Splinter the Silence (28 page)

‘That’s right. And this is DS Ambrose.’

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows rose. ‘A brace of sergeants. I didn’t realise you went around in pairs. Might I see your ID? We’re always being warned on
Crimewatch
to take nothing on trust.’ Her smile was as brittle as her words.

Channelling Dorothy Parker, just to match everything else
, Paula thought as they followed Emma upstairs to a living room that had a glass wall overlooking the garden. The furniture here was thankfully contemporary, a long plum-coloured sofa and three pale grey armchairs clustered round a group of three tear-shaped low tables. It was a room that suited Emma but it wouldn’t fit many other people, Paula thought. There would be no room for Torin’s trainer-clad feet and nothing that matched Elinor’s understated elegance.

Emma gestured at the chairs and sat down opposite them. No offer of tea or coffee or anything stronger. ‘I’m curious,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t Jasmine’s next of kin so I heard what had happened on the radio news, like most people who knew her. You’re the first police officers to come to my door, and you’re not local.’ She registered Paula’s surprise. ‘I checked. I’m not stupid. I know how devious journalists can be.’

‘We’re investigating incidences of extreme cyber-bullying,’ Paula said.

‘We’re trying to identify persistent offenders so we can close them down,’ Alvin added.

‘And we thought that Jasmine might have talked to you about what she went through.’ Paula produced her most sympathetic expression.

Emma smoothed her hair with one hand. ‘Of course she talked to me. For the last couple of weeks of her life, that’s more or less all she talked about. She was trying so hard to put a brave face on things, to stand up for herself in public, but privately she was unravelling.’

‘That must have been hard for you,’ Alvin said.

Emma sighed and turned her eyes wistfully to the darkness beyond the window. Paula wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘It was awful. To see someone so strong and self-assured coming apart before my very eyes. I did my best to help, but the attacks were relentless. I told her to stop going online, to let them shout themselves hoarse then move on, but she was drawn like a moth to a flame.’

‘Did she consider reporting it to the police?’

Emma looked down at the floor. ‘She thought that she wouldn’t be taken seriously. It seems like the only cases where there are ever prosecutions against trolls is when property’s involved, like in the riots.’

‘That’s not strictly true,’ Alvin said. ‘People have been prosecuted for threats of death and arson.’

‘Not many,’ Emma said tartly. ‘Not enough to shut the evil little fuckers up.’

An awkward pause. Then Paula said, ‘Did Jasmine have any strategy for dealing with it?’

‘She was convinced it would blow over. They’re like magpies. Give them something more shiny to chase and they’re off. She thought it was a matter of hanging on till life returned to normal. And actually, it was easing a little. Hardly noticeable, but a little bit less every day. That’s what makes her death so hard to take.’

‘What do you think happened?’ Paula asked. A nice, open question to see how the land lay.

‘She went off for a few days’ peace and quiet. I made her promise not to do the social media thing, but she probably didn’t stick to that, given how things turned out. I’m only guessing here, because I didn’t speak to her that last day. I had a series of meetings and I knew she was having dinner with friends. I expected her to call me when she got back to the cottage. We facetimed most nights before we went to sleep. But I wasn’t unduly concerned when she didn’t make contact. I assumed she was having a good time and she’d got back late.’ The mask slipped and Paula caught a moment of genuine pain.

‘But she wasn’t,’ Paula said gently.

‘No. She wasn’t.’

‘Did you think she was suicidal?’ Alvin asked.

‘Did I think she was suicidal? What kind of bitch do you think I am? Do you think for one moment that if I’d believed she was suicidal I’d have let her out of my sight?’ Emma’s anger subsided as quickly as it had flared. ‘But you’re right in a way. When I heard the news, I was shocked. But… I sort of wasn’t surprised, if that makes sense? I thought she was more fragile than she was prepared to admit.’ She sighed and clasped her hands tightly in her lap. ‘But obviously I wasn’t thinking it through. I should have understood how close to the edge she was. I let her down.’

‘In my experience, you can’t stop someone who’s determined to take her own life,’ Alvin said. ‘It’s not your fault, Emma. Do you think it’s possible that the internet bullying pushed her that far?’

