FULL NOVELXO As Good as Dead: Part 1: Chapter 22
Ravi scrolled it up and down again, shaking his head, and Pip could see the reflection of Andie’s words in the dark of his eyes. Even clearer now that they were filling with tears. The weight of her ghost inside him too, not just in her. A dead girl shared, a dead girl halved; they were the only two people in the world who knew. These weren’t Andie Bell’s final words, but they sure felt like it.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said finally, cupping his hands around his face. ‘I can’t believe it. Andie, she… This changes everything. Everything.’
Pip sighed. There was an unutterable sadness in her gut, and still she was sinking through the floor, dragging Andie’s ghost with her. But she took Ravi’s hand, holding tight to anchor them all together. ‘I mean, it changes everything, and it changes nothing,’ she said. ‘Andie didn’t survive. It wasn’t DT who killed her, but it was everything she tried to do to escape him that did. Howie Bowers. Max Hastings. Elliot Ward. Becca. This is why it all happened. Everything. Full circle,’ she added quietly. The beginning was the end and the end the beginning, and DT was both.
Ravi wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘I just…’ His voice croaked, stifling his next words. ‘I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s… it’s too sad. And we, we’ve all been wrong about her. I couldn’t really understand what Sal saw in her before but… oh god, she must have been so terrified. So alone.’ He glanced up at Pip. ‘And this is it, isn’t it? The 21st February: it was right after this that she first approached Mr Ward, and…’
‘At all costs,’ Pip said, echoing Andie’s words, and she felt that uncanny closeness to her again. Five years apart and they’d never met, yet here she was, carrying Andie around in her chest. Two dead girls walking, more alike than Pip could ever have realized. ‘She was desperate. I never really understood why, but I never would have guessed this. Poor Andie.’
Such an inadequate thing to say, but what else was there?
‘She was brave,’ Ravi said in a small voice. ‘Reminds me of you a little bit.’ A small smile to match the small voice. ‘The Singh brothers clearly have a type.’
But Pip’s mind had left her, spinning back to last year. To Elliot Ward standing across from her, the police on their way. ‘Elliot said something to me last year, and I never really understood it until now.’ She paused, replaying the scene in her head. ‘He told me that when Andie went round to his house – before he pushed her off and she hit her head – she told him that she had to get away from home, from Little Kilton, because it was killing her. The signs were there… I-I didn’t see them.’
‘And it did,’ Ravi said, his eyes back on the screen, on the final trace of Andie Bell, her last mystery laid bare. ‘It did kill her.’
‘Before he did,’ she said.
‘Who is he?’ Ravi said, running an unclicked pen down the laptop screen. ‘There’s no name, but there’s a lot of information, Pip. There must be a smoking gun here. So, it’s someone the whole Bell family knew, including Andie and Becca. Which makes sense with the connection to Jason’s company, Green Scene, right?’
‘Someone who used to go over to their house, even have dinner with them,’ Pip said, underscoring the line with her finger. She clicked her tongue, as another old thought stirred, came back to life.
‘What?’ Ravi asked.
‘Last year, I went to speak to Becca at the Kilton Mail office. This was back when Max and Daniel da Silva were my main suspects for Andie. We talked about Dan, because I found out he was one of the officers who did the initial search of their house when Andie went missing. And Becca told me Daniel was close with her dad. Jason got him a job at Green Scene, then promoted him to the office, and also was the one who suggested Dan apply to be a police officer.’ Pip was untethered again, floating through time, from then to now, the start to the end. ‘She said that Daniel was often coming round theirs after work, sometimes stayed for dinner.’
‘Oh, right,’ Ravi said gravely.
‘Daniel da Silva,’ Pip said his name again, testing it out on her tongue, trying to somehow fit all the syllables inside DT.
‘And there’s this bit.’ Ravi scrolled back up the email draft. ‘When she talks about going to the police, but she’s scared they won’t believe her and that he might find out. There’s this part that trips me up.’ He pointed it out. ‘Of course he’d find out. He’s practically one of them. One of what?’
Pip ran the sentences through her head, tilting them to see them from a different angle. ‘A police officer, it sounds like. Not sure what the practically means.’
‘Maybe she meant a newly trained police officer, like Daniel da Silva was,’ Ravi completed her thought.
‘Daniel da Silva,’ Pip said again, testing it out, watching her breath dissipate around the room, taking his name with it. And what about Nat? asked the other side of her brain. She and Dan weren’t the closest of siblings, but he was still her big brother. Could Pip really think that of him? She’d certainly considered him before, for Andie’s murder, and in Jamie’s disappearance. What was different now? Her and Nat were close, bonded, tied together: that’s what was different now. And he had a wife. A baby.
‘I thought you were speaking to that retired detective today too?’ Ravi said, a tug at her jumper to bring her attention back to him.
‘Yeah, he cancelled on me last minute,’ Pip said with a sniff. ‘Rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon.’
‘OK, that’s good.’ Ravi nodded his head absently, eyes returning to Andie’s never-sent email.
