43

JEN

I go through the motions of setting up and carrying out interviews, even though all I can think about is Laurence and what he’s done. Bex accompanies me as I travel around London, waiting for me while I go and see Julia Jones again, who is nice enough but who doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know. I do notice, however, that during our early evening meeting one Friday night, she knocks back the best part of two bottles of white wine, while to my amazement I only have one glass.

With bloodshot eyes she talks about the stress of Brexit and the tortuous progress of the Withdrawal Bill through Parliament. She likens Brexit to a cancer eating up the country from the inside, a festering mass of tumours that will ultimately end up destroying the body politic. By the end of our time together she is slurring her words as she talks about her dead son, Harry. She’s never talked about him in public before – luckily the papers here never reported news about his death – and asks that what she says remains confidential. She tells me how, late at night, she locks herself in her study and looks at old photos of him. Sometimes she still can’t believe he’s gone. It will be his birthday in a couple of weeks’ time, she says, a day she always dreads. She imagines what his life would be like had he not died: he was always looking out for the underdog even as a young boy, she says, and it’s likely that he would have gone on to work for a charity, or perhaps in development in Africa or South America. He’d be married by now, too, with a growing family; he told her he always wanted children. She wipes her tears away, apologises for being sentimental, but I tell her I understand.

‘It’s strange how the grief has got so much worse since … since I saw what happened on the Heath,’ she says, as she stands up to show me to the door. ‘I can’t explain it. It’s like what I saw is somehow pulling me back into the past. God, listen to me going on about myself!’ she says, as she wipes another tear from her cheek and tries to smile. ‘I should be worrying about the family of that poor girl, instead of thinking about my own problems.’

I’m tempted to tell her something about my difficulties, but Julia’s daughter Louisa comes bounding down the stairs on the way to the kitchen and the moment is lost.

‘Darling – you remember Jen-Jennifer Hunter, don’t you? Let me introduce you again.’ As she says this she stretches out her arm to gesture for her daughter to come to us, but the movement unsteadies her. ‘Oops, nearly.’

‘Mum – how much have you had to drink?’ asks Louisa.

‘Only a couple of glasses.’

‘Sorry,’ mouths Louisa to me, and then whispers something sharp to her mother.

‘I’d better be off,’ I say. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

I don’t take any pleasure in noticing the signs of alcohol dependency, but as someone who has an ongoing battle with drink I can certainly empathise with what Julia is going through.

Just as I’m walking down the steps from the house I hear the door open. It’s Louisa.

‘God, I’m sorry,’ she says again.

‘It’s been a difficult time – for all of us, since the incident on the Heath. I guess it’s her way of coping.’

‘Listen – I know you’re a journalist. But you won’t write about any of this? About Mum’s … problems, will you?’

Oh God, she thinks I’m that kind of journalist. ‘Don’t worry. I give you my word.’ I feel what I’m saying sounds hollow, empty. I think back to the promise I made to Mr and Mrs Da Silva. Even though it wasn’t me who leaked the story of Vicky’s pregnancy, I still feel guilty. ‘It must be difficult for her. What with the pressures of her job and the stuff going on in Parliament. And now all of this.’

‘It does seem to have hit her hard,’ says Louisa. ‘I wonder how it has affected you – and the other witnesses?’

I’m not sure where to start. ‘It’s an interesting question, but I suppose it’s making its presence felt in different ways – for all of us, I mean.’

‘The thing is with Mum, she seems like a tough old bird. You know the kind of woman to give the PM a good blasting when she feels he needs it. A veneer as hard as stone and all that. But underneath she’s, well, she’s vulnerable and insecure. Anyway, thanks for being so understanding. I’d hate it if anything came out to make the situation even more difficult for her.’ She smiles and says goodbye.

On the way to meet Bex I mull over the brief conversation I had with Louisa about the effect of the murder–suicide on the those who had witnessed it. I’m convinced that this should be the real focus of the feature. I take out my phone and write myself a short note as a reminder. As I finish, an email from Ayesha Ahmed drops into my inbox. The junior doctor who tried to save the lives of Victoria Da Silva and Daniel Oliver says that she will see me – she’s free the next day – but on condition that I don’t use her name or report anything that she says. She doesn’t want to get into trouble with the health trust.

We arrange to meet outside Tate Modern, and again I travel with Bex, who blends into the crowd.

I spot Ayesha sitting on a bench, a small and lonely figure surrounded by swarms of tourists and middle-class Londoners with their children. There’s a frightened quality to her and she winces and starts at every noise or sudden movement near her. She smiles shyly when she sees me and I go over and sit by her.

‘Thanks for agreeing to see me,’ I say.

‘I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to sit on another bench again … without thinking about what happened that day,’ she replies, as she nervously runs her tiny hands over her well-cut navy blue trousers.

