A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Holly Jackson

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      This post is from two weeks before Andie disappeared. It looks like neither Chloe nor Emma live in Little Kilton any more. [Maybe private-message them and see if they’ll do a phone interview?]

      Chloe and Emma did a lot on that first weekend (21^st and 22^nd) to help spread the Thames Valley Police’s Twitter campaign: #FindAndie. I don’t think it’s too big of a leap to assume that the police contacted Chloe and Emma either on the Friday night or on Saturday morning. What they said to the police, I don’t know. Hopefully I can find out.

      We do know that police spoke to Andie’s boyfriend at the time. His name was Sal Singh and he was attending his final year at Kilton Grammar alongside Andie.

      At some point on the Saturday the police contacted Sal.

      ‘DI Richard Hawkins confirmed that officers had questioned Salil Singh on Saturday 21^st April. They questioned him as to his whereabouts for the previous night, particularly the period of time in which it is believed Andie went missing.’⁶

      That night, Sal had been hanging out at his friend Max Hastings’ house. He was with his four best friends: Naomi Ward, Jake Lawrence, Millie Simpson and Max.

      Again, I need to check this with Naomi next week, but I think Sal told the police that he left Max’s house at around 12:15 a.m. He walked home and his father (Mohan Singh) confirmed that ‘Sal returned home at approximately 12:50 a.m.’ ⁷ Note: the distance between Max’s house (Tudor Lane) and Sal’s (Grove Place) takes about 30 minutes to walk – says Google.

      The police confirmed Sal’s alibi with his four friends over the weekend.

      Missing posters went up. House-to-house enquiries started on the Sunday.⁸

      On the Monday, 100 volunteers helped the police carry out searches in the local woodland. I’ve seen the news footage; a whole ant line of people in the woods, calling her name. Later in the day, forensic teams were spotted going into the Bell residence.⁹

      And on the Tuesday, everything changed.

      I think chronologically is the best way to consider the events of that day and those that followed, even though we, as a town, learned the details out of order and jumbled.

      Mid-morning: Naomi Ward, Max Hastings, Jake Lawrence and Millie Simpson contacted the police from school and confessed to providing false information. They said that Sal had asked them to lie and that he actually left Max’s house at around 10:30 p.m. on the night Andie disappeared.

      I don’t know for sure what the correct police procedure would have been but I’m guessing that at that point, Sal became the number-one suspect.

      But they couldn’t find him: Sal wasn’t at school and he wasn’t at home. He wasn’t answering his phone.

      It later transpired, however, that Sal had sent a text to his father that morning, though he was ignoring all other calls. The press would refer to this as a ‘confession text’.¹⁰

      That Tuesday evening, one of the police teams searching for Andie found a body in the woods.

      It was Sal.

      He had killed himself.

      The press never reported the method by which Sal committed suicide but by the power of high school rumour, I know (as did every other student at Kilton at the time).

      Sal walked into the woods near his home, took a load of sleeping pills and placed a plastic bag over his head, secured by an elastic band around his neck. He suffocated while unconscious.

      At the police press conference later that night no mention of Sal was made. The police only revealed that bit of information about CCTV imaging placing Andie as driving away from her home at 10:40 p.m.¹¹

      On the Wednesday, Andie’s car was found parked on a small residential road (Romer Close).

      It wasn’t until the following Monday that a police spokeswoman revealed the following: ‘I have an update on the Andie Bell investigation. As a result of recent intelligence and forensic information, we have strong reason to suspect that a young man named Salil Singh, aged 18, was involved in Andie’s abduction and murder. The evidence would have been sufficient to arrest and charge the suspect had he not died before proceedings could be initiated. Police are not looking for anyone else in relation to Andie’s disappearance at this time but our search for Andie will continue unabated. Our thoughts go out to the Bell family and our deepest sympathies for the devastation this update has caused them.’

      Their sufficient evidence was as follows:

      They found Andie’s mobile phone on Sal’s body.

      Forensic tests found traces of Andie’s blood under the fingernails of his right middle and index fingers.

      Andie’s blood was also discovered in the boot of her abandoned car. Sal’s fingerprints were СКАЧАТЬ