He hesitated. ‘I don’t know, really, to see… I don’t know. The light was on… and I went in and saw her cross on the floor and picked it up and then went back home.’
‘Did you see a knife?’
‘No.’
‘And the cross and chain, what were you going to do with them?’
‘See if I could sell ’em.’ Not even a keepsake. That was sad. ‘Lisa said it was gold. They pay more for gold now, like,’ he added. A man with his eye on the markets. There was shame in the way he said it and the cast of his eyes. Not your proudest moment. Janet felt he understood how low he had stooped, how low his addiction had brought him. But if all the other stuff was flannel and he had stabbed her before stealing from her, then those thefts paled into insignificance.
‘What did you do at home?’
‘I put everything in my room and I had a hit,’ he said.
‘You took heroin?’ Janet said.
‘Just a bit,’ he said. ‘I knew I had to ring the police, but I was freaking. Then I went back to the flat, like I said.’
‘Did you go into the living room?’
‘I couldn’t see her again,’ he shuddered.
‘Who would want to do that to Lisa?’ Janet said, thinking to herself that throughout the whole process he had never asked that question, or offered an opinion, unlike Denise.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t make no sense. They didn’t take anything, not even the brown an’… look, I loved her, right, but she could be a right bitch when she got going. But she hadn’t crossed anyone, nothing like that.’
Oh, what a eulogy. ‘She’d crossed you,’ Janet pointed out.
‘I didn’t know that, I swear.’ He shook his head.
‘Why didn’t you tell us about stealing the heroin and the cross?’
‘I didn’t want to go to prison,’ he said simply.
‘You’ve just said you took some heroin when you got home – what about the rest?’
He bit his lip, swung his head from side to side. It was a test, the truth was all or nothing. He’d been giving it them it in instalments each time they pushed him into a corner, now she needed to see how open he really was being.
‘Where’s the rest?’ If he lied about this…
‘In the yard, at my house, behind some bricks,’ he said. Janet gave a nod. Something else they could verify.
‘Who was Lisa sleeping with?’ Janet said, hoping the sudden change of topic might catch him out.
‘She wasn’t sleeping with anyone,’ he flushed.
‘She’d had sex.’
‘Maybe they raped her, and then did it, like.’
‘Killed her?’
He chewed at his thumb, a pained expression on his face. ‘Yeah.’
‘The phone call you made, did Lisa get upset with you?’
‘No, she just said she’d not be home till half three. That was it,’ he said.
‘Maybe she’d had enough, Sean, wanted you out of her life, off her back.’
‘No, no, that’s not true, that’s lies!’ He raised his voice: ‘That’s fucking lies!’
Over the next few hours Sean Broughton was taken through his story time and again and nothing changed. He was by turns sullen, defensive, distressed and resigned, but he never gave an inch when pressed on the murder and his motive. Janet tried every technique she knew and failed to trip him up. No contradictions, no blind spots. He gave full details of where he’d hidden the last of the drugs and when Mitch made a trip there he found them exactly as described.
As things stood, they could charge him with theft and possession of illegal drugs.
Either he was a lot cleverer than he seemed, or someone else killed Lisa Finn.
26
THE BOSS HAD told them they’d leave Sean to have his eight hours and review the situation in the morning. If it’d been up to Rachel, she’d have kept going, wear the bastard down, but they had to keep to PACE rules, or anything he did say wouldn’t be watertight. His defence would whinge about coercion or contravention of his human rights and a case could be chucked out of court: Section 76 of the PACE Act 1984 any evidence obtained by oppression must not be admitted in court. Oppression includes torture, inhuman and degrading treatment and the use or threat of violence.
The lack of anything tangible linking Sean to the stabbing was a disappointment. They’d found a partial fingerprint on the cross, but it hadn’t been his. He’d not shown himself to be a particularly quick thinker (what with all the pratting about over the bins), so Rachel didn’t think he’d had some brilliant plan to hide bloody clothes and the knife. That in turn made her question if he was their man. After all, if Sean had killed Lisa and wanted to cover his tracks, wouldn’t he say he’d arrived at four p.m. and called them straight away? Not fess up to an awkward half-hour gap.
If it wasn’t Sean, the only other whiff of where to look was in the link to Rosie Vaughan and Ryelands. Another bite of the cherry couldn’t hurt.
At first Rosie wouldn’t open the door. That brought knobby neighbour out, and Rachel had to hold her breath so she wouldn’t breathe in his miasma.
‘You back? Can’t stay away, eh? I never forget a pretty face.’
Rachel ignored him and banged on the door again. Heard movement inside. The door began to open, but as soon as Rosie was able to see who was there, she tried to shut it in Rachel’s face. Rachel had already edged her foot in the gap and kept pushing. The girl was pin thin, weak with neglect, it wasn’t a fair contest.
‘I just want to talk to you,’ Rachel said.
‘No! Leave me alone.’ Rosie’s eyes were sunken behind her glasses, her cheeks hollow. Was she starving herself, too? She wore a flimsy dress, cream and pink, handkerchief sleeves, with leggings and broken-down jewelled slippers. The flat was perishing.
Rachel wondered whether she’d get further if she tried a different tack. ‘Let me get you something to eat,’ she said, moving towards Rosie along the small hallway. ‘Got some bread?’
‘Get out.’ Rosie was quaking. ‘It’s my flat, I don’t want you here.’
Rachel passed the bedroom. The door was ajar so she could see into the room; light from the walkway outside bled through the windows. The room was bare, not a stick of furniture or any carpet. Nothing. It was there Rosie had suffered the rape, the worst of the beating. That’s where they found her.
Rosie, still backing away, reached the door to the living room and Rachel could see the window at the far side, the tiny balcony.
‘Get out.’ Rosie lifted her arm: she held a knife, a large penknife. Rachel glimpsed the ladder of scars on the underside of her forearm. Deliberate self-harm. Still doing it. No wonder.
Rachel paused. She hadn’t got her body armour on, hadn’t got anything, gas or radio. She was meant to carry personal safety equipment at all times but didn’t bother. And this wasn’t strictly official business. Which meant nobody knew she was here.
Rosie’s eyes glittered, she looked feverish.
Rachel ignored the knife, acted as though there was nothing to be worried about, kept moving forward. Rosie stepped over the threshold into the living room, the knife shaking in her hand. In the centre of the living room was a low couch with a sleeping bag and cushions on it, and around it on the floor a bizarre array of cans and bottles and foil food trays. Not litter – arranged in a wide circle, strung together with wool. ‘What’s this?’ Rachel said, and then she understood: an early warning system, like the things people rigged up on their allotments to scare birds or cats. If anyone entered the room while the girl slept on the couch, they would trip over the wool and make a noise. Except they wouldn’t. It was easy to see, simple to step across. Pathetic.
‘You’ve told him, haven’t you? You’ve told him,’ Rosie repeated, the knife jerking as she spoke.