Chapter 29

Chapter 29

‘No!’ Voice raised, Duncan Edwards thumps his fist down onto the Formica table in interview room one. ‘I told you I never touched Hannah, and I’ve never harassed Angela.’

His solicitor, a neatly groomed man in a black suit and glasses, leans towards Duncan and tells him something that Jennie can’t hear but assumes is along the lines of ‘keep it together’. Jennie waits to see what Edwards says next.

‘For the last thirty years I’ve been misunderstood and unfairly maligned.’ Duncan Edwards looks at Jennie, his eyes pleading. ‘I never stalked Angela.’

So that’s the way it’s going to be.

‘Your browsing history tells a different story.’ She pushes the printed sheets of paper towards him one by one. ‘The yellow highlighter shows all the times in the last three months you visited Angela Totley’s Facebook page; the green highlighter shows your visits to her school’s staff page on their website; and the pink highlighter shows the attempts you’ve made to view and contact her other social media accounts.’

Edwards shakes his head. He glances towards the high window above Jennie’s head as if he’s sizing it up as a means of escape. ‘I didn’t … you can’t prove that—’

‘This is proof, Mr Edwards. And if you give us a little bit longer, we can go further back through the years. The techs tell me this is just the tip of the iceberg.’ Jennie puts another page on top of the rest. ‘As well as the social media stuff I’ve mentioned, these are the emails you’ve sent to Angela Totley’s email address during the last three months. As you can see, there are more than fifty of them. I have printouts of each individual email if you’d like me to—’

‘No, don’t,’ says Edwards, holding up his hands. ‘I get it, but I wasn’t stalking her.’

‘Under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the offence of stalking includes contacting, or attempting to contact, a person, and monitoring a person’s use of the internet including email,’ says Zuri, firmly. ‘Angela Totley described multiple attempts made by you to contact her. Attempts which caused her to take action to block your number and social media accounts and to change her own.’

‘I was just looking out for her,’ says Edwards, shaking his head. ‘You’ve got this all wrong.’

‘Look at all the times you’ve attempted to contact her, or viewed her social media in the past few months,’ says Jennie, pushing the highlighted sheets closer to him. ‘Do you not think that looks obsessive?’

‘I wasn’t stalking or harassing her. Honestly, I just wanted to feel close to her,’ says Edwards, dropping his head into his hands. ‘I love Angela.’

‘Like you loved Hannah?’ asks Jennie.

Edwards head snaps up. ‘I never said I loved Hannah. She was just a student. A young girl.’

‘She was,’ says Jennie. She takes out another batch of printouts detailing Edwards’ browsing history from the folder and pushes them across the table. ‘Like all the young girls on these sites that you’ve visited.’

Edwards’ face falls. He looks from Jennie and Zuri to his brief. The solicitor leans closer to him and whispers something. Edwards shakes his head vigorously.

Jennie knows she needs to push him harder. She needs to get Edwards on the ropes, to make him admit his relationship with Hannah. She reads from the printout. ‘There seems to be a theme here – www.mysugardaddy.com , www.fuckmyteen.com , www.youngnsweet.com . Shall I go on?’

Edwards pales. ‘No. I—’

‘There are sixteen different websites here, Mr Edwards, all catering for those whose preference is young females,’ continues Jennie. ‘Your porn site history shows the same preference – teenagers with older men.’

‘You clearly have a strong sexual interest in teenage girls, Mr Edwards,’ says Zuri, barely able to hide her disgust.

‘I like to watch these women – yes, okay, I admit that. But that’s it.’

‘Girls,’ says Jennie, unable to disguise the disgust she feels towards Edwards. ‘Some of the girls on these sites are barely sixteen, Mr Edwards. They’re children.’

He shakes his head. ‘They know what they’re doing.’

Anger flares inside her and she swallows it back down. She has to stay focused on the end goal here, getting Edwards to admit his affair with Hannah. ‘Hannah was the same age as a lot of the girls on these websites, wasn’t she?’

Edwards stares back at her. Doesn’t reply. His brief looks po-faced.

‘The rumours about you and Hannah were rife at the school. You told us so yourself when we last spoke. You said, and I quote, that the kids were always creating “some kind of drama”. Are you sure that’s all it was?’

‘Very sure,’ says Edwards, crossing his arms.

