Cut to the Bone (39 page)

‘They are messages, some sent only yesterday. One this morning. To other girls. Children. We found messages to some as young as ten. Did you know James was communicating like this?’

‘It’s not him; it’s these girls. They’re crazy, they stalk him, send him messages all the time, say they love him. He doesn’t do it, and when he does, it’s only to be nice to them.’

Kate handed over copies of the next batch of messages.

‘These are from girls he’s met. There’s a girl there, lisauk99. We checked her account. She was born in 1999. She’s fifteen. James met her last month. Were you aware of this?’

Rachel stared at the page in front of her, at Lisa’s message, no doubt, saying how she enjoyed them meeting up. How she loved him and couldn’t wait until they were together properly.

‘Do you think he’s sleeping with these girls when he meets them?’ said Kate.

Rachel opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She must be crumbling inside, thought Kate.

Kate slid over some more documents, pictures this time.

‘We pulled these from James’s computer, from his Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Vine. These are images he has asked for from these girls. This one, she’s only thirteen. He sent her eighty-seven messages over two hours, until she gave in. And when she sent him one, he threatened to expose her if she didn’t keep sending more.’

Rachel’s shaking led to tears now.

‘Rachel. How old were you when you met James?’

No reply.

Kate swiped her tablet, handed it over to Rachel.

‘There are a number of videos on there. You can hear James in the background, directing these girls, telling them what to do. We found messages to most of them. There’s a pattern. He tells them he loves them, and then he sends them pictures of himself. He then persuades them to send him pictures, and as soon as they send a compromising one, he then asks for a video. I’ll leave you to watch these, shall I?’

Kate needed to breathe, needed some space between what was happening and herself.

Chapter One Hundred and Nine

Kate checked in on her mother in the break. She was asleep on the sofa in Trent’s office, exactly where Kate had napped earlier. It seemed like another day, but it wasn’t. Time was in a vacuum. The morning had started with Maggie Walsh, the MP. And even then, she’d had no idea how it would end, where this case would lead her.

It was approaching 11 p.m. Kate was tired, but she was close, she knew. Rachel was processing exactly who James was.

In the interview room, Rachel was being comforted by the psychologist, Melissa. Augusta had a hard set to her face. That could be good or disastrous.

‘I want to remind you, Rachel, that you are facing charges of attempted murder and assault separately to anything we discuss here. This is extremely serious. Your parents should be here soon,’ Kate added.

At the mention of her parents, Rachel looked worried.

‘They don’t know anything yet. Just that you have been brought in, and that they should probably come down. Did you watch the videos?’

‘Yes,’ she said, in a whisper.

‘And how do you feel? Do you still think it was those girls harassing James?’

Rachel was free-falling, her eyes searching the corners of the room. Then staring at Kate.

‘He cheated on me, didn’t he?’ she said. ‘All these other girls. He’s been cheating on me.’

Kate felt something inside her ache. She didn’t think preying on young girls deserved to be labelled with anything as normal as ‘cheating’. That’s what boyfriends and husbands, girlfriends and wives, did. It’s what she did with Ryan. Grown adults making the decision to stray – that was cheating on someone.

There would be time to heal Rachel later. Years, possibly, if there ever was a time she could be whole again. For now, Kate picked away at her delusion, joined in the act.

‘Yes. He lied to you, and he betrayed you.’

‘He kept saying that to Ruby.
Traitor
. And all the time, it was him. He is the traitor.’

‘When did he do that?’ said Kate.

‘In Dan’s house. In his basement. I tied her wrists. All that time, she thought James belonged to her. And he didn’t. Even when he was with her, he was still sleeping with me.’

‘How did you know about the cottage?’ said Kate.

‘James knew, I don’t know how.’

Ruby possibly told him, thought Kate.

‘How old were you when you met James?’ said Melissa.

‘Let Detective Riley conduct this interview,’ said Augusta.

‘I have a duty of care,’ said Melissa.

‘Do you feel the detective is pushing my client too hard and we should terminate the interview?’ said Augusta.

