Chapter 60

60

An unfamiliar dullness has consumed the afternoon as Elin steps onto the terrace, p hone in hand. The clouds she'd glimpsed earlier a re multiplying fast—a steely line hovering across the horizon, overwriting the blue.

Johnson's speaking, but his words are barely audible.

"You're going to have to speak up," she says, raising her voice. "I can't really hear you."

There's the high-pitched whine of a motorbike in the background. "Sorry, I'm in a car park at the beach. I was just asking if everything is okay." Hesitation in his voice. A random catch-up call isn't exactly the norm.

"All good." They exchange a few pleasantries before she takes a breath. "Look, this is a strange one, hence the call out of the blue. I wanted to pick your brains about the Creacher case. I'm out on the island now, another case, and I think I've got a possible link to the Creacher murders." Elin shuffles closer to the barrier, making sure she's out of earshot of the staff clearing one of the tables a few feet away.

A pause. "Give me a second to peel this wetsuit down, get in the car." Huffing and puffing. She hears a door slam. "Right, I'm transferring you to speaker. Can you hear me?"

"Yes." Elin cuts straight to the chase. "Creacher, I know it was a long time ago, but I remember us talking, you mentioning there had been doubts, initially, about whether he was good for it."

He pauses. "I'll be honest, I did. Still do, for that matter. To me, at the beginning in particular, the evidence was flimsy at best."

"Flimsy how?"

"There was DNA evidence on one of the victims' T-shirts, a match with Creacher. But in my opinion, it was circumstantial, could have been transferred another way. It didn't definitively put him at the scene. One of the experts for the defense also raised an interesting point about the lack of DNA on the victims, said that even if they hadn't put up any defense, he'd have expected more than a single spot on a shirt."

"What else did you have?"

"Eyewitness account: the boatman said he'd seen Creacher hanging around, watching the kids. There were photographs too."

"Photographs?" She thinks about the photographs they found in the cave.

"Yes. There were teenagers in the images we found, but there was landscape, too, wildlife. He said he was simply a keen photographer." Johnson gives a heavy sigh. "Creacher was odd, that's for sure, someone you'd run a mile from if you bumped into him in a dark alley, but I felt there were assumptions made just because he was a bit of a loner."

"An easy mark?"

"Something like that. Yes, Creacher struggled with eye contact, normal social stuff, and was a bit slow, but that didn't make him a killer. You get a feeling sometimes, whether someone's right for it, and I didn't get it with him. A loner, yes, but a murderer? I didn't see it. I kept suggesting we widen the net, particularly given the connection to the girl."

"Girl?"

"Yes. I made an interesting connection almost as soon as we picked up the case. Another girl, who went missing a few months before the Creacher murders."

Another girl . Elin thinks about the fifth photograph on the wall. Could that be her?

"Her name was Lois Wade. All very strange. Her class went to the island for one of the Outward Bound courses, but she was one of the few who didn't. The week the kids were away, Lois was reported missing. The same night, a boy on the Outward Bound course reported he'd seen her on the island."

"But you said she didn't go."

"That's exactly the point. A group of them had snuck up to the rock on the island after the teachers had gone to sleep. They were drinking heavily, passed out. When the boy woke up, he was the only one still up there. Apparently he looked down, saw a body on the grass beneath the rock. Convinced it was Lois Wade, but by the time he climbed down, she'd gone. No sign. Not even a mark on the grass."

"Weird."

"Yes and no. The boy who saw her was the only one who did. Most people assumed it was the booze talking, possibly hallucinogens. Yet he was adamant, also admitted that they'd invited her to sneak onto the island that night, but he was alone in saying that; all the other kids gave the same story. Lois wasn't there, was never meant to be."

Elin absorbs his words, glancing out at the water. A breeze has picked up, the turquoise of the sea striped with vivid, unfamiliar color, bruising blue-blacks, tinny grays. "But surely it must have been easy to check whether she did go out to the island. She'd had to have taken a boat."

