Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Upper Heydon is four miles from White Cross, but the rush-hour traffic makes the journey take more than three times longer than it should. They pull into the driveway of Hermit’s Rest just after nine o’clock and wait, the engine idling, for the automatic wooden gate to open.

‘Nice place,’ says Zuri as the gate slowly opens giving a first glimpse of the huge imposing mock-Georgian mansion beyond.

‘Yeah,’ says Jennie. She’d known at school that Lottie’s family had money; after all, Lottie was always splashing the cash and paying for stuff. But she’d never realised quite how wealthy she was. Places in Upper Heydon don’t come cheap, and Hermit’s Rest must have at least five or six bedrooms, plus there’s a tennis court off to the side and what looks like stables beyond. The place must be worth millions. ‘Very nice.’

They park in front of the detached double garage and walk across the gravel to the front porch. Hermit’s Rest is a huge red-brick mansion, with a square-fronted portico supported by four white pillars forming the entrance. Twin bay trees with fairy lights adorning them sit on either side of the stone steps leading to the black gloss front door. Ignoring the heavy iron door knocker, Jennie presses the Ring doorbell and steps back, waiting.

It takes Lottie more than two minutes to answer the door, even though they’re late and the automatic gate opening must have let her know when they arrived. Still, she pulls open the door without apology and ushers them through into the kitchen, offering tea, coffee and a range of chilled soft drinks. It takes a few minutes of buzzing around for Lottie to fetch the drinks and settle down at the kitchen table with them. Jennie takes the opportunity to scan the room. It’s a large kitchen diner, with a huge island in the middle, a massive gas range cooker and an American-style fridge with an ice-maker in the door. It looks like the sort of room you’d see in a magazine, all marble countertops, two-tone cabinets and Farrow and Ball paint. The kitchen table is solid oak with ten seats around it. Jennie tries, unsuccessfully, not to compare the space to her recently inherited, mould-smelling kitchen.

‘So how can I help?’ asks Lottie, sitting down opposite Jennie. Her expression is keen, her eyes overly bright. ‘I want to do whatever I can to help you find who did this. Hannah was my best friend. It’s just so awful to think that someone killed her and hid her body away all these years.’

‘It would be really helpful if you could talk us through what happened in the weeks leading up to Hannah’s disappearance back in 1994,’ says Zuri, getting out her notebook and opening it up on the table in front of her.

‘Oh, well, okay, if you need me to.’ Lottie smiles and glances at Jennie.

Jennie nods. She agreed on the way here that Zuri should take the lead on this interview. She didn’t tell her it was because Lottie might think it weird if the types of questions they need to ask came from her. ‘Please, go ahead.’

‘Okay.’ Lottie takes a deep breath. ‘I’d been friends with Hannah a long time; she was my best friend from primary all through school to sixth form. We were inseparable; anyone we were at school with will tell you that.’ Lottie looks at Jennie then back to Zuri. ‘Hannah was always the life and soul of the party, larger-than-life, you know the kind of person? But she hadn’t been acting herself in the weeks before she disappeared. Something was off.’

Zuri makes a note, then leans closer across the table. ‘What sort of thing?’

‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure, really.’ Lottie looks thoughtful. ‘Hannah was always super easy-going. She was kind of carefree and adventurous, always looking for a new experience, but in the weeks before she went missing, she started seeming kind of secretive, withdrawn almost.’

‘Why do you think that was?’ asks Zuri.

‘I don’t know.’ Lottie looks down at her hands. She clasps them together. ‘I’ve been so angry with her for all these years. After the investigation back then decided she was a runaway I assumed she’d been planning to leave White Cross for a few weeks and that’s why she distanced herself from me and the rest of her friends. I was hurt that she didn’t tell me she was going, or ask me to go with her, but now … now I find out she didn’t leave, she was at the school all this time and I never even knew …’ Lottie sniffs loudly and reaches for a tissue from the box on the countertop.

‘It must be hard,’ says Zuri, sympathetically. ‘Please take your time.’

Lottie dabs at her eyes with the tissue. She looks at Jennie. ‘It’s been a lot to process, you know?’

Jennie nods. ‘You’re doing great. This is all really helpful for our investigation.’

Lottie sniffs loudly again and then blows her nose. ‘I do so want to be helpful. I was convinced that Hannah ran away, and now I know the truth I’ve been trying to make sense of it. I feel so terribly guilty … You see, we’d been arguing a lot in those last few weeks.’

‘What did you argue about?’ asks Zuri, gently.