Melissa did, Kate could see it in her eyes. She answered in the negative, though; she understood what Kate did. Now was the time for truth, for justice, for harshness. Rachel could be mended later.

‘Rachel, answer Melissa, please,’ said Kate.

‘Fourteen,’ said Rachel. Her eyes were still, staring at a place where she was conjuring up images of her past. ‘That’s when we met. He took me to Patisserie Valerie in Soho, for my birthday. I thought it was so grown up, so special. I’d never done anything like that before. I was always the boring one, the model student. And he told me I was beautiful, and clever. I still remember having my first latte. I loved him so much, before we met.’

‘Did your parents not realise?’

‘I played truant from school, got the train to London. James paid for my ticket. And I was back home before they realised, faked a sick note the next day.’

‘How long had you been messaging each other? On YouTube?’ said Kate.

‘Maybe six months. It wasn’t a fling, or anything; we had a proper relationship. And when he dumped Ruby, finally, we could be together.’

‘I know this is going to be difficult for you to answer, Rachel, and it is a hard question. When did your relationship become physical?’ said Kate.

‘I was sixteen,’ she said.

‘Rachel, if you want us to help you, we need you to be honest. If James did nothing wrong, then we have nothing to worry about, do we? With these other girls – he won’t meet them and harm them, will he?’

Rachel stared, and she deliberated, and she broke down. Then she raised her head, and through sobs, she told Kate the horrible reality.

‘It was four months before my sixteenth birthday. Exactly. I do remember the date. He came to Bristol, and he booked into the Ramada Hotel.’

Chapter One Hundred and Ten

There was still no sign of James. He had no car registered to him, and Kate guessed he had hired a vehicle using false ID. Rob had found fake documents, including passports and a driving licence, in James’s Goodmayes house.

Zain had found complex software programmes on the hard drives, code ripped from the most extreme hacking sites on Tor. James even had bitcoins, and a history of travelling down the silk road – the illegal trading routes hidden from most web users.

‘Rachel, can you talk me through what happened the night you took Ruby. Why did James need Ruby out of the way?’

‘He said she had hurt him. That she was flaunting herself and Dan all over, and he wanted to hurt her back. And I helped him, because I thought, if she’s not around anymore, then I won’t have to worry. She was messaging him, you see. All the time leading up to it. Messages, all the time. He said she wanted him back. And I couldn’t let her. You see that, don’t you? But I think she knew.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘This, what you told me. She knew. She kept saying it, when we had her. She kept saying she knew what James had been doing, and telling me he had brainwashed me, and I was being used by him. And the way we got her . . . it fits now. Now I get it.’

‘You got her? How?’

‘I called her. And I said I had information on James for her. I knew she was collecting it secretly, and I had some for her. So we agreed to meet. At her flat. I said I didn’t want anyone to know. And the thing is, I didn’t even know myself. James just told me what to say. But now I understand; it all makes sense. Because Ruby, she never asked me what the information was. She already knew, and she thought I was one of them – these young girls – and that I was scared.’

Kate wanted to say how Rachel
was
one of those girls. The worst one, the one he had ruined the most. She drank from a glass of cold water instead. Coffee wouldn’t do; she needed the hard chill of iced water. Rachel was doing the same. Mirroring each other, finding a bond. Augusta and Melissa were transfixed, thankfully not interrupting. It was vital they heard this. Augusta would have to rescue Rachel, and so would Melissa.

‘So you arranged to meet Ruby?’

‘I called her at four, and told her to meet me at seven-thirty. She agreed. She said she had some paperwork to sort out, and would be home. She met me then. I was in a car, I had told her the make already. She got in when she saw me, and that’s when James . . . he put a gun to her head. And I took her mobile phone. I took the battery out. And then I used plastic tags and I tied Ruby’s wrists and ankles. Only it didn’t matter, because James injected her with something. Into her neck. And she just slumped. I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t, she was just asleep. So he shifted her to the back seat, and then we drove to Dan’s place.’

‘We checked the CCTV to Windsor Court. We didn’t find any footage of you going to Ruby’s flat, nor did we see Ruby leave.’