‘I just need my phone to ring,’ Pip said, staring down at it, lying inconspicuously on her desk. ‘DT just has to call me one more time. Then CallTrapper will give me his number and then I can probably find out who he is, if it is Daniel or…’ She broke off, narrowing her eyes at her phone, begging it to ring, wishing so hard she could almost hear the echoes of her ringtone.
‘And then you can go to DI Hawkins,’ Ravi said. ‘Or go public.’
‘And then it’s over,’ Pip agreed.
More than just over. Normal. Fixed. No blood on her hands, or pills to keep it all at bay. She would be saved. Normal. Team Ravi and Pip who can talk about normal things like duvet sets and cinema times and tentative, half-shy discussions of the future. Their future.
Pip had asked for a way out, one last case, and something had answered her. Now it was even more perfect, even more fitting. Because DT was the origin. The end and the beginning. The monster in the dark, the creator, the source. Everything that had happened traced right back to him.
All of it.
Andie Bell knew who DT was and she was terrified, so she sold drugs for Howie Bowers to save up money to escape, to get far away from Kilton. She sold Rohypnol to Max Hastings, who then used those drugs to rape her little sister, Becca. Andie pursued Elliot Ward in her desperate plan to escape to Oxford with Sal. Elliot thought he accidentally killed Andie, so he murdered Sal to cover it up, Ravi’s brother dead in the woods. But Elliot didn’t kill Andie, not really, it was Becca Bell, too angry and shocked at her sister’s role in her own tragedy that she froze and let Andie die from her head injury, choking on her own vomit. Five years went by and then Pip came along, uncovered all those truths. Elliot in prison, Becca in prison though she shouldn’t be, Max not in prison though he should be. And, most importantly, Howie Bowers in prison. Howie told his cellmate that he knew the real Child Brunswick. The cellmate told his cousin, who told a friend, who told a friend, who put the rumour online. Charlie Green read that rumour and came to Little Kilton. Layla Mead, wearing the face of Stella Chapman. Jamie Reynolds missing. Stanley Forbes with six holes blown in him, bleeding out on Pip’s hands.
Three different stories, but one interconnected knot. And in the centre of that writhing knot, grinning at her from the dark, was DT.
File Name:
Interview with DCI Nolan about DT.wav
Pip:
Thank you so much, Mr Nolan, for agreeing to this interview. And sorry for stealing you away from your Friday afternoon.
DCI Nolan:
Oh please, call me David. And yes, no worries at all. Sorry I had to cancel our call yesterday. Last-minute golf game, you know how it is.
Pip:
Of course, yes, no worries. Not like there’s a time limit or anything. So, firstly, how long have you been retired?
DCI Nolan:
Three years now. Yes, it was 2015 when I left. I know: golfing, reliving my glory days – I’m a retired cop cliché. I’ve even tried pottery making, my wife made me.
Pip:
Sounds lovely. So, as I said in my emails, today I wanted to talk to you about the DT Killer case.
DCI Nolan:
Yes, yes. Biggest case of my career that was. A great way to go out. I mean, terrible, of course, what he did to those women.
Pip:
It must have been memorable. Serial killers aren’t that common.
DCI Nolan:
Certainly not. And there hadn’t been a case like this round here in decades, in living memory. DT was a very big deal for us all. And the fact that we managed to get him to confess. That was my proudest moment, I think. Well, other than the birth of my daughters. [Laughs.]
Pip:
Billy Karras sat in that interview room for over five hours overnight before he started to confess. He must have been tired, exhausted. Do you ever have doubts about his confession? I mean, he recanted first thing in the morning after he’d had some sleep.
DCI Nolan:
No doubts. None. I was in the room with him when he confessed. No one’s going to say they did those awful things if it’s not true. I was exhausted too, and I didn’t confess to being a serial killer, did I? And, you won’t understand this, but after so many years working as a detective, I could tell he was telling me the truth. It’s in the eyes. I can always tell. You know when you’re in the presence of evil, believe me. Billy recanted in the morning because he’d had time to think of all the consequences. He’s a coward. But he definitely did it.
Pip:
I’ve spoken to Billy Karras’ mother, Maria –
DCI Nolan:
Oh boy.
Pip:
Why’d you say that?
DCI Nolan:
Just, I’ve had several run-ins with her. She’s a strong woman. You can’t blame her, of course; no mother is going to think their son capable of the horrific things Billy did.
Pip:
Well, she’s done a lot of research on the literature surrounding false confessions. Is there any part of you that thinks it possible that Billy’s confession was false? That he only said those things because of the pressure applied in the interview?
DCI Nolan:
Well, yes, I think he only cracked because of the pressure I applied in the interview, but that doesn’t mean the confession isn’t good. If it were the only piece of evidence, then I might entertain the idea, but there was other evidence tying Billy to the murders: forensic and circumstantial. And he pleaded guilty, remember. This isn’t what your podcast is about this time, is it? Trying to prove Billy innocent?
Pip:
No, not at all. I’m just trying to tell the true story of the DT Killer, in all its detail.