She asks me again about what I hope to gain by seeing her. She has nothing to say. She insists again that I can’t use her name. I tell her that I’m hoping to understand the motivation and background to the crime. She starts to talk about how tired she had felt that day, how she had been up all night. If only she hadn’t had her eyes closed or her headphones on she might have been able to intervene sooner, she might have been able to save Victoria’s life. I tell her she did everything to help. She should be commended for her bravery and her sense of public duty. I get out my phone and play the video that Alex sent me.

‘Do you recognise this man? The jogger?’

She shakes her head.

‘He was there, that day on the Heath,’ I tell her. ‘He ran past the scene of the crime, but didn’t stop, even though people asked him to, even though it could have made a difference.’

Ayesha looks at me with her scared rabbit eyes again.

‘Are you sure you didn’t see him that day?’

‘No, why – is this important?’

‘It could be,’ I say. ‘And what about the name Steven Walker – does that mean anything to you?’

‘No,’ she replies. ‘Who is he?’

‘He’s the teenager who was there, who ran away, just as the police were approaching.’

‘I see,’ she says, swallowing. She pauses and continues, her voice full of sadness. ‘I read that there are some reports that Victoria was pregnant. That her unborn child died that day too.’

‘Yes, I think she was,’ I tell her. ‘There’s one theory that Daniel suspected he wasn’t the father of the child.’

‘I see,’ she says blankly. There’s a certain intensity in her eyes though, as if she knows something, and she’s keen to keep that something back.

‘Would you mind going through what you saw, what you heard, again?’

The idea sickens her, I can tell, but she is gracious and polite enough to agree. She takes me through the scene, step by step. I’ve heard it all before, but I’m listening for inconsistencies, gaps, small details that might make a difference. But, like with Julia Jones, there’s nothing new. I don’t know what I think I’ll gain from going over old ground, but I have an instinct that there’s something I have yet to learn that might help. I’m about to thank her for her time and say goodbye when I ask her to tell me about those final moments, when Victoria and Daniel were both on the ground, their lives slipping away from them.

She looks at me as though I’m a sick bitch, but I try to smile sympathetically and encourage her to continue. I hate myself as I do this, as I know what I’m doing will cause Ayesha psychological pain. Perhaps I should drop the whole investigation. Perhaps I should listen to Annabelle. After all, it’s doing nothing but upsetting those who witnessed the terrible crime. I’m about to tell Ayesha to forget it, let’s pass over that question, but she begins to talk.

‘The knife cut into both carotid arteries, the arteries that run up the sides of the neck, which supply blood to the brain. You see if they are cut there is a tremendous amount of blood loss. If they hadn’t been cut, but the trachea had been, then there is a greater chance of survival. It’s still a traumatic injury as the blood ends up flowing down into the lungs, and there is a chance of drowning in one’s own blood. If the paramedics arrive in time there is a possibility that they can still do something to save a person’s life. But the severance of the carotid arteries cuts off the supply of blood to the brain and a person lapses into unconsciousness in less than a minute, soon followed by a heart attack and … death.’

Her description is so clinical that it takes me aback slightly. ‘And did both – both Victoria and Daniel – die like this?’

‘Yes, it seems so,’ she replies. ‘Obviously, it’s up to the coroner to make his or her judgement on the matter, but that’s what I believe.’

‘And you’ll be giving evidence at the inquest?’

She nods her head, obviously distressed at the idea of having to do so.

‘I suppose all of us who were there will be called, to give our testimonies about what happened.’

I wonder again what I should do about Laurence. If I go to the police with the video then he would be forced to appear. He would have to explain, on the record, about what he was doing on the Heath that day and why he ran away. I question whether I could endure the public scrutiny that would inevitably come when he confesses that he once had a relationship with one of the other witnesses – me. And whether he would talk about why our love affair broke down. Perhaps Bex is right, and we can deal with him ourselves.

‘You may as well know now because I’m going to talk about it at the inquest,’ says Ayesha.

‘Sorry, I was just thinking about … about that day,’ I lie. ‘What did you say?’

‘Just that I may as well tell you now, about what Daniel Oliver whispered to me as he was dying.’

I feel as though I am being injected in the arm with a shot of adrenaline. My heartbeat races and I feel my eyes widening.

‘I don’t know if it makes any difference or what it means really,’ she continues. ‘I’d done what I could to save both their lives, but as I knelt down by Daniel I could hear that he was trying to say something. I leaned towards him and … it was obvious he didn’t have much time left. I asked if he wanted to tell me something. He tried to nod, but he couldn’t. I leaned further in, with my ear almost pressed onto his mouth. He didn’t say anything for a moment or two and I’d thought he’d gone. But then he said, in a voice so slight and weak it was hardly even a whisper, he said …’

She goes quiet.

‘Ayesha, what did he tell you?’

‘He said, “That … that was him.”’

‘Did he give you a name?’

Ayesha shakes her head. ‘No, no he didn’t … and then, well you know what happened. That bastard died.’