"No CCTV back then, so there was no real way of knowing if she had. Friends and acquaintances denied arranging anything on her behalf. We spoke to a few of the companies operating out of the harbor to see if they'd brought her across, but no. A few days later, the parents admitted Lois was prone to running away. Then we had a sighting of her getting into a car on the mainland, and all resources went to that line of inquiry."

"And the boy's statement about seeing her on the island?"

"Nothing came of it. Police scoured the woodland, spoke to staff, the other kids, the boatman, but we drew a blank."

"But once the Creacher killings happened, you joined the dots." Above Elin, the long branches of the pine shift, their shadows dancing sideways across the path.

"Yes. Understandably, I wondered if the cases were linked, if the girl might have potentially been Creacher's first victim, but that hypothesis tripped itself up before it even got out of the starting gate. A few days into questioning Creacher, we found out he wasn't on the island when Lois went missing." Johnson hesitates, as if he's about to say something else, and then stops himself. "And by that stage, the sighting of Lois on the mainland was substantiated by several people."

"Did they ever find her?"

"No."

"But surely that would imply what the boy was saying might have been the truth."

Johnson sighs. "I'm not sure. All I know is that the running away theory... it's what they rolled with at the time and they weren't keen on revisiting Lois Wade's case. If the wind's blowing one way, you know what it's like."

Elin can read between the lines: Lois Wade's disappearance and the sighting of her on the island were very obviously a thorn in the side of Creacher's conviction. The police had made up their minds he was good for it, and Johnson's theory would have been an awkward inconvenience. If the cases were proven to be linked, and Creacher wasn't on the island when Lois Wade went missing, that would imply someone else was responsible. Having Lois Wade simply "missing" made Creacher's conviction a whole lot easier to swallow.

Elin understands why: as she'd said to Steed, there would have been immense pressure on a case like this, from press and public, to get answers and fast. But in doing so, they'd possibly let the real killer go free. If that was the case, it has seismic implications for what's happening here; her theory that whoever killed those teenagers also killed Bea Leger and Seth Delaney is now looking increasingly likely.

"So what happened after that?"

"I persisted, foolishly, as it turned out. Couldn't let it go, but when I tried to broach it—and particularly the boy's testimony—it went nowhere. Shortly after, I got pulled off the case." A pause. "Someone more experienced came in."

More experienced . They both know why he was pulled: his "alternative" theory would have slowed the path to a conviction.

"I went to the SIO, asked him to take another look, given the fact that Lois Wade still hadn't turned up, but by that stage, the ball was rolling. With a case like this, it comes down to who is telling the best story, defense or prosecution, and in this instance the prosecution's story about Creacher... it was compelling. He fit the bill, and then when the girl came forward to give her testimony, it was pretty much game over."

"Girl?"

Johnson clears his throat. "Yes. One of the other kids from the Outward Bound course. Eyewitness. She came forward a little while after, said she saw Creacher the night of the murders."

"Saw him where?"

"By the tents. Said she woke up, heard a disturbance. When she put her head outside the tent, she saw him running away from the camp."

"She could ID him in the dark?"

"Apparently so. Told us she flicked her flashlight on."

"That quickly?"

"So she said." There's a heavy silence.

"You had your doubts?"

Another sigh. "Yes. I hate to say it. She was a kid, and clearly traumatized, but there was something odd about her statement. Too perfect , a colleague said at the time, and I knew what she meant. The way she spoke, the poise... it bothered me. And of course the fact that it took her a few days to come forward—"

"A few days?"

"Yes. Said she was scared to say anything before, thought he'd get to her too."

"Do you remember the girl's name?"

"I do, all of that case is crystal clear to me. I probably shouldn't have, and this is to stay between you and me, but I've kept my old notebooks. Her name was Farrah." Johnson hesitates. "Farrah Riley."