day he died, Aleksy received messages asking him to meet someone, and establishing where he would be climbing that day. Messages that were subsequently deleted.”
There was a profound silence. Hanson was as stunned by this as Jojo clearly was, but Jojo seemed more than stunned. Her whole face seemed to drain of color. She looked ill.
“What the fuck?” she said, and she put a hand up to her head and leaned sideways in a gesture that Hanson knew well.
“I’ll get you a glass of water,” she said in a low voice to Jojo, and rose.
The DCI looked up at her with apparent surprise, and then nodded.
Hanson went out into the corridor and grabbed one of the plastic cups from the fountain. She filled it two-thirds full, and made her way back in. The two of them were still sitting in silence, and Jojo looked like she might be sick.
It was a shock reaction, and Hanson knew exactly how it felt. It had happened to her at the age of twelve when she’d seen one of the sixth-formers from her school hit by a speeding lorry outside the school. She’d seen it in a lot of people since, some of them guilty and many of them not. But whatever the reason, it wasn’t going to help them if Jojo vomited or passed out.
Jojo took a few sips of water when Hanson handed it to her.
“Can’t you trace whose phone it was?” she said unsteadily, after a moment. “If someone killed him…”
“We’re looking into it,” Jonah replied in a more neutral voice. “But I thought you might know something about it.”
“The only thing I know,” she said, “is that those messages weren’t on Aleksy’s phone when they found him. If they had been, I would have told the police eight years ago.” She gave a slow sideways shake of her head. “If someone killed him, there was a lot of time to delete them. He wasn’t found until the next day.”
“So you’d looked at his messages? Why?” Jonah asked.
“Why the hell do you think?” Jojo said with sudden anger. “I’d just lost him. I wanted every part of him I could lay my hands on. And…and I was looking for answers to whether…him dying was my fault.”
There was a moment of silence, and Hanson could see her DCI considering. She leaned forward, hoping she wasn’t about to ride roughshod over his interview.
“Why would it be your fault?” she asked in a tone that was as gentle as possible.
Jojo shook her head again, and then said without looking at either of them, “Something had gone wrong between us. I couldn’t understand what it was. Aleksy messaged me that morning and said he was going climbing. He asked if I’d be around later, because he needed to have a serious talk with me.”
She saw Sheens sit up slightly, but he said nothing.
“Do you know what it was about?” Hanson continued.
“I didn’t have a clue,” she said. “I mean, I made an immediate assumption. I assumed he was going to break up with me. I went ballistic at him. I texted him asking what the fuck that was supposed to mean. I said he could talk to me right now, and he didn’t answer. So I rang him. I rang him a lot of times, but he never answered. I was so convinced he was about to walk out on me. And I was so hurt and so angry.”
“Did you have any reason to expect a breakup?”
“No, I don’t…It wasn’t like he was off with me,” she said. “But I could tell something was wrong, and he was trying to hide it. He was always so upbeat, and suddenly he was…brooding, I suppose. Whenever he thought I wasn’t looking. I guess I put two and two together.”
The DCI nodded, and interjected, “Can you recall whether Aleksy met up with anyone the day before he died?”
Jojo’s eyes became a little distant. “I don’t…I don’t remember him doing.”
“He didn’t mention meeting up with anyone?” he asked. “That day, or on the day of his death?”
Jojo shook her head. “Not that I can remember.” Her eyes were slightly over-reflective in the harsh light. “If I’d had any hint that he was meeting someone else, I probably would have tried to turn up.”
“So you can’t think of anything that might have triggered the brooding?”
Jojo shook her head, and then gave a slight frown. “Maybe…There was a row with Brett when we were at his house. But Aleksy