Good Girls Don't Die (7 page)

In the interview room bright and early the next morning, Matt Beeston was doing his best to be helpful. Monitoring the interview remotely with Keith, Grace could see that the presence of his solicitor, who appeared to be an old friend of his parents, gave him heart. All the same, he couldn’t hide his unease at being unshaven and unshowered, nor at how poorly his football shirt and baggy shorts contrasted with the others’ formal clothes. While Lance and Duncan were open, encouraging and respectful, they made no acknowledgement of the fact that they were responsible for his being plucked from his home and offered a disturbed night in a dirty cell. Grace wondered if his solicitor had yet chosen to inform his client of his exposure in this morning’s
Courier
as the ‘randy lecturer helping police with their enquiries’.

She watched his body language carefully. So far, his manner suggested confidence that it wouldn’t take long to clear things up so that he’d then be free to go. It’s what any innocent man would believe. Yet she could also detect an
underlying tension, an almost reckless anxiety. She’d seen it before: the panicked hope that what lay in plain sight would be somehow overlooked.

Thanks to their hard work last night – not all of which, thankfully, had been splashed across the front page of the
Courier
– they already knew quite a lot of what Dr Beeston had to hide. Grace was eager to find out how long it would take him to give it up – and to learn whether or not other, darker secrets waited to be uncovered.

Lance and Duncan waltzed him through the usual openers, letting him think this would be pretty much a normal conversation. How did he usually spend his weekends? What did he do last weekend? What did he do after he left Polly Sinclair’s house last Friday morning? What’s the Blue Bar like? How often does he go there? What does he generally drink? Which nights had he been there since last Thursday, when he’d hooked up with Polly?

Keith leaned forward towards the screen, waiting for Matt to answer this last question. Grace watched alongside him as Matt hesitated, making a silent calculation before he replied. ‘I was there a couple of times,’ he said. Lance and Duncan smiled encouragingly, but kept quiet. Matt glanced quickly at his solicitor. ‘Saturday and Tuesday, I think it was. Had a few beers.’

‘Saturday and Tuesday,’ echoed Duncan. ‘Great, thanks.’ He paused to watch Lance make a note on the pad of paper before him. ‘So beer is what you usually drink?’

Watching the tension drop out of Matt’s shoulders, Grace looked at her boss.

‘He thinks we don’t know,’ Keith said, never taking his eyes off the screen. ‘That he’s off the hook.’

As agreed at the strategy briefing, Duncan led Matt through various other fairly pointless questions before circling back to the real issue. ‘So you didn’t run into Polly again at the Blue Bar?’

This time Matt leaned over and whispered to his solicitor, who eventually nodded, and Matt clasped his hands together on the table in front of him. ‘I didn’t tell you before,’ he said, looking at Lance, ‘but I did see Polly the following night, after we – you know –’

Lance nodded expressionlessly, as if this was precisely what he’d expected Matt to say, but made no comment.

‘So that would be Friday night, not Saturday, correct?’ asked Duncan, as if the detail were unimportant to him.

‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

‘Had you arranged to meet?’

‘No. We just bumped into one another.’

‘Did you speak to her?’ Duncan pressed.

‘Yeah, but, you know –’ Matt shrugged. ‘Like I told DS Cooper before, we’d both been pretty hammered before when we … Neither of us was interested in a repeat performance.’

Duncan shuffled some papers and appeared to consult one of them before speaking. ‘You were drinking beer all evening, is that right?’

‘Yes, probably.’

‘You’re not a vodka drinker?’

‘No, not really. Look, I’ve just remembered something.’

‘Did you buy vodka recently? Maybe for someone else?’

Grace knew that no purchase of Fire’n’Ice had shown up in Matt’s debit or credit card history, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t paid cash.

‘What?’ Matt asked. ‘No. Look, the night I went home with Polly, there was this guy –’

‘Pawel Zawodny, her landlord. You told us.’

‘No, not that. That was the next morning. I’m talking about the night before, when we hooked up.’

‘We’d like to talk first about the following night. Friday, the night Polly disappeared.’

‘Nothing happened! I spoke to her as I was leaving. We were both cool with the way things were. I left before her. I was with friends. They’ll tell you.’

Duncan took names and contact details for Matt’s friends before resuming his questioning. ‘And where did you go then?’

‘I don’t remember. Home, probably.’

