I imagine the shock on Lawrie’s face when I tell him that I lived next door to the Carter family; that arterial blood is bright red and venous blood is darkly rich, like wine; that Shannon Carter – the tearful star of this headline-making documentary – wasn’t wearing any shoes when the police led her away and she left bloody footprints on the pavement. That a killer isn’t always who you think she is.
But instead I grimace and express my solidarity. ‘Nightmare.’
Lawrie runs his hand through his hair again. It sticks up and makes him seem younger than he is. I wonder if this is what he looks like when he wakes up in the morning and then I push the thought away with both hands. As if that’s going to happen.
Embarrassing as it is to admit – I’m thirty-three years old, for God’s sake – I’ve never spent the night with a man. Quick and perfunctory sex, yes. Actual long-term relationship, no. It’s not that I don’t want to meet someone. But I don’t like showing my scars, inside and out. I prefer the dark corners of alleyways or a stranger’s car, where I can keep my shirt on and the pain of my past to myself. Anyway, Lawrie has a girlfriend and she’s beautiful, and that is the end of that.
‘Have you asked the ITV press office for some exclusive footage?’ It’s an obvious avenue, but perhaps, amid the hectic pace of the news day, it hasn’t occurred to him.
‘Done that. They’ve refused.’ He sucks on his pen. ‘Apparently, they want to keep the story running all week, so they’re releasing fresh extracts of the interview every day, to whet the public’s appetite. They’re going after the biggest slice of audience share when it’s screened on Thursday night.’
‘What about the family?’
Lawrie shrugs. ‘Not much left. I’ve been trying to find a cousin or an aunt, but no joy so far.’
‘Shannon Carter?’
‘They’ll have tied her in to an exclusive deal.’
‘Her sister?’
Lawrie gives me a look. ‘No one knows where she is. And she’s never spoken to the media. Not a single interview. Mind you, that would be one hell of an exclusive.’ He takes a cigarette paper from his jacket, fills it with tobacco, rolls it, sniffs it and slides it behind his ear. Then he picks up the phone again.
I busy myself by typing Shannon Carter and Carter sisters into the library system and calling up all the news stories they’ve been mentioned in since our computerized archive began twenty-two years ago.
Lawrie looks exhausted. I’d like to help him. It’s my job, after all. To find stories and put them in the paper. But I can’t bring myself to mention it. Colin would force me to write a feature brimming with tabloid clichés about living next door to a House of Horrors. I can see it now.
Headline: MY FRIEND, THE KILLER. Subhead: From schoolgirl to slaughterer.
It’s well past six o’clock by the time I’ve finished going through the cuttings, searching for ideas for follow-ups. Lawrie is still sitting at his desk, his forehead furrowed in concentration, his fingers flying over the keyboard. He’s been granted a reprieve, for today, at least.
A graduate trainee sent out to knock doors in the Carters’ home village in Kent has turned up a distant relative and persuaded him to say a few words. This relative has provided a collect photograph – a never-before-seen image of Dr and Mrs Carter taken by his mother at a restaurant a few days before they were murdered. It’s not going to set the world on fire, but the trainee was savvy enough to get the only copy, so it’s an exclusive, and enough for the front-page story that Lawrie’s been tasked with pulling together.
When I’m sure that Lawrie doesn’t need any more help, I say goodnight. His head is down and he doesn’t answer, but I don’t blame him. When I’m on a tight deadline, the outside world is a muffled echo and all I can hear are the words in my head.
The DLR platform is full of smartly dressed bankers, laden down with bags of Christmas gifts from the shiny shops of Canary Wharf. They gleam with the patina of money and success. I look down at my scuffed trainers and make a mental note to buy some new shoes.
A thin layer of snow is covering the pavement when I walk from Poplar station to Aunt Peg’s flat, past pinched-together terraces and estates with broken windows. Two teenagers laugh and bump my shoulder as they walk by, their faces lost inside the cavern of their hoods.
On the stairwell, there’s the neck of a glass bottle. A screaming argument from somewhere in the tower block echoes down the concrete corridor. The estate’s signature perfume of piss fills my nostrils.
‘Only me, Aunt Peg,’ I shout over the television as I let myself in.
Technically, she’s my great-aunt, my late grandmother’s sister. But when my mother died and I could not stand to be near my father, she was the only family to offer me a place to live. At a time when the foundations of my life were shifting beneath my feet, she provided a bedrock of stability. Now she’s eighty-four and needs a bit of extra help, and with the cost of London living, I haven’t quite got around to moving out yet. As far as I’m concerned, Aunt Peg is my family now.
From my bedroom window, I watch the triangle of Canary Wharf blink in the distance and wonder, not for the first time, how I can make my mark at the newspaper.
As the trains grind through the snow and the city is pinpricked with thousands of lights, a voice in my head whispers to me. The answer, it says, lies in the shoebox stuffed at the bottom of my cupboard. The faded photographs of the Carter family. Three or four pencil drawings. A few handwritten letters forwarded from the secure children’s home in the weeks and months after the trial.
This collection of memorabilia from one of the country’s most shocking murders in living memory would bring me to any editor’s attention. Multiple front-page exclusives. Syndicated around the world.
But there’s a reason I’m reluctant to reveal my connection to the Carter family, and it’s not just because I don’t want my photograph in a national newspaper. The truth is, I know more about these killings than the police ever did. Many years ago, I boxed up that knowledge, packed it away and labelled it DO NOT OPEN. But it’s haunted me ever since, colouring everything with a shade named guilt.
If I write the defining story of my career – and it will define me, I’m certain of that – it will open a Pandora’s box.
The trouble is, once the lid’s off, there’ll be no going back.
6
It was completely dark outside.
Catherine put a spoonful of sweetcorn on Honor’s plate and a dollop of mash. She had dished up Edward’s dinner first, but he hadn’t waited for either of them and was shovelling forkfuls into his mouth. When she caught his eye, he mumbled something about being hungry and poured her a glass of sparkling water as a peace offering. She served herself last. The beef’s red wine sauce was too thin and it bled into the potato, turning it a watery pink.
She put down her knife and fork, appetite gone.
What she had begun to call the Bus Ticket Issue filled up all the worry-space in her head. Based on the evidence, it would appear her twelve-year-old daughter had not been to school that morning.
Uncomfortable questions jostled for attention. Where had she been? With whom? What was so urgent it couldn’t wait until the weekend? And why was she being so secretive?