Grace wrinkled his nose. It permanently smelled in here as if someone with rancid feet had been eating a kebab. He checked the bin beneath the work surface, but it was empty. The interview started. Guy Batchelor asked Gareth Dupont to recount his movements on the night of Tuesday, 21 August.
‘Yeah, right, I was at home, working.’
‘Working?’
‘Doing my telesales.’
‘You do that over the phone or in person?’
‘By phone.’
‘But you drove to Withdean Road, to speak to Mrs Aileen McWhirter, right?’
Dupont shook his head. ‘Nah, I was at home in the Marina.’
‘Have you heard of mobile phone triangulation, Mr Dupont?’
Leighton Lloyd raised a hand. ‘Excuse me, what does this have to do with my client?’
‘Give me a moment and you’ll understand, sir,’ Batchelor said. Then he addressed Dupont. ‘Does it mean anything?’
Dupont shook his head.
‘I’ll explain. All mobile phones, whether switched on or on standby, communicate with base stations. These are sited on masts all over the country. They’re programmed to check in every fifteen minutes. You know, a bit like E.T. phoning home. From the base station receiving the signal, we can tell which are the two other nearest, and triangulate from there. You are on the O2 network, right?’
Dupont nodded reluctantly.
‘There are two O2 base stations along Dyke Road Avenue, a short distance from Withdean Road,’ the DS continued. ‘There is a third close to the A23, a quarter of a mile to the north of Withdean Road. The report from O2 shows that you were in the vicinity of Withdean Road around 7 to 7.30 p.m. on the night of Tuesday, August the 21st. So you weren’t at home. Would you like to explain that?’
Dupont thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Ah, yeah, I’d gone round to see a lady friend. Quite close to Withdean Road.’
‘So she could vouch for you?’
He looked awkward suddenly, and Grace realized why. He was referring to Sarah Courteney. He made a note to check later whether she had been on air that evening.
The solicitor was busy looking at a map on his phone. ‘I have the area in front of me,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t cover only Withdean Road – it’s a dense residential area, a whole network of streets.’
‘Gareth,’ Bella Moy said, with a pleasant smile. ‘One thing that we don’t quite understand is how your fingerprint came to be on a bronze statuette owned by Mrs McWhirter?’
Dupont reddened. ‘I dabble a bit in antiques,’ he said. ‘One of my sidelines. It’s hard to make a living out of telesales, these days.’ His body language, thought Grace, looked increasingly flustered. Then he frowned. ‘Like – where was the – the bronze?’
‘You tell us,’ Guy Batchelor said.
Leighton Lloyd placed a hand on his client’s arm. ‘No comment,’ he instructed him.
‘Yeah, no comment,’ Dupont said. Then he turned and whispered something to his solicitor that none of them could hear. Leighton Lloyd shook his head firmly.
‘Mr Dupont,’ Batchelor said. ‘There’s something that is puzzling me. When I came with my colleague, Detective Superintendent Grace, to talk to you at your office last Friday, we asked you what car you drove. You told us it was a Volkswagen Golf GTI. But subsequently I’ve learned you in fact drive a Porsche cabriolet. Is there any particular reason why you lied to us?’
Dupont looked even more of a confused mess, Grace thought.
‘Yeah, well, the thing is me and my mate Andre Severs swap cars sometimes. Like, he wants to impress a bird, so he borrows the Porsche. Know what I mean?’
‘No,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘I’ve no idea what you mean. I want to know why you lied to two police officers.’
‘I guess I didn’t want to look too flash.’
Batchelor exchanged a look with Bella Moy, then turned back to Dupont. ‘All right, tell me something, how well do you know Withdean Road in Brighton?’
Dupont shook his head. ‘Don’t know it at all. Never been there.’
‘Are you sure?’ Batchelor pressed.
He nodded. ‘Well, yeah – hang on, wasn’t the football there at the Withdean Stadium until last year?’
‘Correct.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m a Seagulls fan, right. But that’s not in Withdean Road exactly.’
‘So you definitely were not in Withdean Road on the night of Tuesday, August the 21st?’
‘Absolutely not.’
The two Detective Sergeants exchanged a glance. An imperceptible nod passed between them.
‘Let’s go back to your Porsche for a moment,’ Bella Moy said. ‘It’s a nice car – very expensive, I would imagine, and nearly new, judging from the number plate.’
Dupont shrugged.
‘The insurance must be high, I would think?’ she continued.
‘High enough, yeah.’
‘These days, on expensive cars, the insurance companies make all kinds of demands, I’m told. Such as you’d need to have a tracker fitted. Do you have a tracker on your Porsche?’
Dupont suddenly looked deeply uneasy. He shot a glance at his solicitor. ‘I do, yes.’
‘Smart devices, trackers,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘They track your car, every few yards of every journey you ever make. And they keep a log. You’re with a company called NavTrak, right?’
Dupont hesitated, not liking where this was going. ‘Yes.’
‘They’ve obligingly given us the log of your Porsche’s movements for the past four weeks. Every journey you’ve made, every stop, and the length of time. On Tuesday, August the 14th, you were outside Aileen McWhirter’s house in Withdean Road, Brighton, from 6.43 p.m. to 7.21 p.m. Presumably, as you claim not to know it, you were lost?’
‘Very witty,’ Dupont said.
‘You were outside the house again, for a shorter time, on the nights of Wednesday August the 15th, Thursday August the 16th, Friday August the 17th, Saturday August the 18th, and Monday August the 20th, the night before the attack,’ Guy Batchelor said. ‘Can you explain your reasons?’
Dupont gave Leighton Lloyd a look of desperation. Then turned back to Batchelor. ‘Could I have a private word with my solicitor?’
Batchelor and Moy switched off the recording equipment, including the CCTV feed, left them alone in the room, and went outside to have a quick playback of the interview with Roy Grace. After ten minutes the solicitor asked them back in.
‘My client is willing to make a statement,’ he said, as they recommenced. ‘He accepts what your information from the tracker shows, but that doesn’t put him inside the house. That’s a very important point he wants you to understand.’
The two detectives nodded. Batchelor signalled to Dupont to begin.
Dupont rested his hands on the table, looking confident. ‘The thing is, yeah, I was contacted by someone I know, who said I could get good money doing a driving job. A couple of overseas blokes were coming over to do a posh house; they needed a driver who knew the area. So I had to organize a van, meet them at the airport. I admit I drove the van, but I never went in the house.’
Neither detective spoke for some moments. Then Batchelor said, ‘Not even to give them a hand with the furniture? There were some big pieces.’
‘Well, yeah, I helped them load, outside.’
‘You are absolutely certain you never went inside the house?’ Bella Moy asked.
‘Certain. I’m certain.’
Batchelor frowned. ‘You’re going to have to help us out here, Mr Dupont. You see, there was a spot of blood found on a radiator on Mrs McWhirter’s landing – the one she was chained to. The report from the lab, which we only got in a short while ago, shows it contains your DNA.’ Batchelor’s eyes fell on Dupont’s knuckle; the scab had gone, leaving a small red mark.
Dupont looked stricken. He curled his thumb around the mark, twisting it as if he could make it disappear.