‘The door is red, just opposite our road. It’s the only red door.’ She’d seen a red door on one of the houses. That would do. It wasn’t as if her dad would walk over and get her. If he wanted her home, he’d text and she could be home in a few minutes if she ran.
‘Okay, whatever.’ Jasmine turned the music video back on and slumped into their dad’s favourite chair.
‘See you later.’
Lying had come easier than she thought it would. She had to lie. Her dad and Jasmine would understand when or if they found out. Her mother had asked her to come and she needed her help. A smile fanned across her face. She was going to see her mother and finally find out what was going on.
Forty-Two
Ryan leaned over the desk in the interview room, rubbing his stubble as the recorder continued. Gina suspected he hadn’t properly got up that morning as the smell of pine-scented aftershave was fighting with his sweat, and the sweat was winning.
‘I don’t know why I’m here. My kids’ mother is missing and all you do is get me here. I have to get back soon as my neighbour has to go out. I don’t know where Susan is or where she went, we hadn’t talked properly for ages. I didn’t even see her that day. I rarely see her at all. I picked the girls up from school and took them to mine as we’d arranged.’
Gina glanced at the notes that Jacob was making. So far, he’d given them nothing useful. She yawned as she played with her biro under the desk. ‘I’m sorry this is taking up your time and we appreciate that you have the girls to look after, but Susan is still missing and we are asking everyone she knew the same questions. This is a voluntary interview and we appreciate you coming in. Please tell me of your whereabouts on the day of Tuesday, November the twelfth, the last day Mrs Wheeler was seen.’
‘Working.’ He folded his arms and looked down.
Gina sighed. If he was going to give her nothing but one-word answers, the interview was going to take a long time. ‘You work for yourself, is that right?’
‘I have a gardening business which means I work all over the place, whenever I’m required.’
‘Where were you working on Tuesday?’
‘I attend the grounds of Cleevesford Manor one day a week and that’s where I was.’ Gina knew this to be the passed-down house of a family that had lived in Cleevesford for centuries.
‘What time did you get there?’
‘About nine in the morning.’
‘Did you leave at all during the day?’
He shrugged and began rubbing his fine prickles of hair. Could he have been the figure hanging around Damson Close, outside their witness Alicia’s house? Was he there checking up on Susan after knowing where she was because he’d fitted a tracking device to her car?
‘I grabbed a sandwich from the Co-op, probably about twelve, maybe one, I can’t remember.’
‘Did you see anyone?’
He scrunched his nose up and placed his elbows on the desk. ‘No. Well, I saw lots of people but no one I knew.’
He definitely had the opportunity. If he’d planted the tracking device, he could have easily turned up to where Susan’s car was and waited for her to return. She would have trusted him enough to talk to him if she’d seen him in Damson Close. Maybe he made up a story about attending to a garden in the area. Most of the residents would have been at work. He could have called her over for a word and once she was close enough, encouraged her in and drove off with her. Maybe she resisted and he bundled her in his car before driving away. She would have been an easy target for him. She glanced at his physique: muscular, strong. Susan would be no match for his strength.
‘Do you know this man?’ Gina pushed a photo of Dale across the table.
He leaned back and laughed. ‘Jeez, I knew this would come up when I saw his mugshot on the news yesterday.’
They were finally getting somewhere. ‘Tell me how you know Dale Blair.’
‘I argued with him in the Angel Arms sometime back in June. Caught him having a lovely cosy evening at the Angel Arms with my wife but I haven’t seen the geezer since. I mean look at him, I don’t know what she was thinking. He looks like a bloody slob and he was a whimpering mess. Since that night our relationship went sour. She wouldn’t come clean to me that she was seeing him, kept saying I knew nothing. When I asked her to tell me, she just pushed me away, then a few weeks later she’d packed my bags – all because of him.’
Gina watched as Jacob scribbled a few notes.
‘Can we go back to Tuesday? Where were you that evening?’
‘What a stupid question. I picked the girls up just gone three. I was at home looking after them.’
‘Did you pop out, leaving them alone?’Was he hanging around by Susan’s car on Damson Close, wondering what to do with it?
‘No, I picked the girls up from school and took them to mine.’
