.’
There’s a knock on the door and DC Mitchell pops her head around it.
‘There’s nothing doing on the search at Tilly Ward’s address, gov, ma’am,’ she says.
‘Nothing that corroborates Tilly’s story or evidence of a friendship with anyone named Samantha Valentine.
No photos, no birthday or Christmas cards, nothing to link them together.
’ Her mouth is a thin, apologetic line. ‘It’s not a big apartment, gov, there’s nothing much there but for a few clothes and some basic possessions. I’m sorry.’
I feel a tinge of sadness as I imagine Tilly Ward living alone in a small, sparsely furnished flat. I wonder what her life is really like.
‘It gets worse, boss. They didn’t find anything that can directly link her to the victim either, nothing to suggest they were previously known to each other, no obvious connection, and Milo Harrison’s family has confirmed that he lived alone – no regular girlfriend and definitely no fiancée – they’ve never heard the names Tilly Ward or Samantha Valentine before. ’
Archer drags her face away from the screen.
‘There must be a reason why this has happened, a motive.’ I look up at Archer. ‘And people don’t just vanish into thin air like a magician’s trick. We need to find this Samantha Valentine and get some answers.’
‘So you believe Tilly Ward’s account that this witness is real, is that what you’re saying, Riley?’
I pause, not wanting to commit myself either way.
‘I don’t know what our exact position should be on this just yet, ma’am.
It just seems such an unlikely, fantastical story for someone like Tilly Ward to have made up in such detail.
And we have intel from the neighbour to say that Milo Harrison may have been stalked or harassed by a former female sexual encounter, a blonde.
According to Tilly Ward, Samantha Valentine is a blonde, and we’ve identified a blonde-haired person from CCTV footage outside Milo’s apartment from a few weeks back.
I really think we need to dig a little deeper. Try and identify her.’
‘So you do think she exists then?’
‘I’d like to exhaust every avenue proving otherwise first.’ I meet her eyes. ‘I’ve been in the game a long time now, ma’am, and I get a good sense of who is telling me the truth and who is trying to pull the wool over my eyes.’
‘Ah yes, the distinguished Dan Riley’s infamous intuition that all the ladies are going mad for…’
Distinguished? She’s the second person to have called me this in as many days.
The just-got-out-of-bed look really must be making a comeback.
She lifts up the newspaper that I’ve only just now realised she’s holding, and I roll my eyes. Not her as well.
‘Oh, don’t be so modest, Dan,’ she smiles, wryly. ‘The Press Department is exceptionally pleased with the article, as is the commissioner, so well done you!’
This is high praise indeed, coming from her.
‘Things like this really do help bridge that gap between the public and ourselves, Dan. You really highlighted the difficulties and personal sacrifices we face every day in the job, as well as our dedication to solving crime. They think you came across as very likeable, very human.’
‘It wasn’t too difficult, ma’am, being as though I am one.’
‘Yes, well, that’s debatable, Riley,’ she quips, ‘but you seem to have been a big hit – especially with the…’ she pauses, ‘… the female audience… a few have left some, how can I say, “favourable comments” on social media.
I feel my cheeks glow warm.
‘You’re winding me up, I—’
But before I can finish, something draws my eye back towards the computer screen.
Tilly Ward is on her feet, pacing the interview room. Her hands are linked together on top of her head, and her face is red. She’s visibly upset.
‘I want to speak to Detective Riley,’ she cries. ‘Please, can you ask him to come? I only want to speak to Detective Riley.’
Archer lifts a perfectly shaped eyebrow as she turns to me with a smirk.
‘See what I mean?’