Turning to his customer, he said with a beam, ‘That sound, Mr Goodman, that’s the build quality of German cars. Other manufacturers around the world have strived for decades to achieve it, but the Germans still do it best.’
Christopher Goodman was chewing gum, barely listening. He was looking around the interior, sinking his head back against the rest. He opened his door and pulled it down, closing it again. Clunk. He nodded.
Olson knew that after a long spell of dry weather, what you needed was a prolonged heavy downpour to clear the road surface of rubber and oil residue. The worst thing you could have was this kind of drizzle, which would turn the road into a skating rink.
With an output of 368 brake horsepower when both petrol and electric motors kicked in, this car was a phenomenal machine, with experienced hands on the wheel. But on a slippery surface, with someone unused to the power it unleashed, even with its four-wheel drive it could very quickly turn into a pendulum attached to a rocket.
‘Be very gentle on the throttle in these conditions, Mr Goodman,’ he urged, trying to sound calm. ‘She can really bite back!’
Goodman kept his foot on the brake and tapped the start button, and the dash instantly came alive, but he looked momentarily puzzled by the lack of engine noise. He sat for some moments, holding the wheel.
‘In D the petrol engine will kick in when you press the accelerator.’
‘Got it!’ Goodman released the brake and put the car in Drive, and it glided slowly forward into the quiet street.
Gently does it, Olson thought. Prayed. He pointed out the wipers as the screen was fast blurring over, and Goodman compliantly switched them on. He pressed the accelerator and a split-second later there was a roar as the petrol engine fired, the back twitched and the car very nearly swapped ends.
‘Whoahhhhh!’ Goodman said, swinging the leather-rimmed wheel wildly, just catching the twitching car one way, then the next. Getting it under control, more by luck than talent, he said, ‘Bit of a tank slapper, eh?’
With his voice trapped somewhere down the bottom of his gullet, all Olson could do was nod.
They stopped at the T-junction with the wide, smart residential street of Westbourne Villas, then, very gingerly on the pedal now, Goodman turned right and drove slowly (Thank you, God! Olson thought) up to the next junction, with the wide and relatively busy New Church Road.
‘OK if we head out into some open countryside to exercise her legs?’ Goodman asked.
No, not OK, not at all OK, a voice cautioned inside Larry Olson’s head. But you need the sodding money badly, very badly! another voice in there shouted more loudly.
35
Alec Butler sat in the tiny, sound-proofed observation room adjoining the interview room in the Brighton custody centre. The DC was watching the proceedings on the monitor, relayed from the single overhead CCTV camera next door.
Having agreed their interview strategy with Grace, Norman Potting and Jon Exton sat on one side of the modern rectangular table, opposite Niall Paternoster, who looked haggard and unshaven, his hair dishevelled, and his solicitor, who had a notebook in a tired leather folder in front of him.
The first interview, last night, had been to establish Niall’s accounts that he had already given to the police. This second interview would continue obtaining Niall’s account, and covering points that had been raised during the investigation to date. A mixture of garnering information and gently probing aspects of the suspect’s story.
Niall was dressed in the regulation police tracksuit which appeared at least one size too big for him. His solicitor looked like he’d slept in his clothes, as he always did.
Alec Butler’s personal opinion of Legal Aid on-call solicitors, already starting from a low base, had descended to even lower depths after the recent discovery that one of Brighton’s most prominent ones had secretly been a major county lines drug dealer.
Touching the screen in front of him to start the interview, Potting glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘It is 9.43 a.m. Detective Sergeant Norman Potting and Detective Sergeant Jon Exton interviewing Niall Paternoster, under caution, in the presence of his solicitor, Joseph Rattigan.’
They each introduced themselves for the benefit of the recording.
‘Niall,’ Exton began, ‘last night we went through in some detail your account of the movements of you and your wife over the last weekend, leading up to her disappearance at Tesco on Sunday afternoon. This interview will continue dealing with those details and we also need to ask you some additional questions. Can you tell us about where you and Eden were on the weekend of Saturday the twenty-fourth of August?’
Paternoster cleared his throat to compose himself. ‘I’d had an overnight taxi fare from Manchester and didn’t get home until about 10.30 a.m. so I showered and went to bed. I stayed in bed until about 4.30 p.m. Eden had been out to lunch with a work colleague. We stayed in for the rest of the day. On Sunday we spent the day in the garden, I moved some plants, Eden mowed the lawn. I think I washed the car in the afternoon.’ He hesitated. ‘In the evening I listened to some music and Eden was watching episodes of Criminal Minds, some FBI profiler thing she liked.’
After a brief silence, Potting asked, ‘Niall, during the search of your house following your arrest last night, blood was discovered on your kitchen worktop and on the floor area beneath. How do you account for that?’
‘I already explained that to the two officers who came to see me yesterday morning, after I called the police to report my wife missing,’ he replied. ‘I told them I’d cut my hand on a potato peeler when I was rummaging in a kitchen drawer for the bottle opener. I was frustrated because my wife never puts anything back in the right place.’
Potting continued. ‘Was your wife with you when you cut your finger — as you mentioned — on the potato peeler?’
Ignoring a cautionary look from his solicitor, he responded, ‘No, she wasn’t with me. How clear do you need me to make it? Eden got out of my car in the Tesco car park at around 3.15 p.m. on Sunday and vanished off the face of the earth. I tried to open a bottle when I got home, you know, to calm my nerves — I was sort of angry and worried about her at the same time — and I cut my finger. I did not squirt blood over my wife as she wasn’t there.’
Potting waited patiently for him to calm down. Then he asked, ‘Can you run through the account that you gave to the police regarding Eden’s passport?’
Paternoster recounted his explanation about the passport to the officers. He also confirmed that he did not know the whereabouts of her mobile phone.
The two detectives then asked him a number of questions about his and his wife’s friends and relatives and their community ties. He told the officers about Eden’s work and office colleagues. Once that part of the interview had concluded, Potting turned to him. ‘Niall, during the initial search last night at the house, forensic officers found a T-shirt hidden behind a bathroom inspection plate in your en-suite. Early examination of the T-shirt revealed what appeared to be some blood spots and a tear.’
Paternoster gave a convincing performance of looking mystified. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve absolutely no idea what you are talking about.’
‘You weren’t wearing one of your wife’s T-shirts when you cut your finger, by any chance, or used it to wipe the blood away?’ Exton asked.