It’s Richard Swann who answers the door. He’s in a check flannel shirt and a cardigan with pockets that have bagged with age. He frowns.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m sure you’ve seen the papers, Mr Swann. DI Fawley is concerned the press may turn up here.’
‘Why should they? They don’t know who we are –’
‘Not yet, no, but it won’t take long. They can easily find out who owns this house, and from there it’s just a couple of checks online and they’ll know your name is Richard and you were born on exactly the same day as Camilla’s father. And as the boss always says, there’s no such thing as coincidence.’
He’d been pale before but he’s paler now. ‘I see. I suppose you’d better come in.’
* * *
Adam Fawley
25 October
14.55
Elaine Challoner catches up with me at the coffee machine.
‘I hope you don’t think I dumped you in it.’
I press the button for hot water and turn to face her. ‘Don’t worry – I know what he’s like when he’s got a bee in his bonnet.’
We exchange a smile.
‘Let me know if I can help, won’t you? And obviously I’ll come with you to the studio.’
‘I’ve been doing this job twenty years – you really think I need someone to hold my hand?’
She flushes a little. ‘I didn’t mean it like that –’
And now I feel like a shit, because she’s a nice woman and I’m taking my irritation with Harrison out on her. ‘Sorry – it’s been a bit of a crappy day. I’ve done media training – I’ll be fine.’
She picks up a cup and presses for coffee.
‘I’m assuming you did watch that Netflix thing?’
I give her a weary glance. ‘Well, I was in the room when it was on – does that count?’
She smiles. ‘Fair enough. But you may want to watch it again before you see Penrose. Especially the last episode.’
‘You’re probably right.’
I fish my teabag out of the cup and drop it in the bin. ‘But there’s something else I need to do first.’
* * *
Channeclass="underline"
Netflix
Programme:
Infamous, season 4
Number of episodes:
4
First shown:
09/03/2016
[THEME SONG – ’KARMA CHAMELEON’ [CULTURE CLUB]]
TITLE OVER:
INFAMOUS
FADE IN
THE CHAMELEON GIRL
MONTAGE: clips relating to the trial – newspaper headlines, people holding banners and shouting outside the court, Camilla trying to escape the cameras, interspersed with vox pops/news broadcasts/clips.
VOICEOVER – JOHN PENROSE
On 6th November 2003, after a six-week trial and more than four days in the witness box, Camilla Rowan received the verdict of her peers. And that verdict was unanimous: Guilty.
There was uproar in the court. Some people in the public gallery cheered, others screamed abuse and had to be removed by security personnel. Camilla’s mother collapsed and had to be given medical attention. And over it all, Camilla could be heard wailing, again and again, ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it’.
Cut to: John’s study. Wall of photos and news clippings about the case, piles of files, computer with Post-its on the screen, etc.
JOHN PENROSE
The announcement of the verdict may have been dramatic, but few observers can have been surprised. Anyone who covered the case for the press certainly wasn’t. Those four days on the stand were damning. Some people had questioned her defence team’s decision to allow her to give evidence, but objectively speaking they had little choice. The jury was always going to want to hear Camilla’s story from Camilla herself.
Intercut: RECONSTRUCTION: Girl sitting at a table talking to two men, one in barrister costume, referring to papers, etc.
I can only imagine the hours of preparation the lawyers must have put her through. But the prosecuting barrister, Ian Burns QC, was ruthless. He began his cross-examination by taking her through every lie she had told in relation to her pregnancies, forcing her to admit that she had not been telling the truth. It took over three hours. By the time he got to her version of events on the day of her child’s disappearance, her credibility was in tatters. No one believed her bizarre story about handing over a newborn baby in a lay-by on the A417. Most people still don’t. But are they wrong?
I’ve taken a long hard look at the Camilla Rowan case in this series, and much of the evidence has been damning. But is it the whole story? Or could there be something – or someone – out there who could throw new light on this baffling and unsettling case?
TITLE APPEARS OVER, TYPEWRITER STYLE:
Part four
“Every day is like survival”
JOHN’S VOICE
Six months ago, I got a call from a woman. I’m going to call her Mandy, though that’s not her real name. She said she’d heard I was looking again at the Camilla Rowan case, and had some information for me. And so we arranged to meet.
Woman shown walking into shot and taking a seat with her back to camera, facing John. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, revealing tattoos on her arms and the back of her neck. Her face is out of shot.
‘MANDY’
My name is Mandy, and I shared a cell with Camilla Rowan in Holloway prison, from 2007 to 2010.
RECONSTRUCTION of two women in cell. Bunk beds, etc.
I was in for soliciting. It was my first stretch and I was shit-scared but Cam really looked after me. I guess you could say we became mates. Twenty-three hours a day cooped up with someone – you get to know them pretty well.
JOHN PENROSE
What did she tell you about the baby?
‘MANDY’
She said she never hurt it – that people had it all wrong. She wasn’t that sort of person.
JOHN PENROSE
So she still maintained that she handed the child to its father?
‘MANDY’
Yeah, she did. But I reckon it wasn’t as simple as she made out. There were things she told me – things she let drop – that made me wonder.
JOHN PENROSE
What sort of things?
‘MANDY’
She was abused. When she was a kid, by a family friend. She said she called him Uncle but he wasn’t a real one. He raped her for the first time when she was eleven, and it carried on the whole of the rest of the time she was living at home.
JOHN PENROSE
So he could have been the father of the missing baby boy? Is that what you’re saying?
‘MANDY’
She never said that – not in so many words. But if you ask me, that’s exactly what happened. It’d explain why she never said anything. Especially to her parents.
JOHN PENROSE
But we presumably know this man wasn’t the father of the first baby, given that that child was mixed race.
‘MANDY’
No, obviously she must’ve had other boyfriends as well. But the way she behaved – like the pregnancies didn’t exist – being in denial like that, it’s what happens if you’ve been abused for years. I should know. You get a weird relationship with your own body. Like it’s happening to someone else. It’s a survival mechanism – a way of getting through it. That’s what my therapist said.