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JC: Fine. He coaxes his lips up into a smile for me, but the look in his eyes is far from happy. I can see that he’s just being polite and I have to remind myself that that is, after all, progress. The problem is: it’s too slow.
RACHEL It was John who had cried out in pain. I found him on the corner of the street, fallen, his head smashed open against the side of the kerb, his face damaged too, his ear pulpy. The amount of blood on his face and beneath him was sickening. It was matted in his hair, sticky and dark on the pavement, and it soaked into my knees and covered my hands as I knelt beside him. He was unconscious; eyes glassy. I peeled off my jumper and pressed it against his head, trying to stem the blood flow. I screamed over and over again for help. When the paramedics came they moved quickly and worked with a quiet urgency that frightened me. There was no joking, and no smiling. Uniformed police officers arrived too. They lent me a phone to ring Katrina, and I told her and then handed the phone to one of the paramedics who instructed her to meet them at A & E at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. When they were finally ready to move John, they rolled him carefully onto a stretcher and eased it into the ambulance, one of them seated in the back beside John’s inert form. It was shocking, that, the absence of him. That, and the amount of blood. ‘Will be he all right?’ I asked. ‘Head injuries are very serious,’ they told me. ‘Unpredictable. You did well to call us so quickly.’ There were no reassurances. Part of me didn’t want to let him go on his own, but the police knew Katrina was meeting him at the hospital and they wanted to take a statement from me. As the ambulance disappeared into the night underneath its pulsing halo of blue light, I walked back down the street. A uniformed officer accompanied me. Two police cars were still parked at drunken angles, blocking off the scene. In the house, they took my statement. More officers arrived and took photographs, and then they put the brick in a plastic bag and took it away. They helped me clear up the glass while somebody they’d organised boarded up my window. They said they’d station somebody outside the house for the rest of the night. One thing the police all agreed on, and they even had a laugh about it, was that it was ironic that nobody from the press had been there to witness the incident. The three journalists and one photographer who’d had the stamina to stake out the house overnight had wandered down the road to get food. They’d reappeared, kebabs in hand, shreds of iceberg lettuce falling from them, as the ambulance doors had been slammed shut and John had been driven away. It was the only thing to be grateful for. I slept in the front bedroom that night, in my own bed, wanting to know that the police car they’d stationed there for the night was just outside, wanting the security of that. In case I had to shout out. Bang on the window. In case I heard somebody creep into my house, wanting to do me harm. I took Ben’s duvet and pillow from his bed and brought them with me. I stripped away my own bedding, piling it on the floor, and arranged Ben’s stuff carefully on my bed, with his nunny, and his Baggy Bear. I listened all night for the sound of footfall again, and I lay rigid when voices loomed out of the darkness. They were the usual Saturday night revellers returning home, but their shouts and their drunken laughter sounded hostile to me now. Every noise I heard that night was laced with menace.
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Gilly Macmillan grew up in Swindon,
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Burnt Paper Sky Table of Contents A
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JIM BEFORE
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DAY 2 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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DAY 3 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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DAY 4 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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DAY 5 JIM
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DAY 6 JIM
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JIM
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DAY 7 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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DAY 8 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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DAY 9 JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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JIM
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RACHEL
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RACHEL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BIBLIOGRAPH
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Author’s Note During the research
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PROLOGUE NOVEMBER 2013 - ONE YEAR A
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imaginary interview goes really wel
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But whether I’ve been awake or as
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BEFORE DAY 1 SUNDAY, 21 OCTOBER 201
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eally honest, I hadn’t noticed it
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‘OK,’ and he was off, careering
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as if the woodland was holding its
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appeared on the path. Our progress
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‘That’s good news,’ she said.
