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‘Telling us what, Mr Edwards?’ says Zuri, looking up from the notes she’s taking.
Edwards blows out hard.
Enough of his delaying tactics.
Jennie’s voice is firm. ‘Tell us what happened.’
‘She came straight up to me and kissed me, right there as I was standing at the desk. Starting rubbing me through my trousers. She had this wild look in her eye and kept saying she wanted me to fuck her right there in the classroom and that it was my “last chance”. I said no, it was too risky, but she didn’t care – said it didn’t matter any more if we got caught. It was crazy; anyone could have seen us. The way she was acting, totally demob happy … it freaked me out. I knew I had to stop it, whatever it was we were doing, right then. So I told her it had to end and I asked her to tell people the rumours were false.’
Edwards’ self-righteous tone infuriates Jennie. Blaming Hannah when he was supposed to be a responsible adult and her teacher! But she tries to hide her irritation. She needs to hear this, even if she despises the man. ‘And how did she react?’
‘She just smiled and shook her head at me.’ Edwards balls his hands into fists. There’s anger in his tone now. ‘Do you know what she said? She said no. And then she laughed at me while I pleaded with her to deny the rumours. She said, “But that wouldn’t be true, would it?” Then, as I begged her to change her mind, she said, “Goodbye, Mr Edwards,” and kissed me again. That’s when Angela came in and saw us and my whole bloody life was ruined.’
Chapter 30
‘He was shagging a pupil and he lied about it,’ says Jennie, looking around the team, and the DCI, who are gathered in the incident room listening to her briefing on the Edwards interview. ‘In my opinion, Duncan Edwards is a liar, and he’s still holding on to a lot of anger about what happened. We know he saw Hannah on the day she disappeared, and we know she refused to quash the rumours. He had motive, and as a teacher, he had access to the school basement.’
‘But he has an alibi and Angela Totley doesn’t have cause to lie for him,’ says Zuri.
‘She lied for him in the first investigation,’ counters Jennie.
‘Yes, but they had a relationship then; they don’t now,’ says Zuri, flicking through her notes. ‘Also, he saw Hannah much earlier in the afternoon. We have multiple witnesses who saw her after that time.’
Martin’s frowning. ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything, Edwards could have sought Hannah out later, desperate to get her to keep schtum about the affair.’
‘Good point, Martin. We need to check that out,’ replies Jennie. It seems a reach for Duncan Edwards and Angela Totley to be in on Hannah’s murder together, but she doesn’t want to rule it out. ‘So where are we with everything else?’
Martin clears his throat. He looks rather put out. ‘The forensics are back. There isn’t much, given the age and condition of the samples sent, but they did find a high concentration of hydrochloric acid on the remnants of the victim’s shirt.’
‘It’s likely she got the acid on her when she was developing pictures, isn’t it?’ says Zuri. ‘It’s used as part of the process.’
The rest of the team nod, agreeing with Zuri. Jennie stays silent as Naomi writes the forensics on the whiteboard. They used hydrochloric acid, and a bunch of other chemicals, in their photograph development processes in the basement darkroom, but it was only really she and Elliott who processed their own film. The others mainly just hung out, especially Hannah. She was always in front of the camera, not behind it. There’s no reason for acid to have been on her shirt.
When she’s finished writing, Naomi turns to Jennie. ‘I looked into the other school clubs that used the basement area. There were three of them – chess club, darts club and, on occasion, the drama club when they needed extra rehearsal space. They all used the bigger room between the darkroom and the boiler room, but none were given their own key.’
‘Okay,’ says Jennie. She hadn’t even realised White Cross Academy had a darts club.
‘I also followed up on Rob Marwood’s alibi,’ continues Naomi. ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral was scheduled to play at the White Cross Cinema that day, but their records show there was a problem with the projector in the main screening room. All the showings had to be cancelled while the engineers figured out the problem. They didn’t reopen until the following afternoon.’
‘So Marwood’s alibi was false?’ says Zuri.
‘Looks that way,’ replies Naomi.
Jennie feels a burst of triumph that her hunch had been right, followed by the crushing realisation that one of her old friends had lied about his whereabouts. She frowns. ‘That potentially puts Rob Marwood’s suicide in a different light.’
Zuri nods. ‘He lied about where he was. It’s possible he’s our killer.’
Jennie knows her DS is right. It’s possible Rob did have something to do with Hannah’s death; she can’t discount it. ‘What else do we have?’
‘I spoke to the headmistress,’ says Steve, reading from his notes. ‘Sheila Heseltine retired over ten years ago and now lives in Australia. She confirmed the school secretary’s story about the drainage guys not having access to the basement until one of the school staff unlocked it to let them in. She also confirmed that Duncan Edwards was pushed out after Hannah went missing. He was told that a disciplinary investigation was about to be started into his conduct, and apparently he jumped before he was fired. Mrs Heseltine said she’d told the police in the first investigation about her suspicions that he’d been having a relationship with Hannah.’
‘Okay, that’s helpful corroboration,’ says Jennie, waiting for Naomi to finish writing up the notes. ‘So let’s look at each of our suspects and discount or identify them as needing more investigation.’ She moves across to the whiteboard and reads from the suspect list in order. ‘Hannah’s dad, Paul Jennings – thoughts?’
‘He doesn’t have an alibi after he was fired from his job and forced to leave early, and we have witness sightings of him arguing at home and on the street outside with Hannah, and later finding her in the school basement,’ says Naomi.
Paul Jennings might have turned his life around since Hannah disappeared, but there’s no denying he was an angry, violent man back then, and he showed them a few glimpses of his old self during the last interview. She suspects he inflicted the injuries Hannah had sustained, and doesn’t doubt that if she hadn’t left the house that night, he would have done more damage. But Jennie’s not sure about the basement sighting. ‘Do we believe Elliott Naylor? He didn’t tell the police about Hannah or her dad during the original investigation. Something seems off to me.’
‘Agreed,’ says Zuri, nodding. ‘I think Naylor’s hiding something.’
