“That’s right. I was very surprised to hear he’d been arrested and charged with underage—”
“We’re not here to talk about Nathan Price. We’re here to talk about you, Andrew.”
Sanderson suppressed a smile. She loved watching Helen when she had her game face on. Because she was tall, athletic and pretty, people thought she would be genial and pleasant—and often she was. But there was a steel within Helen and an unwavering focus that unnerved people under interrogation. They could find no way to distract her, no purchase of any kind with which to drag the interrogation to areas where they felt more secure. She looked at you with such intensity and such purpose—Sanderson had seen many a criminal give up the ghost before they had even begun.
“So, for the record, you only met Roisin once?”
“Once or twice,” Andrew conceded, fingering his tie.
Helen nodded, writing this down in her notepad. The subtle shift from “once” had been noted.
“And Isobel Lansley?”
“Same.”
Monosyllabic now—that was a good sign. A sign that they had him boxed into a corner already.
“What percentage of your tenants are female?” Sanderson asked, finally entering the fray. She had let Helen put the wind uphim, but it was her lead and she wanted to direct the conversation now.
“I couldn’t say.”
“Hazard a guess,” Sanderson responded.
“I don’t know—fifty to sixty percent.”
“We have a court order here allowing us full access to your tenancy lists.”
Andrew Simpson stared at her.
“So when we look through your records, you’re confident that roughly fifty to sixty percent of your tenants will be female?” she repeated.
Sanderson caught the swift glance Andrew Simpson shot at the CID officers outside, who were meticulously leafing through his filing cabinets. His anxious secretary stood over them, all at sea at this sudden and unexpected intrusion.
“Maybe not fifty to sixty percent,” he eventually replied. “It’s hard to remember off the top—”
“How many?” Helen interjected.
“About ninety percent or so.”
Sanderson shot a look at Helen, but her boss didn’t react. The phrase hung in the air. Then, with a very slight nod, Helen gave Sanderson the license to proceed.
“About ninety percent. Possibly even a touch more, I’m guessing,” Sanderson continued. “That’s statistically highly unlikely if they are randomly selected. Why are so many of your clients female?”
The “your” was slightly louder than the rest of her sentence.
“Because they’re less trouble. They are cleaner, more organized, more reliable—”
“Not always,” Sanderson shot back. “Pippa Briers left you in the lurch, didn’t she?”
Simpson paused, then:
“Yes.”
“What about Roisin Murphy? Did she give you proper notice?”
“Not that I remember,” he conceded.
“And Isobel Lansley?”
