But Quinn’s still pushing. ‘So why didn’t you tell us all this right from the start?’
She glances at him, then looks away. ‘It was a family matter.’
Her face is closed; an ice sheet has come down.
* * *
‘Thanks for helping with this, Bryan,’ says Gallagher. ‘I just wanted another pair of eyes. Unofficially.’
Gow looks up at her from the video screen. ‘No problem. I was in Kidlington today anyway.’
He looks back at the screen again, then presses pause, a small frown creasing his brow.
‘Well?’ says Gallagher. Her arms are folded. She looks restless, edgy.
He pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘It’s a first, certainly. Watching one of these things to decide whether it’s a police officer who’s lying.’
‘He’s a suspect. Just like any other.’
Gow gives her a pointed look, then makes a note on his pad.
‘Well, is he?’ she says, a little impatiently now. ‘Lying?’
He glances up at her. ‘I could see no sign of it. I’ll take the footage back with me and review it again, but there’s nothing jumping out right now. He’s under acute strain, which is hardly a surprise, but when he denies having committed the crime his words and body language show no divergence. None at all.’
‘Dave King would no doubt say that if anyone knew how to do that, it’d be Adam Fawley.’
Gow raises an eyebrow. ‘No doubt.’
Gallagher gets the message. ‘Look, I know King can be a bit – unsubtle – but he’s a good copper. He has good instincts.’
Gow is writing again. ‘If you say so.’
* * *
‘So, Professor Fisher, just to be clear, and for the purposes of the recording, you’re now modifying your statement to the effect that you do, in fact, know how your dress was damaged.’
Fisher heaves a loud sigh. ‘Yes.’
Quinn nods. ‘So what about the previous night, with Morgan? Is there anything about that you haven’t told us?’
‘We could do without the sarcasm, Sergeant,’ says the lawyer.
‘The answer to your question,’ says Fisher, ‘is no. I remember no more about that than I told you before.’
‘Really?’ says Quinn, openly sardonic.
She flashes him a look. ‘Really.’
She takes a breath and looks away, and Gis is suddenly aware that she’s blinking back tears.
The lawyer looks at her with concern and passes her a glass of water. Then she turns to Gislingham. ‘Look, Sergeant, this whole thing is taking the most enormous toll on Marina – she’s not sleeping – her son is having nightmares –’
‘I’m not sure what you’re expecting me to do about that –’
‘What I’m asking you to do is drop this preposterous case. The whole thing is absurd – it’s political correctness gone psychotic.’
Gis opens his mouth to reply, but she’s not finished. ‘I mean, look at her, for God’s sake. Do you seriously think she could possibly have perpetrated a sexual assault on a six-foot rugby player against his will?’
She stares at Gis and then at Quinn. ‘Well, do you?’
* * *
You don’t often see small children in a police station, so when Somer slips out to buy something for dinner that night it’s hard to miss Tobin Fisher, sitting quietly alone on a chair by the main door. She looks around, worried that no one’s with him, then notices one of the female PCs is at the drinks machine, collecting a can of Fanta.
Somer hesitates, then makes her way towards him. He has a colour-by-numbers book on his lap, and even though she’s now standing in his light, even though there are people passing and noise and phones going, he doesn’t look up. She moves round and takes a seat next to him.
‘What are you drawing, Tobin?’
* * *
Quinn and Gislingham watch as a uniformed PC shows Fisher and Kennedy out. The lawyer puts an arm around Fisher’s shoulders as they reach the lift, and she leans in, almost staggering.
‘Was Caleb Morgan that convincing?’ asks Gis.
Quinn turns to him. ‘Sorry?’
‘Just saying. Fisher looked pretty genuine to me. When she picked up that water her hands were shaking.’
‘It’s in her interests to be convincing. And don’t forget all that TV stuff she does. That woman is a performer. She knows exactly how to play a crowd.’
* * *
The female PC comes back from the drinks machine and hands the can of Fanta to Tobin. He takes it, but he doesn’t look at her or say thank you. Somer’s eyes meet the officer’s over the boy’s head and the woman shrugs, evidently unsurprised. Somer isn’t surprised either; in fact, she’s beginning to wonder whether Tobin might be on the spectrum somewhere. There’s no doubting his intelligence, but he barely functions socially at all. Can someone as well informed as Marina Fisher really not have noticed what’s going on with her own child?
The little boy is still colouring in, carefully and deliberately, utterly absorbed in what he’s doing. He’s filling in one colour range at a time, a rainbow of pencils laid out on the chair next to him, their ends and points neatly aligned.
‘Can I see?’
The scratching at the paper stops. He doesn’t look up but after a moment he puts the pencil down in the correct place in the line and hands her the book.
Somer looks at the drawing, then takes a breath – realizing suddenly what this is.
* * *
‘Something up?’ asks Ev.
Somer’s a few yards away, by the whiteboard, staring at the pictures from the Morgan case. Marina Fisher’s kitchen, the ripped evening gown, the empty bottle of champagne, the photos of Caleb taken at the Sexual Assault Referral Centre.
Ev gets up and goes over, and Somer registers her presence at last.
‘Sorry,’ she says, glancing across. ‘I didn’t realize you were there.’
‘Penny for them?’ says Ev.
Somer turns back to the board. ‘I saw Tobin Fisher just now. He was waiting downstairs while his mother was being interviewed. He had a colouring book with him – one of those “educational” things mothers like Fisher get for their kids. Illustrations from Shakespeare, the Greek myths, that sort of thing.’
‘O-kay,’ says Ev slowly, wondering where this is going. ‘And your point is?’
‘My point is that up till now he’s just been working his way through the drawings one at a time. But the one he’s doing now – it’s right near the end. There are loads of blank pages in between. He must have deliberately chosen to do it.’
‘So –?’
‘That’s just it. What he’s doing now is George and the Dragon. The colour-by-numbers thing says to do the dragon in different shades of green, but Tobin’s completely ignored it. He’s never done that with any of the pictures before. I checked.’
Ev frowns. ‘So what colour is he doing the dragon?’
‘Red,’ says Somer. ‘All the same shade of red.’ She makes a face. ‘And that was when I remembered this.’
She points at one of the photos on the board. A shot of Morgan taken from behind. His head and his back and his neck, and the tattoo on his left shoulder.
It’s a red dragon.
* * *
The custody sergeant pushes the door open with a clang, then he stands back to let the lawyer through.
‘Let me know when you’ve finished.’
Penelope McHugh nods. ‘Thank you.’ Then she waits until the sergeant has lumbered back down the corridor and out of sight before stepping forward into the cell.
Her client is sitting on the narrow bed, his head in his hands, the toast and cereal untouched on a tray. There are huge dank stains under his armpits. It shouldn’t surprise her; she’s been doing this job a long time and she’s had suspected murderers for clients before. But never, thus far at least, a serving Detective Inspector.