Behind Dead Eyes (32 page)

‘I assume it's your idea for him to carry on maintaining his innocence so he never qualifies for parole.'

‘He thinks it was his idea, but I planted it. I don't ever want him to be free. How could I allow a man like that to play a part in my daughters' lives? He'll never see them again.'

But it's okay for your children to be brought up by a murderer, thought Tom. Her hypocrisy was staggering.

‘He might get out eventually,' he said.

‘They will be adults by then and it will be too late.'

‘It seems like you thought of everything,' said Tom. ‘It was very clever, Annie.' He said it like he was congratulating her on a job well done.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I'm so clever I married a man who never loved me,' she looked down at her feet then, ‘not even on our wedding day.' When her head came back up she turned to Tom. ‘Why was I not enough for him?' she demanded, her fists balled in frustration. ‘I did everything for Richard. When I met him he was a mess. I saved him. I got him back
on his feet, I convinced my father to employ him then make him Sales Director, even to cut him some slack when he began to lose interest in the business. I married him and gave him two beautiful daughters,' the tears began again then, ‘why was that not enough?' She stared at Tom as if he knew the answer and was hiding it from her. ‘Why isn't that enough for any man?' she pleaded.

‘I don't know, Annie.'

Annie Bell did not speak again for some time. Finally she asked, ‘What happens now?'

‘I don't know,' he said again. ‘What do you want to happen, Annie? Should I forget everything you just told me and let you carry on like before? Should we leave your husband in prison for another twenty years, not realising his own wife put him there? Should we let Rebecca Holt's real murderer evade justice?'

‘Justice,' she scoffed, ‘there's no such thing as justice. Not in this life.' Then she reminded him, ‘You told me you'd hear me out. I gave you my reasons, now tell me what you intend to do.'

‘Not now, Annie,' said Tom and he got to his feet, ‘I need to think.'

‘I'll deny it,' she said, ‘every damn word I just said, I'll deny it.'

Tom looked down at her then and realised that whatever state she had been in as she recounted her incredible tale, the old Annie had now returned. She was strong, unyielding and very firmly in control just as she had been on the day she beat Rebecca Holt to death.

‘I know you will.'

Ian
Bradshaw had been badgering his counterparts at Northumbria Police for some time. He had called them and written to them twice in an effort to formalise his request but no one had been able to help him.

The photograph of Sandra Jarvis taken from the CCTV camera at Newcastle Central Station had been lost somehow and no one seemed able to find it. A conspiracy theorist might have seen this as proof that someone was attempting to sabotage their investigation but Bradshaw knew the most likely cause was human error or general incompetence.

He had given up asking for a response long before the brown envelope with the Newcastle postmark finally landed on his desk; so much so that he had no idea what it was at first. He opened it to find a compliments slip and a copy of the photograph in question, for someone had finally been able to locate it after all.

He regarded the photograph closely then said, ‘Bugger me.'

Tom sat back in his chair, picked up the local paper and examined the front page while he drank his coffee. This was the newspaper he had worked on for six years before moving to London for a short-lived, eventful spell working on a tabloid, which opened up a whole new world of trouble that eventually led him in a full circle back to his home county. That was less than three years ago but it felt like a lifetime. He had been through a great deal since then.

Frank Jarvis was pictured on the front page of the
Durham Messenger
that morning. He had told Tom he was going to attend the opening of the new community centre, even though it was not on his patch and he'd had nothing to do with its development. Jarvis hoped to hijack the local journalist and get him to run another piece on Sandra and it seemed he had succeeded.

Jarvis looked out from the front page under the words, ‘Politician appeals for help with hunt for missing daughter'. Tom was a journalist, not an editor, but he knew a crap headline when he saw one. It sounded as if Sandra Jarvis had gone shopping for a few hours and not come home in time for tea. It was typical Malcolm. Tom's former editor had not lost his ability to neuter stories, transforming them into bland accounts of local mishaps. He doubted this would prompt anyone to come forward.

Tom folded the paper in half and dropped it onto the table, leaving Frank Jarvis's face to stare forlornly up at him while he finished his coffee.

