Stephanie sat back on her settee and closed her eyes.
‘What is it?’
‘Look.’ Wyre held Stephanie’s bin open and poking up through her clutter was a stick of red liquorice.
‘We’re going to have to take her in as soon as she’s been seen to. Dammit, look at her. She has a knife, the type we’re looking for and she has a stick of red liquorice in her bin but it’s not her. It can’t be. Something isn’t right but I need her down the station for questioning once she has the medical all clear.’
‘Do we arrest her?’
‘We could keep her for twenty-four hours then. I don’t know. She seems really frail and I’m not convinced of her guilt. She’s traumatised beyond belief. I know an abused person when I see one.’ She shivered at how close to home her last statement was. She’d spent many a night not knowing when Terry’s assaults on her would end as he tortured her well into the early hours. ‘We need to be gentle with her.’
‘Just because of how she looks?’
Wyre was right. Looks were deceiving and Stephanie had kept rambling on about trying to remember things. ‘Give me a moment with her. I know how it looks but…’ She couldn’t explain what she was thinking. ‘If I can get her there voluntarily to begin with, I feel we may get more out of her. If we jump in and make an arrest now, I think we’ll send her into shock even more. We’ll get nothing from her, we need to tread carefully.’
‘Agreed, guv.’
‘Stephanie, when we’ve had you checked over, I’ll need you to come to the station to make a statement.’
‘About the attack?’ She prised her eyes open and rubbed her mascara over her face.
‘About the attack, about Susan, about Dale, Phoebe and everything you know. About the reunion.’
Stephanie jolted forward in her seat, her wide blackened eyes manically staring back.
‘About the liquorice in your bin.’
‘It’s not mine.’ Her wide-eyed stare fixed on Gina’s. ‘Okay. I’ll come to the station,’ she said in a quivery voice.
Gina knew Stephanie had plenty to tell them.
‘Ambulance is here, guv.’
It was going to be a long night. Gina doubted she’d get to interview Stephanie before morning. Once she had conveyed her thoughts to Bernard, got the knife and bin contents bagged up, she would get a few hours rest.
‘He’s going to kill me.’
Gina darted over to the woman and kneeled before her. ‘Who is going to kill you, Stephanie?’
She shook her head and brought her knees up onto the settee and rested them under her chin, cocooning herself. Bringing her hands over her ears. ‘Go away, go away!’ She began to scream hysterically. As Gina went to place a hand on her arm, the woman flinched and recoiled, hitting anyone who dared to go near her.
‘I want an officer to go with her to the hospital. I want to make sure she’s safe. Don’t leave her alone. We can’t lose her.’
A paramedic walked over and began trying to soothe Stephanie but she kept batting the woman away and yelling. ‘We need to get her to the hospital now. She looks to be in shock but we will need to run some tests.’
‘Can we speak to her there?’ Gina asked.
‘She’s not in a fit state to talk to anyone at the moment.’ The paramedic began speaking gently to Stephanie. With her emotional state heightening to the point of hysteria, Gina knew the paramedic was right. No one would be speaking to Stephanie for a few hours. ‘Call the hospital in a couple of hours.’
Sixty-Four
Monday, 18 November 2019
The recorder had been rolling for several minutes and Stephanie Baxter was still silent. An officer had brought her straight to the station after she’d been discharged. Gina shuffled in her chair to get comfortable and Jacob rubbed his eyes.
‘You still haven’t told us where your attack took place.’ She held back her fingers from tapping on the table as the tension was waiting to burst out. The location was key and she needed Stephanie to spill the information.
‘I can’t remember.’ Stephanie had broken the silence. Her jacket made a chaffing noise every time she moved and she began to gnaw at her freshly cleaned nails.