‘That’s interesting, because we have a witness who saw you and Hannah Jennings kissing,’ says Zuri, her tone professional. ‘We know that you touched her.’

‘They’re lying,’ says Edwards, his eyes darting side-to-side.

‘We don’t think so,’ says Jennie. The smell of stale sweat mixed with cheap vinegary aftershave is coming off Edwards in waves. ‘Did you fixate on Hannah just like you have on Angela?’

Edwards shakes his head. ‘No, I never fixated on—’

‘Did Hannah end things with you?’ says Jennie, refusing to let him off the hook. ‘Did you lose your temper and kill her?’

‘For God’s sake I was the one trying to end it!’ shouts Edwards, banging his palms down onto the table. Ignoring a warning look from his solicitor, he continues, ‘She was all over me and the rumours were flying around the whole bloody school about us having a fling. I told her it had to end.’

‘So, for the record, you now admit that you did have a relationship with your student, Hannah Jennings?’

Edwards exhales hard. ‘I’m not sure you’d call it a relationship as such, but things did get a bit heavy a few times.’

‘Define heavy, Mr Edwards,’ says Jennie, holding his gaze.

He looks away, keeps his eyes downcast as he speaks. ‘We kissed. There was a bit of fooling about.’

‘Did you have sexual intercourse?’ asks Zuri. ‘Was there any kind of penetration?’

Edwards curses under his breath. He glances at his solicitor but the man just shakes his head. Edwards’ voice is lower when he replies, ‘Yes.’

‘How often?’ says Zuri, leaning forward, keeping up the pressure on him.

‘A few times,’ says Edwards. ‘Six, maybe seven times over a number of months.’

Jennie tries not to let the revelation derail her line of questioning. She wishes Hannah had confided in her; she thought they’d told each other everything. But it seems her thing with Duncan Edwards wasn’t just a one-off; it had continued for months. ‘But you wanted it to stop?’

‘Yes. She instigated the whole thing, not me,’ says Edwards, wearily. ‘Hannah was more of a fantasy I got to act out; it was never anything real. I was happy with Angela and I wanted to marry her. I wasn’t looking for more.’

Hannah was most definitely real, thinks Jennie, and given Edwards’ browsing history and obvious hard spot for teenage girls, she doubts he resisted. He’s just sorry he got caught, that’s all. ‘When did you end it?’

‘I was trying to end it,’ says Edwards, grimacing. ‘By June, when the upper sixth were due to go on study leave, the rumours were gaining momentum. Sheila, the headmistress, had caught wind of them and called me in to explain myself. It was excruciating. I thought I was going to lose my job, or Angela, or both.’

‘So what happened?’ prompts Jennie, unable to feel any sympathy for the man.

‘The day she disappeared, just after I’d finished teaching my last class of the day, Hannah came to see me. She had that look on her face and I knew what she wanted.’ Edwards pauses. Shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you this. You’re just looking for an excuse to pin this on me, and now …’

‘Telling us what, Mr Edwards?’ says Zuri, looking up from the notes she’s taking.

Edwards blows out hard.

Enough of his delaying tactics.

Jennie’s voice is firm. ‘Tell us what happened.’

‘She came straight up to me and kissed me, right there as I was standing at the desk. Starting rubbing me through my trousers. She had this wild look in her eye and kept saying she wanted me to fuck her right there in the classroom and that it was my “last chance”. I said no, it was too risky, but she didn’t care – said it didn’t matter any more if we got caught. It was crazy; anyone could have seen us. The way she was acting, totally demob happy … it freaked me out. I knew I had to stop it, whatever it was we were doing, right then. So I told her it had to end and I asked her to tell people the rumours were false.’

Edwards’ self-righteous tone infuriates Jennie. Blaming Hannah when he was supposed to be a responsible adult and her teacher! But she tries to hide her irritation. She needs to hear this, even if she despises the man. ‘And how did she react?’

‘She just smiled and shook her head at me.’ Edwards balls his hands into fists. There’s anger in his tone now. ‘Do you know what she said? She said no. And then she laughed at me while I pleaded with her to deny the rumours. She said, “But that wouldn’t be true, would it?” Then, as I begged her to change her mind, she said, “Goodbye, Mr Edwards,” and kissed me again. That’s when Angela came in and saw us and my whole bloody life was ruined.’