Emma nodded. ‘I do now. I didn’t think she was that desperate, but obviously I was wrong.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Paula said. ‘But DS Ambrose is right. It’s not your fault. There’s one thing that’s puzzling us, though. Jasmine didn’t leave a note. Did she send you any messages? A text? An email? A letter, even?’

Emma shook her head. ‘No. No word. And that hurts, believe me. I thought I meant more to her.’

‘A lot of people don’t leave notes,’ Alvin said, his deep rumble conveying a weight of sympathy. ‘I think they reach a point where they’re numb. They’re not seeing anything or anyone beyond the pain.’

‘We do think Jasmine left something behind, though,’ Paula said. ‘Was she a fan of Virginia Woolf, by any chance?’

Emma looked bemused. ‘Virginia Woolf?’

‘She was a writer.’

Emma shook her head impatiently. ‘I know who Virginia Woolf is, for heaven’s sake. I don’t think Jasmine ever mentioned her, though. We both read, but not that kind of thing. I read biographies mostly, but Jas was a big crime fiction fan. What on earth has Virginia Woolf got to do with what happened to her?’

‘They both chose the same method. Walking into the river weighed down with stones. And there was a copy of one of Woolf’s books found on the shore where we think she probably went in,’ Paula explained.

‘A book? Which book?’

‘It’s called
A Room of One’s Own
.’

Emma frowned. ‘I’ve never heard of it, never mind read it. What’s it about?’ She gave a shaky little laugh. ‘Obviously not cyber-bullying.’

‘It’s an essay. Not a novel. She’s explaining why it’s so hard for women to develop as writers. She says if you’re going to be a writer you need a room of your own and five hundred pounds a year.’

Clearly baffled, Emma shook her head. ‘All very commendable but nothing to do with Jasmine. I don’t think she had any secret ambition to be a writer. She was doing a job that she loved, and doing it well. But those bastards undermined her so much she ran away from all of us.’ She looked Paula in the eye. ‘You people need to do your job. Track those shits down and prosecute them. Destroy their lives the way they destroyed Jasmine.’

36

I
t was almost like old times, walking through Bellwether Square on a Saturday morning first thing, before the shopping crowds had taken possession. Carol had crossed those worn York stone flags more times than she could count, heading down from the old MIT office through the warren of medieval alleys and courts that spread out behind the square. Her hairdresser, Wendy, had occupied a corner site opposite an old-fashioned cobbler and a designer handbag shop since she’d first opened her own salon twenty years before. Her appointment book was always full; you had to work your way up via one of the junior stylists before you had any chance of making it to Wendy’s client list.

Carol had jumped the queue years before thanks to John Brandon’s wife Maggie, who had been one of Wendy’s first clients. Since then, she’d only ever gone elsewhere for a haircut when circumstances had forced her away from Bradfield. Even when she’d been based in East Yorkshire, she’d driven across the Pennines every five weeks to submit to Wendy’s flying scissors. So today, to mark her return to service, Carol had made an appointment for a haircut.

She cut through the alleys with a faint feeling of trepidation. She hadn’t been near Wendy in months. When her hair had become too annoying, she’d simply gone to the village salon where some anonymous junior had hacked it into something approximating a shape. Caring about how she looked felt like an impossible vanity in the wake of her brother’s death. Wendy would be affronted at the end result.

Carol pushed open the door and Wendy peered over her glasses from behind the podium where the appointment book was guarded. ‘Sorry, we don’t see patients without an appointment,’ she said, her tone caustic.

‘Very funny,’ Carol said. ‘I know it’s bad.’

‘Bad? I’ve seen better-looking road traffic accidents. Who did that to you?’

‘You don’t want to know.’ Carol shrugged off her coat and hung it on the rack by the door.

‘I do, I want to put a contract out on them for bringing the profession into disrepute.’ Wendy shook her head as she seated Carol. ‘Carol, what were you thinking? Once, in an emergency, that I could understand. But this? This is wilful vandalism. You’ve got lovely hair, you should respect it.’

‘And how have you been, Wendy?’ Carol let herself relax into the chair as Wendy swivelled and lowered it so her head was over the washbasin.

‘Busy,’ she said, soaking Carol’s hair and shampooing it briskly. ‘Too bloody busy. I haven’t been on holiday this year yet. And they say Lincoln freed the slaves.’ Massage, rinse. Both women fell silent as Carol luxuriated in the pampering. Shampoo, massage, rinse. Condition, rinse.

