Last of the Magpies Read online

  ‘You mean she helps murderers get off?’ Jamie said.

  ‘No! She’s interested in justice, that’s all. And in that series she was able to track down a witness who had gone missing; someone the police hadn’t been able to find. She’s amazing.’

  Anthony’s cheeks had gone a little pink.

  ‘And attractive, I take it?’

  His face went pinker still.

  ‘Yeah. But it’s mainly her brain I’m interested in. And she said she’s still trying to choose a topic for the new series. When I told her I know you she immediately said she’d love to talk to you, Jamie. Maybe she could help. Like I said, she’s fantastic at finding people.’

  Jamie opened his mouth to say no but then paused. The idea of being interviewed for the salacious pleasure of thousands of true crime devotees – people who thought murder and torture were thrilling – horrified him. And he was sceptical, too, about this woman’s abilities. The police hadn’t managed to find Lucy . . . but then they hadn’t been able to find this witness that Anthony had mentioned either.

  Maybe it wouldn’t do any harm if he spoke to her. He wouldn’t need to commit to anything. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to be involved with her podcast.

  ‘It’s not like anyone else is actively looking for Lucy, is it?’ Anthony said, speaking Jamie’s thoughts aloud.

  Anthony took a business card out of his pocket and handed it over.

  ‘Give her a call,’ he said.

  5

  It was interesting to see the kind of woman Anthony went for. Emma Fox was petite with trendy glasses and long black hair tied behind her head with a scrunchie, wearing a black biker jacket over a T-shirt that read FEMINIST WITH A TO-DO LIST. She sat before Jamie, now in a café in Shoreditch, scribbling in a notebook. She was in her mid-twenties and gave off an air of hyper-confidence that Jamie found simultaneously appealing and intimidating.

  ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you,’ she said in her London accent. Jamie had looked her up online before meeting her and had read about how her grandparents were part of the Windrush generation, coming to England in the 1960s from the Caribbean to make a new life. Here, fifty years on, Emma was doing a job that would have been unimaginable to them – making a living from her podcast and accompanying website, thanks to sponsorship and advertising.

  ‘Few people can imagine,’ said Jamie.

  ‘At least there are two of you, I suppose,’ Emma said. ‘I mean, I know you and Kirsty aren’t together anymore but it must be some comfort knowing there’s someone else who understands.’

  She was right. Though it pained him to think this was the only thing he and Kirsty had in common these days. A shared suffering.

  ‘Do you think Kirsty would be—’

  ‘Interested in talking to you? No. No way. She hates the attention even more than I do. In fact, she’d probably be furious if she knew I was talking to you.’

  Emma put her pencil down. ‘But she’d be happy if Lucy was caught and sent back to prison.’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ Jamie paused. ‘Do you really think you could make that happen? That you can find her?’

  Emma smiled. ‘To be honest with you, I have no idea. I mean, I’m not Superwoman. And I don’t have access to any of the resources the police have. But I’m tenacious, I know how to talk to people and I can do what the police aren’t always great at.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Lateral thinking. That’s how I found Richard Agent.’ He was the witness she had tracked down in the last season of Silent Voices. ‘I examined his life, his history, his patterns of movement and behaviour. And from there I was able to find the trail that led me to him.’

  Jamie nodded and Emma leaned towards him.

  ‘That’s what I’ll be aiming to do here. And maybe it won’t work. Maybe we won’t find her, or even get close. From what I’ve read, Lucy is far cleverer than Richard.’

  Jamie was tired of hearing people talk about Lucy’s intelligence. It was all part of this cult of the psychopath that had sprung up during the last few years; this image everyone had of them as fiercely clever predators. ‘She’s certainly cunning and manipulative. But she’s arrogant and impetuous as well, and she makes mistakes. She’s been caught twice before, remember.’

  ‘Yes. And that’s why I need you on board, Jamie. I need your insight, your help. I bet you know her better than anyone.’

