‘It’s not inspector,’ Sheldon said. When Ted looked confused, he added, ‘I’m on leave, just so that I can sort some things out. I’m here in my personal capacity.’
‘Personal?’
Sheldon nodded. ‘As someone who cares about what happened to Alice.’
Ted sat down. He looked at the floor for a few seconds, his lips pursed, before he spoke. When he did, his voice was quiet. ‘I never doubted that you cared,’ he said. ‘It was whether you had done enough.’
Sheldon’s hands trembled, and so he gripped one set of fingers with the other. ‘I did everything I thought I could, and more. If it wasn’t enough, and it was down to me, then all I can say is that I’m sorry for not catching Alice’s killer.’
‘And now Billy is dead.’
‘Yes. Now Billy.’
‘So, you’re done,’ Ted said. ‘You’ve said your piece, and so you can go back to whatever you want to go back to with a clean conscience.’
Sheldon shook his head. ‘It’s not that.’
Ted considered him for a few moments before he said, ‘Go on.’
‘I want to help you find out what happened to Alice.’
‘You’ve been trying for long enough. What makes you think you can do anything now?’
‘I might know things that you don’t, and I can guess that you know things I don’t. If we work together, perhaps we can get somewhere.’
Ted tapped his fingers on the chair arm and stared silently at Sheldon for a few seconds, until he said, ‘Do you think Alice’s killer is lying in that mortuary?’
Sheldon thought about that. There were only three outcomes; that Billy had known who had killed Alice, that he hadn’t known, or that he had been Alice’s murderer. Sheldon still didn’t know which one was the truth. ‘It’s possible.’
Ted shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Billy Privett did not kill my daughter.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I could do one thing you couldn’t do, and that was speak to him as another human being. You represented something that could lock him away, the police, and you were prepared to try. I was just a grieving father. He could be more honest with me.’
Sheldon was surprised. ‘When did you speak to him?’
‘Just before the anniversary of Alice’s death. I went to his house. He let me in, which surprised me. He didn’t say anything at first. He took me to the pool room and mumbled something about leaving me for a few moments.’
‘And did he?’
Ted nodded. ‘He was respectful, until I came out of there and asked him to tell me what he knew. No, not asked. I begged him. I cried, pulled on his clothes, lost every shred of dignity I had left.’
‘And what did Billy do?’
‘Nothing, except that he looked like he wanted to tell me, but something was stopping him.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t just guilt at something he’d done?’
‘Oh, there was guilt, but there was something else too; fear. He knew damn well who killed my daughter. He was just too scared to tell anyone.’
Sheldon was about to say something, but Ted held up his hand. ‘You don’t need to tell me that he was just scared of getting caught. I’ve gone through every possibility in my head, but each time I come back to what I thought when he looked at me, and it was a certainty that he was scared of telling me.’
‘But yesterday you were angry at what his lawyer said to the camera, that he died an innocent man,’ Sheldon said.
‘Just because he didn’t kill Alice doesn’t mean that he’s innocent. He was a coward, and I can’t forgive him for that.’ Ted rose up out of his chair. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and went towards the stairs. Sheldon went after him, not sure what to expect.
Ted was quiet as he climbed the stairs. Sheldon kept a respectable distance as Ted headed straight for the room that he and Tracey had avoided: Alice’s old room. Ted undid the bolt at the top of the door and pushed it open gently, stepping aside to allow Sheldon to enter.
It was a square room, with fitted cupboards at one end and a single bed below them. There was a corkboard of photographs; teenagers having fun, family pets, some people holding beer bottles. The room was clean, and Sheldon could tell that it was cleaned often. There was a picture on the side, in front of a switched-off clock radio. He didn’t need to get too close to know that it was Alice, and that it was the one item that had been added after she’d died. Her head was cocked, smiling, the sunlight shining through her hair like a halo. Sheldon imagined Ted and Emily sitting on the bed, clutching her photograph in the room that Alice had grown up in, from a toddler full of promise to a party-loving student, all of it snatched away by one night at Billy Privett’s house.
Sheldon thought that he had been brought to the room to be reminded of Alice, but he didn’t need to be reminded, because he thought of her every day. Then Ted opened one of the cupboards and Sheldon saw folders lined up, each with a title marked out in bold red on the spine. Friends. Parties. Neighbours.
‘These are all the notes I’ve made from the people I’ve spoken to,’ Ted said, and then he gave a bitter laugh. ‘At least, those who would speak to me.’
Sheldon went towards them and ran his fingers down one of the spines. His fingernails looked long and dirty.
‘Can I look?’ he said.
‘I’ll bring them downstairs,’ Ted said. ‘But first you eat.’
Sheldon was confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Inspector …’
‘Sheldon.’
‘Sorry, Sheldon. You don’t look well. You look tired and hungry.’ He pointed out of the room. ‘Have a bath, relax for a few minutes. I’ll find you some clothes. I think I’ve got some that will fit. I’ll make you some food. Then we’ll talk.’
Sheldon felt tears jump into his eyes, and his mind went back to the moment on the church tower, to how that young woman had saved him. He knew Ted was right.
‘I don’t think I’ve been dealing with it very well,’ Sheldon said.
‘No need to explain.’
Sheldon smiled his gratitude, but the choke of his emotions caught in his throat stopped him from speaking.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Charlie knew he had to get rid of the knife first, and so he turned towards Amelia’s house, wanting to put the knife back in the block. Then he would call the police, tell them what he had found, and all about the two men in suits.
He followed the same route back, ducking down back alleys, dodging round the discarded boxes and junk and dogshit, the knife inside his jacket. He was able to circle the town centre without venturing onto the street, his eyes always looking out for an unlocked gate so that he could hide out of view if a police car passed the end of the alley. He emerged onto the main road further down the hill from the town centre, with Amelia’s house on the other side. He wanted to walk there casually, so that he wouldn’t seem suspicious, but just as he was about to cross the road, there were police cars bunched up ahead, blocking off the road near Amelia’s.
Charlie jumped back into the alley, the knife digging into