‘We’ve been granted leave to appeal!’ Charles blurted out as soon as he’d sat down. ‘They really couldn’t not grant it, given the strength of the new evidence – but until you get the word, you can never be quite sure.’
Flora released a huge breath. ‘Thank God. Or rather, thanks to you and Brian.’
‘Ah, but that’s not all.’ He was practically rubbing his hands together. ‘Flora, the even better news is –’
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Before you tell me…’ Her leg was jigging under the table like Danielle’s. She wanted to reach across and hug them both. Beckie. Soon she would be back with Beckie. ‘Before you tell me whatever it is, I want to show you this.’
She pushed the letter across the table.
‘I know it’s got nothing to do with my conviction, I know it’s not going to influence the appeal…’
Brian, sighing in a ‘What now?’ kind of way, started to read the letter over Charles’s shoulder.
Dear Rachel
I was going to put ‘Flora’ because that’s who you are now, but then I thought no, you haven’t chosen to be Flora Parry, you had to stop being Rachel Clark because people hated her. And that’s my fault.
I’m so sorry.
Really inadequate, I know.
I’m going to tell the police what really happened. But first I have to do something even harder, and that’s tell you. Because I don’t think you know. I think you went into shock and your brain shut down or something. Otherwise, you’d have told them the truth. Like I should have.
I know it’s nearly 40 years too late. I know I could have put things right at any point in those 40 years and I chose not to. Why now? you’re probably thinking.
It was seeing you on TV getting into that van outside court. The look on your face.
I don’t believe you killed your husband. But how were you going to convince the police you were innocent when they knew you were Rachel Clark?
So I’m going to tell the police that Rachel was innocent then, and maybe there’s a chance they’ll see you’re innocent now.
When Tricia gave you that bow and arrow and told you to shoot me, I knew you wouldn’t do it. You were nasty to me, yes, and I hated you for it, but you weren’t evil like Tricia. You were just acting out because your mum made your life a misery. You probably don’t see it that way, even now, do you? You always made excuses for her, like she wouldn’t let you come out to play and made you slave away doing housework because it was good practice for when you had your own home.
Anyway. When Tricia gave you that bow and arrow, I knew you weren’t going to shoot anyone. You just sort of stood there frozen, while Tricia yelled at you to ‘Do it!’ and threatened all kinds of things if you didn’t. Tricia was ‘in your face’ as my kids would say, and you backed up, holding the bow and arrow in front of you to stop her coming any closer, as a kind of barrier, but then you stumbled on a tussock of grass and let go the arrow and it went into Tricia’s eye.
It was an accident.
I told the police you’d fired the arrow at her while the two of you were arguing, but that was a lie. I told them that because I hated you. I hated you for being horrible to me when we were supposed to be friends. But you didn’t fire the arrow. You tripped and let it go.
And once I’d told the lie, it took on a life of its own and I didn’t have the courage to take it back. Until now.
I hope it’s not too late to put right some of the damage I’ve done. I’ll go to the police a week after I’ve posted this.
So sorry
Gail
Charles looked up at Flora, his grin widening. ‘But this is dynamite! You say it won’t influence the appeal, and in theory it shouldn’t – but I learned a long time ago that there’s no such thing as impartiality. We need this all over the press so whoever hears the appeal can’t help but be aware of it. This is great.’ And he half reached across the table towards her hand. ‘Write back to Gail, tell her how much this means to you – urge her to go to the press. And if she doesn’t, we will.’
Flora nodded. ‘I still can’t believe it.’
‘You never thought of contacting Gail yourself?’
‘No. I suppose I just accepted her version of what happened because, as she says, I must have blanked it out… Well, I remember tying Gail to the tree, and Tricia yelling at me to shoot her, and I remember the arrow… I remember it going into her eye…’ She swallowed. ‘But nothing in between. Although –’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I always felt it was wrong, that I wasn’t the person everyone said I was, this – this psychotic girl called Rachel Clark. This monster. I couldn’t think of myself like that.’
‘Of course you couldn’t.’
‘By rights,’ said Brian, ‘Gail Boyle should be charged with perverting the course of justice.’
‘Oh – I wouldn’t want her to get into trouble.’ Actually Flora didn’t care if they locked Gail up and threw away the key – as Gail herself had said, she’d had forty years to put this right and hadn’t – but it was almost as if Flora had been handed back her virtue. As if she had to live up to everyone’s new idea of her.
‘She was a traumatised child,’ said Charles. ‘They won’t charge her with anything.’ He grinned at her. ‘So, don’t you want to hear the best part?’ He was like a favourite uncle about to present the birthday girl with the best gift of all.
She nodded.
‘In the light of the evidence Brian’s unearthed, the police are reopening the investigation.’
Flora could only stare at Brian.
Such an unlikely saviour.
‘What evidence?’
Brian sighed, and opened the laptop on the table. ‘Finally got the CCTV footage off Eden Security. The outfit who installed your system. And I’ve been through the lot, minute by minute, for the day of the murder.’
Brian turned the laptop round so Flora could see the screen. ‘This is footage from one of the cameras covering the east side of the house. 9:42 a.m. on the morning of that day.’
The shock of seeing the house, their house, their home, on the screen was physical. The footage was of a section of the driveway and the side of the house facing the garage, with the window of what had been the old pantry and was now a storeroom to the left, and the downstairs loo, and then the dining room which they never used. On the dining room windowsill she could see the dusty dried flower arrangement she and Beckie had made years ago, and through the frosted glass of the loo window, the vague shape of the ‘Victorian’ pendant light fitting.
At 9:42 Alec was probably inside, in his study, little knowing…
‘Watch the dining room window… Now!’
The dried-flower arrangement suddenly jumped to the left.
Brian reached over to the keyboard and rewound the footage. ‘Now watch the time at the top left… See? Jumps from 9:52 to 10:22. Same with the camera next to it. This system, which lets you switch the cameras on and off remotely, doesn’t show a blank screen when the camera is off – the footage is continuous.’