“I want to make a statement. I want a lawyer to be with me because I don’t want no trouble for me. I only want trouble for him, and I can give you plenty. I know things — very bad things.”
Anna’s headache was at full blast, and she felt sick but remained calm as she said that Sonja should stay with Barolli. She then hurried off to find Langton.
Langton listened as Anna repeated what Sonja had just told her. “Statement?”
“That’s what she said — and that she wanted trouble for Smiley, that she knew bad things—”
Langton put up his hand. “Okay, okay... let’s get her represented.” He glanced at his watch. “I dunno who we can get tonight, but we should do it ASAP, while she’s still spitting venom.”
“I’ll get on it.” In her state of exhaustion, the thought of yet another session was daunting.
“You don’t think she’s involved in the murders, do you?” Langton asked. “Did you bring her here?”
“No, she came of her own free will.”
Langton rubbed his head. “That might be a lucky break, because from what little I heard, it’s been a long, slow process with not much to show for it.”
Anna would have liked to add that if she’d had stronger backup, she might have gotten a lot further. Mike had felt like deadwood beside her sometimes. However, she said nothing, heading up the stairs to the incident room with a packet of aspirin.
It was another hour before a lawyer was found for Sonja Smiley. By now it was after seven o’clock. Moira Flynn was a forty-five-year-old experienced lawyer. Straightaway, she asked if Sonja wished a private discussion before making her statement. The woman refused, saying she wanted to get it over with, but after a moment, she asked if, by making the statement, she would be accused of anything criminal. Miss Flynn suggested that they have a conversation without Anna present.
There was another half-hour delay before Anna sat down with Sonja. The latter was nervous, and Anna was struck by how tense she was, yet determined to begin. Sonja sipped a glass of water, and Miss Flynn indicated that she should start.
Anna switched on the tape recorder, giving the date and time and location before asking Sonja to begin her statement. Sonja nodded and licked her lips.
“I met my husband when I was working in a bar in Aldershot. It was around the time of the Kosovo war, more close to the end of it, as the soldiers were all returning. My bar was popular with the Paratroopers, and some nights it was rowdy. The boys would let off steam and get drunk, but we tolerated it because the owner of the bar was making a lot of money. I was living in a rented flat — just two rooms — with my mother. She spoke little English and was quite poorly, and she had been doing housecleaning, but that had got too much for her, so we were dependent on my wages.”
Anna stifled a yawn; she couldn’t see where Sonja’s statement was leading. She began to concentrate on the woman in front of her, trying to keep up at least some semblance of interest. Sonja was obese and had a flat face and thin lips, and she had little or no expression, but she kept her chubby hands clenched. She was very different from the picture her husband carried, and yet Anna could sometimes see that Sonja had once been attractive by the way she spoke, and held her head up, and her eyes were a bright blue. There was a lightness to her, even though her belly hung low and her huge breasts pushed against the table, while her thick legs beneath the table were wide apart, her ankles swollen.
“I admit that I did have a few relationships with some of the soldiers, and I also admit that they sometimes gave me money, but I wasn’t a tart. I only went with the nice ones. I used to see John come into the bar with his mates. They’d often get drunk, but he was always a real gentleman. I liked him from the first moment I saw him. He asked me out for a date, a real one, wanting to take me to a movie, and he did come on to me, but I rejected him. I didn’t want him to think I was an easy lay. I wanted it to be different with him. I really liked him, and he came and met my mother and was kind to her.”
Sonja gave a long sigh, then sipped more water. Anna was taking sly looks at her watch, wondering how long the so-called statement would go on.
“I don’t know how much he cared for me, but we had several dates, and I still wouldn’t go to bed with him. He said it was all right, and he never pushed himself on me, he never tried it on like some of the other Paras. There was another barmaid, a blond girl called Chrissie. She was younger than me, and we were never friends, but we worked hard alongside each other, and she was popular. It was well known that she was no angel; she really put it about. One night John had come in with his friends, that Micky Dillane was one, and they were getting boisterous. We often had to call in the police or the army to haul the lads out... It was near to closing time — in fact, the boss had rung the bell to say last orders...”
She sipped more water. “On this night John was sort of ignoring me — well, it felt like he was — and at about eleven o’clock, I went out to the backyard with some bin bags to stack in the wheelie bins. They didn’t see me, and I was really hurt, because he was kissing Chrissie. She had her skirt pulled up, and he had his hands all over her. I thought she tried to push him off her, but it could have been my imagination. I was upset, and after I’d washed the glasses, I went straight home. Next lunchtime, Chrissie didn’t come in, and it made us short-handed. We called her flat but got no answer. When she still hadn’t turned up for the night shift, my boss was worried.”
Sonja licked her lips, and sweat trickled down her face. “They called the police, but nobody knew where she was. They asked me if I’d seen her, and I lied, I said I hadn’t, as I’d been busy in the bar all night. I never told them I’d seen her out by the bins with John. I just kept my mouth shut.”
Anna was on full alert, leaning forward.
“They kept on searching for her, and it was weeks later that her body was found. She’d been raped and strangled with her own tights. John and his cronies didn’t come back to the bar for some time, but when they did, I asked John to meet me after work. He agreed, and we met up in an all-night hamburger café. I said to him that I’d been questioned about Chrissie, and he went quiet. At first he hardly said a word, then I said to him that I’d seen them together on the night she disappeared. He was upset, begging me not to say a word, and if the police asked questions about him, would I say that when the bar closed, I was with him?”
She wiped her eyes. “They did ask me about him — they were asking about all the soldiers in the bar that night. I told them he was my boyfriend and that he’d been in the bar all night and then took me home.”
“You gave him an alibi?” Anna said quietly.
“Yes, I did. You see, I wanted to get married. I had my mother to look after, and it was hard for me, all on my own. I said if he wanted me to keep on lying for him, he should agree...”
She shrugged her wide shoulders. “We got married. I loved him. He was what I wanted, and when I asked him about Chrissie, he said that what had happened was an accident. She had come on to him, egging him on, and when he took her round back into the fields by the pub yard, she rejected him. He said he had squeezed her throat when he was trying to kiss her and suddenly realized she was dead, so he took off her tights and wrapped them around her neck. I didn’t understand but wanted to believe him — I needed to believe him. He was my way out of that stinking bar.”