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Elliott nods. ‘Yes, I was. It was dark when I left.’
‘And you told the detectives that the last time you’d seen Hannah was two days before she disappeared?’
‘I had seen her two days earlier.’ Elliott’s voice is meek, like a penitent child. ‘But I also saw her that night.’
Jennie can’t fully suppress the anger in her voice as she asks, ‘Why didn’t you think it was relevant for the detectives to know about the argument between Hannah and her dad?’
‘I was an idiot, okay. I know that.’ Elliott presses his hands together, interlacing his fingers and clenching them tight. ‘But the papers said Hannah had been seen by a witness at the train station later in the evening, so it wasn’t relevant that she’d argued with her dad earlier, was it? He couldn’t have done anything to hurt her because she’d been seen several hours later looking perfectly okay. I was convinced she was fine.’
She thinks back to all the sightings of Hannah posted on the Class of ’94 Facebook page over the years. Eyewitness statements, even when made with the best of intentions, are often inaccurate on some level.
Elliott, seemingly unsettled by Jennie’s silence, continues talking. ‘The witness came forward, didn’t they? The police ruled that Hannah had run away and I believed them. We all believed them. How was I to know they were wrong? I mean, back then, it seemed that me having seen her earlier was irrelevant and her dad was already going through hell, so …’ He hangs his head, looking as if stress is eating away at him as he scratches the raised pink eczema on his hands. ‘How was I to know she never left the basement?’
Jennie wants to shake him. No matter how scared he’d felt of Hannah’s dad, he should have told the police this at the time. Or her, he could have told her.
Glancing at Zuri, Jennie sees the thinly disguised disgust on her colleague’s face. Jennie feels it too, but she’s also fighting back fury. Elliott had been both her friend and Hannah’s. He was the person she trusted most after Hannah. She thought they had no secrets, yet he kept something to himself that could have been critical to finding Hannah. She can’t get her head round it.
Forcing her feelings down, she swallows hard and does her best to sound composed. ‘Is there anything else you missed out in your original statement?’
Elliott shakes his head. He looks up at her, utterly guilt-stricken. ‘Is Hannah’s death my fault? Did I leave her when she needed me most?’
Jennie wants to say no, but she can’t help thinking, Yes. Yes, you did.
Chapter 12
‘What else have we got?’
The team is gathered in the interview room. Jennie has summarised the information from her conversations with Elliott Naylor and Paul Jennings, and Zuri has walked them through the post-mortem findings. Jennie feels increasingly disturbed by the growing evidence of Hannah’s turbulent family life. She knew it was volatile, but Hannah never let on exactly how bad.
‘I’ve checked the local A&E records looking for cross-reference to the post-mortem findings,’ says Zuri, from her usual seat at the front of the room. ‘There was no reference to the rib injury, but the notes from when she attended with a broken wrist indicate the doctors didn’t believe it was caused by the fall Hannah described to them. There’s a note in the record asking for social services to follow up, but when I checked with social services, there’s no record of that happening.’
‘Was Hannah’s dad with her at the hospital?’ asks Jennie, ignoring the vibrating of her phone in her pocket; the caller will have to wait.
Zuri nods. ‘Yes, but he wasn’t at the visit she made four weeks before she disappeared. On that occasion she was treated for a heroin overdose and had light bruising to her chest and neck, following her friend’s attempt to resuscitate her.’
What the …?
Jennie knew nothing about this. Surely Hannah would have told her? She struggles to keep an even, calm tone to her voice as she says, ‘You’re sure?’
‘Totally,’ says Zuri. ‘There’s a comprehensive write-up on Hannah’s patient record.’
‘So who was the friend?’ asks Martin, putting his mug of coffee down on the desk beside him.
Good question, thinks Jennie. Who was the friend?
Zuri flicks over the page of her pad and reads from her notes. ‘Robert Marwood.’
Rob?
Jennie battles to keep the shock from her face. She knew the darkroom crew had smoked weed in the basement; they even offered her some. That was the reason Rob first warmed to her – her willingness to try smoking a joint even though she nearly coughed her lungs up the first few times. But taking hard drugs – heroin – that was in a whole different league. Hannah never told her about taking harder drugs, or about the overdose. She also never said she met up with other members of the darkroom crew without her. She remembers Hannah telling her multiple times that it was only Jennie she got together with outside the group.
Jennie’s blindsided. She never suspected Hannah lied to her, ever. She was like her sister, like her real family. Getting together in the darkroom with Hannah and the crew had been Jennie’s refuge from her shitty life, the one good thing about that time. Now, with the revelations about Hannah’s drug taking and Elliott hiding the truth about seeing Hannah the night she’d disappeared, it’s starting to feel like their tight-knit friendship was a lie.
‘Rob Marwood? He was one of the witnesses the original investigation spoke to, right?’ asks Steve, rubbing his eyes and looking as knackered as ever.
‘Yes,’ says Jennie, her voice coming out as more of a croak. She clears her throat. Tries to push away the emotion that feels as if it’s tightening around her throat.
Focus. I have to focus.
