a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and began to pat her drenched hair. She’d changed into the old pair of shoes she kept in her cupboard and pulled her spare suit jacket around her body before glancing back at her reflection. It was as good as it would get given the circumstances.
DC Paula Wyre peered around the door to the toilets, her dark suit as sharp in style as ever and her black shiny hair straightened to perfection. They were worlds apart. ‘The girls’ parents are asking if they can leave. We need to hurry, guv. I hear it was a bit of a nightmare out there tonight.’
‘It was indeed. I got absolutely drenched. I’m on my way.’ She placed the wet towels into the mesh bin and followed Wyre out. ‘Are you and Jacob okay to interview…’ she glanced at her notebook ‘… Katie? We can compare notes after.’
Wyre nodded and smiled. That’s the first time that Gina noticed the little dimples in Wyre’s cheeks. ‘Definitely. Tilly is with her father in interview room one. I’ll head over to the waiting room and take Katie to interview room two.’
‘Thank you.’ Gina brushed her fingers through her hair as she hurried along the corridor. ‘O’Connor, interview room one.’
He placed the last of a Chelsea bun into his mouth with his chubby fingers, his bald head shiny on top. ‘Ready.’ He wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving a shiny sugary smear. ‘Damn.’
As they entered, the girl was hunched over the table, her gritty fair hair flopping over in a way where Gina could just about see her eyes. The girl’s father removed his hand from her shoulder and fidgeted in the plastic chair. Eventually it stopped squeaking.
‘Thank you so much for waiting. I know it’s late and you’re tired. I’m Detective Inspector Gina Harte.’ The girl looked up. ‘You can call me Gina. It’s Tilly Holden, isn’t it? Can I call you Tilly or do you prefer Matilda?’
‘No one calls me Matilda.’ The teenager yawned, exposing her tonsils.
‘Okay, Tilly it is.’ Gina smiled. ‘I won’t keep you or your father too long but as you know a body was found in the woods tonight after you alerted us to it. You and your friend, Katie, were so brave. You must have been really scared.’
Mr Holden undid the zip on his coat and placed an arm around his daughter. ‘She was meant to get the bus.’
‘We’ve already been through this, Dad.’ Tilly nodded. ‘We decided to walk in the end and when we saw the bell we thought it was a Halloween joke. I scooped a few handfuls of soil away and then I saw a chip in the wood. When I looked in with my phone light, I saw a hand. We still thought it was a joke but decided to call the police anyway, just in case.’
‘Well you did the right thing.’
Tilly began tapping her feet on the floor, depositing flecks of dried mud all over the threadbare carpet tiles. ‘I pulled the string, the one that dangled over the tree. It had some sort of bell attached but it didn’t make a dinging noise. When it came out of the ground, it was red on the end.’ Gina could see that the girl had since washed her hands and she was glad but the cut on Tilly’s finger left her with a shiver.
‘Did you touch it?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, I just dangled it in front of me and dropped it on the ground.’
Gina read through a few of the notes that had been taken by PC Kapoor. ‘Tell me a little bit about where you were going?’
The girl glanced at her father, then back at Gina. ‘We were taking a shortcut to school. There was a Halloween disco. We were going to get the bus but we thought it would be okay to walk as the rain had stopped.’
‘And which school do you attend?’
‘Cleevesford High.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual while you were walking through the woods?’
Tilly shook her head. ‘We heard a noise in the bushes.’
Gina sat up. ‘And?’
‘It was just a fox. It scared us to death.’ Tilly paused. ‘Whoops. I shouldn’t have said that, not after we found a dead person. I didn’t think.’ The girl glanced at her dad and he patted her shoulder.
‘It’s okay, Tilly. Just tell us everything in your own words, however weird it feels to speak them.’
The girl took a deep breath and shifted a