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TWENTY-FOUR

SUNDAY 2 FEbrUARY

The first thing Harper does when she wakes up is check her phone. It’s now more important than ever that she finishes all this – before Kate ends it herself. Harper hadn’t expected her to be so defiant, to not crumble and fall. It shouldn’t surprise her, though – Jamie would never have picked someone who wouldn’t defend herself. She dreads to think what would have happened if Ellis hadn’t come clean about the cameras.

There’s no message from Faye Held, but there’s a text from an unknown number. Harper opens it, adrenalin coursing through her as she reads the message.

Hi, this is Mona Shaw. I don’t like raking up the past, but Faye convinced me to message you. I live in St Albans now so you’ll have to come to me if you want to talk.

Harper wastes no time replying, telling Mona she can meet her today at eleven. Mona replies: Fine. Meet outside Forest Town Church at 11.

Harper climbs out of bed and goes to check on Dexter. He’s still asleep and she doesn’t want to wake him to drag him to St Albans. Besides, how would she explain what she’s doing? So far she’s managed to keep Dexter out of this mess that Jamie left behind. She puts a message out to the school WhatsApp group, asking if anyone can recommend a babysitter, and within minutes a flurry of recommendations floods in. Harper picks one at random – Phoebe Helsopp, recommended by a parent she’s never spoken to.

She sends Phoebe a message, asking if she’s available right now, and is surprised when Phoebe replies immediately and agrees, on the condition that she’s paid double for the short notice.

It takes Harper over an hour to get to St Albans – a place she’s never been before. Her satnav directs her to Forest Town Church and she finds a parking space across the road. It’s three minutes to eleven when she gets out of the car and makes her way to the church.

It’s silent in the church grounds, and the cold chill pinches her skin, despite the long, padded coat she’s wearing and her fleece-lined boots. She hovers outside, checking her phone every few seconds in case Mona Shaw has changed her mind.

Finally, at five past eleven, a woman who Harper assumes is Mona steps out of the church, heading towards Harper. She’s tall, with curly dark hair tied in a side ponytail. There’s a harshness about the angular lines of her face and she doesn’t smile at Harper, even when Harper greets her and holds out her hand. ‘Thanks for meeting me.’

Mona looks at Harper’s hand with distaste, but lightly takes it. ‘Nearly changed my mind,’ she says. ‘I’ve buried that whole incident. Tried to forget it happened. Do you mind if we walk? I can’t sit still when I’m talking about all this.’ She points to the back of the church. ‘There’s a nature reserve we can walk to if we head that way.’

‘Of course,’ Harper says. She glances at the church. ‘Do you mind me asking why you wanted to meet here?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing weird. I help out here on Sunday mornings with the kids’ sessions. I like to do my bit for the community. Let’s walk.’

‘Do you have kids, then?’ Harper asks, walking fast to keep up with Mona.

‘Not yet. Haven’t met the right person. How about you?’

‘A son. Dexter. He’s ten, and?—’

‘Can we cut the small talk, please?’ Mona says, stopping to face Harper. ‘I’m really not cut out for it.’

Harper raises her eyebrows. Something tells her she’s not going to like this woman. ‘Okay.’

Mona resumes walking. ‘You’re here because you want to know about Kate. What I want to know is why you’re asking about her?’

‘Didn’t Faye Held tell you anything?’ Harper asks.

‘Not much. She just said that you know Kate and you’re concerned about her behaviour.’

‘Kate slept with my husband. And now he’s dead.’

Mona stops walking again. ‘Oh. That’s…I’m so sorry.’

‘She was the last person to see him,’ Harper continues. ‘But she’s not admitting to anyone – including me – that she even knew him. Nobody knows except for me. And now Faye Held.’

‘And how exactly do you know she slept with him?’

Harper lets out a deep breath. ‘I know how this sounds, but I had a camera in the flat. Jamie and I had a property we rented out and we were between tenants. I…let’s just say I had suspicions that he was using it to take women back there.’ Harper takes out her phone and scrolls to the picture of Jamie and Kate. ‘Here’s the proof.’

