Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
DAN
‘But we’ve checked Tilly Ward out,’ Davis says. ‘We would’ve found something by now surely? And there’s no connection between her and Erin Santos.
‘You said yourself that she’s a vulnerable character, you know.’ She points to her ear rather than mention the word ‘deaf’ or ‘hard of hearing’. ‘No rap sheet, no prior, no history of—’
The door to my office swings open and Archer pokes her head around it.
‘Briefing, twenty-five minutes. Be ready, Riley, Davis…’
We nod in unison.
‘Ma’am.’
She pauses. ‘Are there any new leads? Has Santos called you again?’
‘No, ma’am,’ I answer her on autopilot, my thoughts elsewhere.
‘The boss here thinks that maybe Til—’ Davis starts to speak.
‘Yes, ma’am!’ I cut in loudly. Loudly enough for Archer to glare at me in surprise. I definitely do not want Davis to tell Archer what I think Davis thinks I’m currently thinking about Tilly Ward. Not right yet. I need more proof first.
‘We’ll be right down, ma’am.’
Archer narrows her eyes at me suspiciously. ‘Don’t be late.’ They’re still fixed on me as she closes the door behind her.
‘Go and gather the troops together, Lucy,’ I say. ‘I just need a moment to think.’
‘Well, don’t leave it too long, boss,’ – she nods behind her – ‘you’ve seen what kind of mood she’s in…’
They say a watched kettle never boils, but maybe the same rule doesn’t apply to mobile phones because the moment I look down at mine, it rings. Hallelujah, please let it be Erin.
‘Dan Riley speaking.’
‘What the blazes has she done now, eh?’ the gruff voice on the other end says. It’s an Australian voice, the accent is thick and strong and unmistakable.
‘Sorry, who is this, who am I speaking to?’
‘The name’s Edwards, Ken Edwards,’ he booms.
Edwards? As in Julie Edwards?
‘There was a message on our answer machine. Some sheila-woman left a message saying you wanted to speak to us about Julie. As soon as I heard that name… well, like I say, what’s the little bastard gone and done now?’
‘Is Julie your daughter?’
‘No, thank Christ,’ he says quickly. ‘She was my brother Ray’s girl, my niece. Haven’t seen her in many years now though. Why d’you wanna know about Jools? Has she been up to her old tricks again?’
‘What old tricks are they, Mr Edwards?’
‘Ken. Well, like I say, I haven’t seen the girl in years, but I remember her back when she was a kid. “Troubled” is the kindest way of puttin’ it.’
‘Troubled?’
‘Yeah, she was one strange little girl was Julie. The wife never liked her much, thought there was something off about her. He married a Pom – Vanessa. A few years after they had Julie, he brought them both out to Oz with him, She lived over with her mother, my brother’s ex-wife, in a prefab in Subby.
I s’pose I felt a bit sorry for the little girl really, having those two for parents.
He was a wrong ’un, my brother, used to beat the livin’ daylights out of her mother, he did, the brute.
Julie must’ve witnessed a lot of things she shouldn’t have as a kid. I think it turned her funny.’
‘Turned her funny?’
‘Yeah… as she got older, after her dad buggered off back to the UK and left them, she began to get herself into trouble, got herself known to the law, ended up in some naughty girls’ school for a while.
I know that her mother struggled to keep her in check.
A “chip off the old block”, she called her, just like her dad.
She was close to her dad. I dunno what it was that she did exactly that got her sent away, conned a friend and her family out of some money, or something like that. ’
I hold my breath.
‘Anyway, a stint in a naughty school didn’t do much to put her on the right path, Vanessa reckoned it made her worse if anything.
After that she just carried right on doing whatever she wanted.
She started stealing people’s identities so she could take out loans and buy stuff in their names.
I guess Vanessa was right and that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree because he was a shyster himself, was old Ray, changed his own name a few times – though it caught up with him eventually, like it always does. ’
He pauses, releases a breath.
‘Julie was a bit of a bunny-boiler type, she stalked people and all of that bullshit… I think she had a restraining order out on her at one time, I remember her mother telling me. Some poor fella she got fixated on… She was a very pretty girl though, all the boys liked her, and she was smart, like she could pick things up in an instant,’– he clicks his fingers down the line, in demonstration, – ‘languages, accents, computers… that girl learned to play the piano in just one weekend! Can you believe it? She just taught herself the notes one day, and the next, she was playing like she’d been practicing for years.
I suppose she was quite gifted really. Shame she was a total psycho.
’ He pauses again. ‘Ya can’t choose yer family, can you, mate? ’
‘When you say psycho…?’
‘No conscience, that’s what her mother told me and the wife.
Julie could do really shitty things to people and she just didn’t care.
She seemed to enjoy it, get a kick out of it even – or that’s how Vanessa told it anyway.
I think secretly she was glad when she went AWOL around the age of seventeen.
One day she just upped and vanished. Pouf! Gone! Her mother never saw her again.’
‘Do you know the name Samantha Valentine, Ken? Have you heard that name before?’
He thinks for a moment.
‘The kid who hanged herself, you mean? Yeah, the wife always thought that Julie had something to do with it – they were friends, her and that little local girl who topped herself. Sandra reckoned there was something evil about Julie, but then again, she’s a sheila and we all know they’re prone to a bit of drama, don’t we, mate?
’ He laughs. ‘Jools could be very persuasive, quite manipulative, but she was only a child herself at the time, so what could we do? It was Ray’s girl, wasn’t it, my own niece.
But me and Sandra, the wife, we had our own thoughts on why that tragedy happened… ’
‘I don’t suppose you have any old family photos you can send over, Ken? Any pictures you may have with Julie in them?’ If I can just get a positive ID…
‘I’m afraid not, mate.’ He sighs in apology, ‘Well, all except the one. I wasn’t that close to my brother in the end.
