Chapter 11
Eve followed the detective into the living room, where he sat down on the sofa and placed his jacket by his side.
He looked up, grim-faced, as she sat in the armchair next to him.
He was in his fifties, perhaps, not quite old enough to act paternally towards her, but she could see that he pitied her, that whatever he was about to tell her was going to make her feel like a fool.
‘I’m here about the man you’ve been visiting at twenty-one Norham Gardens.’
Eve’s heart fluttered. ‘What about him?’
‘So, he hasn’t told you?’
‘Told me what?’
‘That he’s been in prison?’
Her stomach sank. ‘No.’
He nodded. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Eve, but I’m here for your own protection.
You may have heard of Clare’s Law. It enables the police to disclose information about a convicted criminal to potential partners, if they feel a woman may be at risk of violence from him.
’ There was a pause, and then he said, ‘I’m here to tell you that the man you are seeing is a convicted murderer and rapist.’
Eve’s breath stopped in her chest, her mind unable to process this. ‘Are we talking about Joe?’
The detective looked hard at her. ‘His name’s not Joe.
It’s Jamie. Jamie Clarke. He’s not long come out of prison.
He was convicted in 2004 of the rape and murder of a thirty-three-year-old woman.
He bound her up, gagged her, raped her, then strangled her in her own kitchen while her little girl was asleep upstairs. ’
Eve’s tongue felt thick in her mouth. ‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?’
He looked sorry for her. ‘He’s a sex offender, Eve. He’s on the register. He shouldn’t even be talking to you without telling his probation officer, let alone inviting you into his house – which is not his house, obviously.’
‘But …’ Eve hesitated, confused. ‘It is. I mean … he lives there. I’ve been there. We went upstairs.’
He looked interested. ‘You’ve had sex with him?’
‘No!’ she protested. She lowered her eyes, overcome with shame at the way this had sounded, at her naivety. ‘He took me up to show me the loft conversion he’s building, and … and he definitely lives there.’ She hesitated, now doubtful. ‘Doesn’t he?’
‘Did he tell you it was his house?’
Eve cast her mind back. Had Joe ever actually come out and said that it was his? ‘I can’t remember,’ she admitted. ‘Maybe I just assumed he owned it. I mean, he had access to it. He had a key to the back door. I saw him open it. And I didn’t see anyone else.’
‘The owner’s away. He’s also been in prison. I suspect that’s how they met.’
‘And they live together?’ Eve felt her throat tighten. ‘How could that even be allowed to happen?’
‘Well, that’s a good question, but the probation service seem to have approved it.’
Eve shut her eyes, blinking back tears. When she opened them again, the detective’s face had visibly softened.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked her.
‘Isn’t he on licence?’ Eve asked. ‘Isn’t he supposed to be supervised? I’ve been to that house twice. Why am I only being told this now?’
‘Unfortunately, that’s the way it works.
Convicted criminals get to live in the community and go about their business and it’s left to us to keep an eye on them, but, as I’m sure you understand, we can’t do that twenty-four seven.
And they have rights. But I also have a duty to protect you, which is why I’m talking to you now. ’
‘I could have been hurt,’ Eve whispered. ‘I could have been killed.’
‘Yes. You could.’
‘And yet I’ve been there twice and he has only ever been nice to me.’
‘But you haven’t rejected him yet, have you?’
‘I don’t …?’
‘That’s his MO, Eve,’ the detective said. ‘He sees you. He likes you. He lures you in. And he seems like a nice guy at first.’
Eve swallowed hard, listening.
‘But before long, his true colours begin to show. He starts to say things – and do things – that creep you out a bit, and then you get frightened and realise that this isn’t someone normal, so you change your mind and tell him you don’t want to see him any more, which you are perfectly entitled to do, Eve.
But he doesn’t like it. It makes him angry.
He doesn’t like being told to go away. It makes him mad.
And so he rapes you, to teach you a lesson.
And then he kills you, because if he doesn’t, you’ll tell the police and he’ll go to jail.
And then, because you’re no longer there to tell the truth, he says he was your boyfriend and that there was consensual sexual activity between the two of you that very same day – but a bit earlier, of course.
And that …’ He paused and Eve felt the weight of his gaze.
‘That will explain away any DNA that might be found on your body. Right? Because he’s your boyfriend and he’s already been intimate with you. ’
Eve thought about Joe making her a cup of tea, about him reaching out a hand to pull her up into the loft, how he’d helped her out onto the scaffold board.
How much longer would it have been before he’d touched her in the kinds of places that would need to be explained away by a rapist?
By a murderer? She felt a shiver of ice run down her spine.
‘Are you telling me he’s done this more than once? ’
The detective gave her a sardonic smile. ‘They’ve always done it more than once – and they’ll always do it again. Until somebody stops them, that is.’
He paused and Eve met his gaze. He wanted something from her, she could tell.
‘So, you’ve met him twice?’ he asked. ‘Just twice?’
Eve thought about this. Did the first time count, that time in Blackwell’s?
She supposed that would depend on whether their meeting had been by chance or not.
She shivered again as she realised how foolish she’d been.
Where was her due diligence? She hadn’t even asked Joe’s surname.
She’d stopped her daughter from trying to find him online.
‘Think carefully, Eve,’ he said. ‘Because he’s got conditions on his licence and if he’s breached them, he’s going back to jail.’
‘We met three times,’ Eve said. ‘But the first time was in a public place. We were only alone together at his house twice.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ The detective looked pleased.
‘He’s in breach. I’ll let the probation team know.
He also gave you a false name, which he’s not allowed to do.
They’ll almost certainly recall him. And then he’ll be off the streets and you’ll be safe – you and all the other women in Oxford. ’ The detective looked at her. ‘OK?’
Was this OK? Eve thought of Joe being handcuffed and escorted out of the house in Norham Gardens, then taken to a police station and held in a cell until he could be put into a van and carted off back to prison.
There wouldn’t even be a trial. There would be no need for him to be proved guilty; it was in the hands of his probation officer, who only needed to press a button and he’d be back inside.
And all because of her, because of what she’d told this detective, who was now getting up from the sofa and putting on his jacket, ready to leave.
‘OK?’ he asked again.
Eve nodded, slowly. She’d done the right thing; she knew she’d done the right thing. So why did she feel so terrible?