‘Very well. So what was it you wanted to tell us about the previous night? That would be Thursday.’

Matt sagged with relief. ‘I’d completely forgotten. Polly asked some guy she knew for a lift home. He refused and she really mouthed off at him.’

‘Do you know who it was?’

Matt shook his head. Grace watched him struggle to retrieve a clear memory, to picture the scene. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention. And I’d had a fair bit to drink. He seemed familiar, but God knows where from.’

‘Can you describe him?’

Matt blew out some air. ‘Young, white, just a guy.’

‘A student?’ suggested Duncan.

‘Probably.’

‘Can you remember if Polly used a name?’

Again, Matt thought hard. Suddenly Danny Tooley jumped into Grace’s mind. Danny had said he lived in Wivenhoe, so might Polly have asked him for a lift? Did he own a car? She dimly recalled that, as she’d waited for the kettle to boil at five o’clock that morning, she’d had the impression that some vital idea had come to her just before she’d fallen asleep. What was it? Something to do with Danny and Twitter? No, that wasn’t it. She’d have to work back to it later.

She leaned forward to the microphone that fed into Duncan’s earpiece. ‘Ask if he could’ve seen the man anywhere on campus.’

Duncan relayed the question without any indication that he’d been fed it. But Matt was shaking his head. ‘Maybe,’ he replied. ‘I’ve no idea. Sorry. She got stroppy with him, I do remember that. I was surprised, didn’t expect her to talk like that.’

‘Didn’t stop you going home with her,’ Keith muttered to himself. Grace liked his spikiness, and speculated that perhaps he had a daughter of his own at university.

‘And you’re sure it wasn’t her landlord?’ asked Lance, betraying just a little too much interest, causing Keith to tsk-tsk in disapproval.

Matt once more shook his head. ‘No. Well, I never really saw his face. It was only that Polly said it was him, leering
through the bedroom door the next morning. But no, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him.’

‘So how did you get back to Polly’s place on Thursday night?’ Lance asked.

‘Took a cab.’

‘And the other nights you’ve been at the Blue Bar, how do you get home?’

‘Walk, usually. It’s not far.’

‘So you don’t drive?’ asked Lance, with a faint and deliberate trace of mockery.

Matt coloured. ‘No.’

‘Never passed your test?’

‘No.’

‘How many times did you fail it?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘You’ve held a provisional licence. You can drive?’

‘I’m dyspraxic,’ Matt admitted resentfully.

‘Have you ever driven without a licence?’

‘No!’

Lance held Matt’s indignant gaze but sat back, letting Duncan resume the lead. ‘Let’s move on to Rachel Moston. She was one of your students, is that correct?’

‘She was in my third-year seminar group, yes.’ He glanced involuntarily at his solicitor, who, Grace guessed, had probably coached him. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that she’s dead.’

‘How often did you see her?’ continued Duncan.

‘It was a weekly seminar. She was a hard worker, a promising student.’

‘Did you ever see her outside of class?’

‘No. Why would I?’

‘Did you ever sleep with her?’

‘No! I don’t sleep with my students.’

‘May I remind you, Dr Beeston, that you’re under caution and this interview is being recorded.’

The solicitor leaned closer and whispered something in Matt’s ear. He reddened. ‘I never saw Rachel outside of my teaching duties,’ he said stiffly.

‘You never met her at the Blue Bar?’

‘No.’

‘Never got drunk with her?

‘No!’

‘But you do socialise with students you teach?’

‘Socialise occasionally, maybe, but I keep proper boundaries.’

Duncan nodded and, opening his laptop, frowned at the screen as he tapped at the keys, allowing Matt to watch in frustrated silence.

‘They must occasionally want to hang out with you, though, right?’ asked Lance. ‘Have a bit of a flirt with the teacher?’

Matt, failing to respond to Lance’s bantering tone, looked scared as Duncan pushed the computer around so both he and his solicitor could see the screen.

‘For the record, I’m showing Dr Beeston a Facebook page with a photograph of him with Emma Hodges,’ said Duncan. ‘You taught her last year, is that correct?’

Matt looked anxious. ‘Yes.’

‘Can you confirm that’s you in the photograph?’

