The Perfect Lie, page 15
‘Gathering evidence is your job, inspector, not mine. I strongly advise you to speak with Lewis Hopkins.’
‘And strongly advising me is my boss’s job, Mr Conway, not yours.’
‘Speak to Greg, then,’ I say. ‘Just speak to Greg. He might… I don’t know. Just please. Do something.’ I look at Brian and nod. He hands a slip of paper across the desk to McKenna.
‘This is his telephone number. Please, inspector, don’t let one missing phone call end a man’s life.’
47
Seventeen years ago.
The sun seemed to be shining brighter than ever before as they left the court and walked down the steps towards the street.
The trial had attracted hardly any media attention, having opened on the morning of the 9/11 attacks and closed a couple of days later while the news was still filled with images from New York.
The prosecution had seen Greg and Amy as their key witnesses. Amy, fortunately, hadn’t needed to speak in court. Her witness statement had been enough on its own, together with the DNA evidence found in the boot of Lewis’s car and the semen found in the body of Hannah Shaw.
The defence had dropped the shifting of blame onto Greg shortly before the trial began, presumably because they knew they were onto a hiding to nothing. The police told Amy and Greg that it was a ploy by the defence to try and get Lewis the shortest possible sentence. If he tried shifting the blame or lying in court, his sentence would only be harsher.
Amy knew Lewis would hate that. He couldn’t stand thinking he’d been wronged, and she could see the pure hatred in his eyes as she sat in the courtroom. He barely took his eyes off Amy and Greg the whole time.
Lewis had shown very little remorse in court. The fact he’d been under the influence of alcohol and drugs when he killed Hannah Shaw, plus the removal and concealment of her body, led the judge to hand him an eighteen-year sentence.
For Amy, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Justice had been done.
Ever since finding out what had happened that night, she’d wondered how at risk she’d been. From what she understood, or had worked out, Hannah didn’t want to have sex with Lewis, or had asked him to stop, but he’d carried on. Amy could easily see how he would have done this. He’d done the same with her many times before. Fortunately, she hadn’t struggled. Hannah had, and it had resulted in her death.
And although he hadn’t testified as such in court, Lewis had maintained to the bitter end that it had been Greg who’d killed Hannah. Amy would never forgive Lewis for that. Not only had he raped and killed an innocent girl, but he had tried to shift the blame onto his best friend, the guy who’d been nothing but supportive to Amy. He’d been her rock.
She’d wondered whether, after the trial was over, her and Greg might get together. He’d never actually said anything about that — he wouldn’t — but she would be lying if she said the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. There would be plenty of time. Now, she just wanted to get her life back to normal and forget all about Lewis Hopkins.
48
Monday 6 August, 2.30pm.
People who say prison is easy are talking shit. I’ve only been here a few hours but I’m just about ready to give up.
The magistrates’ court was a formality. A waste of time, almost. I was barely in the building five minutes, before I was brought here.
The remand prison is a specialist women’s prison. Almost everyone here is waiting for their trial. I wonder how many are innocent, but judging by those I’ve seen it doesn’t look like many.
If I felt alone in custody at the police station, this is something else entirely. This feels like proper prison. It is proper prison.
The staff have tried to be nice to me, but it’s mostly just formal. I guess they need to try to keep people on side, but still showing that there are rules and regulations that need to be adhered to. The vast majority of people are in here because they can’t keep to rules, after all. But I feel like I’m being treated like a naughty schoolgirl. I’ve done nothing wrong.
At some point in the afternoon — I’ve now lost track of time — I’m told it’s visiting time. I tell the prison officer this means nothing to me. My husband and kids are unlikely to be visiting me any time soon, and I’m not interested in seeing anybody else. But he’s insistent. Someone is here to see me.
I still have no idea who my visitor is as I walk to the visiting room and am guided through the double doors that lead to the large open area of tables and chairs.
But the moment I walk in and see that face, I recognise it immediately.
‘Greg.’
‘Hi,’ Greg replies, forcing a smile.
‘You said you didn’t want to speak to me.’
I don’t know what to feel. I feel confused, angry, hurt. But hopeful at the same time. Why is he here, less than twenty four hours after that phone call?
I sit down, on the other side of the table from him. The prison officers sit around the edges of the room, watching, but too far away to hear any of the conversations.
‘How have you been?’ Greg asks.
‘Oh yeah, fine. Having a whale of a time. You really should try it sometime. Far better than Butlins. Cheaper, too.’
Greg wisely ignores my sarcasm. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said,’ he says. ‘About Lewis. I didn’t really want to say anything on the phone earlier, but an old friend of mine reckons he saw Lewis coming out of a shop in town a week or so ago.’
This hits me like a thunderbolt. I’d been under the impression Lewis had moved away, like Greg did.
‘In town?’ I ask.
‘Yeah.’
‘Which friend?’
‘Someone I used to know. He messaged me on Facebook. He said he recognised Lewis straight away, and remembered the story from the news all those years ago. He remembered I was friends with him back then and got in touch to find out what had happened since.’
