‘Terence Stamp,’ said Gerry.
Annie looked at her. ‘Come again?’
‘The one who swam out to sea, faked his suicide. Sergeant Troy, played by Terence Stamp. I’ve seen the film. Julie Christie as Bathsheba Everdene. There’s a more recent version with Carey—’
‘OK, Gerry. But remember, we’re not on a Hardy tour.’
‘Sorry, guv. My dad was a movie buff. I can’t help it. And I was just thinking, you know, the suicide connection.’
Trevelyan smiled at the exchange. ‘It’s a good point,’ he said to Gerry. ‘Though Marnie Sedgwick wasn’t faking it. At least twenty people saw her run out on Durdle Door and launch herself off the end. As you saw, the arch bellies out a bit and she hit the rock face as she went down. The pathologist says that was what killed her. A head wound. Fractured skull. After that she dropped in the sea and the waves battered her against the base of the arch until a boat managed to get close enough to haul her out. It was too late by then.’
Both Annie and Gerry silently contemplated Marnie’s fate. ‘Do you get a lot of people jumping off this Durdle Door?’ Annie asked.
‘Every summer. It’s quite a popular sport among the young folk.’
‘But they don’t all die.’
‘Of course not. We have the occasional serious accident, though, and the air ambulances are out there often enough, but there are spots where you can jump safely and avoid the outfling and the rocks at the bottom. The tides, too, of course.’
‘But Marnie didn’t do that?’
‘No.’
‘Would she have known the lie of the land?’
‘According to her parents, Lulworth was one of her favourite spots. She loved the whole Jurassic Coast, no matter what the season.’
‘Did she leave a note?’
‘No. But there again—’
‘Many suicides don’t,’ said Annie. ‘We know. But there’s no doubt in your mind that it was suicide?’
‘None at all. Either that or she slipped and fell, but the majority of our witnesses say she definitely ran off the end.’
‘Ran,’ said Annie. ‘You’ve mentioned that a few times and it strikes me as odd. Why was she running?’
‘Nobody knows. Maybe she didn’t want to give herself a chance to change her mind.’
‘Or maybe she was being chased,’ said Annie.
Trevelyan flashed her a stern glance. ‘We’re not the country hicks you might think we are down here, DI Cabbot. While there was hardly a major investigation, we did ask around. Marnie had been seen walking with and talking to a man in the car park and on the cliffs earlier. We couldn’t get any sort of decent description except he was older, slender, medium height, with a touch of grey and, whoever he was, he was never seen again. The only unusual thing about him was that he was wearing a suit. You don’t get a lot of that around here. There was certainly no one chasing her when she ran out on to the Door and jumped off the end.’
‘What were they doing? Arguing? Holding hands?’
‘Just walking and talking, as far as we know,’ said Trevelyan. ‘Nobody noticed anything unusual or potentially alarming.’
‘Any photos or videos of him?’
‘None that we saw.’
‘Was there an investigation?’
‘Only a cursory one, as I said, for the coroner’s court.’ Trevelyan took a tablet from his briefcase. ‘And there’s more. I don’t want to upset you, but...’ He turned the tablet on and went to the menu, then passed it to Annie. ‘One of the Japanese tourists was taking videos of Durdle at the time.’
Annie held the tablet so that only she and Gerry could see it and pressed the start button for the video clip Trevelyan had selected. It began with a slow panorama of the sea and cliffs, the wind whistling in the microphone, white gulls swooping over the water’s surface. Then there was an audible human gasp and the image jumped chaotically before it caught the end of Durdle Door and a human figure running. She didn’t launch herself so much as fall like a rag doll and bounce off the cliff face. Annie felt sick and Gerry looked pale. But they watched it again. There was no indication that she had simply overbalanced or tried to dive into the sea.
‘Sorry,’ said Trevelyan, ‘but that’s pretty conclusive, I’d say. There’s no sign of anyone chasing her. Naturally, we made sure the video was never shared on social media.’
‘What about her stuff? Her mobile and so on?’
‘The mobile must have gone with her over the cliff. We never found it. She had nothing else except a few quid and a set of car keys in her jeans pocket. Her car was in the car park. She’d even paid.’
‘How long?’
‘Two hours. She arrived at 12:27.’
‘And was seen with the man when?’
‘Around that time in the car park and about fifteen minutes later on the cliffs.’
‘After that?’
‘She jumped at 12:54, according to the timer on the video.’
‘What happened to the man she was talking to?’
‘Someone saw him get into a car at about ten to or five to one. They couldn’t be certain.’
‘What sort of car?’
‘A posh one was all we heard. Maybe a Jag or a Beemer. Silver.’
‘CCTV? ANPR?’
Trevelyan shook his head. ‘It was too late by the time we heard all this. Recordings had been wiped over. To be honest, we didn’t scour every possible source. There was no evidence that the man had anything to do with Marnie’s suicide.’
‘But he might have given her cause,’ Gerry said.
‘We’d still no reason to suspect him of any crime.’
‘Isn’t it a bit odd, though,’ Gerry went on, ‘that Marnie would bother paying for the parking when she was intending to take her own life?’
‘People follow habit, as often as not,’ said Trevelyan. ‘If you’re the sort of person who always pays your way, you’ll just as likely do that even if you’re planning suicide. Still, it’s true that we don’t know she was planning any such thing. It might have been a sudden decision — it might even have had something to do with the man she was talking to — but as far as we were concerned, her death did not involve foul play or suspicious circumstances. Maybe you see it differently.’ Trevelyan put the tablet back in his briefcase and paused a moment. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I think you’d agree that I’ve been both patient and helpful so far. But you still haven’t told me anything about why you’re interested. Wouldn’t this be a good time to tell me?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Annie. ‘You’re right, of course. We have evidence that Marnie Sedgwick was raped at a party in the house of a man called Connor Clive Blaydon back on 13 April of this year.’
‘Do you have any idea who did it?’
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘The only evidence so far consists of a poor quality microSD recording from which we managed to enhance a picture of Marnie, but not of the rapist. We only found the recording some time after the event, while our CSIs were searching Blaydon’s house. He was murdered in a particularly brutal fashion about a month later.’
‘And you think that’s connected with what happened to Marnie?’
‘We don’t think anything. We don’t necessarily think Blaydon was the one who raped her. He could have been, but now we know for certain that Marnie didn’t kill him. She died five days before he did. But everyone we’ve talked to has told us about the change in her after the date of the rape. How she became depressed, moody, anxious. Now you tell us — show us — that she took her own life about a month later.’