Page 55 of The Unforgiven

Neil Hunt and Craig Watson had finally been picked up in the wee small hours of Monday morning when they’d been caught speeding on the M60 and pulled over. Their van still contained several humongous TV’s which they’d obviously not been able to flog yet.

They’d been arrested on charges of theft, breaking and entering, and handling stolen goods before they’d been passed over to us to be questioned about the murder of Chelsea Bainbridge.

“No comment.”

“Oh, aye, no comment. Coward’s attempt at a way out, that, init.” Vinny started to pace, agitated, or at least pretending to be.

I was watching on camera, rather enjoying not being the one in that pressure cooker, trying to drill out information that could crack open a case.

“Are you a coward, Craig? Because it looks like you are from where I’m standing.” He put his hands on the table and leaned forward.

Craig glared at him like he wanted to chin him, but had realised that would not be a great course of action to take.

“No comment.”

“Thought so. You see, you threw your mate under a bus when we first spoke to you. You couldn’t provide him with an alibi for any evening that week. We found someone who could, every night except the one where Chelsea Bainbridge was murdered. Funnily enough, the landlady at the bed and breakfast you stayed at told us that you weren’t there either that night. Where were you, Craig? Because the way I see it, you’re either going down for robbery or you’re going down for murder?”

Liverpool police had them down for breaking into a big warehouse in the area where they’d nicked a ton of TV’s. Us sniffing around about Chelsea’s murder had sent them into a blind panic, tearing off to stay at a caravan park in North Wales.

“No comment.”

“Maybe you need to have a word with your solicitor, because if I was you, I’d be choosing the time for the robbery, rather than murder, and let’s face it, some of those comments on Chelsea’s social media posts that you left - ” He sucked air I noisily and shook his head. “You remember – I think my favourite was ‘I bet you suck dick good because there’s no other reason my mate’s with a whore like you’, but there were others that came close. One about being locked in a kitchen where women belong was up there too, so I’m getting the impression you don’t like women very much – I mean, you don’t like the fact that they don’t like you.”

While I was in Leeds yesterday afternoon, Nick and the Tech Team had found a load of comments Craig had left on several posts made by women he both knew, and some influencers, all female, trolling them. Fat and ugly and various derivatives of those were the common flavour, which was ironic given he wasn’t exactly Brad Pitt.

“I – no comment.”

Vinny nearly had him. He’d clearly smelt blood, sitting back down at the table, all his focus on Craig. Lachy was in there with him, blending into the wall at the back, there to play a part if Vinny handed the baton onto him.

“Iwhat? I didn’t write them? OrIdon’t have social media? OrIdidn’t kill Chelsea? Because we have a bit of an issue here, Craig my friend. The two other dead girls – they had some really horrible comments on their social media too, so we think it could be related, the three of them, some nasty women-hating men have decided to be proactive. Is that what you are Craig? A misogynist? Can’t get a woman so don’t want anyone else to because that’s how it looks to me. And credit to you – staging an alibi to get us to think you’d committed another crime, fucking genius, mate.” Vinny lounged back now in his chair, using his long legs to push himself away.

He reminded me of a lanky spider, never quite sure what to do with his limbs.

Craig looked at his legal aid solicitor, a bloke in his fifties who was probably more bothered about whether he was going to get home at a reasonable hour.

“I’ve not got now’t to do with anyone online. I like women. I’m nice to them apart from fucking Chelsea. She was a bitch to Neil, always on at him to buy her stuff or help with the kids who weren’t even his, so yeah, I used to give her shit online. I didn’t have nothing to do with her dying though.” He put his head in his hands. “Neil’s a good bloke. He’s never done owt wrongbefore. The robbery, because yeah, I did that. Someone told me there was a load of gear in there, so I told Neil I was going to break in and take it, and he told me not to. He turned up there to try and stop me, but ended up helping me get in the van. We slept in the van that night and then dropped the gear off at a lock up the morning before work.” He rubbed his face. “Neil was being a mate.”

“Neil was being an accomplice. But better than being a murderer and he’s already told us all this anyway, so you don’t need to worry about dobbing him in.” Vinny sat up, perkier now he had a confession. “He’s a nice bloke, and I half believe him when he said he was trying to stop you. The sort of mate you want to have.”

“He’s decent.” Craig looked mortified, staring anywhere that wasn’t another human. “I was trying to look out for him with Chelsea, stop him ending up in shit because of her, and now he’s in shit because of me.”

“Spot on there, Craigy. Maybe you need to think about what sort of mate you are, have a good long look at that, but there’ll be time for that when you’re banged up. Lots of thinking time where you’re going, mate.” Vinny gave a big grin. “And officially, as a mate, you’re about as much use as a chocolate fucking fireguard. Congratulations.”

There were beaches in Aberwyn. Sand dunes, and acres of sand. Holidays weren’t the norm, but Gran’s mate from bingo said they didn’t want it this summer, so Gran could have it; four weeks in a static caravan on some posh resort, and a decent size too. They didn’t even have to share bedrooms.

At first, it looked like making friends would be something that didn’t happen but that was okay. There were books to readand seashells to collect and ice creams with chocolate flakes and raspberry sauce on top. But a friend did happen. Evelyn.

Evelyn was pretty and friendly and quiet and for the first two days, it felt magical. Someone on the same page, who liked reading and making games and drawing too. They played hide and seek and made sand angels because of course, there was no snow. Those first two days were great and then Morgan turned up and Evelyn and Morgan knew each other from last summer, and Evelyn wasn’t as interested in her new friend.

“It’ll be okay,” Gran said, opening another bottle of gin to have with her friend Michelle. That was what they did each day, get pickled. But it was better Gran getting pickled here than back home in Warrington. “More kids will turn up soon, maybe some boys you can play football with.”

Which would’ve been fine, except football wasn’t a special talent and there were more pretty shells to find and maybe shells were for little kids and not ones who were thirteen and about to go into year nine.

More kids did turn up as more schools broke out for summer. Chelsea Bainbridge’s family were loud and chavvy, even Gran called her that. Evelyn was scared of Chelsea. There were Ronnie and Reggie, Chelsea’s brothers and they didn’t mind who played football. They were going to be professional footballers and drive around in Range Rovers and have models for girlfriends and to do that they’d need to be famous and have money because they had faces like they’d were bulldogs chewing a wasp, according to Gran.

Luke and Emily were there too, but they didn’t really bother with the rest of the kids. Chelsea said their parents were snobs and didn’t like them mixing with normal people, but maybe their parents had the right idea, but then Chelsea was okay compared to Dolly.

Dolly was the Queen of Evil from day one. She’d been going to Aberwyn since she was six and thought she knew everything about it and everyone there. She made nasty stuff up and called people names and teased them, starting rumours and whispering when someone was near, so they thought she was talking about them.