“My client has told you as much as he knows—”
“Your client hasn’t told us a single thing,” Helen barked back, already irritated by the by-the-book primness of Price’s duty brief. “And let me give you both a piece of advice. ‘No comment’ is not a good defense. It makes you look guilty.”
Helen stressed the last word.
“Do you know what you get for abduction and murder, Nathan?” she continued, determined to keep the pressure up. “Fifteen to twenty minimum. How does that sound?”
“I think we should take a break now,” the brief resumed predictably.
“We still have time,” interjected Lloyd dismissively. “More important, we still have questions. Thesamequestions. What happened in those two hours, Nathan? Did you let yourself into Ruby’s flat?Overpower her? Or had you already slipped something into her drink at the club?”
Still nothing in response.
“Your client should know,” Lloyd carried on, “that we have impounded his van. We found some interesting things in the back. The usual pots, tools, building stuff, of course, but also a bedroll and several blankets. What are the blankets for?”
“I sleep in there sometimes when I work. I need blankets,” Nathan replied.
“Four of them? In the height of summer? There were hairs on the bedroll, black hairs. You look to me like you’re a natural blond, Nathan, so why are there black hairs there?”
A long pause. Nathan’s brief shot a look at him, clearly waiting for his next move.
“I’ve nothing to say,” he eventually replied.
“So I suggest you charge or release my client,” his brief followed up quickly.
“We’re just getting started,” Lloyd said, his professional politeness falling away now.
“You’ve got nothing. You know that, we know that—”
“Let’s see what the forensics team turn up in the van, shall we?” Helen replied abruptly. “Silly to count our chickens before then. I make it we still have... almost forty hours left to hold your client. Which I’d say is more than enough time for a night in the cells, wouldn’t you, Nathan?”
Not for the first time that day, Helen enjoyed wiping the smile off Nathan Price’s face.
34
Night was slowly stealing over Southampton. The landmarks that had looked unfamiliar and workaday in the daylight now took on a more sinister appearance. From his viewpoint on the fourteenth flour, Daniel Briers looked out over the city. To some, the twinkling lights against the night sky would have looked exciting, full of promise. To him, it was just a world of shadows. He imagined all sorts of depraved characters out there—murderers, rapists, thieves—exploiting the darkness, using the cover of night to commit numerous unspeakable crimes.
Pippa had come here and been swallowed by this place. Though he was compelled to stay here now, to see justice done, he already hated Southampton with a passion.
Since Helen had left him, the day had seemed to drag on and on. He had made the necessary phone calls immediately, but theyhad been brief. He couldn’t trust himself to hold it together during a long conversation. There was no question of him trying to analyze events with others yet. He just imparted the dreadful news and made his excuses. As soon as he had finished the calls, he turned his mobile off, had a whiskey and tried to get some rest.
He was exhausted from a sleepless night and the awful events of the day, but he couldn’t switch off. A kaleidoscope of images and memories swirled round his mind—Pippa’s birth, her bitter grief at her mother’s passing, the way she used to make him “Dad of the Year” cards when she was small, her pride in her school prizes, the later arguments and recriminations—most of which had been his fault, he now realized. An endless carousel of thoughts and feelings, some bad, but mostly very, very good.HisPippa living on, as she would have to now, in his memory.
Was it a wise move to stay here? Kristy, his wife, clearly wasn’t sure—“Wouldn’t you be better off here with me and the boys?”—though she left the final decision up to him. It was hard for her, Daniel now thought to himself. Kristy was deeply shocked by Pippa’s death, as they all were, but she didn’t reallylikePippa—Kristy felt she was self-oriented and needy—and her grief was necessarily compromised by her feelings, whatever she might say to the contrary.
Even now Pippa was a source of tension between them—someone Kristy didn’t much care for but whom Daniel couldn’t give up on. The ties that bind a parent to a child can never be broken; however awful their relationship might be, those ties justare. Even in death, that doesn’t change, which was why Daniel had to stay. There would be many awful things he’d have to face here—he hadn’t yet been to the beach where they found her—and he hoped he would have the strength to see it through, for Pippa’s sake if not his own.
But looking out over the bleak vista of Southampton, he felt his courage wavering. This place was so alien to him, so threatening. And hanging over everything was the terrible knowledge that out there somewhere, shrouded in darkness, was the person who stole, killed and buried his only child.
35
It was chaos. As she had expected it would be. A wall of noise assaulted Emilia Garanita as soon as she entered the hall—a cacophony of shouts, recriminations, laughter and more. Knackered, she plonked her keys down on the hall table and made her way toward the source of the anarchy.
Her father was serving out the remainder of a lengthy prison sentence and her mother had done a runner nearly a decade ago, meaning that Emilia—the eldest of six children—had been in loco parentis now for more years than she cared to count. She was still young herself, shy of thirty, but she felt much older, particularly today. The briefing at Southampton Central had yielded nothing concrete, and the rebuff from Helen Grace had rankled, setting her on edge for the rest of the day. Some days were like that—fruitless, irritating and depressing.
She entered the kitchen to a litany of accusations and counterclaims. The youngest of her five siblings was only twelve, the closest in age to her not twenty-five, so there were lots of fragile, oversize egos to create conflict and consternation. As ever, Emilia’s presence calmed things and slowly the grievances of the day were put to bed. As the family sat down to eat together—pork and chorizo stew, a legacy of their Portuguese heritage—Emilia’s mood slowly began to improve. As exasperating as her siblings were, they nevertheless loved and accepted Emilia for what she was, warts and all. Some people didn’t like her character, other people despised her because of her job and everyone reacted to her face, half of which was badly scarred following an acid attack by her father’s drug-dealing employers. She had learned to ignore it, then later taken advantage of it, deliberately testing people with her disfigurement to see if they’d react. But as bullish as she was, the frowns her face provoked still hit home. Not here, though—not at home—where she was abused, teased and cherished just the same as everyone else.
Slowly the younger children sloped off to bed. Her closest sister, Luciana, kept her company throughGame of Thrones, and then she too called it a day. Leaving Emilia alone with her thoughts.
