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‘You still didn’t call the police?’
‘You see all kinds of crazy shit down here, kids mucking about, pissheads and stuff. I just figured she was fine.’
Imogen was shaking her head furiously. She pulled out her phone and started texting someone, her fingers flying over the keys.
‘What were you doing on your boat so late anyway?’ Adrian asked, resting a hand against the door of the cabin.
‘I just like it at night, it’s usually quiet and no one bothers me down here.’
‘Did you see anyone besides the girl?’
‘Not at first, no, but I did see a silver car come and look around.’
‘Did you see anyone in the car?’
‘There was only one bloke in it, I think.’
The detectives exchanged looks. If there was only one person in the car then it couldn’t have been the men from earlier, unless one of them had come back on his own. Or maybe it was Sam Brown. Imogen’s phone beeped.
‘Do you know what kind of car it was?’ she asked the man, her eyes on the phone screen.
‘A saloon, that’s about all I can tell you; like I say, it was really dark and I wasn’t exactly close.’
‘Anything else you remember about the car? Anything at all?’
‘No, I’m sorry. Nothing.’
A phone started to ring on the boat and Imogen looked past the man into the darkness of the cabin. The ringtone was coming from inside.
‘Hmm,’ Imogen said, holding up her mobile, ‘I just dialled DS Bridget Reid’s phone. That’s interesting. You want to tell me why you have it?’
Adrian immediately pushed past the man before he had a chance to react. He went into the cabin and found the vibrating phone resting on a little table to the left of the door. The man raised his hands up.
‘Look, look, OK, I found it in the park. I had no idea it belonged to the girl in the water. How could I?’
‘We’re going to need you to come in and make a statement.’
For a moment, the man looked as though he might be going to resist, but then he nodded. ‘No problem, anything to help the police.’
The detectives watched closely as he locked the cabin door, and followed Imogen and Adrian willingly off the boat.
Imogen watched the man from the boat through the glass window of the interrogation room. He seemed very calm, but there was something about him that made her skin crawl.
‘His name is Ben Vickers and he’s got previous.’ Miles burst in with a file.
‘What kind of previous?’
‘Well, he’s on the sex offenders’ register, for a start.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘I wish I was. No, he’s been cautioned three times for stalking and he lost his job after he sexually assaulted one of the women he worked with. It wasn’t a violent assault, but still. He was a security guard up at the shopping centre.’
‘Any connection to Bridget Reid?’
‘None that we can see. No connection to that house either. There’s a note here that says he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, but he got out of it.’
‘It’s tenuous, Miley, but I guess he might have known Bridget through her flatmate or something.’
‘So why aren’t you in there?’
‘He’s waiting for his lawyer. But we can go in now, if you like.’
They stepped into the room and sat opposite Ben Vickers, who had a disconcerting smirk on his weather-beaten face.
‘I don’t expect my lawyer to be much longer,’ Vickers said. ‘I hate to keep you waiting like this. I just know how these things work, and I’m not talking to you without representation. I been stung before, you see. But I expect you know that by now.’
‘Yes, we are aware of your record. It’s not a problem, we don’t mind waiting.’ Adrian folded his arms and settled in, staring down Vickers. Vickers stared straight back.
Eventually, the door opened and in walked the lawyer, a tall man in a sharp black suit. He sat next to his client and addressed Adrian directly.
‘My name’s Jonathan Clark and I’m here to represent Mr Vickers. Can I get a moment alone with my client?’
‘It’s all right son, I got nothing to hide,’ Vickers exclaimed.
‘Mr Vickers, you are not under arrest. We just need you to tell us exactly where you got that phone that was found in your boat,’ Adrian said.
‘I told you, I got it in the park.’
‘When?’
‘Well, I saw the girl come out of the park, the kids’ play area bit, and I saw her get into the water, so after I tried to follow her I went to the park and the phone was there. I was going to bring it in but I forgot.’
‘So the last time you saw her was in the water?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘But you said you couldn’t follow her in the boat and so you went back.’
‘Yeah, that night, that’s right.’
‘OK, so you saw her after that night?’
‘First light I went down to the river and I saw her lying on the grass. I slept in my boat, woke up with the sun.’
‘And you didn’t call the police then either?’
‘Not my business, is it?’
‘What state was she in?’ Imogen said through gritted teeth. What was wrong with people?
‘I’m pretty sure she was asleep.’
‘So did you approach her?’
‘No, I’m not stupid, probably get done for something or other if I did.’
