Pip finally pressed the call button and put the phone on speaker. It rang, the shrill sound riding up and down her spine, just as it had yesterday. But then –

Click.

‘Hello? Karras residence?’ said a muffled voice, the words softened by a Greek accent.

‘Oh, um, hi,’ Pip said, recovering, clearing her throat. ‘I’m looking for Maria Karras?’

‘Yes, that’s me,’ the voice replied, and Pip imagined the woman behind it: heavy eyes and a sad smile. ‘How can I help you?’

‘Hi, Maria,’ she said, fiddling nervously with the pen again. DT. DT. DT. ‘Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday. My name is Pip Fitz-Amobi and I –’

‘Oh my god,’ Maria cut across her. ‘You finally got my message?’

Pip stuttered, felt her eyebrows pulling together. What message? ‘Oh, I... um, your message?’

‘Yes, the email I sent through your website, oh, back in April it must have been. I also tried to send you a message on Tweeter but I can never work these things on my own. But you finally got it?’ she said, her voice climbing in pitch.

Pip had never seen this email. She considered for half a moment, deciding to go with it. ‘Y-yes, your email,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for reaching out to me, Maria, and apologies it’s taken me so long to respond.’

‘Oh, darling, please,’ Maria said, a rustle down her end as she repositioned the phone. ‘I know you must be terribly busy, and I’m just so happy you got it at all. I didn’t know if you would be doing any more of this podcast, but I wanted to reach out anyway, in case you were looking for another local case. You’re really very brilliant, your parents must be very proud of you. And I just knew this is exactly what we need for Billy, to bring some media attention, which you and your podcast would very much do. It’s very popular, my hairdresser listens to it too. As my email said, we are trying to get the Innocence Project to help us with Billy.’

Maria paused to take a breath, and Pip stepped in, before she lost her chance.

‘Yes,’ Pip said. ‘And Maria – I have to be upfront with you – this call doesn’t mean I will necessarily be covering your son’s case on the podcast. I’d need to do some extensive research before I make any decisions on that front.’

‘Oh, darling, yes, I understand, of course,’ Maria said, and it was almost as though Pip could feel the warmth of her voice, radiating out of the phone. ‘And maybe you are still thinking my son is guilty. He’s the DT Killer, the Slough Strangler, whichever name it is. Almost everybody does, I would not blame you.’

Pip cleared her throat again, to buy herself some time. She certainly hoped Billy Karras was guilty, for her own sake, but she couldn’t say that.

‘Well, I haven’t looked into all the details of the case yet. I know your son confessed to all five murders, and then pleaded guilty in court, which isn’t the easiest position to begin with.’

‘It was a false confession,’ Maria said, with a sniff. ‘It was coerced by the officers interviewing him.’

‘So, why didn’t Billy then plead innocent, take the case to trial? Do you think you could talk me through the details, the evidence, why you think Billy is not guilty?’

‘Of course, darling, I do not mind,’ Maria said. ‘And I can tell you a secret. I thought Billy was guilty too. For the first year or two. I thought eventually he would tell me the truth, but he kept telling me, Mama, Mama, I did not do it, I promise you. For two years. So then I started to look into it, and that’s when I realized he was telling the truth; he’s innocent. And you would think so too, if you could see the police interview. Oh, wait, I can send it to you!’ More rustling down the line. ‘I got copies of all these police documents, years ago. Through that, what do they call it again... oh, the Freedom of Information Act. I have the whole interview, his confession. The transcript is over a hundred pages; did you know they had him in that room for nine hours? He was exhausted, terrified. But I tell you what, I can go through it and highlight the most important parts, send a scan to you? I think I know how to use that scanner. It might take me a while to go through it all, but I can send that to you, tomorrow latest.’

‘Yes please,’ Pip said, making a scribbled note on her page. ‘If you could, that would be very helpful, thank you. But there’s no rush, really.’ Except there definitely was. Five little stick women, their heads gone because they were all wrapped up in tape, climbing up to Pip’s room to meet their number six. The end in sight. Unless that’s just what someone wanted her to think, of course.

‘Yes, I will,’ said Maria. ‘And you can see exactly what I mean. All the answers they feed to him. He knows nothing. They tell him they have all this evidence against him, they even imply they have someone who saw him during one murder, which wasn’t true. Billy got so confused, bless him. I know he’s my son, but he was never the sharpest tool in the shed, as they say. He had a bit of a drinking problem too, back then, sometimes would black out in the evening. And these officers convince him that he’s committing the murders while he’s blacked out, that’s why he doesn’t remember. I think Billy started to believe it of himself, even. Until he finally got some sleep in the cell, and then he recanted the confession right away. You know, false confessions are a lot more common than you think. Of the three hundred and sixty-five people the Innocence Project have helped exonerate in recent decades, more than a quarter of them had confessed to their alleged crime.’

Maria must have recited that fact off the top of her head, and that’s when Pip fully realized: this was Maria’s entire life. Every breath and every thought dedicated to her son. To Billy. He had new names now, though: the DT Killer, the Slough Strangler, monster. Pip’s chest ached for this woman, but not quite enough to want her to be right. Anything but that.

‘I did not know that statistic,’ Pip said. ‘And I’m very interested to see Billy’s interview. But, Maria, if he recanted the next morning, why did he then plead guilty?’

‘His lawyer,’ Maria said, a hint of reproach tainting her soft voice. ‘He was a public defender; I did not have money to hire a lawyer. If only I had, it is one of my biggest regrets. I should have tried harder.’ Maria paused, her breath crackling through the speaker. ‘This lawyer basically told Billy that because he had already confessed to all five murders, and the police had this confession on tape, that there was no point going to trial. He would lose. They had other evidence too, but the confession was the thing. The jury would believe that tape over Billy, any day. Well, the lawyer wasn’t wrong; they say that a confession is the most prejudicial piece of evidence.’

‘I see,’ Pip said, because she couldn’t think of what else to say.

‘But we should have tried,’ Maria continued. ‘Who knows what might have come up in a trial, to save Billy. What evidence. You know, there was an unidentified fingerprint on the second victim, Melissa Denny. The print does not match Billy’s and they don’t know who it belongs to. And...’ She broke off. Paused. ‘On the night that Bethany Ingham was murdered, the third victim, I think Billy was here, with me. I can’t be certain, but I think on that night, Billy came over to my house in the evening. He’d been drinking, a lot. Could not string one sentence together. So, I made him sleep in his old bedroom, took his keys so he wouldn’t try to get in the car again. I don’t have any evidence of this; I have searched and searched. Phone records, CCTV cameras down the road, everything. I don’t have evidence, but in a court, my testimony would have been evidence. How could Billy have murdered Bethany if he was home with me?’ She exhaled. ‘But the lawyer told Billy that if he pleaded guilty, the judge might let him serve in a prison closer by, so that I could visit him more easily. Which then didn’t happen, of course. Billy lost hope, that’s why he said he was guilty. He thought he’d already lost before it began.’