Page 58

CHAPTER 58

MATTHEW – D AY F IVE

Matthew is exhausted. It’s 6 a.m. and he’s drunk too much coffee to try to counter the tiredness and psyche himself up to take Sally to the press conference. The upshot is he’s wired from the caffeine but still anxious. Unable to still his body or his brain.

Last night he went out for two hours again, driving the streets of Maidstead while Carol stayed with Sally. It didn’t help. He drives those streets now, not out of hope of spotting Amelie but out of sheer frustration. At home, he feels so excluded from the search. So useless. Helpless.

He begged Melanie to help overnight with all the urgent cross-referencing of all the new data. The black Volvo number plates. The photofit picture of the guy seen carrying a girl in the car park near the canal. Matthew has seen so many investigations come good over a dogged determination to drill and redrill this kind of data.

He’s good at that kind of work and he’s terrified other people will miss something that he would have spotted. But of course Mel won’t let him anywhere near the incident room. She still has the super on her back after he stormed Dawn Meadows’ house. Mel won’t even meet him again for coffee off site.

Finally Matthew sits on the sofa by the sliding doors to the garden. He punches the cushion alongside him.

‘You OK?’ It’s Sally in the doorway, still dressed in her tracksuit. Neither of them bother changing into nightclothes.

‘Sorry. Just wired. Too much coffee.’ He puts the cushion back in its place.

‘Has Carol gone home?’ she asks.

‘Yes. She nipped back when I got in.’ Matthew is so grateful that Carol lives in the same row of cottages. For her support for Sally.

Matthew checks his watch. Six fifteen.

‘I heard your phone,’ she says.

‘Yes. It was a text from Mel on her way back into the office. Tom and George are back at home now, so she’s been with them overnight. She’s in early to get ready for the press conference.’ Matthew pauses. ‘Sure you’re still up for it?’

Sally lets out a long sigh. ‘I’ll do it for Amelie. But you know I’m nervous again. Is there really no way you could do it instead?’

She asked this last night before he went for his drive and Matthew feels a wave of terrible guilt. A tingling through his whole body. He hasn’t told Sally about going to Dawn Meadows’ house. Can’t face her judgement. Feels so bad for making everything worse for her. He wants to touch her. Hug her. Say a million sorries. But he can’t risk upsetting her even more before the press conference.

‘Like I said – you did so well last time. They want you again.’ His stomach flips as he speaks the lie. Hates himself for the lie. He’ll tell her the truth later.

‘OK. I’ll have to cope then.’ She closes her eyes a moment as if imagining it. The media room. Then finally she opens them, her chin twitching. Nervous. ‘So talk me through what Mel had to say. Her text.’

‘They’re looking for a black Volvo, going through all the cameras in the area,’ he says. ‘But it’s a popular car so the big hope is they’ll find a driver who comes close to the photofit. She sent it through. Thought you should see it before they show it at the press conference so it’s not a shock.’ Matthew reaches for his phone and skims to find the download. ‘You ready to see it?’

‘Sure.’ Sally moves to sit beside him and he turns the screen towards her.

She immediately puts her hand up to her mouth.

The police image shows a man with slicked-back dark hair with a few specks of grey. Deep-set eyes. Ears close to the head. An oval face. Matthew feels a strange numbness as he takes in the picture again. The man looks ordinary. Unremarkable. The only thing that might be helpful is the photofit depicts a small mole above his top lip. Mel said this is assumed to be a mole but could just be a temporary blemish.

‘You don’t recognise him? Didn’t see anyone like this in Maidstead that day? In the shop? In Freda’s Fashions.’

Sally shakes her head. He is used to her looking tired but she suddenly turns even paler. She reaches out her hand to grip the corner of the nearest chair and suddenly darts from the kitchen to the downstairs cloakroom. He follows to hear her retching into the toilet.

‘You OK in there, Sally? Shall I fetch a glass of water?’

‘No. I just need a few minutes. Leave me, please.’

He stands and waits. The retching stops. The flush. He hears the taps running and finally the click of the lock on the inside. He steps back as she emerges.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Just hard. Imagining a real person. A man. I think it was easier when I thought it was Dawn Meadows. A woman. I thought. I don’t know. It sounds stupid but I thought there was a chance a woman might be kinder—’

‘I know.’ He just stands and they stare at each other a while.

‘I wish I could help you, Sally. I wish we could comfort each other.’

‘I know. But it doesn’t work, does it?’

They just stand there, holding each other’s gaze. It’s still dark outside, the lamp lighting just a portion of the garden through the glass of the sliding doors. Amelie’s swing just visible.

‘Was it a complete mistake, concentrating on Dawn Meadows for so long? Was that our fault?’

‘We weren’t wrong to be suspicious. Turns out it was Dawn Meadows who sent the threatening letters. Mel got her to admit that in the interview. We couldn’t know she wasn’t involved in this.’

‘So it was her. The letters.’ Sally’s eyes widen. ‘And she’ll be charged for that? Yes?’

Matthew shrugs. ‘I guess. I don’t know.’ He can’t bear to admit yet there’s a bargain being struck. Dawn’s solicitor is apparently pressing hard to trade a caution so the police don’t face the embarrassment of a court case against Matthew, detailing his threats at Dawn’s house. And the leak of Dawn’s address. No way will Matthew reveal the friend who tipped him off. But it’s a mess now and he can’t face telling his wife what he did. That Dawn probably won’t be charged because of him.

Sally rubs her arm as if cold. ‘So what time do we need to leave? I’ll grab a quick shower.’

‘About half an hour. They’re going earlier than usual with the conference to try to catch breakfast TV.’

‘OK.’ She turns to leave the room and he hears her footsteps on the stairs. Matthew opens his phone to look at the photofit again. So much riding on it today.

The problem is Matthew knows that photofits are notoriously unreliable. There was a study done once, he can’t remember where, which explained why. How the human brain naturally takes in a whole face for recognition, not designed to break down the parts. To notice the shape of the nose or the length of the face or eye shape in isolation. So that asking a person to describe a suspect feature by feature is pushing the brain to switch from pictorial ‘whole face’ recognition to verbal description. It tends to go wrong.

One experiment found suspects were recognised from a police sketch in only about 8 per cent of cases.

He looks out on to the garden again to notice a line of ants marching across the grey paving towards a drain. Just visible in the lamplight. The nest near the patio doors must be back. The Matthew Hill of two weeks ago was on a mission to napalm that nest. He’d tried boiling water and three different treatments from the nearest DIY store. He drove Sally mad, fuming about the patio invasion. He hated those ants so much.

Today’s Matthew Hill simply draws the curtain so he can’t see them.