‘About Hannah being a model. She’d always wanted to be a model in London. She’d talked about it for years. I’d assumed she’d grow out of it, you know, like a kid who says they want to be an astronaut or whatever, but she never did.’ Lottie shakes her head. ‘A few weeks before our exams, she said something about her results not mattering because models didn’t need A levels, and I said surely she’d grown out of her model fantasy by now. Anyway, it went down like a lead balloon, as you can imagine, and after that I never felt like she really wanted to hang out with me. I tried to apologise, and she said it was fine, but I knew it wasn’t. Something had changed between us.’

‘You said that you were arguing?’ says Jennie. She remembers the tension between Hannah and Lottie in the months before Hannah disappeared. Lottie had tried to ease the tension by buying Hannah presents – bits of No 7 make-up, CDs of the bands Hannah loved most, like Soundgarden and The Doors, a fluffy jacket thing that had cost over fifty quid. Hannah had accepted the presents but the atmosphere between the two of them never seemed to improve.

‘Yeah, it was over stupid little things mainly, like why she went to see a film with Simon and not me, or why she wouldn’t come shopping with me to buy my end-of-school party dress.’ Lottie tilts her head to one side. ‘Or why she didn’t buy me a sandwich when she got everyone else sandwiches.’

In her peripheral vision, Jennie sees Zuri glance at her inquisitively. Ignoring her DS’s gaze, she stays focused on Lottie. ‘Did you ask her why she was acting like that?’

Lottie hangs her head. She starts to shred the tissue in her hands. ‘No. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to give her an excuse to tell me I wasn’t her best friend any more.’

‘Is that what you thought?’ asks Zuri, making a note on her pad.

‘I think that’s what Hannah thought,’ says Lottie, her eyes remaining on Jennie. ‘I think everyone thought that.’

Jennie needs to move the conversation away from this topic. It feels unsafe, as if Lottie is about to say something that will reveal her as a friend of Hannah’s and blow her leadership of the case out of the water. ‘And now, how do you feel now?’

Lottie’s eyes become watery. ‘I think we were just kids. Teenagers. And teenagers feel things so acutely, you know? But it didn’t matter, not in the big scheme of things. We’d have got through it, I know we would. We were best friends for life.’ She shakes her head again. The tissue is shredded into a small heap on the marble countertop now. ‘But we never got the chance because someone killed her. I just can’t get my head around it. I’m never going to see my best friend again, am I?’

‘We’re sorry for your loss,’ says Zuri. Her tone is sympathetic, but Jennie can tell she’s keen to move the conversation on.

‘Thank you,’ says Lottie. ‘I feel so helpless, you know? Like I should do something. I’m organising a candlelit vigil for Hannah at Cross Keys Park this evening. Something to honour her, to let us all come together as a community to mourn. I think we need to do that, to let out the pain and hurt and anger that we’re all feeling right now. Don’t you think?’ Lottie looks at Jennie.

Jennie avoids eye contact with Lottie. ‘That’s a good idea.’

‘It’s the least I can do.’ Lottie reaches out and takes Jennie’s hand. ‘You will come, won’t you?’

Jennie’s thrown. Not sure how to react. ‘I …’ She glances at Zuri who’s watching her closely now. ‘Yes, I’ll be there. Of course.’

‘Thank you,’ says Lottie, gripping Jennie’s hand tighter. ‘I really appreciate that.’

Jennie nods, and slowly removes her hand. This is a nightmare. She needs to get Lottie focused back on what happened when Hannah disappeared, and away from her. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about the time that Hannah went missing?’

Lottie thinks for a moment. ‘We all had a lot going on. Our exams were coming up, and there was a lot of pressure to do well. So I don’t think any of us were spending quite as much time together as we usually did, were we? Before we went off on study leave, we’d get together every day in the darkroom to hang out and decompress, but in the week or so before Hannah went missing, she’d become a bit distant. Not just with me, but with some of the others too. I know she’d argued with a few of us. I mean, her and Rob were always having little tiffs, but Elliott had been having a tricky time with her for a while, and that was super unusual.’

‘Do you know why?’ asks Zuri.

Lottie bites her lower lip. Lowers her voice. ‘So there was this rumour going round the school about Elliott getting beaten up by this guy he’d fancied. Elliott told me he thought Hannah had started the rumour.’

Jennie frowns. She never heard that rumour and she hadn’t seen any awkwardness between Hannah and Elliott either. Of the group, the two of them were her closest friends. How had she missed something like that? She wonders if Lottie’s telling the truth.

Zuri finishes jotting something in her notebook. ‘And had she?’

