Instead she wakes her phone, goes to Google, and types something into the search bar—five words she hasn’t had the courage to search for in almost ten years. John Neville April Clarke-Cliveden.
And then she presses search.
The pictures flicker up, one by one, and each one gives her a little reflexive jolt, a shock of muscle memory from the time when every news item made her flinch, every headline was like a punch to the gut.
‘PELHAM STRANGLER’ CONVICTION TO BE QUASHED, SAYS THAMES POLICE
JOHN NEVILLE INNOCENT. HOW DID THE POLICE GET IT SO WRONG?
APRIL’S KILLER—JUSTICE AT LAST?
She clicks through to one at random, and there they are. Neville, glowering out of the page from his college ID picture, April in a photograph taken from her Instagram page, glancing flirtatiously over her shoulder in an emerald-green handkerchief dress.
Hannah looks at them both—and for the first time in ten years, she finds she can meet their eyes, even though her own are swimming with tears.
She reaches out and touches their faces—John’s, April’s—as though they can feel it through the glass, through ten years, through death.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, I let you both down.”
She doesn’t know how long she sits there, staring into their faces: April’s laughing, full of secrets; John’s dour and filled with resentment. But then her phone vibrates with the warning of a new email, and a little alert pops up. It’s from Geraint Williams. The subject line is How are you doing?
She clicks through.
Hi Hannah, Geraint here. Hope you’re doing okay, and the baby too. And I hope Will is feeling better. I spoke to November about your ordeal with Hugh; I’m so sorry, that sounds completely terrifying. I can’t believe what a nice bloke he seemed. I guess he fooled all of us.
Listen, I thought twice about sending this, because I’m sure you’ve got enough on your plate with Will’s injury and the baby being due in a few weeks, and you may not be ready to talk （plus I’m not sure how much you can say until the police are finished doing their bit）。 But, well, I’m working on the podcast again. It’s a bit different from what I imagined, obviously. Neville’s innocence isn’t in dispute anymore, and most of the ten questions I posed in my original article are answered. So this one is going to be more about April and her life—and about the ripple effect of a crime like this. How the media treated her, her family, that kind of thing. I’m calling it THE IT GIRL. November’s agreed to act as executive producer and I’m pretty pleased with how it’s going. And what I wanted to say is, if you ever wanted to talk—put your side of the story. Well, I’d be honoured, that’s all. Your choice, and no hard feelings if you don’t or aren’t ready just yet.
I’m so glad we managed to get some kind of justice for Neville, in the end. He was obviously quite a troubled man, but he didn’t deserve that, no one does. I’ll always be grateful to you for making that happen.
Anyway, don’t answer straightaway. Take your time to think it over. But I’m here when you’re ready to talk—whether that’s six weeks, or six months, or even longer.
Geraint
P.S. The first episode isn’t finished yet, but if you want to hear a rough cut of the opening, here’s a link. Password is November.
Almost before she has had time to think better of it, Hannah clicks the link.
There is a short pause, and then a voice breaks the silence—not the one she was expecting, Geraint’s. Instead it’s a voice that’s eerily familiar, one that raises the hairs on her arms. It is high and reedy, in a way that once made her shiver just to imagine it. It is John Neville. But he doesn’t sound exactly like she remembers. He doesn’t sound belligerent and self-important. He sounds… sad.
“April Clarke-Cliveden was one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen,” he says, the little sound bars rising and falling on her screen as he speaks. “They used to call her It Girl, because she had everything—looks, money, brains, I suppose, or she wouldn’t have been at Pelham. Everybody knew her, or knew about her. But someone took that all away from her. And I will never stop being angry about that. I want that someone to pay.”
Hannah reaches out and pushes the pause button on her phone, and for a long moment she just sits there, her hands pressed to her face, fighting tears. The baby turns inside her.
She thinks about Neville, about the truth, about how his voice has been silenced. She thinks about April. She thinks about the rest of her life, stretching out before her—a life that neither of them will ever have.