CG: You said nothing about this in your first interview.
RS: My change of name has nothing to do with it. Nor, frankly, is it any of your business.
CG: I’m sorry but I’m afraid I disagree. I think it has everything to do with it. I think you know very well who the man in your kitchen was. My question is when exactly you found that out.
RS: I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now.
CG: Even though you disposed of anything that might have identified him?
RS: I did no such thing. And I resent your implication.
VE: There was a witness. Someone saw you do it.
RS: Don’t be ridiculous. How could anyone possibly have seen anything? There was no one else for miles, and in any case, it was completely dark.
CG: True. It would have been far too dark to see anything with the naked eye. But fortunately for us, our witness was carrying night-vision equipment.
RS: Please don’t insult my intelligence – no one carts that sort of thing about with them on the off-chance.
CG: It wasn’t ‘on the off-chance’. He was up on the hill above your house. Photographing the stars.
RS: [silence]
So what did he say, this ‘witness’ of yours?
CG: He heard gunfire. A single shot, just as you said.
RS: [silence]
CG: He was concerned, of course, so he immediately called 999 and then waited a while, keeping an eye on the house.
RS: [silence]
CG: And then he saw something – something that led him to believe the shot must have hit nothing more significant than a rodent.
RS: [silence]
CG: You went out to the garden, Mr Swann. You were carrying something in a refuse bag –
TU: I need to confer with my client –
CG: What was in that bag, Mr Swann?
TU: My client will be answering ‘No comment’ to all further questions.
CG: It was the man’s wallet and backpack, wasn’t it?
RS: No comment.
CG: You knew you had to conceal his identity because if we’d realized who he was we’d never have believed it was just a burglary gone wrong.
RS: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
TU: Richard –
CG: Did you really think we wouldn’t find out?
RS: Find out what?
CG: Are you asking me to believe that you don’t know?
TU: [restraining Swann]
My client has no comment to make.
VE: Did he tell you how he found you – where he’s been? Anything at all?
RS: How many more times, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about –
CG: You must have known we’d run DNA –
RS: DNA? What the devil is that going to prove?
CG: [quietly]
What DNA always proves, Mr Swann. You and that young man – you were related.
RS: [gapes]
What on earth –
CG: He was your grandson, Mr Swann. He was Camilla’s child.
RS: [silence]
TU: [intervening]
I absolutely insist on conferring with my client.
VE: Interview terminated at 12.48.
* * *
‘I don’t think he knew,’ says Ev. She and Gis are in an adjacent room now, watching Unwin and Swann on one of the video feeds.
‘No,’ says Gis. ‘I don’t think he did either.’
On the screen, they can see Timothy Unwin speaking urgently. There’s no sound and Swann has his back to them, but he’s holding up his hands, as if in bewilderment. In the other interview room, Margaret Swann is being shown to a chair by a female PC. She’s in a heavy tweed coat and clutching a large handbag. She looks cold.
‘What are you going to do about the old boy?’ says Ev. ‘Quite aside from the fact that he looks bloody awful, the clock’s ticking – we’ll have to decide sometime today.’
Gis sighs. ‘I’ll check with the boss, but I don’t think we have much choice. We’ll have to release him under investigation and hope to God we find something.’
Ev nods, then turns to the screen again. ‘You ready?’
Gis takes a deep breath. ‘As I’ll ever be.’
* * *
Margaret Swann has her own lawyer now, a slightly flustered young woman who introduces herself as Julia Merrick and says she’s one of Timothy Unwin’s colleagues. Swann is looking at her with the sort of contempt she evidently reserves for members of her own sex in positions of supposed authority. Everett is getting her fair share of it too, though if Gis were a gambling man, his money’d be on Ev in a straight head-to-head. Swann still has her coat on, and the message is loud and clear. But they’re the ones who’ll be deciding when she leaves. Not her.
‘Mrs Swann,’ he says, taking his seat, ‘as you know, I’m DS Chris Gislingham, and you already know DC Everett. You should be aware that this is a formal police interview and is being recorded. I also need to advise you that new evidence has come to light which means we now have no choice but to arrest you on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. There may also be further charges at a later date, depending on what comes to light in the course of our investigation. Do you understand?’
Merrick is staring at Gis like a rabbit in headlights: she’s obviously never handled anything remotely like this before.
‘And precisely what,’ says Swann, ‘am I supposed to have done?’
‘Well, we can start with the fact that you washed your husband’s nightclothes, even though you knew they would be important items of evidence –’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake –’
‘But it’s not just that. We now believe that you and your husband colluded in concealing or destroying certain other items, in an attempt to suppress the identity of the man your husband shot.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snaps.
Gislingham smiles. ‘That’s funny. Your husband used exactly the same phrase.’
She gives him a withering look. ‘That’s because it is ridiculous. Why on earth would we do such a thing?’
She doesn’t, Ev notes, ask what they’re supposed to have got rid of.
Merrick, though, is just about to. ‘Can I ask which “items” you mean?’
‘A wallet,’ says Everett, ‘a mobile phone and a backpack.’
Margaret Swann raises an eyebrow. ‘And how, pray, do you know he even had such things?’
‘It’s a reasonable assumption, Mrs Swann, as I’m sure –’
‘That’s not proof,’ says the lawyer quickly. She clearly thinks this is a big win.
‘True,’ says Ev. ‘But, luckily for us, there is also a witness.’
‘Witness?’ says Margaret Swann. ‘What witness?’
‘A taxi driver,’ says Gislingham. ‘The taxi driver who dropped the man off at your house and saw him walk up the drive to the door. Hardly the behaviour of a random housebreaker, wouldn’t you agree?’