I sit in stunned silence for a few moments. Lewis is here. In town.
‘You said on the phone he’d been seen, but you never said it was so recent.’
‘I know.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this on the phone?’ I say. ‘That he was seen so recently, so close to where I live?
Greg shrugs. ‘I dunno. I just didn’t think it was relevant.’
‘You didn’t think it was relevant? I specifically called you for the first time in eighteen years and asked you if you or anyone you knew had seen Lewis, and you didn’t think it was relevant that the answer was yes?’ Another thought crosses my mind as I say this. ‘Hang on. You said you live on the south coast. You rent out beach huts.’
Greg swallows. ‘Yeah. I do.’
‘We’re a long way from the south coast.’
Greg looks around, as if the walls are going to offer some sort of explanation. ‘I drove up here. I thought it’d be better to talk face to face.’
‘Why? Why not just answer my questions on the phone? Why not just call the police and tell them what you knew?’
‘Because…’ He trails off, clearly not wanting to finish his sentence.
‘Why, Greg?’
Greg sighs. ‘It was what you said at the end. About me being next.’
I stare at him, unable to comprehend what I’m hearing. ‘So you were perfectly fine when I phoned you to tell you I thought he’d murdered my father-in-law and set me up to look like the killer. That wasn’t a problem for you. But the moment I said you might be next, all of a sudden it becomes a huge priority.’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘It very fucking much looks like that to me,’ I say, pushing my voice through gritted teeth, trying not to look too angry. I really don’t want the prison officers coming over now. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, have you? You’ve shown your true colours once again. It’s all about self-preservation for you. You don’t give a shit about anyone else but yourself.’
‘Amy, I understand this is a stressful time for you, but don’t you want to hear what I’ve got to say? Don’t you want to know where he is?’
When he tells me he understands it’s a stressful time, I want to bite his head off. Instead, I just look at him, the expression on my face perfectly clear.
I stand up, and indicate to the nearest prison guard that I’m ready to leave. ‘No. I don’t. If you’re really that bothered, call the police.’
49
Monday 6 August, 6.15pm.
When the call had come in to say that Greg Lawrence had made contact with the police and had some information about Lewis Hopkins and Amy Walker, McKenna quickly decided she would visit him herself.
She had a good eye for a bullshitter, she felt, and needed to judge for herself whether or not there was any truth in what Amy had said about Hopkins.
He’d told the call handler he was staying at a small hotel on the edge of town. McKenna knew the one. She’d been there before. It was laid out more like an American motel than anything she’d ever seen in England before. The rooms were more like chalets, arranged in a courtyard fashion around the small carpark. It looked more like the Bates Motel from Psycho than your typical Premier Inn or Travelodge.
That thought wasn’t far from her mind as she turned off her car’s engine and scanned the doors for number seven. Lucky number seven, she thought to herself, although she had to admit there was very little that was lucky or fortuitous about her visit this evening.
She spotted room seven and pointed it out to her colleague, DC Mark Brennan, before the pair walked over towards it and McKenna knocked on the door.
She waited a few seconds before calling out, ‘Mr Lawrence? It’s Detective Inspector Jane McKenna. You asked to see us.’
‘Maybe he’s giving us the runaround,’ Brennan suggested, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets.
‘Why ask us to come and see him then? He’s not local. He’s up here for a reason.’ She knocked on the door again. ‘Mr Lawrence? Can you open the door please?’
Brennan sighed and rocked on his feet, his hands still shoved deep into his trouser pockets. ‘Think we’re wasting our time here.’
McKenna ignored him and tried the door handle. To her surprise, the door yielded and opened.
It creaked on his hinges as it swung backwards, and it took a moment for the police officers’ eyes to adjust to the relative darkness inside.
When their eyes had adjusted, though, Brennan spotted the remains of a broken drinks glass on the floor.
‘Skip,’ he said, pointing towards it. He needed no more words. The implication of what this meant was clear to both of them.
McKenna switched on the light and took a closer look around the room, before looking down at her feet. From the back of the room near the rear window, all the way to the front door of the hotel room, were two faint but jagged black lines, occasionally stopping before starting again, marked onto the laminate flooring.
She bent down and rubbed at one with her fingernail. ‘Rubber. Probably off the heel of a pair of shoes.’
‘Like someone being dragged across the floor you mean?’ Brennan asked.
McKenna nodded. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. You stay here.’
She jogged across the car park and into the reception area. A young girl was seated behind the desk, texting on her mobile phone.
McKenna waited a full two seconds, then cleared her throat as loudly as she could.
‘Oh, sorry,’ the girl said. ‘World of me own. Are you checking in?’
‘No. Well, sort of. I’m checking in on one of your guests. Mr Gregory Lawrence. In room seven. Have you seen him?’
The girl looked in the vague direction of room seven, then shook her head. ‘Don’t think so. But I only came on shift about ten, fifteen minutes ago.’
McKenna sighed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any use me asking if you saw anyone going into or leaving room seven? Or a car being here for a short period of time?’
