Peter Frame agreed to meet me in town after he finished work. I found him hunched over a table in a little tearoom, tucked on the ground floor of a dark stone town hall that loomed over the high street. Frame was jowly and grey, with heavy eyelids and pouch-like bags under dark brown eyes. He wore a plain white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar and in desperate need of an iron, and a black trilby with a few locks of stringy hair hanging loose beneath it. As I got closer, my nostrils winced at the scent of unwashed grease.
Still, the bloke was doing me a favour, so after ordering a coffee, I fixed my trademark sunshiney grin on my face and offered my hand cheerfully. It felt much easier to slip into my old persona without the North Tower looming over me.
‘Mr Frame! Lottie. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me.’
Instead of taking my hand, he gestured to the wobbly school-style chair opposite him and said nothing. On the table there was already an empty plate covered with scone crumbs and empty pats of butter, and a teapot with spidery cracks all the way up its belly.
‘I just wanted to have a chat with you about the North Tower murders,’ I said, rearranging the pashmina around my neck as I took a seat. The back of my neck was sweaty from the walk, but I didn’t want to expose the ruby, to avoid any curious questions, lest he immediately dismiss me as one of those ‘Youths with Piercings He Did Not Understand’.
‘Aye, fine,’ he said with utter disinterest.
I swallowed hard. I’d prepared a list of questions about his interviewees, and whether there was anything they’d told him off the record, but now that I was here it didn’t seem like the right approach. It had been so long ago, and he likely didn’t remember precise details.
Instead, I opted for a single broad stroke. ‘What do you think happened?’
He reached out to a small bowl of sugar lumps and popped a crumbling brown cube straight into his mouth.
‘Aye, well, all crimes against females are sexually motivated, aren’t they?’ he replied, crunching the sugar cube like a horse. When I frowned involuntarily, he sighed, and said, ‘It’s basic Freud.’
I couldn’t have disagreed more, but again, I needed to keep him on side. ‘Right. Of course.’ Holding back an eye-roll required so much effort that I had a small but not insignificant aneurysm.
He gave a flat smile. ‘So, I think one of the professors was grooming them, maybe assaulting them, and when they’d threaten to go to the police, he’d kill them.’ He nodded to himself. ‘It’s basic Freud, isn’t it? Absolutely basic.’
I had to wonder what Freud he’d been reading, because it certainly wasn’t Sigmund.
‘Did you tell the police your theory at the time?’ I asked.
‘Aye, they said they’d look into it. But they couldn’t find evidence to back it up.’
‘Was there a particular professor that came to mind?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve always found males who teach art to be a bit . . . not right. Not right at all.’
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, careful not to let slip any clapbacks that would stop him talking – although I was beginning to suspect he had nothing valuable to offer anyway. ‘Maybe. But not all the victims were girls. You think that happened to Sam Bowey too?’
‘Now Sam . . . I reckon that was his bird who killed him. Janie. She wasn’t right either. Mental, like. He tried to have her sectioned within a week of meeting her.’
This was a new piece of information that hadn’t been printed anywhere – not even in the national coverage. Every hair on my body stood to attention. I lowered my voice. ‘Really? I hadn’t heard that.’
‘Her parents wanted it kept out of the press. I said we should print it anyway, but my editor was afraid of a lawsuit.’ A lowpfftas he reached for another sugar cube. ‘Sheer cowardice, in my view. The public had a right to know she was tapped.’
My teeth gritted together at the ugly word. ‘I suppose they didn’t want it to turn into trial by media. If it had gone to court, it would’ve coloured a jury against her before any evidence was shared.’
The Contempt of Court Act had been passed five years earlier to prevent this very thing: the media unfairly prejudicing active court proceedings. It would’ve been on his editor’s mind.
Purple blotches appeared on Frame’s sagging cheeks. ‘It would’ve coloured them against her with good reason. Sam Bowey is dead because of her.’
‘Maybe,’ I replied, fighting hard to keep my cool. ‘Maybe not. But the last thing Sam Bowey’s family would want is for the case to be found in contempt and thrown out.’
Frame sneered at me. ‘And I suppose you know that from your decades of journalistic experience, do you?’
‘No,’ I replied indignantly. ‘I know that from doing my research.’
‘Research, eh?’ He gave me a patronising look as he leaned forward. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Why didn’t I, in my years of reporting on this case, think to do some research?’ White spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth, and something like hatred burned in his eyes.
I got up and left before my coffee even arrived.