‘Back to the office, then.’
The address I’ve noted down for Melissa Slade’s parents is in Hanham, which isn’t far from Kingswood, where I live, so I decide to make a short detour on the way home. Hoping to avoid the traffic, I leave the office earlier than usual, punching the name of their road into my satnav at the first red light.
As I pull up in front of Ivy and George Moore’s house, I notice there’s a car in the driveway. Looks like I’m in luck. Well, looks like they’re home at least. I know from my many years as a journalist that they may not be willing to talk to me. I take in the terrace house, wondering if Melissa grew up in it. Did she have any siblings? Did they go to school nearby? I make a mental note to ask her parents these questions. If they let me in.
George Moore opens the door when I ring the bell. He has an instantly likeable face, bushy grey eyebrows cascading out above kind blue eyes. I know him to be in his sixties from the age guide on the online directory, but his hunched shoulders and sluggish movements make him appear a lot older. His hair – what’s left of it – is a slightly lighter shade of grey than his eyebrows.
‘Mr Moore? I’m Jonathan Hunt. I’m a journalist from The Redcliffe Gazette,’ I say, holding out my hand. He hesitates, but then he shakes it, which I take as an encouraging sign. ‘I wonder if we could have a chat about your daughter Melissa. I’ve been asked to write a piece about her appeal application and I’d like to give an accurate account.’
‘Usually my wife doesn’t …’
‘Is your wife here, Mr Moore?’ I ask gently, thinking that she is probably the decision-maker for this couple.
‘Er, no, but she’ll be back soon.’
‘Then maybe you and I could talk until she gets home.’ When he doesn’t react, I add, ‘Mr Moore, you have my word, I always endeavour to report objectively. I don’t write sensationalist articles. I don’t misquote or misrepresent. I’m only ever concerned with the truth.’
To my surprise, he opens the door and leads me into the small living room. The television is on and The Beast seems to be making mincemeat out of the three contestants remaining in the final chase.
The room is clean – it has been recently vacuumed judging from the hoover marks on the worn pink carpet – but it houses a lot of clutter. Every spare inch of dark wooden furniture has a magazine or a book on it; china ornaments jostle for space on the window ledges, and paintings by numbers and children’s felt art pictures hang on the walls.
I admire the artwork. ‘My sons do a lot of craftwork,’ I say. ‘They like making model planes and cars. And the younger one, Alfie, loves drawing.’
‘My grandson, Callum, liked drawing when he was younger. And Lego and Meccano.’ Pointing at the pictures, he says, ‘Melissa did those when she was a little girl.’ His eyes lose some of their brightness when he mentions his daughter’s name, as if he’s overcome by the nostalgia of a time when his daughter was still an innocent child.
I clear my throat. I don’t want to scare Melissa’s father by taking notes, and as I expected Melissa Slade’s parents to refuse to talk to me, I haven’t prepared any questions, so I start with the ones I asked myself earlier.
Melissa is an only child, her dad informs me. The Moores moved into this house when Melissa was five. She attended local state schools. I try to commit this information to memory. I’ll need to make a Voice Memo as soon as I get out to the car before I forget it all. Mind like a sieve. Mr Moore relaxes as we talk, but I have to tread carefully. I sense he’s wary of me, so I need to keep building up his trust and avoid catching him off guard with tricky questions.
‘Would you like to see some photos?’ Mr Moore blurts out as I’m trying to think of a line of questioning to fast-forward from Melissa’s childhood to her having children of her own.
‘Yes, I would.’ I plaster a smile on my face. ‘Very much.’
Mr Moore gets up and, to my dismay, reaches down five volumes of photo albums from a shelf on the bookcase. We move to the sofa and he comments on some of the photos as he turns over the pages of the first album. It starts with Melissa’s baby photos, some of which have lost at least one of their self-adhesive corners and become crooked. Mr Moore straightens them before he flips each page over. By the end of the album, there are pictures of her as a toddler.
It’s a good half an hour before we get to the fifth and final album, this one a photo book that Mr Moore tells me Melissa created online. We seem to have gone full circle as, like the first volume, it starts with photos of Mr and Mrs Moore with a baby. I realise that the photo albums have got me to where I need to go.
‘Is that Melissa’s son, Mr Moore?’
‘Yes. That’s Callum, our grandson.’
‘And that’s your wife holding him, is it?’
‘That’s right.’
I wonder where Mrs Moore is and when she’s due home, but before I can ask, George turns another page and from the next photo Melissa Slade stares out at me through bewitching turquoise eyes. She has a heart-shaped face, long blond hair and a huge smile. I find myself transfixed. She’s sitting next to a man, who has his arm round her as she holds their baby son.
‘That’s Melissa with Simon and Callum,’ Mr Moore says, using his index finger to point on the photo at each of them in turn.
Thinking that there may be some photos in this album of Melissa with her baby girls, I remember Claire’s words. I’m thinking never-before-seen baby photos. But I don’t like the idea of asking George for a photo to put in the newspaper. Even if I find one that shows Melissa as a loving mother, I’d feel as if I was invading this family’s privacy and abusing the trust George is showing me.
‘What was Melissa like?’ I ask. I realise I’ve used the past tense, but if George finds that odd, he doesn’t show it.
‘She was a bright child. A wayward teenager. She and my wife Ivy were always at loggerheads with one another. She was kind and funny.’ He smiles wistfully. ‘She was a good mother to Callum.’
He pauses for a moment, and I mull over that last sentence, noting Mr Moore’s use of the past tense, too.
‘We – Ivy and I – don’t see as much of Callum as we’d like to. He’s all grown up now. I suppose he prefers to hang out with friends his own age. But when Melissa first …’
He breaks off, staring vacantly at one of Melissa’s felt pictures on the wall. This time he remains silent for so long that I don’t think he’ll finish his sentence. But then he says, ‘Well, we used to see more of our grandson.’ His voice wavers slightly. ‘We tried to help Simon out. We picked Callum up from school, took him to his activities and clubs, that sort of thing. Ivy gave him a hand with his homework assignments. He had dinner with us and slept here when my son-in-law had to work late.’
I note that he refers to Simon Goodman as his son-in-law despite the fact he and Melissa had divorced and she was remarried. I’m about to ask how old Callum is now, but then it comes back to me that he was thirteen years old at the trial. I do the mental arithmetic in my head. Eighteen. ‘What’s Callum doing these days?’ I ask instead.
But before George can answer, the front door slams and we hear a woman’s voice. At first I think she’s with someone, but I soon realise she’s talking to George from the hallway. She’s plump and she waddles into the living room, unwrapping a ludicrously long scarf from around her neck.
‘So, I asked to see the manager!’ she continues, without looking our way. ‘So rude! I’m dying for a cup …’ She stops mid-rant when she catches sight of me. Mr Moore leaps to his feet and helps her off with her jacket, and I stand up and approach her, introducing myself and holding out my hand. She doesn’t take it. ‘A journalist? We don’t talk to reporters.’
Up close, I can see she’s wearing abundant make-up