Lottie shakes her head, dolefully, and picks at the mound of shredded tissue. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell us about when Hannah disappeared,’ says Jennie. ‘What did you do that night?’

‘It’s like I told the police back then, I’d been out at the youth club disco in Farnby Square that night. I was feeling sad that me and Hannah weren’t in a good place, so when some of the girls from my ballet class said they were going and invited me, I decided to tag along. I think we arrived around six-thirty and left just after ten. I took a cab home.’

Lottie’s lying, she has to be. I would have seen her at the disco if she’d been there.

She’s incredibly convincing, though. Jennie leans in closer. ‘You’re sure you were there that night?’

Lottie holds her gaze. ‘Absolutely.’

Jennie recognises the obstinate look in Lottie’s eyes from when they were in sixth form, but she doesn’t back down. ‘Because from what I remember the youth club disco ran several times a week. You’re sure it was the night Hannah disappeared and not another night?’

‘I told you, yes, I’m completely sure.’ Lottie looks confused. Her words become rushed, emotion clouding her voice. ‘Hannah disappearing is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Where I was – what I was doing instead of being with her – is forever etched in my mind. Of course I’m sure.’

Jennie knows she’s lying. She can’t drop it. ‘Sometimes the stress of a situation can warp our memories and make us—’

‘Jen, please.’ Lottie puts her hand over Jennie’s again. ‘I know where I was. I didn’t see what happened to Hannah. I wish I did. I wish I could have stopped whoever did this, whoever killed our dear friend, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I …’ Tears well up in Lottie’s eyes. She grips Jennie’s hand tighter. ‘None of us could.’

Zuri looks from Lottie to Jennie, frowning.

Shit. This looks bad.

Slowly, Jennie tries to extract her hand from Lottie’s. She has to stop pushing her about what she was doing the night Hannah disappeared. But it’s infuriating. Clearly, Lottie is lying, but she’s so good at it. Now Zuri is looking at her suspiciously and she needs to do some major damage control if she’s to pull this back. ‘Okay, so—’

‘Can you tell us about this picture,’ says Zuri, talking over Jennie as she pushes a printout of the ‘Justice for Hannah’ Facebook post that Lottie recently published on the Class of ’94 school alumni page.

Lottie takes the printout. She shakes her head sadly. ‘It’s the last picture of us all together.’

Jennie holds her breath. The photo is the one Jennie took of the darkroom crew on the day they went on study leave, all sitting on the old sofa in the darkroom. She remembers how she and Lottie had used a cropped version of the photo on the makeshift ‘missing’ posters they’d made and pinned up all over town in the days after Hannah disappeared.

‘Can you name the other people in the picture?’ asks Zuri.

‘Sure,’ replies Lottie. She points to each person as she says their name. ‘Simon Ackhurst. Rob Marwood. Elliott Naylor. Hannah. Me.’

‘That’s helpful, thank you,’ says Zuri as she writes the names on her notepad. ‘Do you know where they are now?’

Jennie tries to keep her expression neutral. Where’s her DS going with this line of questioning?

‘I guess,’ says Lottie, glancing from Zuri to Jennie. ‘I’m in semi-regular contact with Rob and Elliott. Rob’s based in London now, but Elliott’s still fairly local in Whitchurch. I know Simon still lives in White Cross – he’s got a houseboat moored along the canal somewhere, I think – but I haven’t seen him in years. I think maybe Elliott still catches up with him sometimes.’

‘That’s really helpful,’ says Zuri, closing her notebook. ‘I think we’ve got everything we need for now.’

Jennie feels relief flood through her. She can’t wait to get out of here.

‘Lovely,’ says Lottie, with a forced-looking smile. ‘Like I said, I’m really happy to help in any way that I can, but you could just ask Jennie about most of this stuff.’

Jennie freezes.

‘How’s that?’ says Zuri, frowning.

‘Well, she took the photo of us all of course,’ says Lottie, laughing. ‘She was almost like one of us.’

This can’t be happening. Lottie has simultaneously managed to out her as a friend of Hannah’s and belittle her connection to her and the darkroom crew.

Zuri doesn’t say anything, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to worry about. Her DS is utterly professional and would never show her emotions in front of a potential suspect, but knowing her as well as Jennie does, she can see from the tightness in her jaw and her pursed lips that Zuri’s confused, and maybe even upset.

Lottie tilts her head to one side, smiling. Seemingly blissfully unaware of the damage she’s just inflicted, she adds brightly, ‘Shall I show you both out then?’