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FM: Do you think that expressing fe
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JC: It was a promotion is what it w
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suspect, is not going to be an easy
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RACHEL John couldn’t stand the wa
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It was the awkward twitch of Inspec
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‘Solid eight hours,’ I said. I
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RACHEL Inspector Miller said that b
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JIM Kenneth Steele House is where I
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had four pairs of officers in place
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at others. He was always watching m
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JIM I was quite pleased with how th
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his parents as well as his grandpar
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‘Expertise is on our side,’ she
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RACHEL My sister Nicky was waiting
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unstoppable. She told me that the w
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the streetlights and the geometric
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JIM Addendum to DI James Clemo’s
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FM: So you recommended Emma for the
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DAY 3 TUESDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2012 Be a
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RACHEL In the car on the way to Ken
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‘If you are the person who is wit
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‘This way,’ she said. She swept
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‘It’s a soft alibi.’ Fraser w
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trace of dignity or vulnerability,
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missing”, and that everybody is l
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looking woman too: nicely dressed,
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‘Were there signs that the arm wa
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accident. But we’ll check it out
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To the insultingly practical: Don
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FM: So apart from the negative pres
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they’re focused on the job? FM: Y
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DAY 4 WEDNESDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2012 Cr
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RACHEL I slept only fitfully after
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WEB PAGE - www.whereisbenedictfinch
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JIM I spoke to Emma before I left f
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say that he doesn’t play by the r
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‘Bye,’ Fount said to him. ‘Wh
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thanked her for what she did for us
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I sat on the bed for a long time, u
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JIM Fraser and I had a pre-meet bef
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‘He’s got an alibi, doesn’t h
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RACHEL Nicky phoned the police and
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door in the middle of the night. Yo
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an orange wash remained. It struck
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RACHEL When I got back inside Nicky
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JIM On the night of Wednesday, 24 O
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DAY 5 THURSDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2012 You
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RACHEL I slept the night in Ben’s
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individuals closest to Ben, and he
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‘What about their son, Charlie Bo
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He took another sheet of paper from
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more imperfect than any version of
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JC: She said she was knackered. She
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It led swiftly to the fourth state.
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Page 216 and 217: WEB PAGE - www.whereisbenedictfinch
Page 218 and 219: I didn’t know what to say. I look
Page 220 and 221: RACHEL Zhang agreed to come and giv
Page 222 and 223: sensation. Then she spoke to him of
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Page 226 and 227: JIM I got one of the DCs to pick up
Page 228 and 229: RACHEL This time, I made no attempt
Page 230 and 231: dog, black and white like Skittle,
Page 232 and 233: FM: I’m not intending to. That’
Page 234 and 235: everything that had happened. But I
Page 236 and 237: JIM We worked closely with John Fin
Page 238 and 239: DAY 7 SATURDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2012 An
Page 240 and 241: RACHEL In the early hours of the mo
Page 242 and 243: school year, but I started to work
Page 244 and 245: tight. A hospital band was visible
Page 246 and 247: cancer himself. The whole family, w
Page 248 and 249: Another page. A different drawing:
Page 250 and 251: ‘The blog.’ I was slow; I didn
Page 252 and 253: told him to fuck off. ‘Tell Frase
Page 254 and 255: ‘Stop asking me to be patient. Ho
Page 256 and 257: JIM In the incident room the blinds
Page 258 and 259: swing. ‘So what are we thinking?
Page 260 and 261: ‘She’s drunk?’ I asked when h
Page 262 and 263: JIM Addendum to DI James Clemo’s
Page 266 and 267: JIM It was Emma who I thought of al
Page 268 and 269: DAY 8 SUNDAY, 28 OCTOBER 2012 The P
Page 270 and 271: RACHEL When dawn came there was no
Page 272 and 273: JIM Nine o’clock Sunday morning,
Page 274 and 275: RACHEL The hospital receptionist se
Page 276 and 277: JIM Addendum to DI James Clemo’s
Page 278 and 279: RACHEL My cab driver on the way hom
Page 280 and 281: tall bear of a man, with very dark
Page 282 and 283: ‘To be honest, I assumed Nicky wo
Page 284 and 285: He actually put his hand over his h
Page 286 and 287: ‘Cool,’ my avatar said. ‘New
Page 288 and 289: me wants you here to run the invest
Page 290 and 291: I behaved in an arrogant and disgus
Page 292 and 293: RACHEL I logged on to Furry Footbal
Page 294 and 295: ‘I know it was him,’ I said. Th
Page 296 and 297: Her handbag was on the seat between
Page 298 and 299: so that my toes were already numb.
Page 300 and 301: ‘It’s what Miss May said, about
Page 302 and 303: He sat back down. ‘Again,’ he s
Page 304 and 305: JIM Nicky Forbes was disturbed by m
Page 306 and 307: RACHEL It took me twenty-five minut
Page 308 and 309: here. And then I saw something else
Page 310 and 311: JIM Nicky Forbes’s expression was
Page 312 and 313: RACHEL They prised me up off the ca
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Operator: OK. They’re a few minut
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RECORD OF EVIDENCE: AVON AND SOMERS
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RACHEL Bristol Children’s Hospita
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‘Is the child all right?’ Mrs M
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RACHEL I approached my son’s beds
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EPILOGUE CHRISTMAS 2013 - ONE YEAR,
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RACHEL A few weeks ago, somebody as
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that he loved so much in return. Th
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JC: Yes. FM: Have you seen her sinc
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RACHEL We might never have closure,
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us that. He came to our house and w
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BIBLIOGRAPHY The following websites
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