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Paul Jennings jerks his head up as if she’s just slapped him.
‘We spoke to the company you worked for, Paul,’ says Martin, his tone casual. ‘You left the site early on the night Hannah disappeared because they sacked you. You’d been drunk when you showed up for your shift and it wasn’t the first time.’
Paul Jennings bows his head. ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah, mate,’ says Martin, conversationally. ‘Best if you tell us the truth now.’
Hannah’s dad swears under his breath. Shakes his head again. ‘Look, I loved that girl, I really did. She was the only good thing I had left in my life back then, but I was angry after my wife buggered off, and bitter. Really bitter. Sometimes I had too much to drink. Other times, I’d take it out on Hannah.’ He looks from Martin to Jennie. His voice cracks as he continues. ‘I’m not proud of the man I was back then, in fact, I’m really bloody ashamed of him. But I’m different now. I got help, stayed with the programme, and turned stuff around. I just wish Hannah was here to have seen it.’
Jennie’s not sure what to believe. Paul Jennings has lied to them, but he also seems genuinely penitent. ‘What happened that night?’ she asks, gently.
‘Site security escorted me from the job after I was sacked. It was humiliating. I was raging, and that made me thirsty, so I stopped at a 7/11 on the way back and picked up a bottle of cheap whiskey. I’d drunk most of it by the time I got home.’ Paul pauses. Blows out hard. ‘I was in a bad way, so when I found Hannah with a packed rucksack, clearly about to leave the house, I got mad. We argued and she told me she was leaving home. I told her no, she was grounded, but she just laughed. She told me she’d be better off in London with her mum and her new husband. I felt rejected and I …’
‘It’s all right, you can tell us,’ says Martin, nodding encouragingly.
‘The red mist descended – it did that a lot after I’d been drinking.’ Paul Jennings pauses again. Blows out hard. He looks at Jennie. ‘I hit Hannah. Did it before I even knew what I was doing. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the worst. She fell. Hit her head on the floor …’
Jennie stares at him. The strip lighting flickers. The walls seem to be closing in.
He killed Hannah?
‘Next moment she was up and screaming at me. She grabbed her rucksack and ran out of the house. I tried to follow. Managed to catch up with her along the pavement but she pulled away from me and I was too drunk, too unsteady on my feet, to keep up.’ Paul shakes his head, his disgust at his own actions clear on his face. ‘The last thing I said to my little girl was that she was dead to me. She died thinking I hated her. I never got to tell her I was sorry.’
Hannah’s dad slumps forward, his head in his hands, and cries. Jennie stares. He’s admitted to hurting his daughter while under the influence of alcohol, but is he a remorseful man, someone to be pitied as much as he is to be reviled? Or is he a drunken, vengeful killer who is still trying to get away with murder thirty years later? She’s not sure. ‘Is that the last time you saw Hannah?’
Paul Jennings straightens up. His cheeks are damp and his eyes bloodshot. ‘Yes. After she’d run off I went back into the house. I thought she’d stay with a friend and come back the next morning, but when she still wasn’t home by lunchtime I called the police and reported her missing.’
‘You sure about that, mate?’ asks Martin, shifting forward on his chair.
Paul Jennings nods. ‘Completely. I passed out on the sofa pretty soon afterwards. Didn’t wake up until gone ten the next morning. I had the hangover from hell and felt sick to my stomach at what I’d done to Hannah.’
‘Did you go to the school?’ asks Jennie.
Hannah’s dad looks confused. ‘The school, why would I …?’
Jennie keeps her tone matter of fact. ‘We have a witness who puts you at the school after dark on the evening Hannah disappeared.’
Paul Jennings shakes his head vehemently. ‘I never went near the school.’
Jennie consults her notes. ‘So you didn’t go into the darkroom in the school basement that evening after you and Hannah argued?’
‘The basement? I’ve never been in the basement of the school. Why would I have been?’ Paul Jennings looks from Jennie to Martin, confused. His tone hardens. ‘Who said I was there?’
‘I can’t disclose that, Mr Jennings. But we have a witness who says that they left you in the basement darkroom with Hannah that evening. They reported you as being extremely angry and aggressive.’
Paul Jennings stares at Jennie with thinly disguised fury. ‘That’s a lie, it’s a bloody lie.’
She holds his gaze, refusing to let him intimidate her. ‘The witness said Hannah turned up a few minutes before you looking very distressed. Then you arrived and the pair of you argued. The witness left because they felt uncomfortable and your behaviour scared them.’
Paul shakes his head vigorously. ‘No, it’s not true. I was never there. Never. I only found out that darkroom was her “special place” after she’d disappeared. It was all over the papers, you know? Nasty rumours about what my little girl had been doing at that school with that bloody teacher, the pervert. If Hannah went to the school basement that night it wasn’t me she was with, it was him. Duncan Edwards, her so-called art teacher. The papers made a big thing about how close she was with him. I bet they used the darkroom for their “assignations”.’ Paul Jennings slams his fists down hard on the interview room table and it vibrates from the blow. ‘That man violated my child and no one did a bloody thing about it, did they? You should be questioning him, not me.’
Jennie keeps her expression professional. She can’t let Jennings’ anger derail her.
Paul Jennings squares up. His calm facade is gone, showing them the violent man he was before. He glares back at Jennie, defiant. ‘I never set foot in that bloody school.’
Chapter 14
Alone in the incident room, Jennie stands in front of the whiteboard, her mind whirring. The feelings of betrayal and hurt that she’s harboured all these years about her friend ditching her have finally started to subside, but in their place are new emotions: rage, injustice, and most of all, the absolute necessity to find out who killed Hannah. Paul Jennings had inflicted horrific injuries on his daughter. Is it possible he murdered her?
