‘And can I ask where she worked?’
‘Furnace and Blower Ales.’
Silence filled the room and Gina was back to noticing the ticking clock. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us that you think might help us to catch whoever did this to Holly?’
The realisation of what had happened hit Marianne all over again. Talking about Holly had distracted her slightly. Tears welled in her eyes and her lips trembled. ‘No, I wish I knew more.’
Wyre topped up Marianne’s tea and gave a sympathetic smile.
‘I’m going to leave you with my card. If you remember anything, please call me straight away. No matter how small it is, call me.’
Marianne’s shaky fingers emerged from the cuff of her cardigan and she gripped the card, sniffing as she began to fill up again. ‘I think she’d had a bit of an argument with someone at work a few weeks ago. She said it was nothing and the air had been cleared.’
Gina leaned forward over the kitchen table. ‘Did she say who she’d had this argument with?’
‘No. She said it was nothing but I know my daughter and I can tell when something is troubling her.’ Marianne closed her eyes and swallowed her tears down.
‘We really are so sorry for what you are going through. If you need to be put in touch with bereavement services, please call me and I can help you.’
A tear streamed down her red cheeks. ‘Thank you.’
As Gina and Wyre scraped their chairs on the tiled floor, Beryl came back in and placed an arm around her friend. ‘Come on, love,’ she said as she hugged her friend. ‘Let it all out.’
‘We’ll see ourselves out.’ Gina nodded at Beryl as they left.
‘That was horrible, guv.’ Wyre closed her pad and popped it in her pocket.
‘I hated every moment of it. I suppose we really need to visit her workplace. What was it called again?’ As Gina opened the car door, a neighbour came out and got in his car. It was officially morning and neither she nor Wyre had been to bed all night.
‘Furnace and Blower Ales, in Stratford.’
Gina’s phone beeped. Briggs.
We’ve made an arrest. Remember the person you saw leaving the scene at the back of the garden? We have him. Uniform picked him up walking down one of the two roads.
‘We need to get back to the station, now.’ Gina started the car up and pulled away.
Chapter Eleven
‘Can you confirm your name?’ Gina’s voice echoed through the interview room, a tone of annoyance cutting the silence as she waited for Phillip Brighton to answer. Wyre stared sternly at the man as Mr Ullah, the duty solicitor, whispered in his ear.
Shrugging, his shoulders almost got lost in the material of his denim jacket. His belt had been removed when he’d arrived at the station, causing his jeans to slip to his thighs, exposing the grubby cream waistband of his boxer shorts. Spending an hour in a cell should have given him time to think, but he was still refusing to tell them who he was. The man barely blinked and this made Gina uneasy. His stare fixed on her, then across to Wyre as he scratched a few flecks of dried skin from his beard.
‘You have been charged with the supply of Class A and Class B drugs. What do we have?’
Wyre turned over the page in the file. ‘Twenty-five wraps of cocaine and a bag of cannabis have been seized, along with four hundred pounds in cash.’
‘Phillip Brighton. We have you on file and your fingerprints don’t lie. This isn’t your first offence. It isn’t even your second offence. You’re looking at a long custodial sentence so I suggest you start talking about last night.’
The suited solicitor whispered once again in his client’s ear and Phillip Brighton didn’t say a word.
‘Mr Brighton. You were picked up by officers on Blossom Lane, which runs along the back of Cleevesford Manor. We found you in possession of a substantial amount of Class A and B drugs, along with a wad of cash.’ Gina needed to prove to herself that he was the man running away from the building. ‘I saw someone who fits your build from the window of the manor, using a phone as a torch before disappearing into the woods.’ She couldn’t have identified him in a line-up. ‘You may or may not know that a serious attack took place last night resulting in the murder of a woman, so you need to start speaking. We are presently going through all the CCTV from the manor. If you were there, we will find out.’
She was bluffing. There was CCTV but she had no idea how good any of it was until they sat down and went through it. She knew that DC Harry O’Connor had arrived at the station a short while ago and she’d tasked him with that very job.
‘Okay. I was at the manor but I didn’t kill any woman!’ He kicked the leg of the table.
‘I’m not saying you did.’ He paused and twitched slightly, then again. Just a little shake of his neck. ‘I need you to tell me what you saw. Do you know Holly Long?’
