Throughout the early exchanges, Ellis seems to be enjoying the attention. This is a game and he’s playing it like a professional who’s been forced to compete in the lower leagues.
‘Sienna Hegarty says you slept with her,’ says Cray.
‘She’s lying.’
‘Why would she lie?’
Ellis sighs wearily and shakes his head. ‘She’s trying to punish me. Can’t you see that? She thinks I shunned her. She mistook my kindness for something more and now she wants to destroy me.’
‘We’re going to find her DNA in your home and your car.’
‘She babysat my boy. I drove her home.’
‘You had sex with her.’
‘She tried to kiss me and I pushed her away. Hurt her feelings.’
Cray consults her notes. ‘Is that why you told Professor O’Loughlin that you “fucked her every which way”?’
Ellis laughs acidly. ‘And you believe him! The man who did this to me.’ He pulls back his fringe, showing the bloody criss-cross pattern of stitches on his scalp.
‘He calls himself a psychologist but his mind is in the sewer. Let me tell you what he does - he looks in his own head and his own heart and he sees perversion and sickness. Then he claims other people think like he does.’
The tone has suddenly changed. Instead of belligerence and sarcasm, Ellis adopts a whining tone, demanding that his interrogators see things his way. It’s like watching an illegal arrival trying to talk his way through Immigration without the language to explain himself. He groans. He grimaces. He puffs out his cheeks.
Partly this is feigned, but some of his persecution complex is genuine. Like many men who abuse their power over women, Ellis seems to carry some ancient sense that he’s the real victim. He’s been misunderstood. Led astray. Others are to blame.
‘Why did you kill Ray Hegarty?’
‘You must be joking.’
‘He saw you and Sienna together.’
‘He was sexually abusing his daughter. I was trying to help her.’
‘How exactly were you doing that?’
‘I took her to see a therapist. She didn’t want her parents knowing.’
‘Why you?’
‘I know this may surprise you, Detective, but I’m a caring, committed teacher. The only mistake I made was caring too much. I should have recognised the signs. I should have seen she was developing a crush on me.’
‘You groomed her.’
‘No.’
‘You drugged her.’
‘No.’
The lawyer interrupts. ‘My client has answered these questions.’
‘Your client is so full of shit his eyes are brown.’ Cray changes tack. ‘Annie Robinson knew you were having an affair?’
Ellis hesitates. ‘What’s she got to do with this?’
‘She knew the truth.’
Ellis reacts, stabbing his finger across the table. ‘What has that bitch said to you?’
‘I’m asking the questions, Mr Ellis.’
‘She’s lying. She threatened to destroy my career unless . . .’
‘Unless what?
‘Unless I gave her ten thousand pounds.’
The lawyer puts a hand on Ellis’s shoulder, wanting him to stop. They whisper. Nod. Ellis composes himself, sitting straighter.
Cray asks him the question again. ‘Why did you pay Annie Robinson ten thousand pounds?’
‘She was blackmailing me.’
‘If you weren’t having an affair with Sienna Hegarty, why did you pay her a thing?’
‘Because I knew she could ruin me. Even without proof she could have me investigated and suspended.’
‘So you poisoned her?’
‘What?’
‘You put anti-freeze in a bottle of wine and tried to kill her.’
Anger turns to outright surprise. Ellis looks at Cray and Safari Roy and then his lawyer. ‘What are these clowns talking about?’
His lawyer wants the interview suspended. Ellis shouts over him, ‘What do you mean, anti-freeze? What’s happened to her? Where is she?’
Cray continues, ‘When did you last see Annie Robinson?’
‘I want to know what’s happened to her.’
‘Answer my question, Mr Ellis.’
‘Sunday.’
‘Have you ever been to her apartment?’
Gordon stares past her, his mind in flux, racing through the possibilities. Now less sure of himself, he hesitates over his answers, fighting to keep his voice neutral.
‘My client needs to use the bathroom.’
‘Your client can hold it in,’ says Cray.
‘I want it to be noted that he was denied a toilet break.’
‘Noted.’
Ellis is slowing down his answers, giving himself time. This is what makes him so difficult to pin down. He adapts to different circumstances, changing the tempo and elements of his personality to suit the occasion. Ronnie Cray has to stay on the subject of Annie, but she’s running out questions.
‘You knew Annie Robinson at university.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you also knew Novak Brennan.’
A grin tugs at the corners of the teacher’s mouth. The spell has been broken. He’s on firm ground again. ‘We shared a house together for a while.’
‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Was it this week?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘In the past month? Six months? Year?’
‘I don’t remember.’
Cray glances over her shoulder towards the observation window. Ellis is going to stonewall now. Every answer will be the same.
Time is called. The tape stopped. Cray emerges and walks past me. I find her outside in the secure parking lot, sitting on the steps in the sunshine.
‘This is the smoker’s corner - want to join? We’re the cool group.’
‘No thanks.’
‘We’re getting nowhere.’
‘You shook him up.’
‘He stuck to his script.’
‘Except when you mentioned Annie Robinson.’
‘You don’t think he knew?’
‘No.’
Someone like Gordon Ellis is almost defined by his sense of superiority and control. His whole persona is an act, concealing a warped but calculating mind, but for just a moment when he heard about Annie Robinson the artifice and game-playing vanished. He was out of his comfort zone.
‘I still can’t understand him,’ says Cray. ‘He’s got a beautiful young wife at home. Money. Looks. He could have any woman he wanted.’
‘He doesn’t want just any woman. Underneath his pretty-boy looks, Gordon is still an ugly, overweight kid who wears glasses and can’t get a girlfriend. He transformed himself. He exercised. Lost the weight. Went to the gym. Took vitamins. Got an education, but he never forgot how those girls belittled him at school. The pretty, confident ones. The untouchables.
‘Ellis is a narcissist, which is why he gets intensely angry if you suggest that he has a flaw. He cares about his appearance and the impression he makes. He used to hate looking at himself in the mirror, but now he does it automatically, compulsively. And he strains every fibre of his being to meet his own flawless image of himself, demeaning and seeking to destroy anyone who casts doubts on the way he sees himself.’
The DCI nods and glances at her polished shoes. ‘I’m running out of questions.’
‘That’s OK. Keep pushing him. I noticed a few things. When he lies he looks directly at you like he’s gazing into a camera. And when he gets nervous he puts his left hand in his pocket as if reaching for something. I think he normally carries some sort of lucky charm or talisman, which he keeps in that pocket. Check out the personal effects log - see what they took off him.’