I know that. And not only because it’s clear now that no one was murdering that baby. Not Camilla Rowan, not Nigel Ward, not anyone. His mother was long dead by the time Infamous came out, but when all that shit hit the fan and South Mercia were forced to try to eliminate Ward as a suspect, they went looking for the old lady’s carer. And she backed Ward up: she said he did indeed go and see his mother in Banbury every Tuesday and would administer her evening medication before he left. He never missed a week – the carer would have remembered, and all the more in the week before Christmas. So there was no way he could have met up with Camilla that night, either on the A417 or anywhere else – the distances involved were simply too great.
‘I’m not trying to open it all up again, Mrs Ward,’ I say gently. ‘The opposite, in fact. That’s why we’d like to do the DNA test. So you can draw a line under all this.’
Her face is flushed, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
‘I was hoping you still had something of your husband’s that might give us a usable sample. A hairbrush perhaps.’
She gapes at me. ‘He died two years ago –’
She sits back in the chair. All the irritation, all the affront, suddenly drained away; she just looks exhausted. Exhausted and lost and old. And I feel like a shit. For the second time today.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says eventually, reaching into her sleeve for a tissue and dabbing at her mouth. ‘I can’t help you.’
‘What about his family – I believe he had a brother?’
When she speaks again her voice is paper-dry. ‘Jeremy. We’re not in touch. We fell out after that wretched programme. The press were harassing him – not as bad as they did to us, but bad enough. He blamed Nigel.’ She swallows. ‘He didn’t even come to Nigel’s funeral. His own brother. No one did. His friends, the golfers, his old colleagues – nobody. He’d turned into a leper.’
I have a brief mental picture of a bleak winter churchyard with only her and the vicar by an open grave. The Wards never had any children. I wonder now if that was choice, or chance.
‘Do you know how we could contact Jeremy?’
She sighs. ‘I have his address somewhere. Assuming he hasn’t moved. I doubt he’d have bothered telling me if he had.’
She gets up, slowly and heavily, and goes over to a bureau on the far wall.
‘Here,’ she says a few moments later, handing me a slip of paper. ‘This is all I have.’
An address in Burford. The sort that doesn’t need a number. I look up at her. ‘Thank you.’
She folds her arms. ‘And now, I’d like you to leave.’
* * *
‘I’m not leaving and that’s flat.’
Margaret Swann is perched on the edge of the sofa, her hands gripped in her lap.
Ev looks at her and then at her husband, who’s skulking behind the furniture where Margaret can’t see him.
‘I appreciate this is inconvenient – annoying, even – but it really would make sense. As Mr Swann himself pointed out, you’re a long way from the nearest police station, and if a lot of press suddenly turn up and start causing you difficulties it’s going to be a little while before we can get to you –’
Margaret gives her a dark look. ‘We’ve been through all this once before, young lady, in case it’s slipped your mind. There is nothing, believe me, that the likes of you can tell us about the depths to which the media will sink – doorstepping, telephoto lenses, lights trained on the house all night – we were prisoners in our own home –’
‘All the more reason, surely, to go somewhere else for a few days? Just until things die down?’
Ev turns to the old man, hoping he’ll be more amenable to reason, but he’s refusing to meet her gaze.
‘It wasn’t just the press,’ he says eventually, ‘last time. There was graffiti, paint on the car, that sort of thing. Excrement, once. Through the letterbox. The police advised us to move out, just like you are, and we did, but with the place left empty, there was a lot of damage.’
Ev nods. She knows; she’s seen the file, read the police reports.
‘Not that we were living in this house then, of course –’
Margaret glances up at him. ‘I’m not prepared to go through all that again, Dick – I just can’t face it.’
‘I can talk to DI Fawley,’ says Ev gently, ‘see if we can have a uniformed officer stationed here while you’re away. To keep an eye on the house.’
Margaret stares down at her hands. She seems on the brink of tears.
Swann sighs and comes round to the front of the sofa and sits down next to her. ‘It’s not the damn house I’m worried about, Peggy, it’s you. You’re not as young as you were. Neither of us are.’ He takes hold of one of her hands. ‘You’ve been in hospital three times already this year and again this week – you know what the doctor said.’
Ev takes a breath, remembering they never did get permission to see Margaret Swann’s medical records. ‘What did the doctor say, Mr Swann?’
He looks up at her. ‘My wife suffers from panic attacks, Constable, has done ever since the trial. They put a strain on her heart. We do our best to avoid stressful situations.’
‘I’m very sorry, that must be very worrying. For both of you.’
‘It is.’ He bends closer to his wife. ‘Which is why I’d like you to do what the officer says and go somewhere else for a few days.’
She looks up at him, tears in her eyes. ‘Where would we go?’
He looks at her gently. ‘Not we, you.’ She starts to protest but he shakes his head. ‘No arguments, Peggy. Not this time. I’ll stay to look after the house – there’ll be a policeman here so I won’t come to any harm. You won’t need to worry about me.’
He squeezes her hand and some wordless communication passes between them. ‘All right,’ she whispers eventually. ‘All right.’
Swann nods and squeezes her hand again, then turns to Ev. ‘There isn’t really anyone Peggy can stay with, I’m afraid –’
‘It’s OK,’ she says quickly. ‘We can arrange a B&B for you – just for a few days.’ She tries a weak smile. ‘Not as grand as this, of course, but at least your wife will be able to get some peace.’
Margaret stares at her, all anger spent. ‘That’s why we came here. To get some peace. But it’s always going to find us, isn’t it? Wherever we go, however far we run. They’re never going to let us forget.’
* * *
When Sargent comes back from dealing with Crowther, the office is filling up. Hansen’s staring intently at his screen, clearly absorbed in something, Gislingham’s standing at Baxter’s desk, and Carter’s talking to Quinn, no doubt making sure he’s fully aware of that terrific insight of his about the hotels. Only Ev is missing. Sargent goes over to her desk and sits down, then immediately realizes something is wrong. Someone’s used her chair – the height’s been changed.
But who, who would even –?
She looks up, her eyes drawn – almost without thinking – to Carter.
He’s talking animatedly, his back to her.
* * *
Adam Fawley
25 October
17.17
Notwithstanding his run-ins with the fourth estate, Jeremy Ward is still in situ. And I’d be reluctant to move myself, if I lived where he does, even if I did have a press mob on my tail. A double-fronted Georgian house on The Hill is about as desirable as Burford gets. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Newly painted too, at a guess; the rich may get the cream but it’s a high-maintenance colour. There’s one of those Victorian iron things for scraping your shoes by the front door and topiary box in lead planters either side. Real lead, not that faux stuff. The security cameras are real too.