‘Twelve is a Biblical number,’ Cray tells me, when I comment on the number. ‘The twelve days of Christmas, the twelve tribes of Israel.’
‘What about the twelve apostles?’
‘I wasn’t going to be that presumptuous.’
She picks up her notes and motions me to follow. ‘I’m lucky to have this many.’
‘Why?’
‘Half my team is babysitting witnesses for the Novak Brennan trial.’
That name again.
‘Has someone threatened the witnesses?’
‘Precautionary measure. It’s a bloody circus - we’ve got the right-wing extremists on the one side and refugee groups on the other. I don’t know who’s worse.’
‘I think you do.’
She grunts. ‘Look, I’m no fan of neo-Nazis or right-wing extremists, but we have a race problem in this country. We have home-grown terrorists blowing themselves up. We have gangs of teenagers killing each other with knives, Asians, blacks, whites . . .’
‘Maybe that’s a social problem, not a race problem.’
‘Makes no difference to me. I’m just sick of putting good officers in situations where every scrote and teenage scumbag on the street has a knife and a grudge.’
‘So where does Novak Brennan come into it?’
‘He’s a politician in search of a crowd. The ignorant, the uneducated, the unemployable; they listen because they want to believe their miserable lives are someone else’s fault. Novak Brennan tells them what they want to hear.’
‘He incites hatred.’
‘He lances the boil.’
The detectives are waiting, mostly pale and hung over. Ronnie Cray introduces me. Suddenly, my left leg stops moving and I’m stuck in front of the whiteboard. Staring at my feet, I concentrate on making my leg lift. It looks like I’m stepping over a tripwire. They are all staring at me with solemn expressions, pitying the poor bastard.
Cray takes over, beginning the briefing. I find a chair and feel their eyes leave me. The DCI outlines developments in the investigation. Sienna’s boyfriend has been interviewed. Danny Gardiner claims that he dropped Sienna on a corner in Bath just before 7 p.m. but he hasn’t given police an alibi for later that night when Ray Hegarty was murdered.
Lance and Zoe Hegarty have also been interviewed. Zoe was in Leeds, but Lance is a possible suspect. He works as a motorcycle mechanic in Bristol. On Tuesday afternoon he left the workshop at five, went to the pub for an hour and then went home by himself. His flatmate was out.
‘We’re bringing Lance in again today,’ says Monk. ‘He’s an aggressive little shit, but I don’t think he’s lying. He couldn’t hide a hard-on in baggy jeans.’
Two hours are still missing from Ray Hegarty’s afternoon and telecom engineers are trying to pinpoint his whereabouts using his mobile phone. The door-to-door inquiries have thrown up several unknown vehicles in the village in the previous few days. Two motorists also reported seeing a blonde-haired girl in a short dress walking down Hinton Hill at about 10.15 p.m. That’s about a mile from Wellow. It could have been Sienna.
Monk picks up a spiral notebook and flips a page.
‘A month ago Helen Hegarty claims she saw someone peering into the downstairs window, but they ran off before she could get a good look at them. A while later she found rocks organised in a circle in the garden bed beneath the kitchen window. The soil was compressed like someone had been crouching there. Says she told her husband. He suspected local kids.’
‘Any of the neighbours report similar problems?’ asks Cray.
‘Nope, but one of them, Susan Devlin, says she saw Ray Hegarty arguing with someone outside his house about a week ago. It was about ten o’clock at night. The car had dropped Sienna home.’
‘Maybe it was the boyfriend,’ says Safari Roy, a small tanned detective with black hair parted to reveal his scalp. Roy’s nickname came from his lounge lizard clothes and his love of sunbeds.
‘He drives a Peugeot,’ replies Monk. ‘The neighbour said it was a silver Ford Focus.’
‘Talk to her again,’ says Cray. ‘Get a better description of the driver.’
Monk nods and finally asks the question on everybody’s lips. ‘How did it go downstairs, boss?’
The DCI looks over their heads at a weak shaft of sunlight that has found a way through the building’s defences.
‘She says her father was dead when she arrived home.’
Glances are exchanged between the assembled.
‘Our number one priority is to find the murder weapon,’ says Cray. ‘We’re going to search the house again - every cupboard, crawlspace and cistern; the flowerbeds, the compost bins, the incinerator. The same goes for the river. Retrace her steps. Turn over every rock and leaf. Find the blade.’
One of the officers raises his hand.
‘Are we getting any help?’
‘I’ve got twenty-four uniforms waiting downstairs and two dog teams. Make the time count. They turn back into plods at five o’clock.’
I look at my watch. It’s almost midday. I’ve missed my lecture but can still get to the university and do some work. At the same moment my mobile is singing. Julianne’s number lights up the screen.
‘How goes the trial?’ I ask.
‘We’ve been given the afternoon off.’
‘Bonus.’
‘You free for lunch? We can talk about Charlie.’
Talk is good.
She chooses an Italian restaurant, San Carlo in Corn Street, not far from the Corn Exchange. I arrive first and take a table by the window where I can watch for her. I order her a glass of wine.
Finally she’s here, dressed in a suede jacket, a scarf and a ribbed sweater. The waiters fall upon her like Elizabethan courtiers. She’s a beautiful woman. Good service is guaranteed.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says apologetically. ‘I had to make sure Marco was all right.’
‘Marco?’
‘My witness.’ Her brow furrows. ‘He’s nervous. I don’t know if he’s sleeping.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘The Crown Prosecution Service has a safe house.’
Her new haircut is sharp just below her jawline. I feel my mind taking a snapshot so I can study it later.
‘I’ve decided that jury trials are one big sociology experiment. You take twelve people who don’t know each other and have nothing in common and put them together for eight hours a day and then drip-feed them information, telling them not to discuss the case or read the papers or do their own research.’
‘You feel sorry for them.’
‘They saw the photographs of the fire today - three little girls and their parents - it was horrible.’ Julianne squeezes her eyes shut as if forcing the images to go away. They open again.
‘It’s not what I expected, you know. The trial. The defendants. Novak Brennan doesn’t look like a monster.’
‘There are no monsters.’
‘That’s what you tell Emma.’
‘It’s true.’
‘I know, but I expected him to be different. I feel as though he’s become familiar over this past week. I’ve seen him every day - always immaculately dressed and polite. He nods and smiles to the court staff. He bows when the jury enters the room. He has these long lashes like a girl and the bluest eyes. Arctic blue. I can almost see the snow blowing across them. Makes you wonder.’
‘About what?’
‘If he really firebombed that house . . . killed that family.’ She pauses, searching for words. ‘The other defendants look like thugs and bovver boys, grinning at each other and guffawing. Novak Brennan looks almost serene. He doesn’t fidget or squirm. He hardly shows any emotion at all, except when he glances at his sister in the public gallery. She’s been there every day.’
‘Which way are the jury leaning?’
Julianne shrugs. ‘It’s too early to tell. So far it’s all been about the prosecution case.’