Mona stares at the photo. ‘Kate’s changed a lot. I wouldn’t have recognised her. Her hair’s completely different. Darker than I remember.’

‘I think it’s common for people to alter their appearance if they’re trying to start over and forget the past. Run from something.’ Harper puts her phone back in her pocket.

‘Makes sense I suppose. But sleeping with someone doesn’t make you a murderer, does it?’ Mona says.

They continue walking. ‘But if you’ve killed someone before…’

‘Graham White. Hearing that name…it makes me…well, in a way, it was my fault. Kate shouldn’t have been walking home that day. She should have been hanging out with us by the canal. Then it would never have happened.

‘You can’t think like that,’ Harper says. She doesn’t know all the details, but she needs to keep Mona talking. ‘You are not responsible for what happened to Graham White. And I’m not responsible for what happened to Jamie.’

Mona pauses, dabs her eyes. ‘But I’m the one who set off the whole chain of events. Kate and I had had an argument, and I keep thinking what if we hadn’t? Even now I think like that. It’s stayed with me all these years. Then maybe he never would have crossed paths with Kate. She points to a bench on the other side of the trees. ‘Let’s sit over there. I think I’m ready to share this story.’

‘Kate and I fell out that day. Badly,’ Mona says, once they’ve reached the bench. ‘It was over this boy – Kian. It seems so trivial now, but back then it was colossal. We were only fifteen.’

‘Friends and boys are everything when you’re that age,’ Harper says, remembering the huge crush she’d had at that age on Craig Summers. She never did have the courage to speak to him, and the two of them only ever eyed each other from a distance. Kids’ stuff. But huge at the time.

‘We both liked Kian,’ Mona says. ‘But we never talked about it, and I felt bad because even though I’d liked him first, Kate was always talking about him so I could never explain how I felt. But she knew. Once when she was at my house, she found an old diary I’d written in. It had everything in there – all my feelings about Kian. About my whole life. I caught her reading it but she never said anything. Just shut it and slipped it back under my bed. Kate was strange like that. A closed book. She refused to talk about what I’d just seen her doing. And what can you do if someone refuses to speak?’

That fits with everything Harper has witnessed from Kate. ‘So what happened on the day Graham White was killed?’

‘We were all hanging out by the canal. We’d broken up from school early as it was the last day of the summer term. Anyway, I was kind of seeing one of Kian’s friends – Robbie. Kian always seemed to have a girlfriend so I’d given up waiting for him. Anyway, Kate needed the toilet and there weren’t any nearby so she went into town. She was gone for ages. And in that time, I’d broken up with Robbie and admitted to him I had feelings for Kian. He was a real arse about it – shouting out to everyone that I wanted Kian. Calling me a slut. Humiliating me in front of the other boys. It was horrible. But then, Kian came to my defence and told Robbie to back off. They had a fight, then Kian and I were left alone. We were just talking and I admitted it was true that I liked him. That’s when he kissed me and…it probably went too far, and I didn’t think Kate would see us. I thought she’d decided to go home. She’d been gone for so long.’ She stares at Harper. ‘Please don’t judge me – I’d liked him for so long. You know that feeling when someone is under your skin and you just can’t shake them?’

Harper understands. Jamie was under her skin the second she met him. And he still is. But her deep-seated love for Jamie turned into something else. And even now he’s dead, Jamie underlies all her actions. ‘I get it,’ she says.

Mona folds her arms across her chest. ‘I don’t like talking about this. I’ve blocked it out all these years.’

Harper nods. ‘I understand. But I need justice for my husband. Please, Mona. Help me make sure Kate Mason pays for what she did.’

Mona hangs her head. ‘Kian and I were…you know… together . In the woods. And suddenly Kate was there screaming and shouting. She ran over to me and grabbed me by my hair, dragging me away from Kian. She told me Kian was her boyfriend and I’d betrayed her. But they weren’t together, I swear. She was just infatuated with him. She was grabbing me, throwing punches, and I was terrified. She’d always had a bit of a temper but I’d never seen her that bad before. Kian dragged her off me and told her to calm down, but it was like she didn’t even hear him. She ran off, and I remember how her face looked – so red with rage. She screamed that I’d pay for this as she was running off.’