Like I say, Ray was a monumental arsehole.
He ended up where he deserved, in prison – where he topped himself too, as it went, stupid, selfish bastard…
’ His voice trails off a little. ‘No idea what happened to Vanessa in the end, probably drank herself to death, poor bitch… I can send it over if you like, though I don’t know if it’ll be any good to you?
I dug it out after you left that message, got me thinking about it all again.
’ He sighs. ‘It was taken the day that Julie was born. I’d been with my brother that afternoon, wetting the baby’s head in advance. ’ He chuckles.
‘Please, Ken, I’d like to see it.’
‘So, you gonna tell me what this is all about? Has Julie been causing trouble over the pond? She done someone else out of their life savings, is that it?’
I’m not sure I’d know where to even begin to tell him.
‘We’re just making some initial enquiries, Ken,’– I condense it – ‘find out some background. It may be that Julie has been using a false identity.’
He snorts.
‘Yeah, well, like I say, she was good at that, pretending to be someone else. I dunno, mate, you never know what you’re gonna get, do ya, when you have kids? You try to do right by ’em but some of them… well, some people are just born bad, I think.’
I’m gathering my stuff – and my thoughts – together for the briefing when Mitchell knocks on the door. Adriana, the new recruit, is behind her, looking sheepish, her eyes red and swollen, like she may have been crying.
‘Can we have a quick word, gov?’
‘Yeah, but the key word there is “quick”, Mitchell. The briefing starts in five minutes and Archer’s on the warpath…’
‘Um… Adriana here may have made a bit of a mistake, boss.’
Mitchell nods at Adriana encouragingly. ‘Go on… tell him.’
‘I… I’m really sorry, sir,’ – her voice sounds shaky – ‘sorry, sir, I mean, boss, I… well, I…’
‘Come on, Adriana,’ – I cajole her – ‘spit it out. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.’
Only judging by her expression, I’m not so sure.
‘I don’t know how it happened, boss. I must’ve just got confused, didn’t check properly.’
‘She’s new to the game.’ Mitchell gives me a look that says, ‘Go easy on her.’
‘What didn’t you check properly, Adriana?’
She brushes some hair out of her puffy eyes.
‘Katy Russell. The one who commented on Samantha Valentine’s sketch on social media, the one who was friends with a girl at prep school with the same name.’
‘What about her?’
‘Well, umm, she also told us about a girl named Julie Edwards… an English girl who joined the school mid-term, and broke up her friendship with Samantha—’
‘Yes… yes…’ I roll my hand. ‘I’ve just been speaking to her uncle.
What about her?’ It comes to me suddenly then.
Ray. Ken has just told me that his brother’s name was Ray.
Didn’t Erin tell me that Ray was her stepdad’s name?
Ray Denis, the man who killed her mother, and subsequently himself, while he was in prison?
‘I sent Katy the photo of Erin Santos…’ Adriana continues telling me what I already know. I need her to get to the point. ‘And she identified Erin as being this Julie Edwards girl, I know…’
‘I suppose it was a fairly easy mistake to make, gov,’ Mitchell chimes in.
My phone beeps. Ken has sent the photo.
‘What’s an easy mistake to make?’ I’m only half listening as I click on it.
‘I-sent-the-wrong-photo.’ Adriana blurts out, as though saying it quickly might make it less true. ‘Somehow, instead of sending Erin’s mugshot over to Katy, which I thought I had done, I sent Tilly Ward’s.’
OK, now I look up.
‘What?’
‘I know, sir, boss, I’m really sorry…’ Poor Adriana looks devastated, biting her bottom lip. ‘Katy identified the wrong person, because I messed up and sent her the wrong photo.’
I blink at her. But if that’s right, then that would mean…
I look down at the image Ken’s just sent over.
You can tell it’s old by the faded tones and the style of clothes they’re wearing.
The woman in the middle, Vanessa, I assume, is in a hospital bed, holding a newborn wrapped in a white receiving blanket, looking down at her precious gift with a worn-out smile.
Two men stand either side of her, one of them – Ray, I assume – is half sitting on the bed with her, leaning over to peer inside the blanket at his new arrival, while Uncle Ken beams proudly next to them, a can of lager raised in his hand. And then I see it.
‘… And so I’ve contacted Katy Russell again, to apologise, and sent her Erin’s photo this time, like I should’ve done in the first place, and…’
Adriana is still explaining away in the background, but I’ve stopped listening.
There, in the photograph Ken has just sent me, just visible in the left-hand corner, is a plaque that reads, ‘Maternity Department’, and underneath it is another sign, a smaller one that reads ‘Matilda Ward’.
I almost leap over my desk.
‘You, Adriana,’ – I seize her by her forearms – ‘are a genius!’ It’s all I can do to stop myself from picking her up and giving her a twirl.
Matilda Ward – Tilly Ward. She’s used the name of the ward she was born on.
How had she done that so successfully? Had she taken the identity of a dead person named Matilda Ward, someone who had passed away young, and assumed it as her own?
She had to have done because her ID had all checked out, it was all legit, British birth certificate, National Insurance number…
all the dates added up. I pause for a moment, stunned. Wow. What a clever girl she really is.
Adriana glances at Mitchell, eyes wide in shock.
‘So, you’re not mad then, boss?’ Mitchell’s brow is crinkled in confusion.
‘Define “mad”, Mitchell!’ I say. ‘I have to go somewhere.’
‘But I thought… the briefing boss… what shall I tell Archer?’
I grab my car keys and the phone from my desk and throw my coat on.
‘Tell her I’ve gone Christmas shopping – I won’t be long.’