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Lottie is staring directly at her.
Chapter 4
‘So it’s murder.’ DCI Dave Campbell states it as a fact rather than asking a question. Leaning back in his chair, his attention is now fully on Jennie rather than the spreadsheet he was grappling with a few moments earlier. He indicates for her to take a seat.
Jennie sits down on the only free chair in the rather cramped office. ‘Hassan thinks so. She appears to have been strangled, and was found buried beneath pipework and a poured-concrete floor.’
The DCI looks thoughtful as he runs a hand over his close-trimmed grey beard. ‘Any idea who she is?’
‘Nothing confirmed as yet, but the age, timing and some of the clothing found with the victim’s remains suggest it could be Hannah Jennings.’ She glances down at the battered-looking buff folder on her lap. ‘I’ve had a scan of the old case file. Jennings was a local schoolgirl. She was reported missing in June 1994 but never found.’
‘Jesus,’ says Campbell, exhaling hard. ‘This is all we need, yet another cock-up for the local press to bang on about.’
‘Sorry, sir.’ Jennie knows the DCI has been in damage control mode ever since there was public outcry over how one of the other teams mishandled the response to an attempted abduction of three teenage girls a few months back.
‘Not your fault,’ he says, the weariness clear in his voice. ‘But we need a quick result on this, and zero errors. The whole town will be watching.’
Jennie nods. Stout, greying and with less than a year until he takes retirement, the DCI’s physical appearance and usually unfailingly can-do demeanour has always made her think of him as an ageing hobbit. But that’s changed since the attempted abductions and the problems highlighted in the force by the mishandling of the incident. Campbell seems to have aged ten years in just a few short months and his behaviour is decidedly more ogre-like. ‘Forensics have expedited the comparison of the misper’s dental records, so we should get confirmation of the ID soon.’
‘Good. Let me know as soon as you have it,’ says Campbell. ‘We’ll need to get out in front of this with the media.’
‘Understood,’ says Jennie. She’s certain the dental record identification is just a formality. They’ve found Hannah after all these years. She can feel it.
The DCI frowns. ‘You all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ Jennie looks away, glancing out through the glass wall of Campbell’s office into the open-plan area where Zuri is gathering the team for a briefing in the incident room.
Campbell’s expression remains concerned. ‘This misper who disappeared in 1994, I assume they were a pupil at the academy?’
‘Yes, she was in the upper sixth.’
The DCI rubs his chin, thinking. ‘1994 is a while before I moved here, but isn’t that when you were a pupil at the school?’
Jennie feels suddenly cold. She knows where the DCI’s going with this: he’s wondering if she can really investigate a case impartially if she knew the victim. ‘I moved to White Cross in 1993 and joined the school that autumn for my last year of sixth form.’
‘You were in the same year group?’ Campbell asks, raising his eyebrows. ‘Were you friends with this …?’
‘Hannah Jennings.’
‘So were you?’ asks Campbell.
She was like a sister to me.
Jennie knows she’s on dodgy ground; the DCI can smell bullshit at a hundred paces. She shakes her head. ‘I barely knew her, sir. It was a big sixth form and the other kids had known each other for years. I was the newbie and I kept to myself mostly. It was just after my dad was killed so I … I wasn’t feeling that sociable.’
The DCI keeps his gaze on her. ‘Nonetheless, it must have been unsettling?’
It felt as if my life had ended.
Jennie knows the DCI was an excellent detective in the field. On his desk, alongside the framed picture of his wife Lillian and their two daughters, there’s a framed Community Policing Lifetime Achievement award that he was presented with the previous year. He’s watching her now as if she’s a suspect; one wrong move or word and he’ll see past her lies. She fights to keep her neutral expression and hopes her voice doesn’t give her away. ‘I can only vaguely remember that time. There were a few posters up around the town and some stories in the newspaper, but I think most people believed she’d run away to London.’
‘Still, it must have been traumatic having a fellow student go missing?’
I’ve felt adrift all these years, never able to move on from the jilted teen I was that night in the rain at the bus stop. I’ve been waiting for a call, an email, or a knock on the door. For Hannah to come back and tell me why she left me.
Jennie shakes her head. This isn’t working; she needs to show him some emotion to sell him the lie. ‘Not as traumatic as my dad getting blown up in Bosnia. I was still grieving for him, nothing else really registered with me for several years afterwards. That’s why I flunked my exams and took a while to decide what to do for a career.’ She injects her tone with a bit of anger. ‘But you should know that; it’s all in my personnel records.’
Campbell looks contrite. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to drag up—’
