‘There was one in the bedroom.’
‘And you could see water?’
‘Yes.’
This is how it continues. Every detail is examined and picked over: what rooms I entered, what I touched, when I saw Annie last. Then we go back to the beginning again. Stoner is playing the hard arse while Wickerson wants to be my best friend, smiling, offering me encouragement, winking occasionally. At other times he looks bemused, almost doleful, like he’s listening to an impaired person.
Stoner stands and moves behind me so that I have to turn my head to keep eye contact with him. He’s not a complex man. Keeps it simple. Talks slowly.
‘Tell us again how you know Annie Robinson?’
‘She’s a friend. She teaches at my daughter’s school. We’ve met a few times socially.’
‘So she’s not your girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re not sleeping with her?’
‘Once.’
‘Really?’
Stoner makes it sound like a telling confession. They’re not listening to me.
‘Tell us what you put in the wine.’
‘I didn’t touch it.’
‘Did she say no to you, Joe? Was it some sort of date-rape drug?’
‘No.’
‘Are we going to find your semen on those bed sheets?’
Wasted words. Wasted time. They should be talking to Gordon Ellis.
After an hour of questioning, the detectives take a break. I’m left in the interview suite trying to put the pieces together. How does Novak Brennan come into this? The trial, the jury, the Crying Man - I have fragments of a story, photographs without a narrative.
There are raised voices in the passageway. Ronnie Cray comes through the door like she wants to widen it with her hips.
‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Professor. When you step in shit, you just put on your wellies and jump right in over your head.’
Stoner and Wickerson are behind her, protesting.
Cray looks at me: ‘Have you made a statement, Professor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is there anything else you want to add?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Get your coat.’
Wickerson is having none of it. ‘You can’t just barge in here. This man is still being questioned.’
‘Take it up with the Chief Constable,’ says the DCI. ‘Give him a call. He loves getting woken at two a.m.’
She’s walking as she talks, ushering me in the direction of the charge room. Stoner says something under his breath that ends with, ‘too ugly to get laid’.
Cray stops and turns slowly, fixing him with a stare. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No, ma’am.’ He gives her a mocking smile.
‘Sure I do. Derek Stoner. Deadly Derek. You’re a ladies’ man. You dated one of the WPCs at Trinity Road. Sweet thing. She told me you had a pencil dick and couldn’t find a clitoris with a compass and a street directory.’ Cray pauses and winks at him. ‘Guess only one of us made her scream.’
Moments later we’re outside. Monk is behind the wheel.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask.
‘Trinity Road,’ she answers. ‘Sienna Hegarty gave us a statement. We’re arresting Gordon Ellis at dawn.’
‘You’re going to charge him?’
‘We’re going to talk to him, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.’
‘Why?’
‘Ellis has been through this before - the police interviews, the searches, the covert surveillance - when it comes to being a suspect, he’s a fucking expert.’
46
Sienna is curled up on a camp bed in Cray’s office, lying with her head in shadow covered by a thin blanket. A woman PC watches over her, sitting beneath a reading light, a magazine open on her lap.
‘Tell me if she wakes.’
A nod. She goes back to reading.
Most of the incident room is in darkness except for a pool of brightness like a spotlight on a stage. Cray hands me a transcript and tapes of Sienna’s interview.
‘We can’t corroborate her story. There are no emails, notes or phone calls. Nobody saw them together except for Danny Gardiner, and he only puts them in a car. We’ve tracked both their mobiles. Apart from at the school, we can’t put Sienna and Ellis within fifty yards of each other.’
‘Gordon made her turn her phone off. What about the chat-room conversations?’
‘We’re getting the transcripts. Even if they show Sienna was coerced, we still have to prove that Ellis created this “Rockaboy” persona. We’ve got a search warrant for his home and office but I doubt if we’ll find any computers.’
Cray’s eyes continue to search my face. ‘Tell me how Annie Robinson comes into this.’
‘I think she was blackmailing Gordon Ellis over his affair with Sienna.’
‘Evidence?’
‘Annie knew about the relationship but she didn’t tell the school or Sienna’s parents.’
‘She was protecting a colleague.’
‘It was more than that. She’s living beyond her means. Expensive clothes. Shoes. Her flat. She also lied about dating Gordon Ellis at college.’
‘And Novak Brennan?’
‘He and Ellis shared a house together at university. Brennan was supplying drugs to half the campus, according to Annie. Ellis was one of his dealers.’
‘That was years ago.’
‘They say the friends you make at university are the ones you keep for life.’
‘You think Ellis sent her the wine?’
‘I don’t know. It seems too clumsy.’
‘Clumsy?’
‘He doesn’t make many mistakes.’
‘Maybe he panicked.’
‘Somehow I doubt it.’
Cray stands, stretches her arms and rolls her head from side to side.
‘We’re running out of time, Professor. We can’t prove that Gordon Ellis groomed Sienna. We can’t prove he slept with her. And we can’t prove he got her pregnant. Unless Annie Robinson can corroborate Sienna’s story, Ellis is going to walk out of here with a spring in his step and a hard-on for more schoolgirls.’
I look at the clock. I have just a few hours to come up with an interview strategy. I need to know everything I can about Gordon Ellis - his history, his friends, his relationships . . . I need to know about his state of mind, his personality, the light and shade of his existence. I have to walk through his mind, see the world through his eyes; discover what excites him and what he fears most.
Finding a quiet corner, I sit down at a desk and begin listening to the tapes of Sienna’s police interview. Fast-forwarding and playing excerpts, I listen to Sienna explaining how she was groomed by her favourite teacher, wooed with kindness and compliments. Eventually, the relationship became a physical one and they would rendezvous in Gordon’s car after school, parking in lay-bys and quiet lanes, always somewhere different. Occasionally, he took her to cheap motorway hotels or organised for her to stay overnight when she babysat Billy. Gordon would slip into her bed during the night, getting a thrill out of taking her while his wife lay sleeping.
I was worried because I lost an earring. It was Mum’s favourite pair. I thought it might have slipped down the sofa or been in the bed. Gordon got really angry because Natasha found it in the main bedroom and accused him of sleeping with me. She wouldn’t let me babysit after that. Mum went crazy looking for the earring. She turned our house upside down. You won’t tell her, will you?
Monk tells her no. He asks if she kept any notes, photographs or gifts from Gordon.
He said I couldn’t tell anyone.
But you must have kept something - a memento.
What’s a memento?
Something to remind you, like a souvenir.
No, not really. I used to write a diary on my computer, but I used different names.