‘Sorry. Like I said, I’ve only been here fifteen minutes or so.’
And haven’t looked up from your phone since, McKenna wanted to say.
‘And who was on before you?’
‘Michael. He just left a few minutes back.’
‘Do you have contact details for him?’
‘Yeah, got his mobile number if you want that.’
McKenna thought for a moment. ‘Actually, let’s go one better. Can you call him and ask him to come back here? We need to ask if he saw anything suspicious while he was on shift.’
The girl looked worried, and narrowed her eyes. ‘Erm, yeah, okay,’ she said. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
McKenna pursed her lips and glanced around the room. ‘That’s what I need to find out.’
50
Monday 6 August, 6.50pm.
Shortly after speaking to Michael, the previous receptionist who’d just clocked off shift at the hotel, McKenna put the call out to trace Lewis Hopkins’s home address and potential whereabouts.
It had taken a while for anything to come back, but McKenna had mentioned Hopkins’s previous convictions, which should have made him a little more traceable.
Finally, though, the call came.
‘We’ve got an address for him,’ the officer on the other end of the phone said, reeling off an address around twenty miles away. Far enough to not bump into people from his old life on a regular basis, but close enough to keep in the loop if he needed to. ‘It took a bit of time, though. Turns out he changed his name by deed poll not long after leaving prison. Maybe he wanted to start afresh.’
By moving barely twenty miles away? McKenna thought.
‘This is the weird thing, though,’ the officer added. ‘He works in town. He’s gone to the effort of changing his name so he can have a new life, but he’s still working in the same town where he was living eighteen years ago. Strange or what?’
Not in the slightest, McKenna thought. ‘That’s good stuff. Thanks. Tell me, out of interest, where does he work?’
McKenna recognised the familiar sound of someone desperately looking for information on a computer screen.
‘Uh… he’s an accountant, by the looks of things,’ the officer said.
McKenna’s face dropped at the same time her heart rate started to increase. ‘Okay. Where?’ She listened to the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard, a couple of moments of silence and then the response came.
‘A company called Morris & Co. Do you know it?’
McKenna took a deep breath and tried to compute her thoughts, desperate to work out what this all meant. All she knew is it wasn’t good. ‘Yeah, it’s come up once or twice. And what’s his name now? What did he change it to?’
‘Well, this is what made me think he just wanted to start afresh and stay anonymous, see. If I wanted to change my name because I was bored of it, I’d pick something cool like Tony Funk. Or Blaze Maguire. Wouldn’t you?’
McKenna really didn’t want the conversation to be going off on a tangent now. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never really thought about it. I just want to know what Lewis Hopkins’s name is now.’
‘Boring old Simon Robinson, apparently. Worse than his old name if you ask me. So I think my theory still holds water.’
McKenna made a noncommittal noise. Although her colleague’s theory might hold water, she was quickly starting to realise that hers didn’t.
51
Monday 6 August, 7.20pm.
PCs Michelle Jackson and Joshua Ross pulled up at the address they’d been given — a small cottage in a village they didn’t have cause to visit very often. It wasn’t the sort of place that was crawling with crime. In fact, there wasn’t very much going on here at all, at any point.
All they knew is that they were looking for a man called Simon Robinson, who had formerly been known as Lewis Hopkins, who’d already served a conviction for manslaughter and was to be arrested for murder if they could find him.
They had clearance to force entry to the property if necessary, particularly if they suspected he was inside or there was some sort of danger. The number of people who thought the police had to have a warrant to enter a premises with force was a common source of amusement. It was up there with ‘I don’t want to press charges’ and suggesting that traffic cops should be out catching murderers and sex offenders.
‘Car’s here. Should be someone in,’ Joshua said.
Michelle knocked on the front door of the cottage, and began peering through the front windows. Joshua — Rylan to his friends, owing to his visual likeness to a former reality show contestant — made his way round the back of the property, through the unlocked side gate and pushed at the back door. It was locked, but the door wouldn’t hold much force. He decided to test it.
It only took one fairly mild shoulder-barge and the door was open. ‘Mr Robinson?’ Joshua called, but got no reply.
By now, Michelle had joined him round at the back of the house, just in time to find Joshua rummaging through the under-stairs cupboard, which had been left slightly ajar. On the floor inside was a carrier bag, containing a blonde wig, woman’s bra and what looked like a pair of chicken fillets.
‘Bit weird, this,’ Joshua said.
‘Mmmm. Not the worst I’ve found. I’ll call it in.’
While Michelle was speaking to DI McKenna to let her know the address was empty apart from a bag full of some very weird shit, Joshua noticed a car key hidden in the folds at the bottom of the bag.
‘Not where I’d keep my car keys,’ he said to Michelle, walking past her and making his way back round to the front of the cottage.
Sure enough, it unlocked the blue Ford that was sitting on the driveway. There was nothing inside the car of any interest — it was almost immaculate — so Joshua opened the boot to take a look inside. The boot was empty, apart from a pair of car number plates.
He took them out and pulled the car boot down, to take a look at the registration of the car itself.
