Chapter 44

Chapter 44

At White Cross Police Station after hours, Jennie walks through the now empty office to the incident room. It’s weird being the only one here. The space, usually a hive of activity, is still and silent, eerie almost. But she knows the calm won’t last for long. This is just a momentary pause in the action. Soon another case will land and the hustle will begin again.

But first, there are things she needs to do.

One at a time, she removes the photos taped to the top of the whiteboard. First, the individual pictures of Rob, Simon, Lottie and Elliott, then the one she took of the darkroom crew sitting on the burgundy sofa. She pauses, looking at her old schoolfriends: Simon with his arm around Hannah; Lottie with her head resting on Hannah’s shoulder; Rob sitting on the arm of the sofa beside Lottie, his long, grey coat hanging over the side; Elliott, with his safety glasses still on, beside Simon. Each of them grinning. Who would have guessed from this picture that they’d have turned on each other, and killed Hannah, less than two weeks later?

Not me.

Jennie puts the pictures into the cardboard evidence box. Rob’s funeral is due to take place tomorrow, but Simon, Lottie and Elliott won’t be attending. The voice recorder on her phone had secretly recorded their confession. Zuri and the team had come straight to the school after receiving Jennie’s text; they’d heard the most incriminating part of the conversation too.

A confession is never a hundred per cent guarantee of a conviction, but then there’s the supporting evidence: the photos of drug use after hours in the darkroom earlier that week, the extra order of hydrochloric acid, the broken alibis and Rob’s suicide note. All of them together make a strong case and the CPS are confident they’ll secure convictions that mean Elliott, Simon and Lottie will be going to prison for a very long time.

Jennie takes down the last photo, the picture of Hannah, and holds it in her hands. Hannah’s image stares back at her; piercing blue eyes, sun-kissed make-up free skin, tousled strawberry-blonde hair. Even in the still photo she seems so effervescent, so utterly alive, but it’s just an illusion. Hannah is gone. Jennie’s waited thirty years to find out what happened to her friend, and she’s finally done it. She’s found the truth, and she’s made sure Hannah will get justice.

She bites her lip. Her grief still feels raw and deep. It comes in waves, and there’s no predicting when it will crash over her: in the supermarket, cycling to work, or when she’s watching some reality programme on the telly. It’ll take a long time to fully heal, but something has changed within her. She feels lighter somehow, more loved. The knowledge that the friendship she shared with Hannah was real, and that her friend didn’t betray her as she’d believed all these years, has finally given her closure.

Putting Hannah’s photo into the box, Jennie takes down the rest of the artefacts taped to the top of the whiteboard and then wipes it clean. She carries the archive box across to Zuri’s desk and labels it with the case number, adds the original misper file and all her notes and information on the case she led, and then closes the lid.

There’s nothing more to do. The case is closed.

Walking across to the DCI’s office, Jennie steps inside. She removes from her pocket the folded envelope containing her resignation with immediate effect and places it on his keyboard, so he’ll see it first thing tomorrow. Beside it, she puts her office keys and her police ID.

No second thoughts.

Turning, Jennie collects her jacket and new cycle helmet from her desk and heads towards the door for the last time with a bounce in her step.

It’s time for a change .