From a few feet away he could hear Khan giving Terry Starkey the standard warning, like a chant at a church service.
‘Anything you do say may be used in evidence …’
Sean was breathing heavily, his fingers feeling for a pulse in her neck.
‘Look at me, Chloe,’ Sean said. ‘Chloe? Marilyn? Open your eyes and look at me.’
Her eyes flickered.
‘Hello, Terry. I knew you’d come.’
‘What’s that?’ Sean leant in closer. ‘Terry’s not going to hurt you now.’
‘Jay made me promise,’ she said. ‘He made me promise not to tell anyone what you were doing to him. What you’d been doing to him for years, from before he even knew the words for it.’
Her voice was so quiet, Sean had to strain to listen, as the words tumbled out.
‘Until he couldn’t live with himself. Until he wanted to fly away and I promised I’d fly away with him, but he let go, Terry, he left me, and I couldn’t do it on my own. You want me dead. Go on, let me go.’
‘Terry’s not going to hurt you now. You’re safe.’ His hand was still on her neck, the pulse pushing softly against his fingertips. ‘My name’s Police Constable Denton, but you can call me Sean.’
Khan was cuffing Starkey, face down on the ground. Sean couldn’t believe the girl had mistaken him for Terry Starkey; she was delirious and wasn’t focusing. It didn’t mean a thing. When Starkey turned his head, Sean searched his features for any evidence that he and Terry could be related and that his dad wasn’t making stuff up. Terry definitely looked like the boy in Bernadette Armley’s photo frame, the one who really was his half-brother, James, or Jay, the girl called him. Sean tried to understand what she’d just said about Terry and his younger brother, and it made him feel sick. He stroked her cheek and she opened her eyes as he reached for his radio. He called for an ambulance.
‘And can you radio a couple of officers to come up for a suspect under arrest?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Khan said, ‘I’ll be very happy to give our lads a hand with Mr Starkey. In the middle of his back, in case he needs a bit of a push.’
‘Fuck off, copper. You can’t threaten me.’
‘Did anyone hear any threats?’ Khan twisted the cuffs hard.
‘Didn’t hear a thing, sir,’ Sean said. ‘Only a crow making a racket up there on the satellite dish.’
CHAPTER FORTY
Doncaster
Gavin Wentworth appeared at Sean’s elbow as he queued in the canteen.
‘Hi, Gav, sorry I lost you. I got pulled onto a job with Khan.’
‘So I heard. You really must stop hanging around on the tops of tower blocks.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Sean reached for a plate of hot food and asked for extra peas. It was about time he started eating more healthily.
‘At least you had your clothes on this time. Can I join you?’
‘Sure, I’m over there with Carly.’
Sean sat down and tucked into his food. Carly was looking at him with a big grin and eventually he asked her what she was looking so pleased about.
‘You, you daft bugger. I turn my back for five minutes and the next thing I know you’re trying for a gallantry medal.’
He shook his head. ‘Doubt it. Just there at the right time and lucky, I suppose.’
She took a breath, as if she was about to sing.
‘Don’t!’ He waved his fork at her, complete with a pea that threatened to fly off. ‘Please! Not the song.’
‘What song’s that?’ Gav put his tray down and sat next to Carly. ‘We need to sort out a new playlist for when, and if, we ever get this lad back on a normal shift.’
‘Make sure it’s got a bit of Kylie Minogue on,’ Carly said. ‘He loves that.’
Sean had his mouth too full of food to argue. Eventually he managed to speak.
‘Sorry if I’m being antisocial, but I need to eat this and get upstairs. Khan’s got Terry Starkey in interview room two with Rick, and Dawn’s got Kamran Ahmed, the victim’s brother, in room three. He wants me up there as an extra pair of hands.’
‘Dawn? First name terms, is it now?’ Gav said. ‘Thought you couldn’t stick her.’
‘Can’t,’ he said through a mouth full of mashed potato, ‘but I’ve still got to work with her.’
He cleared his plate and got up to go. Gavin leant over to Carly and Sean could hear him clearly as he walked away.
‘I’m going to be looking for a new partner, if you ask me, this temporary secondment business has the whiff of something more permanent.’
Sean wasn’t so sure. He would miss Gavin’s terrible sense of humour for a start and all this excitement was starting to give him indigestion. Once he got upstairs, he was told to sit in on each interview alternately, to allow Khan to swap between the two. Rick Houghton was in the room with Starkey when he got there.
‘For the benefit of the recording, PC Denton has entered the room and DCI Khan has left,’ Rick said.
Rick was showing Starkey the photos from the crowd outside the burning shop and asking about Gary MacDonald.
‘He was in HMP Lindholme with you, towards the end of your sentence.’
‘If you say so.’
Terry refused to make eye contact.
‘I do say so. The prison has confirmed you worked in the gardens on the same team.’
Terry shrugged. ‘So, that’s not a crime, is it?’
‘What was he doing in Chasebridge? He’s from over Stockport way, isn’t he?’
‘Helping out. Volunteering.’
‘Helping you, Terry? In a number of different schemes?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘We have information that Gary was supplying class B drugs,’ Rick said, ‘via the snooker hall.’
It was Sean’s turn to look away. He didn’t want to catch Terry’s eye.
‘What did you have against Mohammad Asaf?’ Rick persisted. ‘Was he on your patch?’
Terry shook his head. ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
‘Or was it a commercial job?’ Rick continued in a level tone. ‘Cash on delivery? Whose idea was the half-hearted attempt at castration? Would you get paid more if you could deliver the goods, so to speak?’
‘Fuck off. I’m not a fucking pervert!’ Terry slammed his fist on the table.
Sean looked at him. Up on the roof of Eagle Mount Four, Chloe had spoken so quietly Starkey couldn’t have heard her, but she what she said was pretty clear to Sean.
‘Who’s saying you are, Terry?’ Sean said. ‘That’s a nasty thing to say about anyone and I’m sure DI Houghton didn’t mean to offend you.’
Terry nodded, hooked by Sean’s sympathy, but Sean hadn’t finished.
‘The thing is though, how would it look if we had intelligence about abuse, historic abuse, perpetrated by yourself?’
The colour drained from Terry’s face. He wasn’t the hard man any more.
‘Sean, bro, what are you saying?’
‘Call me PC Denton, please. I’m saying if you had a sexual offence added to your record, it would make your next stay inside very uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?’
Rick waited for Sean to finish.
‘Excuse us a minute, Mr Starkey.’ Rick nodded to Sean to step outside. ‘DI Houghton and PC Denton are leaving the room and I am pausing the recording.’
Out in the corridor Rick faced Sean. ‘What was that about?’
‘I was just pointing something out,’ he said. ‘Chloe, or Marilyn, said he’d been abusing Jay, his half-brother, for years. Jay was suicidal. I’m sure we could get her to testify.’
‘Slow down, mate. Get him rattled, that’s fine. But keep it under your hat for now.’
‘But he is a fucking pervert!’
‘Calm down, Sean,’ Rick gripped his shoulder. ‘Listen. If it is true, and if there’s a chance of the girl having a retrial, don’t waste it here.’
‘Have you got enough to charge him with Asaf’s murder?’ Sean said.
‘Not yet, but we’ve got time,’ Rick said. ‘And Sean, I don’t like him being so pally with you.’