“I want to see him.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“He didn’t hurt these girls. I know him — he couldn’t do anything bad. He is a good man.”
“Can you recall a few years back, probably shortly before you moved from London to Manchester — did you receive any odd phone calls?”
“How do you mean?”
“Perhaps asking for John or hanging up? You know the kind of thing, from a woman possibly.”
Sonja sighed and drank more water. “We had someone call a few times, but they hung up and we thought it was because we were in a rented flat. You see, we rented when we first moved to Manchester; we didn’t get our house for a few months.”
“Did this caller ring when John was at home?”
“Yes. He was angry because they called late and woke the children. He said it was someone getting the wrong number. I remember he told them not to call again.”
“Did the person call again?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it a woman’s voice?”
“Yes. Why do you want to know? It was before we moved to our house.”
“Yes, you said, and this would have been five years ago, correct?”
“I want to see my husband. I don’t like these women’s faces.”
Anna removed the photographs.
“You have said that John never spent a night apart from you in all the years you’ve been married.”
“Yes, even though it meant he would have to travel long hours. He always come home to me, so that is why I know this isn’t right. He has done nothing bad. I know this.”
Anna again placed down Margaret Potts’s photograph. “He has admitted to having sexual intercourse with this woman.”
“Take it away from me! I don’t believe he did that. She looks like a whore — you say she is one. He would never go with a woman like that, never, never.”
“Mr. Dillane inferred that when you were young and working at a bar in Aldershot, you were sexually permissive.”
Her fat hand smacked the table. “Not true. That man is a liar, a wicked liar. Why are you saying these terrible things about me, about my husband?”
“Because we have four dead women, Mrs. Smiley, and we have removed certain items from your house that link to their deaths.”
“No.”
“Why did your husband have a security guard’s jacket and cap hidden in a garage that he rented near your house?”
Sonja took a deep breath, her ample bosom almost pressed against the table.
“I don’t know nothing about that. What I do know is that friend of his, that Michael Dillane, he was a security guard, so they must have belonged to him, and he left them when he stayed one night.”
Anna realized that for all her sweating and nervousness, Sonja was quick to give a possible reason for the presence of the uniform.
“Why are you here, Mrs. Smiley?”
“Because I get a call from Mr. Rodgers. He said that he had taken enough from the police and that he could not keep John working for him anymore. I come to straighten things out with him. I not say no more until I speak to my husband. You got to let me talk to him.”
“I am afraid that won’t be possible.”
“You got no right to keep him here! I want to see him!”
“You can wait until the interrogation is completed, but it could be some time.”
“Then I wait. I have someone staying to look out for my children, so I wait.”
“Does your husband speak Polish?”
“A little. My mother had poor English, so we used to try and teach him, but he not pick it up. My children don’t speak it either, and...” She bowed her head and started crying. “I am sick with worry. Please let me see him.”
Anna left Barbara with Sonja and returned to interview room one. She tapped on the door and looked in. “Paul, can I have a word, please?”
Barolli stood up. Anna made sure that Smiley could hear even though she lowered her voice. “Mrs. Smiley is very distressed. Can you arrange for a cup of tea?”
Barolli nodded as Mike reported into the tape recorder that DI Travis had returned to the interview room.
“You got my wife here?” Smiley asked.
“Yes, she’s helping our inquiries.”
“She’s here? You brought her into the police station?”
“Yes, but she’s obviously distressed.”
Smiley stood up. “I have to see her.”
“Sit down, Mr. Smiley.” Mike gestured firmly to him.
“No, you can’t do this. I have to talk to her.”
“Sit down!”
Smiley slumped back in his seat and then asked his lawyer if it was right that they could bring in his wife and not allow him to see her.
“You can talk to her when we have finished the interview, Mr. Smiley.” Anna said as she took her seat as Mike passed over some notes from while she had been out of the room.
“She is being well looked after but is obviously frightened, and as she now knows that you were with Margaret Potts, she is helping our inquiry with regard to the other victims we also wish to question you about.”
“You had no fucking right to tell her anything, you bitch.” He jabbed a finger at Anna, his face twisted with anger. Gregson put a restraining arm on Smiley, trying to calm him down, but the other man jerked away from him in a fury. “I want to see my wife.”
“She also wants to see you. She’s been called by Mr. Rodgers, who has told her you can no longer work for Swell Blinds.”
“Jesus Christ.” Smiley was so pent up with anger that his whole body shook.
“She also told me that, contrary to what you have said, Margaret Potts made frequent calls to first your rental flat in Manchester and then—” Anna was lying, but it got a result.
“That is not true. She didn’t know!”
Anna glanced up as Smiley tried to explain.
“What I meant was, neither of us knew who the caller was. She, whoever it was, was obviously expecting to speak to the previous tenant, right? Then she’d put the phone down.”
“It was Margaret Potts, wasn’t it?”
He closed his eyes. Anna felt as if she were playing a game of poker, bluffing, but obviously doing it well.
“All right, yes, it was her.”
There was a long pause. Anna and Mike were exchanging looks, hesitant to begin drawing more from Smiley, hoping he would elaborate. He didn’t.
Gregson shifted his weight, alarmed as Smiley put his head into his hands. Eventually, Anna quietly suggested they start from the moment Smiley said he met Margaret at Emerald Turk’s flat. She had an intuitive feeling that something was wrong and was trying to quickly work out the time frame of when he had met Margaret, then relate it to the phone calls, but she couldn’t grasp what was confusing her.
“As I said before, she wanted me to give her a lift to the London Gateway service station. I waited until she was dressed, and then we went out to my van.” He paused and then smirked. “We were driving along, and she said the van still stank of dogs, so I said to her, ‘It takes one to know one.’” He gave a mirthless laugh. “Anyway, I dropped her off and went on to Manchester.”
“Just a second, Mr. Smiley. Earlier you stated that you were not using Mr. Dillane’s vehicle but the company Transit van, so kindly explain what you meant when you said Margaret said it stank of dogs.”
“Oh, right, sorry. I must have been confused. Yeah, now I remember it was Dillane’s van, and it did smell of his dog. I never got rid of the stink.”
Anna still had that niggly feeling but said nothing as Mike asked when Margaret had started to call him.
“She got my bloody number from my wallet, and she called a couple of times wanting to see me, but I always put the phone down on her. I didn’t want to ever see her again, and I obviously didn’t want Sonja to know what I’d been up to. When we moved to the new house, she couldn’t call me ’cause we’d got a new phone number.”