Chapter 9

I decided I would have to turn detective to track down my grandparents. First, I tried all the social media sites. There were a couple of people sharing the name Anthony Griffiths living in Newcastle, but I doubted my grandfather was a nineteen-year-old George Ezra lookalike or a forty-year-old plumber with a tattoo of a spider's web on his neck. I couldn't find anyone with the name Carole Griffiths.

From information I had gleaned from the old newspaper coverage of the court case, Anthony and Carole had been around fifty when Dominic was sentenced, which meant they would be around seventy now. As far as I knew, not many seventy-year-olds used Snapchat and Instagram, and I'd been unable to find them on Facebook or Twitter. The only thing I had to go on was the address where Stephanie's body had been discovered on Aldwick Road near Scotswood. I googled ‘Aldwick Road' and ‘Griffiths' and found an article in the Newcastle Chronicle from 2000 which had an interview about the murder with one of the neighbours. I doubted they still lived there, but it was the best place to start.

The latte I'd drunk with Mum had warmed me up, but an hour of investigating on my phone in the freezing car had made me cold again. As I started the car and headed for Scotswood, I hoped, once I found Dominic's parents, they would be the kind of people who would invite me in for a coffee and a warm by the fire.

Aldwick Road was a long road with a row of semi-detached houses on each side, all uniformly neat and tidy. The front gardens had the equivalent of bed hair from being left unattended during the winter months: grass was uneven, bushes were bare and plants were dead.

I looked at the article I'd been reading on my phone. The main photograph was of the neighbour, Sylvia Hurst, a hard-faced woman with a severe haircut, her arms tightly folded beneath her ample bosom and an expression of disgust on her face, as if she had just been told house prices would plummet now a murderer had been unmasked in the neighbourhood. She was standing on her doorstep with the white door closed behind her.

I looked from the photo to the houses and back again. They all looked so similar. It was difficult to guess which one Sylvia had lived in. I squinted to try and get a better look at the door number, but it was no use. I pinched the screen and zoomed in on the house number above Sylvia's left shoulder, but the close-up was a blur. I thought the first number was a three but couldn't decipher the second digit. It could be a one or a seven. Screw it. It was early, I had nothing else to do. I could knock on every door in the street if I had to. I parked the car and headed for number thirty-seven.

Pausing at the bottom of the short drive, I looked up at the semi-detached house. It looked similar to the one in the newspaper report, same door, same tree in the front garden. I knocked on the door and stood back, glancing around at the neighbourhood. I could imagine myself living on a road like this, maybe with a husband and a couple of kids. There wasn't much room for parking, but… The door opened.

‘Hello, I'm looking for Sylvia Hurst,' I said, in my most professional voice.

‘Wrong house, love. Across the road. Number forty-six.'

Before I could apologise, the door had closed.

Okay, maybe my detective skills were incredibly amateurish, but at least I'd achieved my goal.

In the nineteen years since Sylvia Hurst had given her interview with the Chronicle, time had aged and withered her. Gone was the severe haircut, the bosom had dropped, and her stern expression had softened. She looked the epitome of a sweet old lady. When I told her I was a paralegal investigating Dominic Griffiths, she was only too happy to take the security chain off and invite me in.

The living room was a shock of colour. The carpet was a busy pattern which should have come with a warning to anyone who suffered from photosensitive epilepsy. The feature wall with the fireplace had white wallpaper decorated with huge red poppies. The curtains were a dusky pink, and the sofa was navy blue. It was an assault on the eyes.

I gratefully accepted Sylvia's offer of a cup of tea and made myself as comfortable as I could on the dated sofa. Sylvia returned with two mugs and a chocolate sponge cake. I had made a new year resolution to drop a dress size, and despite a sweet tooth, I was winning the war on snacking between meals. However, if I wanted Sylvia to open up, I would need her onside and that would mean placating the elderly lady when she proffered the cake.

‘Just a small slice. I'm trying to lose weight.'

‘Get away with you. You're a good healthy size. I blame the television. My granddaughter, she's younger than you, but she watches all those reality programmes. I can't be doing with them. They're full of these stick-thin girls flashing their bits. Men like a real woman, take my word for it. Have a decent slice.'

I didn't need any convincing. I took the largest slice and bit off a huge chunk. It tasted as good as it looked.

‘Mrs Hurst?—'

‘Call me Sylvia.' She smiled.

‘Sylvia,' I began. I took a notepad and pen out of my bag to look the part of the legal investigator. ‘What can you tell me about the Griffiths family?'

‘Where do you want me to start? I could write a book. That Dominic, he was a rotter. From the minute he was born he caused his mother nothing but trouble. Screaming, shouting, wailing day and night he was.'

‘They lived next door?'

‘Aye, number forty-eight. He was no use, the father. He worked away a lot. You could always tell when he was home, because he'd park his bloody great big lorry outside the house. It used to block all the light from reaching my living room. I'd have to have the light on at three o'clock just so I could see my sewing.'

‘How was Dominic a rotter?'

‘He terrorised this street single-handed: tipping up dustbins, setting fire to them, pulling up plants, scratching cars, making the neighbour's kids cry, swearing. I don't know how she coped.'

‘His mother?'

‘Aye, Carole. Bless her. She was a bag of nerves before he even came along. I told my Arthur she wouldn't make a good mother. I was right. She couldn't control him. She was too soft with him. He needed a good hiding, not that you can do that anymore.' She took a sip of her tea and leaned forwards. ‘I mean, I had three kids. They weren't angels, and I'm not going to pretend they were. I didn't pummel them, but when they did anything wrong, they got a slap on their legs. They soon learned. That's the problem with kids today – no punishment, no respect.'

I smiled through gritted teeth. My mother had never once slapped me. There had never been cause, and I'd turned out fine… apart from my addiction to Ben and Jerry's.

‘How were Dominic's parents after the murder?' I asked, changing the subject.

‘We rarely saw Carole,' Sylvia said, her face dropping. ‘She locked herself in that house and hardly ever came out. Some of the neighbours took against them. A few of the kids threw stones at their doors, posted nasty stuff through their letterbox. A few months after the verdict, a big truck pulled up one morning, and they were off. Didn't tell a soul.'

‘They just upped and left?'

‘Aye. There wasn't even a "for sale" sign up. It was all done privately with the estate agents. I bumped into Carole in town a couple of months later. She'd aged years since I'd last seen her. It was like the life had been drained out of her. She said Anthony had wanted them to have a fresh start, draw a line under everything and start again.'

‘Did she tell you where they moved to?' I asked, pen poised.

‘Oh yes. We kept in touch, exchanged Christmas cards, that kind of thing. They moved across the river to a bungalow, Langdale Crescent in Winlaton.'

‘I know the area.' It wasn't too far from my mum's shop. ‘Are you still in contact with the Griffithses?'

‘No. I was only really friendly with Carole. I didn't know Anthony that well. He was always a difficult person to talk to. I think he just wanted them to be left alone.'

‘So, what happened? Did the two of you just drift apart?'

‘Oh… you mean you don't know?'

‘Know what?'

‘Carole died in 2001.'

‘Really? She couldn't have been very old.'

‘Fifty-one.'

‘How did she die?'

Sylvia leaned forwards once again. ‘Killed herself. Police found her hanging from a tree in Axwell Park.'

‘Bloody hell. Sorry,' I said.

‘Don't be. A shocking way to go. She must have been in such torment, to kill herself like that. Would you like another slice of cake?'