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There’s a person reflected in the mirrored shades. Zooming in, Jennie’s breath catches in her throat as she realises who it is. It’s Rob, bare-chested and barefooted. He has the same wild look on his face and Jennie’s camera in his hand.
Jennie knows she wasn’t there when this was taken. For one thing, she’d never have allowed Rob to use her camera. And for another, she never saw him without a shirt on. Was this one of the times Hannah and Rob had met up to get high? From their expressions it certainly looks like it could be.
She clicks onto the next picture. It’s blurred and taken at an angle, as if the person holding the camera hadn’t meant to take it, but on the table beside the burgundy sofa she can make out bottles of alcohol – Thunderbird and vodka – and what looks like some smaller objects that Jennie can’t help but presume are drugs.
Jennie feels her heart rate accelerate.
When was this picture taken? Could this have been the night Hannah disappeared? Did Hannah and Rob get high, and something go wrong again, but this time Hannah died? Is Zuri’s theory that Rob is the killer, even if accidentally, correct? Is that why Rob lied about his alibi?
Is that why Hannah never arrived at the bus stop?
As Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ plays on her phone, Jennie clicks onto the final picture.
What the …?
Although not perfect, the focus is better in this one and she easily identifies the people in the shot. Simon, wearing only his boxer shorts and a headband that makes his blond hair stick up at weird angles, is leaning over Lottie, who’s lying on the sofa, and he’s trying to pour vodka from the bottle into her mouth. Elliott is developing negatives in the darkroom behind them, while Hannah looks as if she’s dancing in the space between the sofa and Elliott. Jennie guesses Rob was taking the photo.
The five of them were having a party without her.
Standing up, Jennie moves across to where the negatives are drying and unclips them from the string line. She checks the time stamp on them. Feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
The last three photographs are date-stamped 06-06-94 and the time taken ranges from 21:49 to 21:57. Hannah disappeared on Thursday 9 June, 1994. All these photos were taken earlier in the week Hannah disappeared.
Jennie feels a stab of jealousy. They were partying without her. Hadn’t she been part of the crew? Why had they excluded her?
As she turns back towards the laptop, preoccupied, Jennie knocks the open bottle of hydrochloric acid with her arm. It tips and she has to move fast to stop it from emptying onto the floor. As she grabs the tipping bottle, some acid splashes onto her hand.
Shit.
Rushing to the sink, Jennie runs the cold water and holds her hand under it, watching as an angry red burn appears on her skin.
Fighting back tears, she wonders if she really knew her so-called friends at all. The more she has discovered through the investigation, the more it’s seemed the answer to the question is no, especially now. The final, soul-crushing lyrics of ‘Creep’ have never felt truer. She didn’t belong there.
Turning off the tap, Jennie looks at the burn on her hand. It hurts, but it’s not so bad that she needs medical attention. Instead, she gets a tube of aloe vera from the cupboard and covers the blistered patch of skin.
Trying to push away the feelings of rejection and exclusion, Jennie switches off the music app. She needs to think about what she’s discovered and how it might relate to Hannah’s disappearance. The house is dead-of-night quiet now, eerily so, but she welcomes the silence. Thoughts about each of her old school friends are ricocheting through her mind. She needs to order them, to try to take her emotions out of it and be objective, logical.
Rob was with Hannah in the photos. He admitted the pair of them were the wildest of the group, far wilder than Jennie ever realised at the time. He was obsessed with Flatliners, which she’d already known, and Simon had told them Rob was always experimenting to try to achieve the next level of consciousness. They had the medical records to prove that Hannah had an accidental overdose while taking drugs with Rob, and Rob had admitted it. He’d said it was a one-off, but the photos Jennie has just found prove that was a lie.
Simon had said Rob and Hannah experimented using neck ligatures to further heighten their drug-induced highs. Given the marks on Hannah’s neck documented in her medical records during the visit with Rob four weeks before her death, Jennie’s inclined to believe him. Rob told them he was at the cinema when Hannah went missing, but they now know that must have been a lie. Was he in the basement, hiding her body instead? Jennie shakes her head. She has so many questions for Rob, but she can’t ask him now he’s dead.
As she thinks, Jennie begins to tidy up the developing kit. She screws the bottle cap back onto the hydrochloric acid, and places it into the kit box, then starts to dismantle and wash the canister, taking care not to splash water on her burn.
Simon had the basement key. He seemed to be lying in the interview and trying to push Duncan Edwards into the spotlight. Perhaps to hide his own guilt? If any of the group were in the darkroom after hours, he’d have to have known – he would’ve had to let them in or lend them the key. Or had he arranged to meet Hannah the night she went missing? Was he angry and jealous that she still wouldn’t have sex with him but was rumoured to be in an inappropriate relationship with Edwards? Was it a crime of passion? Did he kill her in a murderous, jealous rage?
One by one, Jennie dries each part of the canister and puts them into the kit box. She thinks about Elliott, once her best friend after Hannah, and how Simon told them the monthly payments from Elliott are because he feels beholden to Simon for saving his life. Would he be that loyal even if Simon had done something awful like commit murder? Elliott certainly seemed to have been holding back in the interview, and she now knows he is perfectly capable of keeping secrets: he never told her about the trauma he’d been through during the early part of 1994. Was saying Paul Jennings was at the school that night a tactic to divert police attention elsewhere?
As she puts the rest of the chemical bottles back into the kit box, Jennie’s thoughts move to Lottie. They were never the best of friends, but Lottie seemed over-friendly towards her when they met at the reunion on White Cross Hill. Since Hannah’s body was discovered, Lottie has contacted her multiple times. She seems desperate, always wanting to know what’s happening with the investigation. Is it because she’s anxious for Hannah to get justice, or is something more sinister going on? Could it be that Lottie knows what really happened to Hannah and is trying to find out if the police are close to discovering the truth? Was she there when Hannah died; is that why her alibi for the night she disappeared is fake? Could that have been Lottie’s motivation for dropping Jennie in it with the photo revelation?
Jennie rubs her forehead. She’s exhausted now. Folding up the light-safe bag, Jennie places it on top of the kit box and closes the lid. She glances at the cuckoo clock on the wall: it’s almost three-thirty in the morning. She has to get some sleep, or she’ll be useless tomorrow.
Switching off the lights, Jennie climbs the stairs. She’s starting to believe at least one of her friends could have been responsible for Hannah’s death, and it’s messing with her head. But she’s close to the truth now, she can feel it.
She can’t screw this up.
She just can’t.
Day Six