‘James hacked into the system. He changed the camera feed. He deleted images of us.’

‘We didn’t find your number on her phone records.’

‘I used James’s phone, withheld the number.’

James had planned this carefully, thought Kate.

‘Can you tell us what car it was?’

‘It was a Peugeot, black. Small. He rented it. I’d never seen it before.’

Kate brought up the entire Peugeot range on her tablet. She scrolled through until Rachel identified the right one. Kate uploaded the details into an email and sent it to her team. Rachel couldn’t recall the number plate.

‘What happened then? When you got to Dan’s cottage?’

‘We strapped Ruby into a chair in the basement. James already knew it would be there, like he had been there before. And he used this really strong tape on her. When she woke up, she was scared. And we –’

Rachel stopped, the movie in her head playing out whatever role she’d had.

‘What did James do?’

‘He hurt her. He was angry. He taped her mouth up, so she would stop saying things. She kept calling him sick, a pervert. And he punched her, and he kept grabbing her hair and yanking it, and Ruby kept screaming . . .’

Rachel was crying now; ashamed, probably. The hair-pulling. Kate thought that was something a girl would do. Rachel had done that.

‘And he filmed it?’ said Kate.

‘I filmed it. Yes, that’s what I was doing. I was filming it all. And then . . . well, he let her go. I argued with him, said she was going to tell the police. That we needed to deal with her. He let her go, though. And she thought she was free, and she ran from there. She wasn’t free, though, because we went after her. James had night-vision goggles, and he gave me a pair, too. We could see Ruby, and she couldn’t see us. And I kept filming, watching her run, and stumble and fall. And I laughed.’

Rachel’s face was wretched now.

‘And she kept screaming, “Help me, somebody help me.” There was no one, though. And we caught up to her, and James tied her up again. And then he left us.’

‘Where did he go?’ said Kate, already picturing in her head what had happened next.

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

Rachel was wiping her face with tissue Kate had asked to be brought in for her, but the tears wouldn’t stop. She talked through them, breathless, eager to get out the rest of what had happened. Her version. And Kate knew this was her version, the version she could say. And that was fine, because in Kate’s mind, Rachel was not going to get the blame for this.

‘He moved the car. I’m not sure where he went. And then he took Ruby. He made her walk through the trees, through the forest. I saw them from the cottage windows, and then they disappeared. It’s funny, but I hated that place. It was so creepy, so dark, and I was left alone. I kept hearing things from the basement. And James used to tell me Ruby was a witch, and I thought, what if it’s true?’

The pentagrams; Ruby’s search for spirituality. She wasn’t a witch; she was just like so many other people. Kate formed the word ‘journey’ in her head – such a cliché, but it fit.

‘What happened then?’

‘He came back. It was an hour, I think, that they were gone. And he came back, and they were in the car together. Ruby was tied up, and her lip was bleeding, badly. I think she tried to run, and he must have . . .’

The trail the bloodhounds had followed, through the foliage, the fields and to the road. James must have parked his car there, ready. Forced Ruby through the woods, and then returned to pick up Rachel.

‘Where did you go?’ said Kate.

‘I don’t know. We just drove. Ruby was struggling, so we stopped. And he put her in the boot. And then there were just roads, it was so dark. He knew where he was going, though. And we came to an outhouse, I think. It was a building with no roof, just walls. And he told me to wait in the car. So I did. And then I heard the . . .’

‘What did you hear, Rachel?’

‘The gunshots. There were two or three. So loud. And then he came back.’

The video, Ruby’s brains flying from the back of her head.

‘How long were you driving for? Do you know what direction you took?’

‘I can’t remember. It was less than an hour. It was dark. I don’t know.’

‘I need you to describe the journey. I need you to think back. Anything at all. When you got in the car, was it facing the cottage or not? Did James turn right, left, drive straight ahead? Any details you can recall, and the place he took you to. There must have been traffic signs, features that you picked up. I’m going to get somebody in to talk you through it. Is that OK? And then you can speak to your parents. They’re here.’

Rachel panicked, her head jerking up, her eyes turning to the two-way mirror. As though she could see them, or sense them.