‘Me too.’
‘To be honest, Mia will be a lot safer when both of them are off the street. Both him and Church. That’s as simple as I can make it.’
‘Can’t you just arrest them?’
‘Once we get a DNA match – definitely. Until then, we don’t want to spook either of them, risk them disappearing off the radar, dropping out of sight for good. We’ve been keeping an eye on them these last few days, waiting for one of them to make his move. Dominic’s tried to persuade you to talk the Cliftons into leaving the property at Prestwood Ash. We believe Leon burgled your house, looking for information that would lead him to Mia, and he’s obviously tracked you here to this hotel. We still haven’t discounted the idea that they’re working together.’
‘So let me help you. To bring them to you, to keep Mia safe. I could ask to meet them, arrange a time and a place where you can grab them both.’
‘Ellen, I don’t want you exposed to any more danger than you have been already. And I suspect they’d be wise to an approach like that – not that I don’t appreciate the offer. But you’ve done enough already.’
I look at him over the top of my wine, wondering whether to tell him about my conversation with Angela, trying to gauge how close his partnership with Holt really is. At the police station they seemed like very different men; Gilbourne calm and sympathetic while Holt was aggressive and impatient, full of his own self-importance.Good cop and bad cop, I suppose. But it feels like there’s more than that between them, a deeper division. Do they like each other, professionally? Personally? Do they get on?
‘You should probably know something else.’ I tell him about my visit to Prestwood Ash this afternoon, and if he has questions about how I found the Clifton family, he keeps them to himself. I relay Angela’s concerns about DS Holt and the way he’s been with Mia. ‘Also, Holt followed me this evening, on the drive back here.’
‘Hewhat?’ Gilbourne frowns, sitting forward in his chair. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I assume you didn’t ask him to do that?’
‘No.’ He stands up abruptly, paces to the window and back. ‘No, I didn’t. You’re absolutely sure it was him?’
‘Yes. Angela Clifton said he came to their house on his own, talking about taking Mia away, doing DNA tests. She said she got a really weird vibe from him. Didn’t like him at all. And I have to say, I know what she means.’
Gilbourne is not looking at me anymore. He nods slowly, as if just realising something for the first time. ‘What else did Angela say?’
‘She thought Holt was in touch with Kathryn too, before she ran.’
He sits back down heavily in the armchair. ‘I see.’
‘When Kathryn got off the train on Tuesday, when she left Mia with me, do you know if someone intercepted her at Seer Green? All this time I was thinking it was Dominic Church, but do you think it might have been DS Holt?’
Gilbourne shakes his head. ‘We’ve still not got a clear line on what happened to her when she got off that train. The pathologist thinks she died on Tuesday, between 4 p.m. and midnight, which leaves us a lot of time still unaccounted for.’
‘What about CCTV at the station?’
‘There’s one camera up there but it’s not worked for years. Not really a lot of call for CCTV at these little country stations.’ He sits forward in his chair. ‘Listen, are you sure it was Nathan following you today?’
‘He had a baseball cap and sunglasses on but I’m pretty sure, yes.’ I nod, slowly. ‘He was driving a dark coloured Ford Focus, grey or black.’
‘Standard issue pool car for use by MIT detectives.’ He sighs, looks at me, looks away. He takes a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, flips it open with his thumb, closes it again and replaces it in his pocket. Finally his eyes come back to mine. ‘I shouldn’t be telling tales out of school, but . . . ah, Christ.’
I let the silence spool out for a few moments but he seems reluctant to fill it.
‘What is it, Stuart?’
‘Nathan’s been . . . strange these last couple of weeks. Jumpy. On edge. I really don’t know what’s going on with him.’
‘How long have you worked together?’
‘A couple of months. He was seconded in from the human exploitation task force.’
‘Exploitation as in street prostitution?’
Gilbourne glances up at me, then looks away. ‘Amongst other things, yes.’
With an unpleasant sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I remember the news articles I read this morning.
‘All three victims of the Ghost were linked to street prostitution, two sex workers and Zoe Clifton, who was an outreach worker with a charity that tries to help women get off the streets and put their lives back on track.’