He hadn't heard from Annie Bell since their meeting in the park. Tom had thought long and hard about his next move. He considered the nation's legal system, its complex bureaucracy and the way it had of dragging on for years while men and women suffered in the meantime. He went over the evidence he had amassed against Annie Bell and what her lawyers might do with it. He considered the ways in which they would rebuff each point while questioning the validity of everything he had found and his motives for doing so, considering he was on the family's payroll.

Only when he had gone through all of that over and over again did he finally drive out to her home.

‘We need to talk,' Tom told her when she opened the door.

‘What do you want? Have you made up your mind?'

‘Yes, Annie, and I'm giving you a chance,' he told her, ‘the best chance you're going to get.'

Before Annie could answer, a cry of, ‘Mum!' came from the back garden and Annie reacted to it by turning away and letting him follow her through the house. As he had expected, it was a large home with smart, expensive furniture. When they reached the garden it seemed to stretch on endlessly, with three separate areas of lawn, trees, bushes, flower beds and separate play areas for the kids.

‘What is it?' Annie asked.

‘Holly's biting,' the younger child said, looking on the verge of tears. At first Tom thought she meant the older girl, who was using a swing on a second patch of lawn, then he saw a Labrador that was scampering around trying to jump up and bite the older girl's feet as she swung back and forth.

‘Stop that, Holly!' shouted Annie and the dog immediately complied, slinking away to the far end of the enormous garden. It seemed even dogs did what they were told when Annie Bell did the telling.

When the children were calm she led him back inside.

‘Go on,' she told him.

‘Go to the police,' he said, ‘and ask for a detective, Ian Bradshaw. He knows all about the Rebecca Holt case. It won't take long.'

‘What won't?'

‘Your confession.'

Her breath came out in a rush then and her voice was high but defiant. ‘No one will believe it was me,' she told him, ‘I can explain the fine for the car.'

‘No, you can't, Annie,' he told her, ‘and I know it all now. You told me yourself. I know everything you did.'

‘I told you because you wanted to understand. You wanted to work for me.'

‘I lied, Annie. People do that; just like you lied about the job. You created it and offered it to me to buy me off.'

‘I offered it to you because I thought you were different, but I see now that you are no better than all of the other journalist scum I've had to deal with. Whatever you claim I told you, I will deny every word. I'll say it's all fantasy and none of it is true. My husband killed Rebecca Holt. He has been tried and convicted and that's the end of the matter.'

‘Except I have your full confession,' he told her. ‘I recorded it.'

There was a moment's pause. ‘You're lying,' she said.

‘No, Annie.'

‘You weren't wearing a wire,' she reminded him. ‘I checked. I searched you,'

‘You're right, Annie,' he said, ‘I wasn't wearing a wire, but I got up nice and early that day and went to a little shop I know in the city. I bought something very special there, a tiny, voice-activated, electronic device. Then I drove over to the park and went to your favourite spot, long before you got there. I've got it all on tape, Annie, every word, because I bugged the bench we were sitting on.'

Tom
played her a short extract of their conversation on the park bench but not before assuring her he had more than one copy.

‘Please,' she said as she followed him back through the house, ‘don't do this. I'm begging you. Think of them!' She pointed back towards the garden. ‘They're only little girls. They need their mother. Don't take me away. I'll do anything you say, I'll give you anything you want but don't do this.'

‘You're thinking of your children now, Annie,' he said because he was trying not to think of them, ‘but you should have done that before you went after Rebecca Holt. You should have considered the lives of your children before you beat that woman to death and sent their own father to prison for her murder.'

‘He doesn't deserve them and they don't deserve a father like him!' Annie screamed.

Tom realised it had been a very bad idea to visit Annie Bell at home. He'd hoped it would be a calmer environment than the office, but the presence of her children seemed to make Annie more desperate. He did not want to hear any more of Annie Bell's protestations so he left as quickly as he could, but she followed him out into the street and began shouting at him as he climbed into the car.

‘What would you have done,' she demanded, ‘if you were me, what would you have done? The same thing!' she told him. ‘The exact same thing!' She slammed her hand on the bonnet in frustration.

‘No, Annie,' he told her through the open window of the car, ‘I wouldn't. Not everyone is a murderer.' He drove away leaving her shouting in the street.

