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Jennie has read about the relationship in the original investigation file, but she needs confirmation. ‘Can you tell us who you were in a relationship with?’
Edwards frowns. ‘Angela Totley. It should be in your files. I had to repeat it to your lot often enough when you hounded me before.’
Miss Totley had been one of the English teachers at White Cross Academy. ‘And have you seen her since?’
‘Yeah, right, like she’d want anything to do with me,’ says Edwards, bitterly. The springs creak as he shuffles back on the bed. ‘I wasn’t guilty of anything but ever since the papers printed my picture back in 1994, I’ve been treated as if I am. I mean, I wasn’t even a bloody suspect, but that didn’t matter, did it? No one cares about the bloody truth.’
‘So you haven’t seen her?’ asks Zuri.
‘No. She made it very clear she didn’t want anything more to do with me, so I’ve stayed away. I always hoped Hannah would come forward one day, alive and well, and maybe then I’d be able to rekindle something with Angela.’ He laughs bitterly. ‘That’s never going to happen now, is it?’
Jennie and Zuri say nothing.
‘Yeah, I’m a lost bloody cause, and it’s all because of you lot. Do you know I was top of my class in teaching training? I got a bloody first-class degree as well. I should have been a head of year or even a headteacher by now. Instead, I’m stuck in this shithole tutoring morons online.’ He looks at Jennie, his hands clenching into fists. ‘You lot fucked me over, screwed my career and buggered the only relationship I ever cared about. And now you’re here dredging it all up again.’
‘Hannah Jennings is dead.’ Jennie holds his gaze, fed up with his self-pitying bullshit. ‘I’m sure as one of her former teachers, you’re as keen as we are to find the person responsible.’
‘Well, yes.’ Edwards unclenches his fists. Looks away, out through the grubby window. ‘I am sorry she’s dead. She was a good student, like I said.’
Jennie sees no hint of compassion in Edwards’ expression, just a man wallowing in his own bitterness. ‘Can you tell me where you were on the night Hannah Jennings went missing?’
‘I was at home, with my fiancée, having dinner,’ replies Edwards, his voice getting louder, angrier.
‘And Angela Totley will confirm that?’ asks Jennie as Zuri scribbles notes onto her scratchpad.
‘I can’t confirm anything my ex-fiancée, who I haven’t seen in over twenty years, will say. How could I?’ shouts Edwards. Cursing loudly, he gets to his feet signalling that the interview is done. ‘All I know for sure is that I never touched Hannah Jennings.’
They leave Duncan Edwards, descend the uncared-for communal stairs to the ground floor. The stench of urine is almost unbearable, and Jennie can understand how hard it must be for Edwards, having fallen so far from the leafy, picturesque town of White Cross to this rundown, concrete-covered environment. No wonder he’s bitter. But even so, his lack of sympathy for Hannah’s death shocks her. Surely, if he was truly innocent, he’d express greater sadness?
As they exit through the propped-open foyer door, Jennie turns to Zuri and nods back towards the stairs. ‘That man really creeps me out.’
‘Yeah, he’s a creep, but I’m not sure he’s guilty of anything more,’ replies Zuri.
Jennie grimaces. Her intuition tells her Edwards is dodgy, but they’ve got nothing concrete from the interview. It’s so frustrating. The harder she digs, the murkier things become. ‘He’s hiding something.’
‘Maybe, says Zuri, thoughtfully. ‘But he’s not the only one. Rob Marwood withheld a hell of a lot of information from the first investigation. Elliott Naylor did too.’
Jennie nods. Zuri’s clearly still gunning for the darkroom crew but she has a valid point. Although Jennie isn’t totally convinced, she can feel doubt starting to niggle at her resolve. She wonders if schoolyard loyalty has blinded her to the truth.
Has she been looking in the wrong place all along?
Chapter 22
Elliott
Elliott tries to stay present as the midwife takes them through into the private examination room for their thirty-two-week scan. He and Luke have wanted to have kids for so long and now it’s finally happening. They’ve paid to go private every step of the way, not caring about the cost; uppermost in their minds are the outcome and the safety of their child and Belinda. And they’re so close to the birth now, the longest wait is almost over. He should feel joy, excitement, even wonder, but that’s not at all how it feels. Instead, as he watches the midwife take Belinda’s blood pressure, Elliott feels oddly removed, as if he’s not in the moment at all. This is meant to be the best time of his life, but since Hannah was found, everything has seemed suddenly and irreparably out of kilter.
‘So that’s all fine,’ says the midwife, smiling as she removes the blood-pressure cuff from Belinda’s arm. ‘Let’s take a look at baby, shall we?’
‘Great,’ says Belinda, pushing her curly blonde hair off her face as she moves back onto the bed. She looks at Elliott and Luke. ‘You ready to see how she’s doing?’
Elliott nods, smiling at Belinda as she lies back.
Luke takes Elliott’s hand in his left hand and Belinda’s hand in his right. ‘I’m so nervous.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ says Elliott, patting his husband’s hand. They’ve been together almost ten years and there’s nothing they don’t know about each other, almost nothing anyway. If anything, Luke has yearned for a child even more than Elliott. ‘It’s just a formality, just to make sure we’re totally prepared for the birth.’
‘I know, I know,’ says Luke. ‘I just want everything to be perfect.’
