Читать книгу A Good Girl's Guide to Murder - Holly Jackson - Страница 18

Stanley:		Yep.
Pip:		Hi, Stanley, this is Pippa, we were emailing earlier.
Stanley:		Yep, yeah, I know. You wanted to pick my brains about the Andie Bell/Salil Singh case, right?
Pip:		Yes that’s right.
Stanley:		Well, shoot.
Pip:		OK, thanks. Erm, so firstly, you attended Andie’s coroner inquest, didn’t you?
Stanley:		Sure did, kid.
Pip:		As the national press didn’t elaborate much further than reporting the verdict and the CPS’s later statement, I was wondering if you could tell me what kind of evidence was presented to the coroner by the police?
Stanley:		A whole bunch of stuff.
Pip:		Right, could you tell me some of the specific points they made?
Stanley:		Err, so the main investigator on Andie’s case outlined the details of her disappearance, the times and so on. And then he moved on to the evidence that linked Salil to her murder. They made a big deal about the blood in the boot of her car; they said this suggested that she was murdered somewhere and her body was put in the boot to be transported to wherever she was disposed of. In the closing remarks the coroner said something like ‘it seems clear that Andie was the victim of a sexually motivated murder and considerable efforts were made to dispose of her body.’
Pip:		And did DI Richard Hawkins or any other officer provide a timeline of what they believed were the events of that night and how Sal allegedly killed her?
Stanley:		Yeah, I do kinda remember that. Andie left home in her car and at some point on Salil’s walk home, he intercepted her. With either him or her driving, he took her to a secluded place and murdered her. He hid her body in the boot and then drove somewhere to hide or dispose of her body. Mind you, well enough so that it hasn’t been found in five years, must have been a pretty big hole. And then he ditched the car on that road where it was found, Romer Close I think it was, and he walked home.
Pip:		So, because of the blood in the boot, the police believed that Andie was killed somewhere and then hidden in a different location?
Stanley:		Yep.
Pip:		OK. In a lot of your articles about the case, you refer to Sal as a ‘killer’, a ‘murderer’ and even a ‘monster.’ You are aware that without a conviction, you are supposed to use the word ‘allegedly’ when reporting crime stories.
Stanley:		Not sure I need a child to tell me how to do my job. Anyway, it’s obvious that he did it and everyone knows it. He killed her and the guilt drove him to suicide.
Pip:		OK. So for what reasons are you convinced of Sal’s guilt?
Stanley:		Almost too many to list. Evidence aside, he was the boyfriend, right? And it’s always the boyfriend or the ex-boyfriend. Not only that, Salil was Indian.
Pip:		Um . . . Sal was actually born and raised in Britain, though it is notable that you refer to him as Indian in all of your articles.
Stanley:		Well, same thing. He was of Indian heritage.
Pip:		And why is that relevant?
Stanley:		I’m not like an expert or anything, but they have different ways of life to us, don’t they? They don’t treat women quite like we do, their women are like their possessions. So I’m guessing maybe Andie decided she didn’t want to be with him or something and he killed her in a rage because, in his eyes, she belonged to him.
Pip:		Wow . . . I . . . Err . . . you . . . Honestly, Stanley, I’m pretty surprised you haven’t been sued for defamation.
Stanley:		That’s ’cause everyone knows what I’m saying is true.
Pip:		Actually, I don’t. I think it’s very irresponsible to label someone a murderer without using ‘suspected’ or ‘allegedly’ when there’s been no trial or conviction. Or calling Sal a monster. Speaking of word use, it’s interesting to compare your recent reporting of the Slough Strangler. He murdered five people and pleaded guilty in court, yet in your headline you referred to him as a ‘lovesick young man’. Is that because he’s white?
Stanley:		That’s got nothing to do with Salil’s case. I just call it how it is. You need to chill out. He’s dead, why does it matter if people call him a murderer? It can’t hurt him.
Pip:		Because his family aren’t dead.
Stanley:		It’s starting to sound like you actually think he’s innocent. Against all the expertise of senior police officers.
Pip:		I just think there are certain gaps and inconsistencies in the supposed case against Sal.
Stanley:		Yeah, maybe if the kid hadn’t offed himself before getting arrested, we would have been able to fill the gaps.
Pip:		Well, that was insensitive.
Stanley:		Well it was insensitive of him to kill his pretty blonde girlfriend and hide her remains.
Pip:		Allegedly!
Stanley:		You want more proof that that kid was a killer, fangirl? We weren’t allowed to print it, but my source in the police said they found a death threat note in Andie’s school locker. He threatened her and then he did it. Do you really still think he can be innocent?
Pip:		Yes I do. And I think you’re a racist, intolerant, dickhead, mindless bottom-feeder –

(Stanley hangs up the phone)

Yeah, so, I don’t think Stanley and I are going to be best friends.

However, his interview has given me two bits of information I didn’t have before. The first is that police believe Andie was killed somewhere before being put in the boot of her car and driven to a second location to be disposed of.

The second bit of intel lovely Stanley gave me is this ‘death threat’. I’ve not seen it mentioned in any articles or in any of the police statements. There must be a reason: maybe the police didn’t think it was relevant. Or maybe they couldn’t prove it was linked to Sal. Or maybe Stanley made it up. In any case, it’s worth remembering when I interview Andie’s friends later on.

So now that I (sort of) know what the police’s version of events were for that night, and what the prosecution’s case might have looked like, it’s time for a MURDER MAP.

After dinner because Mum’s going to call up in about three. . . two . . . yep . . .

So professional-looking. But it does help to visualize the police’s version of events. I had to make a couple of assumptions when creating it. The first is that there are several ways to walk from Max’s to Sal’s; I picked the one that heads back through the high street because Google said it was the quickest and I’m presuming most people prefer to walk on well-lit streets at night.

It also provides a good intercept point somewhere along Wyvil Road where Andie potentially pulled over and Sal got in the car. Thinking like a detective, there are actually some quiet residential roads and a farm on Wyvil Road. These quiet, secluded places – circled – could potentially be the site of the murder (according to the police’s narrative).

I didn’t bother guessing where Andie’s body was disposed of because, like the rest of the world, I have no clue at all where that is. But given that it takes about eighteen minutes to walk from where the car was dumped on Romer Close back to Sal’s house in Grove Place, I have to presume he’d have been back in the vicinity of Wyvil Road around 12:20 a.m. So if the Andie and Sal intercept happened at around 10:45 p.m., this would have given Sal one hour and thirty-five minutes to murder her and hide the body. I mean, timewise, that seems perfectly reasonable to me. It’s possible. But there are already a dozen ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions elbowing their way in.

Andie and Sal both leave where they are at around 10:30 p.m., so they must have planned to meet up, right? It seems too coincidental for them not to have communicated and planned it. The thing is, the police have never once mentioned a phone call or any texts between Andie and Sal that would account as a meet-up arrangement. And if they planned this together, at school for example, where there would be no record of the conversation, why didn’t they just agree that Andie would pick Sal up from Max’s house? It seems weird to me.

I’m rambling. It’s 2 a.m. and I just ate half a Toblerone, that’s why.