  Jamie could feel his blood warming, stirring. ‘I’m her nemesis.’

  That brought a grin to Emma’s lips. ‘I like it. That’s what we should call this season. “Nemesis”.’

  Jamie nodded. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘And I’ve got a good feeling about this, Jamie. I really want to help you after all you’ve been through. I think you need and deserve closure. Even if we don’t find her, maybe talking about it, getting your side of the story out there once and for all, will help.’

  He hesitated. Just like when he agreed to assist Anita, he had that sense that he was about to step on to an out-of-control train. That once he was on that train he would be unable to get off again.

  He should walk away, get on with his life, move back to Australia and forget all about Lucy.

  But he couldn’t do that. He could never resist the urge to stroke his favourite scar. And Emma seemed so interested in what he’d been through, and so keen to help. Kirsty would be furious, but she was angry with him anyway – and it wasn’t as if he was going to be putting her in danger again.

  ‘I’m in,’ he said.

  Emma invited him back to hers, so they could get started right away. She worked from home, in a flat in a converted warehouse not far from where they’d met for coffee, a cavernous red-brick building where the rent would be far higher than what he paid. Looking around the open space of Emma’s living area, with its exposed brickwork and breakfast bar and the view across East London, he felt a twinge of envy. His own business was doing okay, but he would never be able to afford a place like this.

  Maybe, he thought, as Emma made coffee, he should accept that book deal. It could tie in with the podcast. After all, if he was going to do this, why not write that book too? The hunt for Lucy would give him something new and active to write about, rather than simply dragging over the past.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Emma sitting beside him on the sofa and pulling a MacBook on to her lap.

  ‘I need to set up some interviews with you about the days when you lived above Lucy and her husband,’ Emma said. ‘Everything that happened – the fire, the trial, all that stuff. Is that okay? I think we need it, to provide background for listeners who aren’t familiar with the story.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘I’ll find a lawyer or cop, maybe both, to talk about the appeal and her release. Maybe someone who knew her in prison . . . That could be cool.’

  ‘Yeah, especially if they knew Anita too.’

  Emma was typing all this into a note on her laptop. ‘Yes, great. And then I’ll want you to talk about what happened in Shropshire, as much as you’re able.’ She sighed. ‘It’s such a shame we can’t persuade Kirsty to do this too.’

  ‘Don’t even go there.’

  Emma clicked her tongue. ‘Okay, I get it. But Kirsty’s such an important part of the narrative.’ She must have sensed Jamie bristling because she said, ‘I’m sorry. I understand. I doubt I’d want to relive it either, if I were her. I mean, all that stuff with the spiders. I’m a total arachnophobe too, so I can’t even imagine.’ She shuddered. ‘But anyway, I want to think about the first steps we can take in tracking her down. Can you tell me everything you know about the police investigation?’

  He spent the next thirty minutes filling her in while she typed notes.

  When he’d finished, she opened Google Maps and put in the address Jamie had given her for the maisonettes where Lucy and Anita had lived.

  ‘It was right here,’ Jamie said, pointing to a spot on the map just east of a small vi
llage called Wigmore. He traced a line on the screen with his finger. ‘The police drove along this road, through Mortimer Forest. This is where Lucy and Anita escaped.’

  ‘Into the forest,’ Emma said. She paused, deep in thought.

  ‘What is it?’ Jamie asked.

  She turned to him. ‘We should go there. Back to the start of the trail. Would you be up for that?’

  This time he didn’t hesitate. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

  That had been Thursday. Now it was Saturday and Jamie and Emma stood on the road, exactly where Lucy and Anita had overpowered the two police officers who were taking them to the station. The spot where, a year ago, Jamie had realised with a sickening lurch in his belly that Lucy had escaped.

  They had come up in Emma’s car, a sporty little SEAT Ibiza, and they were both wearing clothes appropriate for a hike through the woods: waterproof jackets and Gore-Tex boots. Emma was also wearing a backpack. She had been in a chatty mood all the way up after leaving London at 7 a.m., talking about the last podcast she’d made, singing along with the radio and asking Jamie lots of questions about himself, though she avoided the topic of Lucy. ‘I want to save that for when I interview you,’ she said.

