The DNA retrieved from the hair and flesh sample in Stacy Craine’s stomach is a 100 % match with the DNA profile of ANTON VINER. Viner was convicted in 1977 for aggravated rape and sentenced to 15 years. He was released in 1985. He was arrested again for sexual assault in 1989, but the charges were dropped. Viner’s current address is: 27 School Lane, Hey, Essex, HE15 9ES. This information will NOT be forwarded to DI Delaney until 09.00 tomorrow morning (Sat 28 August).
I read it again, and again … and again. There’s no signature, no name, no indication who it’s from. But it has to be from someone who either works in the crime lab or who has access to someone who works in the crime lab. I think about it … dredging through the sludge of my memory for anyone I know who could possibly fit the bill, and the only two names I come up with are Leon Mercer and Cliff Duffy …
Could either of them have sent it?
Does it matter?
I read the message again …
And again.
And, drunk as I am, I know what I have. I have an anonymous message giving me the name and address of the man who killed Stacy. A man called Anton Viner. A convicted rapist. I have his address … I know where he is. And in roughly ten hours’ time, I know that he’ll be arrested and taken into custody.
But until then …
Until then …
He’s mine.
It was almost 10.30 when the door to the interview room opened and Mick Bishop came in. He was accompanied by a haggard-looking man in a shitty brown suit, who he didn’t bother introducing. The two of them just sat down opposite me, and the man in the brown suit unwrapped two cassette tapes, loaded them into a tape-recorder, and turned it on.
‘Right,’ Bishop said wearily, his voice on automatic. ‘This interview is being tape-recorded. My name is DCI Michael Bishop, Hey CID. Also present is …’
‘DS Alan Coleman, Hey CID.’
‘And …’ Bishop looked at me. ‘State your full name, please.’
‘John Craine.’
‘The date is 8 October 2010, 10.31pm. This interview is being conducted at Eastway police station in Hey …’
As he carried on going through the procedure, advising me of my rights, explaining this and explaining that, I very nearly fell asleep. It was too hot in there. Stuffy. The air felt used up, as if it had been breathed too many times. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted a drink. I wanted to go home and go to bed and close my eyes and forget about everything.
‘Mr Craine?’ Bishop said.
‘What?’
‘Do you understand what I’ve just told you?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Good. OK … let’s get on with it.’ He looked at me. ‘At 18.37 this evening you called the police to report the discovery of a body in a lay-by on Great Hey Road. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like you to tell me what you were doing there.’
‘I’m a private investigator. I was recently hired to look into the disappearance of a young woman called Anna Gerrish. After making some enquiries, I came to the conclusion that she’d been abducted from London Road in the early hours of the morning and that her abductor had driven off along Great Hey Road in the direction of Hale Island. So I followed that route, keeping my eyes open for places where a body might possibly be dumped, and the lay-by was just one of those places.’
Bishop just stared at me. ‘Did you search anywhere else?’
‘Not really …’
‘Did you search anywhere else?’ he repeated. ‘Yes or no?’
‘I stopped at a few other places, but I didn’t actually get out of the car — ’
‘So,’ he said. ‘Let me get this straight — you were driving along Great Hey Road, looking for Ms Gerrish’s body, and the first place you stopped at … or rather, the first place you stopped at and got out of the car, was the lay-by. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how did you know exactly where to find the body?’
‘I didn’t … I just looked around — ’
‘You just looked around?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you found it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘He didn’t say anything for a moment, just carried on looking at me, then he said, ‘All right, let me ask you something else. How did you know that Anna Gerrish was dead?’
‘I didn’t — ’
‘But you went looking for her body anyway?’
‘She was missing,’ I said. ‘No one had heard from her for a month. I thought there was a fairly good chance that she was dead.’
‘But you didn’t know for sure?’
‘No.’
He paused again for a moment, slowly nodding his head, as if he was digesting what I’d just told him and carefully considering what to ask me next — but I knew it was all a show. He knew exactly what he was doing. And I was pretty sure that I knew exactly what he was doing too: not asking me anything about Tasha, or what she’d told me; not asking me anything about the Nissan, or the driver; not mentioning anything about the registration number I’d texted him. He didn’t want any of that on tape.
He looked down, sniffed, ‘then looked up at me again. ‘Where were you on the night that Anna Gerrish disappeared, Mr Craine?’
‘Where was I?’
He nodded. ‘On the night of Monday 6 September, the early hours of Tuesday morning — where were you?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Think about it.’
I thought about it, then shook my head again. ‘It was over a month ago, I can’t remember. I was probably in bed — ’
‘Probably?’
‘Yeah, probably.’
‘But you can’t remember?’
‘No …’ I looked at him. ‘Can you remember where you were that night?’
He stared back at me. ‘I was here, in this very room, from midnight until three in the morning. I was interviewing a witness about an alleged assault.’
I smiled at him. ‘You’ve got a good memory.’
‘You think this is amusing, Mr Craine? A young woman, stabbed to death … her body dumped in a lay-by … you think that’s funny?’
There was no point answering that, so I didn’t.
Bishop just looked at me for a few moments, then he turned to DS Coleman beside him and said, ‘All right?’
Coleman nodded.
Bishop glanced at his watch. ‘Interview terminated at 22.41.’
Coleman turned off the tape-recorder.
‘Is that it?’ I said.
Bishop nodded.
‘What about — ?’
‘The interview’s over,’ he said, turning to DS Coleman. ‘Give us a few minutes, will you, Alan?’
With another silent nod of his head, Coleman got to his feet, removed the two tapes from the recorder, and left the room.
Bishop waited for him to close the door, then he sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and smiled at me. You look tired, John.’
‘You too.’
He sniffed. ‘All right, listen to me … this is over for you now, OK? You’re going to go home, go to bed, get some sleep, and then tomorrow morning you’re going to go back to your shitty little office and get back to doing your shitty little job. Do you understand me?’
I said nothing.
‘This is now an official murder investigation,’ he went on. ‘If you get in touch with anyone — and I mean anyone — who has anything to do with this case, and that includes the Gerrishes, I’ll have you arrested for obstruction, wasting police time, perverting the course of justice … whatever the fuck I can think of. Have you got that?’
I nodded. ‘Do they know yet?’
‘Who?’
‘Mr and Mrs Gerrish … have you told them?’
He sighed. ‘They’ve been informed that a woman’s body has been found, that’s all. We can’t tell them anything else until the identity’s been confirmed.’