DCI Nolan:
OK, good, because I wouldn’t have agreed to this interview otherwise. I don’t want you to try to make me look stupid.
Pip:
Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, David. So, a lot of the evidence tying Billy to the case seems to be connected with his job. He worked at a grounds maintenance company called Green Scene Ltd. I just wondered whether you were aware of Green Scene’s connection to the murders, before Billy became your number one suspect.
DCI Nolan:
Yes. We certainly were looking into Green Scene before that. It was after Bethany Ingham – the third victim – was killed, because she worked there. Then when Julia Hunter was killed, we made the connection that a couple of the dump sites were places where Green Scene was contracted. We asked to search the premises, and I remember the owner being very helpful and considerate, and that’s when we discovered they used the exact same brand of blue rope and duct tape as used by DT. So that was sort of the slam dunk, really, and we started to look into current employees. But there’s only so much looking you can do without probable cause. Then Billy Karras came along, was the one who found Tara Yates and we knew pretty quickly he was our guy.
Pip:
Did you have any suspects before Billy? Before Tara was killed? Anyone connected with Green Scene?
DCI Nolan:
I mean, we had a few persons of interest, but nothing concrete or substantial.
Pip:
I suppose you’re not going to tell me any names, are you?
DCI Nolan:
I don’t even remember them, to be honest.
Pip:
Fair enough. So, I’ve spoken to Harriet Hunter, Julia’s younger sister, and she told me about some weird occurrences at their house, in the weeks before Julia died. Some dead pigeons brought into the house, chalk figures drawn near their house, and prank phone calls. Was this ever a focus of your investigation? And had the families of other victims reported similar incidents?
DCI Nolan:
Oh yes, I remember the dead pigeons now. Yes, the younger sister, she told us about them at the time. And we asked the friends and family of the previous victims, but they’d never heard anything of the sort. We asked Billy if he had had contact with the victims before abducting them. He told us that he watched them, so he knew when they were alone et cetera, but he didn’t make contact with them, not with dead birds or phone calls or any other method. So, it’s unrelated to the case, unfortunately. Though it makes for a more compelling story, I give you that.
Pip:
Got it, thanks. So, now on to the trophies. You know exactly what item the DT Killer took from each victim. Something personal they had on them when he abducted them: earrings, a hairbrush, and so on. But you never found these trophies in Billy’s possession, did you? Does that concern you?
DCI Nolan:
No. He told us he threw them away. They’re probably all in a landfill site somewhere in the country. We would never have found them.
Pip:
But isn’t the whole point of a trophy that it’s something you keep with you? To remind you of the violent crime, and to delay the compulsion to kill again. Why would he throw them away?
DCI Nolan:
He didn’t say, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? He knew we were zeroing in on him after Tara, and he got rid of the evidence before we got a warrant to search his house. I don’t think he wanted to throw the trophies away.
Pip:
Got it, OK. But, going back to Tara: why would Billy draw attention to himself like that, staging that he found her body? He might not have really been on your radar before then, why would he draw attention to himself like that? That’s essentially what got him caught.
DCI Nolan:
This goes back to something that has been observed in a lot of serial killing cases similar to this. The killers will show a lot of interest in their own cases: will follow coverage on the news, discuss it with all their friends and family. I’m no psychiatrist, but it’s a narcissism thing, I believe. Thinking they are so clever and it’s right under everyone’s noses. And some of these killers, they even try to insert themselves into the police investigation somehow: offering tips or to help with search parties and the like. That’s what Billy was doing, being the hero and finding Tara so that he could insert himself into the investigation, maybe find out what we knew so far.
Pip:
Right.
DCI Nolan:
I know, it doesn’t make much sense to you or me, to normal people. But it’s one of the things we were already on the lookout for in this investigation. It’s quite funny actually [laughs] but this was already on our mind because we had an officer, a Thames Valley police officer, who kept asking lots and lots of questions about the case. He wasn’t involved in the investigation, he was a newly trained officer as I remember, and he was based at a different station, not at Wycombe, but he was showing a little too much interest in what had happened and what we were doing, if you know what I mean. He was new and just very curious I’m sure, but it certainly raised a couple of red flags. Before Billy came along that is. That’s why we were sort of primed and ready for some kind of insertion from the perpetrator.
Pip:
Oh really? Where was this officer based?
DCI Nolan:
I think it must have been Amersham station. The DT Killer case was with us in Wycombe as we were sort of in the middle of the dump sites and where the women were from. But, obviously, Julia Hunter was from Amersham, so we worked with the guys over there a bit. One of my old colleagues who I think you know, DI Hawkins. Good man. But, yeah, that’s an amusing little anecdote for your show there. A keen newbie police officer and we thought the worst. [Laughs.]
Pip:
This officer… was his name Daniel Da Silva?
DCI Nolan:
[Coughs.] Well, of course, I can’t tell you the officer’s name. And you wouldn’t be able to air it on your show anyway, data protection and all that. How many more questions do you have? I’m afraid I might have to go soo—
Pip:
But it was Daniel da Silva, right?