Grace had already seen the image. Duncan had spent much of the night trawling through the unrestricted social media sites of several of Matt’s past and present students. His reward had been to come across a group of photographs taken at a party in what appeared to be someone’s parental home. The image he was now showing the young lecturer – and several others like it – showed a flushed, laughing Matt sprawled on an upholstered armchair, a wine glass in one hand and the other cupping the breast of the giggling girl who sat on his lap.

‘Maybe you’d like to reconsider your earlier answer, Dr Beeston.’

Matt hung his head while his solicitor whispered in his ear. Eventually he nodded and looked Duncan in the eye. ‘It was unwise of me to accept a party invitation in London, and I had a little too much to drink.’

‘How many times did you sleep with Emma Hodges while you were teaching her?’

When Matt still hesitated, Duncan sighed deeply. ‘We can easily get a statement from Emma if we have to.’

‘Shit!’ Matt rubbed his face and, feeling his stubble, also suddenly seemed to take note again of the ludicrous clothes he was wearing.

Duncan waited, and Grace watched Matt’s face as it finally sank in how dangerously off course this was veering. She saw the panic come into his eyes. ‘Please,’ he began. ‘I just –’

Duncan held up a hand, cutting him short. ‘You’ll have an opportunity to explain in a moment. First, I want to put
an earlier question to you again. Which nights this past week did you go to the Blue Bar?’

Matt looked shamefaced. ‘Friday and Wednesday.’

‘Why did you lie to us earlier?’

‘I didn’t lie! I just didn’t want the hassle. Look, I told you right from the start that I had a one-night stand with Polly Sinclair, but the rest – I’m very sorry about Rachel, but her death has nothing to do with me.’

‘But you did see Polly Sinclair at the Blue Bar the night she disappeared, and you also saw Rachel Moston there on Wednesday night?’

‘No!’ Matt looked terrified. ‘No, I never saw Rachel!’

‘So why did you lie about which nights you were there?’

‘I didn’t lie. I just didn’t want to get involved!’

Duncan and Lance observed him calmly, waiting for him to fill the silence.

‘It was an error of judgement. I admit that. But, honestly, you have to believe me,’ Matt pleaded. ‘I never saw Rachel. Ask the people I was with.’

‘We will.’

In the privacy of the viewing room, Grace turned to Keith. ‘It is possible he never saw her.’

‘Really?’ Keith looked sceptical.

‘The Blue Bar was pretty packed that night,’ she told him. ‘I was there, and I never caught sight of him. They could easily both have been there yet never bumped into one another.’

‘We’ll see.’ Keith’s eyes never left the screen.

‘What time did you leave the bar that night?’ Duncan asked.

‘Not that late. Half-eleven, maybe.’

‘And where did you go?’

‘Home!’

‘Time to rattle his cage,’ Keith instructed Grace. They’d agreed in advance they might use this tactic, and she immediately left the room, walked along the corridor to where a red light showed ‘interview in progress’ and knocked on the door. When Lance opened it, they stood whispering together. While Lance nodded, miming a pantomime of receiving new and serious information, she stared unsmilingly over his shoulder at Matt. As soon as Lance closed the door on her, she scooted back to Keith and the monitor screen.

‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell us, Matt?’ Duncan was asking, leaving a long and deliberate pause during which Matt’s mind clearly scrambled to second-guess their thinking. ‘It’ll go much better for you if you tell us everything,’ the detective continued. ‘And tell us the truth. The more you keep changing your story, the more lies you tell, the harder it’ll be later in court to convince a jury that you’re an honest man.’

‘Do you have evidence to charge my client?’ the solicitor asked sharply, but Duncan ignored him.

‘Is there anything more you want to say?’

‘I promise you I don’t have a clue where Polly is. You have to believe me. And I swear I never saw Rachel at the Blue Bar. The place was heaving. I had no idea she was there.’

‘So why did you lie to us?’

‘I was afraid my job would be on the line,’ admitted Matt. ‘That it would come out that I’d crossed a line with one or two of the women I was teaching.’

Keith snorted in contempt.

‘But not with Rachel. I know I’m not supposed to take liberties, and OK, it was stupid to ignore university regulations, but it’s not like I’m twice their age or anything, and they can’t expect me not have a social life. I’d never hurt anyone. Please, I promise I have no idea what happened to those girls.’

Grace felt a momentary disgust, though whether at Matt’s excuses or at their power to reduce him to such abjection she wasn’t entirely sure.