Tom knew he could do no more now. Annie had been given the facts; only she could interpret them and make her next move. He had fenced her in and left her with only one viable option: phone Ian Bradshaw, tell him the full story and throw herself on everybody's mercy, including her husband's. Would she go through with it or would she force Tom to turn over everything to the police and get them to reluctantly pursue her over a previously
solved
case, while hiring herself the best lawyer money could buy? All he could do now was wait and learn whether Annie Bell had the nerve to see this through.

The next morning get-together at the Rosewood café was dominated by talk of Annie Bell and speculation around what she would do next. It had been almost twenty-four hours and Bradshaw had received no phone call from her.

‘I could just arrest her,' he reminded them.

‘Then she would hire a solicitor and find out your star witness is a pervert. Let's wait a little longer,' the journalist told him. ‘Annie is under a lot of pressure right now and she might just crack.'

Then Bradshaw told them, ‘I finally got a copy of the photograph of Sandra Jarvis from the CCTV at Central Station.'

‘Great.'

‘Maybe not,' said Bradshaw.

‘Why not?' Bradshaw handed him the Manila envelope containing the photograph.

Tom slid the photo from the envelope and peered at it. ‘
This
is Sandra Jarvis?' he asked.

‘Yep,' said Bradshaw, ‘according to her case file.'

‘But …' Tom began ‘… it's not Sandra Jarvis.'

‘Exactly,' agreed Bradshaw, ‘or at least it
might
be her, but it could be practically anybody.'

Helen took the photograph from Tom's hands and looked at it. ‘You mean someone spent hours going through CCTV footage and they found this,' she said, ‘then they categorically stated that it's Sandra Jarvis?'

‘Yes,' agreed Bradshaw and Helen glanced once again at the blurred image of a young blonde woman. Nobody could have convincingly stated it was Sandra. The image was too distorted by distance and the deep grain on the photograph for it to be recognisable.

‘But that's ridiculous,' she said. ‘Who could have done this and why?'

‘Someone corrupt,' said Tom because he realised immediately what must have happened, ‘in Northumbria Police who wanted everybody to think Sandra Jarvis got on a train that day and left Newcastle when she didn't. In fact,' he added, ‘she may never have left the city at all.'

Annie Bell dressed in a dark suit that morning, but she didn't go into her office. She arrived mid-morning at an office block in town where she was well known. The woman on the reception desk welcomed her warmly and Annie told her she was there for one of her regular meetings with her firm's tax advisor. Other than the woman who asked her to sign into the building when she arrived there was no further barrier between the outside world and the lifts that rose to a number of floors housing different accountancy firms, which was one of the reasons Annie had chosen the site.

Annie Bell signed the entry register while exchanging banal
pleasantries with the receptionist about the weather. She then thanked her and headed for the elevator. The tax advisor was on the third floor, but Annie rode the lift all the way up to the twelfth. She then got out and walked past a number of desks manned by people working for an accountancy firm she had never used. Hardly any of them even bothered to look up but it wouldn't have mattered if they had, because Annie looked like she belonged there and wouldn't have aroused suspicion.

When Annie reached the far end of the room she went through an exit door and found what she was looking for: the long metal staircase that acted as a fire escape. She took the staircase up one more level, pushed hard on the metal bar of the emergency exit door until it swung open, then stepped out onto the roof. The fire alarm immediately went off but she paid it no attention. Instead she walked to the very edge of the building and stopped, then looked down at the concrete surface of the road far below her. Then she took out her mobile phone and dialled a number.

Annie waited as the phone rang and rang. Eventually she was connected to someone on the switchboard. ‘I'd like to speak to Detective Sergeant Ian Bradshaw,' she said.

‘Please hold.' The phone rang again, three times, and then a male voice came on the line.

‘Bradshaw.'

Ian Bradshaw did not say another word during that conversation. Instead, he listened to Annie, who spoke as if she had given a lot of thought to her words before calling him. She told him her name, her whereabouts and her intentions and who she blamed for them. Then she told him to come alone and hung up without giving him the opportunity to respond. As soon as he realised she was gone, Bradshaw raced for the door.

