Anne-Marie was a friend of Tyler Powell. Strike and Robin first hear about her when they go to Ironbridge to speak with Tyler’s grandmother, Dilys. Ian Griffiths, a neighbour of Dilys’s, tells them that Tyler was going out with Anne-Marie, who was a friend of his own daughter, Chloe. Griffiths describes her as a ‘nice girl’ and a ‘live wire’ and says that Tyler was ‘mad about her’ (Ch 66). Anne-Marie had then broken up with Tyler and started going out with Hugo Whitehead who had just moved to the area.
Anne-Marie was killed, along with Hugo, in a car crash as they were travelling back to Ironbridge from Birmingham, where they had gone to see a concert. They were using Tyler’s car, and local people believed that Tyler had tampered with his car in order to cause the crash.
Robin receives a WhatsApp message from Chloe Griffiths saying that Tyler ‘was pushy with girls’ and that Anne-Marie ‘only went out with Tyler a couple of times’ but he ‘started talking about them getting married’ which ‘freaked out’ Anne-Marie so she stopped going out with him. Chloe says that Anne-Marie was one of her best friends (Ch 71).
Chloe Griffiths’ Instagram account has a picture of her friends on her birthday, which includes Tyler Powell with his arm around Anne-Marie. She is described as ‘an insipid-looking girl whose pale face wasn’t flattered by what looked like home-dyed pink hair’. Robin thinks she ‘looked perfectly happy and at ease’ (Ch 99).