“Could you tell, if you saw it on the body, whether it had been covering another tattoo?”
“Maybe, or you could ask someone with more experience. That might be a better way to check it out.”
Anna thanked Ron, who handed her his card, saying that if she ever wanted a tat, he would give her a good price.
The victim had been held at a mortuary close to where the body had been discovered. When Anna returned to the incident room, she tried without success to speak to the previous murder team’s DCI. Ron’s suggestion had made her wonder if the team had gone to any lengths to ascertain whether this was ever tested. Just as she was leaving him a message, Barolli signaled to her. The van driver who had discovered Estelle Dubcek’s body was in interview room two. As Langton wasn’t at the station, Barolli was to conduct the interview.
Brian Collingwood was twitchy, picking at his awful acne spots. In front of him lay his statement. Barolli tapped it with his finger.
“The reason you have been called in, Mr. Collingwood, is because there seems to be some doubt over your original statement.”
“I don’t believe this! I should have just driven on,” the man complained in a Birmingham accent. “I’m taking time out from my work again, you know.”
“Well, let’s make this as short as possible,” Barolli said. “Mr. Collingwood, you stated that you parked on the hard shoulder, as you needed to relieve yourself.” Anna didn’t even look at him but concentrated on her notebook.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Can you tell us exactly what happened?”
Collingwood sighed. “I should have stopped at the service station, but I didn’t, and then it was too late to go back, right? So I pulled over onto the hard shoulder and went to the hedge. I did what was needed, and as I was turning to walk back to me van, I saw the girl’s legs.”
“From the hedge?”
“Yeah, and I called the police. I was there for three hours, telling everyone what I just told you again.”
“The problem is, Mr. Collingwood, the hedge is next to a wide ditch. It must have been difficult to see the body from there unless you already knew about it.”
The young man went pale behind his blotches. “I am just telling you what I saw,” he muttered. “I did my duty and called the police on my mobile phone.”
“Why are you lying?” Barolli was relentless.
Anna looked up and could see that Collingwood was sweating.
“I am telling you the truth,” he said obstinately.
“No, you are not. Now, you may have a totally innocent reason for not wishing to tell us the truth, but now is the opportunity to do so before this goes any further, do you understand? You could be charged for withholding evidence.”
“I never did anything wrong! I swear, I never done anything wrong.”
“But you admit you have lied?”
Collingwood chewed at his nails, looking down, and the sweat glistened on his forehead.
“As I said, I am sure you have a very good reason, and you are here just helping our inquiries. You are not under arrest. All we need from you is the truth about what exactly happened...”
Collingwood still wouldn’t look up.
“Did you see something, anything suspicious — a vehicle, a car, a person? Come on, lad — let’s have the truth now.”
Collingwood took a deep breath. “All right, this is what happened. I did drive into the London Gateway Services. I was looking for someone I’d seen around there, but I’d not been that way for months, maybe even longer.”
“Who were you looking for?”
“A— a friend.”
Anna opened an envelope and took out Margaret Potts’s photograph. “Is this your friend?” she asked gently.
Collingwood bit at what remained of his thumbnail. “Yeah, that’s her. I’d met up with her a few times over the years.”
Anna laid the photograph faceup on the table. Barolli shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Mr. Collingwood, you could be getting into real hot water here. Maybe we need to get you a solicitor.”
“I never saw her, I don’t need no solicitor, I’ve done nothing.”
“This woman was murdered, Mr. Collingwood!”
“No, she wasn’t the girl that was lying there.”
“We know that. So if you also know that, then you had to have got close to the victim in the field, a lot bloody closer than standing pissing behind a hedge.”
Collingwood at last gave it up. He said that he just felt like seeing Maggie, that he had on various occasions paid her to give him oral sex, and on a few other occasions he had driven up the back lane and they had full sex. He knew she worked the service station and would often be behind in the lane waiting for customers, so he had driven there. When he had been unable to find her, he had reversed and driven back the way he had come, but he’d started becoming bogged down in the mud and grew concerned that if he kept on the back road, he’d be in trouble.
“So I was doin’ a U-turn to head back to the London Gateway service station and drive in via the dirt-track road onto the M1 when I saw the girl. I could see her across the field. She was lying there, half in and half out of the ditch. At first I thought it was Maggie, you know, so I got out of me van and walked up the track. I got a few yards from her and could see it was this young girl. I didn’t get any closer. It was the way she was lying, see? I knew she was a goner.”
He went on to explain that he returned to the motorway but felt so bad about what he had seen that he parked up on the hard shoulder and called the police.
“I swear before God that’s all I done. I got a seventeen-year-old daughter meself, and I kept on thinking about that poor kid dumped in the field, so I done my duty.”
They went over his new statement time and time again, but Collingwood swore that he had not seen any other vehicle, nor had he seen anyone near the body or in the lane. He added that on other occasions there had been a bunch of travelers hanging out by the barns. He also admitted that when he had full sex with Margaret Potts, she had used an old caravan parked by the barns. She would often take her customers there. He didn’t think it belonged to anyone, and it was never locked. He also said that he had not seen Margaret in a long time because he had been driving a different route.
“How long, Mr. Collingwood?”
“Two years, maybe even more. She mostly worked nights, that’s what she told me, but I just chanced that she’d be working.”
“How much did she charge you?” Anna asked.
Collingwood said that for a blow job, it was ten pounds, but if it was full sex, she charged twenty-five. Barolli glanced at Anna, unsure why she was so interested in the money.
“Have you any idea how many clients Margaret would have in a day or night’s work?” Anna asked.
“Not really, but she had a lot of regulars. Well, she told me she had, but I wouldn’t know.”
“You ever see anyone else she went with?”
“No, and I wasn’t what you’d call a regular. It was months in between times, and like I told you, I’d not seen her in years.”
“Did she ever tell you she’d been beaten up?”
“No. She was well turned out, kept herself clean.” Collingwood sighed. “She was a good sort.”
“‘She was a good sort,’” Barolli mimicked later, when the van driver had been allowed to go home. “Dear God, having that spotty twat crawl all over you — what a wretched way to make a living.”