‘Ah, interesting. Omagh?’
‘Dungannon.’
‘My grandma was an O’Neill, from that part of the world.’ He makes a little grunt of satisfaction and resumes reading from the sheet. ‘Graduated 2001, twelve years in the navy, currently employed at Global Aerospace as a Project Manager. Married to Richard Sloane, 2013.’
‘Yes.’ The cut in my forehead starts to throb again.
‘Did you want to call him, by the way? Your husband? The desk sergeant said you’ve not called anyone yet.’
‘We’re separated,’ I say.
‘Ah,’ he says after a pause. ‘I see.’
Holt sits forward in his chair. ‘What made you join the navy, Ellen?’
‘My dad served on destroyers. HMS Sheffield.’
‘Right, a family tradition. Encourage you to follow in his footsteps, did he?’
I stare at him, this arrogant young detective, imagining what it would feel like to throw the rest of my tea in his face.
‘He was killed in the Falklands when I was two years old.’
Holt blinks once, twice. But he recovers quickly. ‘Sorry to hear that. So, what did you do in the navy?’
‘I was on HMS Richmond and then on the Dauntless. Some other roles onshore. I was a principal warfare officer.’
‘So you do know your way around guns.’
‘I had some small arms instruction as part of my initial training, same as everyone else. But that wasn’t my primary role, I barely even carried a weapon outside the practice range.’
‘But you’re pretty familiar with . . .’
Betteridge, the duty solicitor, holds up a small hand. ‘Can I ask what the relevance of this is?’
‘Your client was arrested with an unlicensed, unregistered firearm in her possession.’
‘And she’s explained to you that she only had it to facilitate her escape, from a place where she was being held against her will.’
‘So she claims.’
‘If I’d left it behind,’ I cut in, ‘he could have used it on me. Or on Mia.’
‘Why didn’t you use it on him?’
‘I tried, but it was unloaded.’
‘You tried to shoot him? To kill him?’
‘I was going to put one in his leg, just to slow him down.’ The sound is seared into my memory, the empty, impotentclickof the trigger on an empty chamber. ‘I couldn’t outrun him while I was carrying Mia, but I didn’t realise the gun was empty. I ended up hitting him with it instead.’
‘Hard?’
‘As hard as I could.’
Gilbourne turns to his partner. ‘Have we done a hospital check yet?’
Holt shakes his head, scribbling a note on his pad, and Gilbourne turns back to me.
