Guilty Conscious by Oliver Davies (best ereader for students .txt) 📗

“Hi, Fiona. This is Detective Sergeant Mills, North Yorkshire Police. We met the other day?”

“I remember. You’re finding who hurt Edward,” she said quietly, her voice slightly lowered.

“That’s right. I was wondering if you could meet us for a chat at some point. We have a few questions we were hoping you might be able to assist us with.”

“Will it—? Do you need all of us?” she asked carefully.

“We’ll likely speak to all,” I deliberated, “but we prefer to do these things a bit more privately.”

“Should I tell them?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. “We’ll get in touch when we’re ready.”

“Okay,” she answered in a clearer, steadier voice. “I have a few hours free. Should I come to you?”

“If you’d like to, but we can always come to you,” I assured her, not wanting to make her sit in a dingy old interview room when she didn’t really need to.

“No, that’s okay,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll come there; I could use the walk.”

“Fab. When you arrive, just tell the desk sergeant you’re here to see me, and he’ll show you where to go.”

“Okay,” she repeated. “Bye.”

She hung up then, and I placed the phone back, content. Over the phone, she hadn’t sounded that enthused on the idea that we’d be speaking them all together, that she’d have to be the one to talk to the others about this. I got the feeling that Thatcher and Fitzsimmons were dead right about getting her away from the others. I picked up the remnants of my sandwich, looking over at Thatcher as he spoke on the phone, low voice grumbling through the room. After a long pause, he agreed to whatever the other person was saying and hung up the phone.

“I spoke to Judy Green’s mother,” he informed me. “The girls are still at school, but they’ll get them together so we can see them all at one time. Green’s house.” He picked up a crisp. “Half four.”

“Cool,” I answered. “Fiona’s on her way in, chose to come to us.”

His brows shot up at that. “People don’t usually volunteer.”

“I think she liked the thought of not having the others around. Perhaps if she’s here, there’s no chance of bumping into them.”

Thatcher hummed darkly and tilted his head to one side. “Some friend group. Do we know how long she’ll be?”

“I’m assuming she’s coming from university,” I answered, “so half an hour or so?”

He nodded again, satisfied, and then abruptly stood up and carried his laptop round to me, placing it on my desk.

“Bus times.” He tapped the screen. “Doesn’t help us all that much,” he admitted with a grunt. “City centre, lots of buses coming and going. This one,” he tapped one number, “is the one I’m guessing Freya Fox uses to get to and from campus.”

I nodded, noting that it made a stop a few streets from her house and another just outside the campus.

“But this one,” he tapped the next, “might have worked for Billie.”

I leant forward, noting the stops it made as it wound through the city. One on the very street the café and her flat were on, another on the far side of the campus, not a stone’s throw from where the basement of Edward’s building let out. I crossed my arms.

“That doesn’t do her any favours,” I muttered.

“But she’d have been covered in blood,” Thatcher said, taking a seat on my desk. “Her clothes, she could have changed, but what about her hands, her face, her hair? She wouldn’t have had time to clear herself up before Freya arrived and get to the stop in time to get the bus home.”

“It’s plausible,” I had to point out.

“But is it realistic?”

“Nothing about this case is realistic, sir,” I answered, and he rolled his eyes with a chuckle. The phone on his desk rang, and he swivelled around, picking it up with one hand and tossing it into the other.

“Thatcher,” he answered, looking surprised. “Send her up.” He placed the phone back and hopped to his feet. “Fiona Davey,” he informed me.

I frowned and jumped to my feet, following him from the office.

“That didn’t take long,” I muttered as we crossed the floor. We reached the stairs just as the desk sergeant appeared halfway up, spotted us, and gave Fiona a nod and a smile as she shuffled up the last few steps to us. She clutched the red satchel around her shoulders tightly, looking nervous as she reached us, giving us a weak smile.

“Hello again, Fiona,” Thatcher greeted her, not making any moves to shake her hand. From the look of her, she was not the sort to be offended by that. “Shall we?” He stepped back and led her into an interview room.

I trailed after them and left the door slightly ajar, the window through to the room beyond left open so that she could see inside. Fiona sat on the chair, dropped her bag to the floor and bundled her hands into her sleeves, shrinking down in her death like a violet.

“Nothing to worry about,” Thatcher assured her. “We just wondered what you might tell us about Billie and Stella Helman.” There was an edge to his tone, and I knew he was annoyed that they hadn’t mentioned it to us before, but Fiona looked away skittishly.

I leant forward and added in a softer tone, “We understand that it’s not a nice thing to remember about your friend in a time like this, but anything you can tell us about that night would be a great help.”

She looked up, meeting my eyes. “The Halloween party?” she asked, voice wavering. I nodded, and she adjusted herself slightly, lifting her chin a tad. “I don’t remember it much. I was only there because,” she sighed, “because Billie was. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“You were close?” I asked. Thatcher sat back, letting me take the lead, and Fiona shrugged.

“She was always nicer to me than the others, always listened when I spoke, and snapped at them if