Lucy nodded. ‘You think Whittler’s been hiding out in a cave?’
‘I’m going to ask him, but yes, I think so.’ Dana stood and glanced down the corridor to find Bill. ‘We need to find where he’s been: if he clams up, we get no motive. There’s a chance – if it was him – that he’ll walk on a lesser charge, simply because we can’t compete with his version of why he killed Cassavette. We only get a wrapped-up murder charge if he talks; and we only get him talking if we know enough about him to open him up.’
Chapter 11
Nathan was smart. Dana had accepted that from the beginning. Now she had to rise to the challenge he was creating.
As she’d said to Father Timms, it felt as if she was pushing against something she couldn’t break through; a fence that wouldn’t yield. Nathan was used to withdrawal and Dana could hear Bill’s concern in her head: what might Nathan have done in those fifteen years? What might he get away with, if she doesn’t get the truth from him?
It was partly also because she was afraid of pushing, fearful of Nathan’s disintegration. She didn’t handle outpourings of deep, gut-sourced emotion well. They pushed her off balance, spun her backwards. She went blank, stared and gawped and lacked the words; wanted to run. Sometimes, it was easier with the criminals who accepted the outcome as the cost of doing business. Harder with the newbies who were forced to experience the full magnitude of their failure and its consequences. Dana had been grateful that Megan had been stoic enough, for long enough, that she could escape unscathed.
The Day still slid a blade through her defences. The problem never got easier: sometimes her mood lifted a little and sometimes it darkened further, but the burden remained permanent and inviolate. The Day was an attempt to rupture the rhythm, throw a spike into the wheel of her struggle and try to force a change. That was why it needed time and space away from everyone. That was why this particular Day was hurting even more: she was trying to cheat.
Many suspects – especially first-timers such as Nathan – thought detectives simply walked into the room and started asking questions. They didn’t. She didn’t. The best detectives might seem like they are firing scattergun bullets, hoping one will hit home. But their questions were nearly always carefully planned. It was a key advantage the detective held over the suspect: only a fool would discard it because of ego, complacency or contempt for the person sitting across from them.
Dana’s strategy was carefully calibrated. For each of her early questions she would have a number of possible pathways to pursue, or escape routes. Ask A, and if the suspect says X, ask B. If the suspect says Y, ask C. If the suspect says Z, leave that aside and go elsewhere: return to it when the suspect’s feeling more off-guard. Maybe ask A twice; probe for weakness. Or A is a one-shot deal; take whatever comes and move on. Perhaps hold back the forensics until the alibi is weakened. Or dive in with the existence of a witness. Or hang back. Dana always pondered the options before striking.
She was sure Nathan didn’t have a clue she was doing it. But he would, with each passing dialogue. He’d sit in the room, or in his cell, and think back over their ‘conversations’. Gradually he’d come to understand the way she was playing it: at which point she’d have to bring different tactics and a fresh approach.
So far, she’d concentrated on winning his trust. She had to be someone he could speak to, given that he’d refused any discussion with anyone else. It was a major bargaining chip. His communication in the last fifteen years seemed to have been severely limited. No matter how much he was at peace with that, she was certain there was a lingering need to talk and, more importantly, to be heard. To be listened to, and reacted to, was an element of feeling human. Surely Nathan wasn’t immune to that?
She’d focused on showing herself to be a polite, well-spoken, grammatically aware, book-loving, civilised person. The kind of individual Nathan might like to know, and the type of human being he thought he was. That had worked up to a point, but he would start noticing it. The more he considered it, the more he would see that she was, in an arms’-length and subtle way, befriending him. He was close to that point now.
Before long, he would kick against her approach. He would do so, she believed, not only because he would see it as a subterfuge and therefore lacking authenticity, but because he defined himself as an outlier, an individual with few or no friends. Accepting her would undo the core belief that must have sustained him these past fifteen years. So he’d rebel against it, even as he welcomed it, to affirm what he’d been most of his adult life. She should expect that.
She closed the office door and drew down the blind. Everyone in the station knew this meant she was not to be disturbed for anything short of an earthquake. She sat quietly in the dark, slowing her breathing and consciously feeling the air fill and leave her lungs. After physically counting each finger in turn, in her mind she moved around her body, labelling each part. It was a way of ensuring she had her mind focused on what was now, what was her and what she could control. She’d been taught it at the age of eighteen and had never stopped using it. All her life there were wolves circling the campfire of her mind; this was a way to keep the flames high.
After a few minutes she snapped on the desk lamp, winced at the sudden light and began writing her next interview plan.
Nathan had stacked the used water bottle, tissues, the sandwich wrapper and the Zane Grey into a neat mini-tower. There were no crumbs or smears on the table; not even a watermark where the bottle had stood. This time, he didn’t jump when Dana entered the room.
Dana winced as she went to sit. She tried to straighten her leg while seated, noticing Nathan stare at her knee.
‘Sorry. Cold weather and my kneecap don’t mix. It’s about sixty per cent plastic.’
‘Was that from illness?’
She was startled by his interest in someone who wasn’t him. ‘Uh, no.’
‘Really? Was it injured in an accident?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
Even Nathan seemed troubled by the silent pause that followed.
‘Then what was it?’
The question was eminently reasonable. Most people knew, if they ever asked, not to ask again. Her acute discomfort, the formidable effort she made to wave it away; every vestige of her reaction combined to say it was verboten. But Nathan Whittler simply asked the obvious question and waited for the answer.
But she couldn’t answer it. She was unable to say because it might open up a fissure that would bubble with something she struggled to contain. Especially today, on this Day. She couldn’t say because it might expose her to things she couldn’t fight, couldn’t beat. And, underlying all that, there were legal issues.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Mr Whittler. Everything we say in this room is recorded and, as such, is admissible in court. Not only what you say, but what I say as well. The story behind my knee problems is sub judice: it can’t be discussed. Suffice to say it happened five years ago, it was not accidental and it was not a medical problem.’
He was perplexed. ‘Everything you say here can be played in court?’
‘It can. I expect a law suit from the estate of Zane Grey, at the very least.’
Nathan gave a watery smile and shook his head.
‘Fresh water, Mr Whittler.’ She waggled another bottle and turned it deliberately so the label faced him.
‘Very good, Detective Russo.’
Dana smiled at her notes. He was beginning to consider her a kindred spirit in some way. She needed that but wasn’t altogether comfortable with it.
She swept the remains of the earlier session into a plastic bag and let him watch while she tied a precise trucker’s hitch with string. He almost certainly knew some woodcraft; maybe he knew knots as well. It would be these little points of connection that she felt would, paradoxically, unravel him.