When she was upright again, Carol tried to explain her absence. ‘I’ve been renovating a barn,’ she said. ‘Out in the middle of nowhere.’

‘What happened to coppering?’ Wendy met her eyes momentarily, then went back to cutting and razoring.

‘I thought I was done with it. But apparently it’s not done with me.’

‘Well, I’m glad to see you back.’ They talked of nothing much as Wendy carried on. ‘I think we’re about done here,’ she said at last, working some wax into the tips of Carol’s hair and surveying the result in the mirror. ‘Nothing short of a miracle.’

As she spoke, the door opened and a young woman with a terrifying shock of pink and ginger hair came bounding in clutching a newspaper and a carton of coffee. ‘You’ll never believe —’ Then she caught sight of Carol and blushed a deep unbecoming scarlet.

‘You’re late,’ Wendy said.

‘I thought we weren’t opening till ten.’

‘Hi, Tamsin,’ Carol said.

‘I opened early for Carol,’ Wendy said. ‘You remember Carol?’

Tamsin couldn’t meet her eye. ‘Hi, Carol.’ She gave Wendy a beseeching look. Wendy paused. Carol couldn’t quite see what was going on behind her, but it looked as if Tamsin was showing Wendy the paper.

‘Ah,’ Wendy said on a long exhalation. ‘Carol, I’m guessing you haven’t seen this morning’s paper?’

‘No, should I have?’

Wendy pursed her lips. ‘I’d say so.’ She plucked the paper from Tamsin’s grasp and laid it with surprising gentleness on Carol’s lap. The front page of the early edition of the
Sentinel Times
featured a large photograph of Carol, in mid-laugh, head tipped back, glass in hand.
Top Cop in Drink Driving Mystery
, the headline screamed.

The room swam in front of her eyes. For a wild moment, she almost believed it was a tacky practical joke. But nobody leapt out to say, ‘Surprise!’ Wendy and Tamsin were both staring at her in the mirror in consternation. Carol forced herself to read on.

Mystery surrounds the dropping of a drink-driving charge against a retired top detective days before she was rehired to run a new crack squad.

Carol Jordan was a detective chief inspector with Bradfield Metropolitan Police until she retired recently.

Last Saturday night, she was stopped by police near her home on the West Yorkshire moors and breathalysed. According to a police source, she was ‘well over the limit’. Later that night she was charged with drink driving at Halifax police station.

She was due to appear before Halifax magistrates on Wednesday, but the Crown Prosecution Service told the bench the breathalyser had been faulty. Charges against Jordan and three other motorists were dropped as a result.

Our source said, ‘This was a bolt out of the blue for us. We knew nothing about any faulty breathalyser till it came up in court. And none of our breathalysers has been taken out of service. Something very odd has gone on here.’

Two days after the collapse of the case against Jordan, she was revealed as the boss of a brand-new regional Major Incident Team in a Home Office initiative to cut costs and streamline homicide investigations.

A Home Office spokesman said, ‘We have absolute confidence in DCI Jordan. There is nobody better qualified to run the new unit.’ He refused to comment on what happened at Halifax Magistrates’ Court.

Jack Lorimer, who was one of the other motorists who escaped prosecution thanks to the faulty breathalyser, said, ‘I’m very glad that I was proved to be safe behind the wheel of my car. The police wouldn’t listen when I said I couldn’t possibly be over the limit, but I was right.’

DCI Jordan was not available for comment.

Carol folded the paper in half and handed it back to Wendy. ‘Well, forewarned is forearmed,’ she said, somehow managing to keep her voice steady. ‘Thanks for letting me see that.’

‘They make it sound like something dodgy went on,’ Tamsin blurted out.

‘That’s what newspapers do,’ Wendy said, tossing the paper into the bin. ‘They take something perfectly straightforward and twist it till it looks like something completely different.’ She brushed the loose hair from the protective overall Carol was wearing. ‘Nobody that knows you could take this seriously.’

Carol stood up and slipped her arms free. ‘Nice of you to say so, Wendy. But there’s a lot of people out there don’t know me from a hole in the ground.’

‘Don’t be daft. You’re a local hero. The woman who masterminded the hunt for Jacko Vance. Not to mention all the other bad bastards.’