Page 29 of The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels
Minnie Davis
Sitting in the garden trying to read. SO BORED by this book.
Amanda Bailey
Read another one?
Minnie Davis
It’s the one I’m supposed to be writing. Or adapting from this feminist tract. At least these are the final edits. Tell me something juicy and exciting. Cheer me up. Intrigue me.
Amanda Bailey
Well, I’m working with someone I started out with back in the day. It’s a bit weird.
Minnie Davis
Anyone I know?
Amanda Bailey
Oliver Menzies. We both did a journalism apprenticeship – the kind no one runs any more. Long story short I have to work with him on this Alperton Angels case. Sour ashes of the pastare rekindled with every WhatsApp. Sigh.
Minnie Davis
Rekindled? Do I sense sexual tension?
Amanda Bailey
Absolutely not. Jealousy, resentment, insecurity, Schadenfreude? Absolutely.
Minnie Davis
Planning my outfit for the wedding right now.
Amanda Bailey
I can’t trace the key contact they all assume I can click my fingers and dig up. Bods on the fiction side are paranoid, defensive or dead. Plus, no budget for research or paying experts. At this rate I’ll have to fabricate the whole book.
Minnie Davis
Who do you think you are, me?
Amanda Bailey
Yes, actually. Seriously considering contacting a few amateurs in the hope they, in their innocence, might dredge up a lead or two I could ‘borrow’.
Minnie Davis
Go for it. They’ll love being part of the case.
FaceTime interview with Police Sergeant Aileen Forsyth on 24 June 2021. Transcribed by Ellie Cooper.
AB:Thanks for this, Aileen. I appreciate this was all a long time ago. [I cut out some dull talk here. EC] So you said you met the teenagers directly after the warehouse events?
AF:Yes. I picked up Holly and the baby from Ealing Hospital. Drove them back to Alperton to collect the boy. He’d been found in the basement with the bodies.
AB:So that was Jonah. Was he injured?