When Bradshaw reached the site, a flustered woman greeted him. She was standing to one side of a large group of employees from the office block who had all been evacuated to muster points at various corners of the car park. In the background a fire alarm was ringing incessantly. ‘Who called you?' she asked when he showed her his warrant card. ‘I was about to phone you. We only just saw her …' And she pointed to the figure high up on the roof. Bradshaw couldn't make her out clearly but it had to be Annie Bell. She appeared to be sitting on the edge of the building, legs hanging over the side. ‘She told me she had a meeting with her tax advisor,' the woman babbled. ‘She's been here before, loads of times. I never thought—'

‘It's okay.' Bradshaw held up a hand to calm her then looked back up at Annie. ‘Please just tell me how to get to her.'

When Bradshaw entered the building the alarm was still blaring and he had to endure its noise as he hurriedly climbed twelve flights of stairs, eventually arriving breathless at the top and emerging through the opened fire exit door. He hadn't been on the roof of a building since the day his former partner had gone straight through a skylight and broken his back. Detective Constable Alan Carter would never walk again. Never keen on heights, Ian Bradshaw's fear of them had magnified that day.

Now, as he strode across the top of the twelve-storey office building, a bitter northern wind swirled around him. Bradshaw knew the drop from this flat roof had to be over a hundred feet onto merciless concrete below and he had the beginnings of what he preferred to regard as a heightened state of anxiety, as this was something he might be able to control. It made his heart race, affected his ability to breathe normally and created an illogical certainty he was about to drop down
dead at any moment. His doctor referred to these spells as ‘panic attacks', but Bradshaw didn't like the word panic.

He could see Annie up ahead and wondered if he had done the right thing. He could have ignored Annie's order and mobilised police, ambulance and fire services then sent them to the spot instead of coming on his own, but something told him that would only serve to send Annie Bell quite literally over the edge.

Annie was sitting very calmly, straight-backed, her head up, facing forward. From a distance you might have imagined she was enjoying the view of the city, if it were not for the fact her legs were dangling over the edge and one strong gust of wind would be capable of sending her to her death.

Bradshaw didn't want to think about that. He tried to approach her soundlessly but the roof was covered in a loose gravel surface. She must have heard his tread, for she turned and glanced calmly at him, which had the effect of sliding her even further towards the edge. For a moment Bradshaw thought she was about to jump but she placed a palm on the edge to steady herself.

‘You're Bradshaw?' she asked and he nodded, as if the act of speaking might be enough to convince her to jump. ‘He asked me to call you,' she said, ‘so I did, but not for the reason he imagined. I want you to witness this and tell everyone about it. You can tell Tom this is all his fault,' she announced calmly, ‘him and my stupid, selfish husband. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. Richard broke my heart and now Tom Carney is leaving me with no choice.' Annie deliberately slid further towards the edge, using her hands to prevent herself from toppling over the side. They both knew if Bradshaw tried to grab her now she could just let go and her own bodyweight would take her over.

‘Annie, don't move,' he told her and he took the tiniest step towards her, intent on narrowing the gap between them. ‘You do still have a choice.'

‘If you come closer,' she said, ‘I'll go now,' and she tensed as if she was about to push herself off.

‘Okay,' Bradshaw said, holding up a hand, ‘no further,' and he took half a step back. Bradshaw had no plan beyond an attempt to talk Annie Bell down or at least try and delay the woman long enough for her to reconsider. She had called him, but she could have just launched herself from the roof before anyone realised she was up here. Perhaps Annie Bell wanted to be talked out of this. Maybe there was half a chance he could still save her life.

‘I realise you can't see a way out just now, Annie, but it doesn't have to end like this. No one is going to like what you did but they may just understand it. If you explain it, they will listen. Think of your children and their futures. Think about what you are leaving behind. Dying isn't the answer.' Bradshaw was close enough to the edge to see the ground far below them and it made him feel sick and dizzy. ‘And dying like this is hard.'

‘I
am
thinking of my children,' she turned to look at him, ‘that's all I'm thinking about and it's why I'm here.' Then she turned back so that she faced away from him and closed her eyes. ‘And dying is easy,' she said quietly, ‘anyone can do it.'

Annie Bell let go of the ledge, put her arms up and her head back, shut her eyes, slid from the edge and was gone.

‘No!' Bradshaw's shout was instinctive and the outstretched hand grasping at the air between them was a useless reflex action, but Annie Bell was already on her way down. By the time Ian Bradshaw reached the edge of the building and peered helplessly over, she'd already hit the concrete.