  She was good company, and Jamie found himself relaxing and almost looking forward to a day out in the countryside. It was only now, standing on the edge of the woods, that he remembered exactly why they were here. An arrow of foreboding went through him, but it was followed by a tingle of anticipation.

  ‘Ready?’ Emma asked, and they entered the woods.

  It was a sunny day, but the temperature dipped noticeably as soon as they crossed the line of trees into the forest. Because they were trying to follow Lucy’s original route, they didn’t enter on the path but instead picked their way down the escarpment, holding on to tree trunks until they reached flat ground.

  ‘We know she headed east,’ Jamie said, opening the compass app on his phone. ‘We should try to find the stream where she left Anita’s body.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Emma took out a silver digital recorder. ‘I’m just going to talk into this for a few minutes while we walk.’

  ‘No problem.’

  She held the recorder close to her lips. ‘Mortimer Forest looks like any other large English wood in the autumn. A path almost hidden by soggy leaves, a carpet of yellow and orange and brown. Dog poo bags hanging from branches . . .’

  They stepped over a slender fallen tree.

  ‘But this is no longer an ordinary place, because Mortimer Forest was the last location where Lucy Newton was seen. A place where she vanished into thin air.’ She pressed pause. ‘I might edit out the bit about dog poo bags.’

  She recorded a little more, recapping the known events of that night, then put the recorder back in her pocket. They walked on in silence. It would have been companionable if Jamie hadn’t felt so tense. He glanced at Emma, who walked purposefully, relaxed and clearly enjoying this day out, and wished he could make her see how emotional all this was for him. She would never understand, though. No one else, except Kirsty, could ever understand.

  Then he spotted it. A stream, so narrow and shallow it was barely there. He left the path and headed down the bank, almost slipping on a patch of mud. Emma joined him beside the stream.

  ‘This must be it,’ he said. ‘Where she left Anita.’

  Emma’s eyes were wide. ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Anita?’ He pictured her naked, beneath him, and tried to shake away the image. ‘She was a fool. Willing to do anything Lucy asked.’

  ‘In love with her?’

  He nodded. ‘Like I said, a fool. It’s not as if Lucy is warm and kind and funny. I don’t think she has a sense of humour at all. It’s like falling in love with a freezer.’

  ‘I guess some people like ice queens.’

  Emma took out her recorder again and Jamie wandered a little way along the stream while she spoke into it. When she rejoined him, she said, ‘So, what happened next?’

  ‘A police dog picked up Lucy’s scent and followed it further west. But then it reached another stream and lost the trail. They think Lucy walked along the stream with her feet in the water.’

  They headed east, using the compass on Jamie’s phone, until they reached another stream. They walked alongside it and, after a while, reached the edge of the woods. Back in the open, they could see a village in the distance and headed towards it.

  ‘This is Overton,’ Jamie said. ‘The police seem to think she came through here, though they can’t be certain. It was the middle of the night and the whole place, what there is of it, was asleep.’

  The village was tiny. A one-horse hamlet that barely registered on the map.

  ‘What would you do?’ Emma said. ‘Imagine you’re Lucy. You wind up here, on the outskirts of a tiny village, knowing the police are going to be looking for you. You wouldn’t want to stay in the woods because they’re not big enough to hide in. But you’d be exposed out here.’

  ‘Perhaps she flagged down a passing car. Hitch-hiked.’

  ‘In the middle of the night in this deserted spot? And why did no one ever come forward? No, somebody must have been waiting for her. Now I’ve seen this place, I’m convinced of it.’

  Jamie nodded. He agreed. He had believed it for a long time, and he knew the police had pursued this theory too.

  ‘Is there a pub or something around here?’ Emma asked. ‘The fresh air is making me hungry.’