‘Did you tell the police all of this?’

‘No. They never asked, and I just wanted to forget it happened. Robbie was already spreading it around that I was some kind of whore and I’d slept with Kian. I had to keep my distance from all of them when we went back to school. I just shut myself off and then my mum moved us to St Albans.’

‘I know this is hard, but it’s been a long time…You could go to the police now if it helps me to prove Kate killed Jamie.’

‘Just because Kate and I had a fight and she basically attacked me – it doesn’t prove anything about what happened with Graham White.’ Mona shakes her head. ‘I’ve already told Faye that I won’t speak about this publicly to anyone, and that includes the police. I’ve got my job and the church to think about. I can’t get dragged into that awful mess.’

But there is another way. ‘What about Kian?’ Harper says. ‘He could testify to Kate’s behaviour that day.’

Mona’s defiant expression falls. ‘That might be a bit difficult.’

‘Why?’

‘Kian died a few years after it all happened. He got really drunk at a party and ended up walking in front of a car. Funny, though – Kian never seemed the type who’d drink excessively. It always seemed like he was just drinking for the sake of it. To look cool or something.’

Yet no one is who they seem – Harper knows this more than most.

‘Were you in contact with him after Kate’s attack?’

Mona shakes her head. ‘I told you – I had to avoid them all. He approached me at school, though, on the first day we went back, to try and explain himself. He apologised to me for what happened in the woods. Said he’d had a lot to drink and he was sorry for how he behaved. But he had nothing to apologise for. I knew what I was doing.’ She sighs. ‘Kian and I never spoke again.’

‘When did you hear about Kate’s attack?’ Harper asks.

‘From people at school. Everyone was talking about it. Imagine if we’d had social media then. But it was just word of mouth. At first, I felt awful for Kate. First she’d lost Kian, even though he was never hers to lose, and then she got attacked. I even went to her house to try and see her but her mum told me she didn’t want to see anyone. But then I saw a picture of Graham White and I recognised him straight away. I’d seen her talking to him in the park once and assumed he was just one of her mum’s friends. I don’t even remember if I asked her. I didn’t even tell Faye Held this – you’re the first person I’ve admitted it to. Because now, I know I should have mentioned it. But I was fifteen. I didn’t know what to do. And Kate was my friend.’

‘But the police investigated,’ Harper says. ‘They would have found out if Kate had known Graham White.’

‘I don’t know if she knew him. Properly. I just know that they’d bumped into each other in the park because they were talking. Who knows what that means? Anyway, they weren’t looking into all that. They believed her story about being thrown into the van. There was no CCTV that picked anything up. And what reason would they have to doubt it? She was a child, and he was a grown man. Case closed.’

Harper struggles to piece this all together. Even though Mona Shaw is growing on her, she wonders if things might have played out differently if Mona hadn’t kept this to herself all these years. If she’d just told someone – anyone – then there might be a chance Kate would never have met Jamie.

‘That day was the day my life spiralled out of control,’ Mona says. I’d be living a completely different life if it wasn’t for what Kate did. I had every right to be with Kian that day – and she knew it. It was me he liked.’

Harper doesn’t care about any of that. She only wants to know what Kate has done. To Jamie and to Graham White. ‘I need to know the truth, Mona. Do you think Kate killed Graham White on purpose? Nothing you say will go any further than this.’ Harper taps her head. ‘I promise. I just need to know.’

There’s a heavy silence, and Harper listens to the roar of traffic coming from the other side of the trees, silently praying for the outcome she needs. When she can bear the waiting no more, she turns to Mona. ‘Well? Can you help me?’

‘I really think she did it on purpose,’ Mona says. ‘And if she can do it once, what’s to stop her doing it again? Justice needs to be served.’