Page 115 of Maybe Tomorrow

‘It was nice.’

‘You hardly touched it. It’s just a big mess.’

‘Sorry, I’m not really hungry.’

‘Bad day?’

‘Annoying day.’

‘Would you like me to add to your annoyances?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘Shower’s leaking again.’

‘What? He only came out a fortnight ago to mend it.’

‘I know.’

‘Get him on the phone. That cost us fifty quid.’

At the mention of the phone, it started ringing.

‘I’ll get it,’ Freya said. She heaved herself off the chair and went out into the hallway, answering it with a tired ‘Hello.’

‘Freya, it’s Caspian Tandy. Am I all right to call you at home?’

Freya suddenly bucked up. ‘Yes. Fine. It’s probably better, actually.’

‘That’s what I thought. I’ve got some news.’

‘Good or bad?’

‘Well, both and neither.’

‘That doesn’t make much sense.’

‘Well, first and foremost, there is plenty of trace evidence on Alice’s clothing. The results have come back where stray fibres belong to Alice and have come off other items of clothing. However, there are a couple of dark blue fibres on her underpants that don’t correspond to any other item she was wearing at the time she was killed.’

‘So, you need to match them?’

‘We do, but they’re mass-produced. You’d have trouble convincing a jury on the basis of these few strands. I have been able to find semen samples on the underpants as well. It’s a trace amount and unfortunately not enough to extract DNA.’

Freya deflated. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, simply because I can’t extract DNA doesn’t mean to say it isn’t there. Like I said to you when you brought the evidence over, this technology is still in its infancy. You know how quickly technology progresses these days.’

‘So, what do I do now?’

‘There’s nothing you can do but wait. And please don’t ask for how long.’

She smiled, but she felt her lip wobble. ‘I wasn’t going to. Thank you, Caspian, for everything.’

She ended the call.

For the past two weeks, she had tried to not get her hopes up, but at the back of her mind, as each day passed, she kept thinking that maybe today she’d get a call and Caspian would yell ‘Eureka!’ down the phone.

Back to square one, and poor Anthony would have to remain on the high dependency wing of Blackmoor Prison for a little while longer.