‘Did you even check if she was alive?’
‘Some bloke in a black car came along and lifted her up, she was out of it but she was definitely alive, moaning and stuff she was.’
‘What bloke? What did he do with her?’
‘Put her in the passenger seat of his car, that’s why I thought he probably knew her, didn’t shove her in the boot or nothing.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Imogen muttered. What upset her most was that this kind of thing wasn’t unusual, people watched crimes take place all the time but didn’t want to get involved. It made her job so much harder.
‘Was this the saloon you told us about before?’ Adrian leaned forward as he spoke to Vickers.
‘No, it wasn’t a saloon, it was like one of them poncy cars’
‘A sports car?’
‘No, no, like a Jeep thing, you know, a four-by-four. One of them what’s got the big wheel on the door of the boot.’
‘Like a Land Rover or something?’
‘Yeah, that kind of thing.’
The door opened and Fraser stuck his head in, nodding for them both to come out. Imogen looked up at the clock before turning to the tape recorder.
‘Interview suspended at 13:41.’ She switched the tape off and then looked at the lawyer. ‘We’ll be back in a bit.’
‘They found the other videos on the laptop,’ Fraser whispered to Imogen once they were outside the room. ‘I think maybe we need to have another word with your ex-partner.’
Chapter 12: The Video (#ulink_254fc17c-311e-5e84-acf2-f593ef32a9d0)
The present
Adrian, Imogen and DCI Fraser walked into the tech lab to find Gary Tunney concentrating grimly on the laptop.
‘What did you find?’
‘Well, it looks like she set up a cloud account that all her videos were automatically sent to. It wasn’t easy to find. She used layer upon layer of encryption, but anyway, I’ve got them.’
‘I’ve always suspected that you’re a wizard,’ Imogen said, patting Tunney affectionately on the head.
‘So …? Don’t leave us hanging!’ Adrian interjected.
‘Right, well, one of the guys who visits her is an undercover, and they definitely seem like more than just friends. She puts the music on and then he gets a bit fresh, just a kiss, instigated by him. She pushes him away.’
‘So that’s it? Do we know who that is?’
‘I’ve put in a request to find out the name, we can’t blow his cover and we might not even be able to interview him,’ Fraser said.
‘Well, that’s bullshit.’
‘Do we think Sam knew about this guy and her?’
‘It’s possible,’ Tunney said, clicking on another one of the entries. ‘We know he wasn’t happy about something.’
Cue Sam bursting into her room and literally pulling Bridget out of the bed by her throat and pinning her against the wall. Tunney paused the tape and looked at them both.
‘Woah!’ Imogen exclaimed.
‘I should warn you, what happens next is not cool.’
‘Play it.’ Adrian braced himself.
Tunney turned the machine back on and they saw Sam Brown repeatedly hitting Bridget Reid in the face and stomach. Adrian felt himself getting light-headed just looking at the screen. It was a horrible reminder that your first instincts about people are usually the right ones. The first time he had met Sam Brown he hadn’t trusted him, but he’d allowed himself to be suckered in, had given him the benefit of the doubt. He felt guilty for what he’d said to Imogen earlier. The scene reminded him of being a child, of the awful times that he’d seen his father smacking his mother around, usually high on something or other.
‘So maybe it was Sam who made her delete the files.’
‘I think that’s a fair assumption.’ Tunney nodded.
‘Does this happen at any other time? Does he do it again?’
‘Yeah, none quite like this one, but he definitely hits her one or two other times.’
‘So maybe she knew something was going to happen to her, and she was collecting evidence,’ Adrian said, almost to himself.
‘That’s a hell of a leap, Detective,’ Fraser responded.
‘Desperate times.’
‘Undercover is very isolating, I doubt she felt like she could do much from where she was. Probably fewer than a handful of people knew what she was doing.’
‘Is it possible that she just ran away? We need to speak to that UC, he looked pretty friendly with her.’
‘I’m working on it,’ Fraser said apologetically.
‘What do we do about Sam?’
‘What do we do with any suspect? Bring him in,’ Fraser said.
‘Do we cut Vickers loose?’
‘Let’s just wait for forensics to go over the boat, the weather’s on the turn again so they’re doing their best to get it done before the rain starts. Find out what car Brown has and I’ll find out what this other fella drives.’ Fraser paused for a moment. ‘I shouldn’t need to say this out loud, but if any of the press approach you, don’t say anything. Only the people in this room know about this tape. Let’s keep it that way.’