  ‘There’s a hotel on the main road.’

  Emma smiled. ‘Then what are we waiting for?’

  They settled in the hotel bar with a pint each and a sandwich on order.

  ‘So, I read Lucy’s book last night,’ Emma said.

  ‘The whole thing?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I skimmed parts of it. It’s not exactly a great work of literature, is it? Have you read it?’

  He sipped his pint. ‘Reluctantly. Did you know her publisher withdrew it from sale after what happened last year? I got a second-hand copy.’

  He had read the whole thing with disgust. It was bland, self-aggrandising and full of lies. Lucy denied ever doing anything wrong – except once stealing a pencil case from Woolworths, for which she was ‘deeply regretful’ – and made herself out to be a victim of a grave miscarriage of justice. Jamie featured in it heavily. He was the villain, portrayed as a weedy sad-sack who was, Lucy suspected, in love with her, which was the real reason he had killed Chris. In fact, the sections about Jamie, which were laced with poison and self-pity, were the only parts of the book that came alive. It was as if they’d been written by a different person, as the rest of the book was so dull.

  ‘I thought there might be some clues in it,’ Emma said. ‘Something that would help me understand the real Lucy. But it’s as if it was written by a computer. I mean, childhood chapters in autobiographies are usually boring but hers takes it to another level. Did nothing interesting happen to her when she was a kid? All those pages about how much she loved her cat. My god. And Purity? Is that a joke?’

  ‘She missed out the part about driving her younger cousin to kill herself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, she told us about it. Kirsty and me. And she confessed to murdering all those elderly people at Orchard House.’

  ‘Wow.’

  The barman brought their sandwiches over. Emma took a large bite of hers then said, ‘I thought there might be some mention of old friends, first loves, people from her past I could talk to. She didn’t appear to have any friends at school and she didn’t go to college. She never mentioned any boyfriends before Chris and no one ever went to the press to sell their story about their close shave with the Dark Angel.’ Emma put the sandwich down. ‘It’s incredible, isn’t it? Did she ever appear to have any friends when you lived above to her? Apart from that guy who she met through you, I mean. Paul.’

  Hearing his name was like being poked with a needle.

  ‘There are a few passages about him, aren’t there?’
Emma said. ‘I liked the bit where she said he was a great support after you and Kirsty started to harass her and Chris. She blames you for the go-karting accident that put Paul in a coma, too, doesn’t she?’

  Those parts of the book, more than any other, had enraged Jamie. The way she had twisted what really happened. How Chris had deliberately caused the accident. How Paul had turned into a different person and betrayed Jamie and Kirsty after he emerged from his coma.

  ‘Have you heard from him recently?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Who, Paul? No. He left England to go travelling – that was shortly before Kirsty left me – and I haven’t heard from him for years. I wouldn’t want to, anyway. Not after the way he took their side.’

  The truth was, Jamie had periodically checked Facebook and other social media to see if there was any trace of his former best friend. But, like Lucy, he had vanished.

  ‘I tried looking him up on Facebook but he doesn’t appear to be on there,’ Emma said.

  Jamie had been about to finish his pint. He put the glass down. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought it would be interesting to talk to him. As someone else who knew Lucy. Someone who actually appeared to like her. It could be good material for the podcast. Do you know how I could get in touch with him?’ she asked.

  He’d had enough of this. Enough raking over bad memories for one day. He certainly didn’t want to have any contact with Paul again, and the thought of him being involved in the podcast made him sick. He knew it wasn’t Paul’s fault that he’d suffered a brain injury, and it wasn’t his fault that his behaviour had changed as a result. Jamie felt sorry for him. But he couldn’t help but feel that, somehow, Paul had lost part of his soul. And that scared Jamie. It wasn’t something he wanted to confront or think about.

  ‘No. And I wouldn’t tell you if I did.’ He drained the remains of his pint. All this talk of Paul had killed his appetite and he hadn’t touched his food. ‘I think it’s time we were getting back.’