Charlie sat in the dark room, her eyes glued to the vast screen. Cut off from the outside world, dwarfed by the images she was watching, she felt as if she was in another universe, as if she was watching someone else’s life.
She was holed up in an edit suite at the BBC studios on Havelock Road. All of the local services were based here, including BBC Solent, the news channel which covered Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Predictably they had gone to town on the Helen Grace story, dispatching reporters and crew to cover her arraignment at the Old Bailey and her incarceration at Holloway Prison. Charlie was glad of their interest now.
Something Steve had said last night had stayed with her. He’d suggested that Helen’s nemesis would be long gone by now, having got what he wanted. In a way he was right – Charlie was certain that Stonehill had fled Southampton – but would he really leave the country? Would he absent himself from the climax of Helen’s disgrace – her public trial in London? Having invested so much time and effort in engineering her downfall, wouldn’t he stick around to enjoy the fruits of his labour? Only after she was convicted would he have got what he really wanted.
If he was holed up in an obscure part of the country, he would be virtually impossible to find, especially now that Sanderson had declared the investigation over. But Charlie had a theory as to where he might be. She knew she was chancing her arm approaching an old friend at the BBC, but it was a risk she had to take in order to test her theory. BBC Solent’s news crews had been on hand to film Helen’s journeys to and from the Old Bailey each day and had reported on her appearances in court. Was it possible that Stonehill had put in an appearance there? He would be taking a terrible risk, but having pulled off the crime of the century, wouldn’t he want to be there in person to watch it play out?
Charlie chatted to the reporters who’d covered the case – who clearly thought she was mental – then asked to see the footage. There were numerous tapes – hours of footage of the Old Bailey on those hazy, autumn days – so Charlie was watching the reports on fast forward, her tired eyes straining to spot anything familiar in the staccato images.
Pausing briefly, she stole a look at her watch. Sanderson was bound to find out where she was eventually and would take a dim view of such an open act of defiance. Would it cost her her job? Quite possibly. Her only hope was to come up with something concrete, something to show for all her endeavours, but so far she had discovered nothing of note. She’d seen the gaggle of photographers running alongside the prison van, trying to snap shots of Helen through the blacked-out windows as she left Holloway. And she’d seen similar scenes at the rear entrance of the Old Bailey, as the G4S van had sped in.
She’d whizzed on now to Helen’s departure from the courthouse. The defendant was once again hidden from view in the armoured van, but that didn’t stop the phalanx of photographers pursuing her down the road. Why did they do this? Did they ever get any decent shots? Charlie rewound the tape – she realized she was getting tired now and wanted to double-check everything – and this time as she played it back she saw something that intrigued her. As the photographers ran off, they revealed a small knot of onlookers, members of the public who’d come to gawp. A couple of elderly women, a mum with a pram and, just behind them, a man. He was hard to spot at first, shielded by the other onlookers, but it was his hat that stood out. Charlie remembered that it had been a mild, autumnal day, neither rainy nor particularly sunny, yet this man was wearing a cap, pulled down low over his face.
It was no more than an instinct, but Charlie now called one of the technicians in and asked him to freeze and enlarge the image. Begrudgingly he did so and Charlie watched open-mouthed as most of Robert Stonehill’s face came into view. You couldn’t see his hair, but Charlie was certain it was him.
Hugging the surprised technician, Charlie hurried from the room. She ran out of the building and all the way back to her car. Her heart was still beating nineteen to the dozen when she climbed inside. Her persistence had finally paid off. As she’d hoped, Robert hadn’t been able to resist watching Helen’s disgrace. His mere presence there was intriguing enough – seeming to add weight to Helen and Charlie’s versions of events – but it also provided a valuable lead as to his whereabouts. Two weeks ago, he had been alive and well in London.
Which was where Charlie was heading now.