CR: Search all you fucking like, you won’t find anything.
LK: It doesn’t concern you that your own child – your own flesh and blood – has disappeared off the face of the earth and no one can find him?
CR: Tim told me that he’d get in touch if there was a problem, and I’ve never heard anything.
LK: The mobile number you gave us for him – is that the only way you have of contacting him?
CR: He said he was going to be moving house so that was the best way.
LK: You’re aware that mobile number is out of service?
CR: [shrugs]
LK: In fact, it has never been in service. No one in the UK has ever had that number. If I was of a suspicious turn of mind I might be thinking you just made it up.
CR: [silence]
LK: Why did you say you lived in Cambridge?
CR: What?
LK: When you gave your first child up for adoption you gave your address as 13 Warnock Road, Cambridge.
CR: So what?
LK: That was a lie, wasn’t it? You were still living at your parents’ home in Shiphampton.
CR: What difference does it make?
HL: It makes a difference, Miss Rowan, because you knowingly gave false information on an official document. One can only infer that you did so in order to avoid being contacted.
CR: Look, I didn’t want my parents finding out, OK? I didn’t want a letter arriving and my mum or dad getting hold of it.
LK: So why Cambridge?
CR: [shrugs]
I’d just been there. It was nice.
LK: ‘It was nice’? That’s it?
CR: [shrugs]
LK: [turning to file]
But that wasn’t the only untruth on that form, was it? The GP practice you gave, the email address – eleven lies in all.
CR: They weren’t lies –
LK: What would you call them, then?
CR: I told you – I didn’t want anyone to find out –
LK: Do you lie a lot, Miss Rowan?
CR: [indignant]
No, I do not!
LK: Doesn’t look like it to me. Looks to me like you do it all the time. Indeed, I put it to you that you lie so often and so readily that you don’t even know you’re doing it any more –
CR: That’s not true!
LK: In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I can tell when you’re lying because your lips are moving –
JM: Detective Sergeant, that’s hardly fair –
CR: [to Mrs McCrae]
He can’t talk to me like that, can he? I’ve done nothing wrong.
HL: We’ve yet to establish that, Miss Rowan.
CR: I’ve told you – I don’t know where the baby is – I don’t know where Tim is – but I didn’t do anything to the baby – I didn’t, I didn’t –
HL: We’ve done our best to help you, Miss Rowan, but I’m afraid you leave us with no choice –
CR: [staring from one officer to the other]
What? What?
LK: Camilla Rowan, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned –
CR: [puts her head in her hands on the table and begins to sob]
LK: – something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.
CR: [muffled]
It’s not fair! It’s not fair!
LK: Interview terminated at 11.25.
* * *
Adam Fawley
24 October
17.28
There’s a jam on the M25 just south of Byfleet. Ten minutes later we’re still sitting there, edging painfully forward, uncomfortably close to the trapped humans either side. A kid in the back of the SUV next to us is chewing and making faces through the window, his parents arguing in the front. The bloke in the van on the other side is smoking, looking at his mobile. It always feels doubly uncomfortable – not just the physical proximity, but the fact that the one thing these metal boxes are supposed to give us is the freedom to distance. I remember being stuck on the A40 once, back in the nineties, heading into London. Nose to tail for half an hour. And the person in the car next to me was Princess Diana. No – I didn’t believe it either. Not at first. But it was her. On her own, driving herself. Desperate for privacy but forced instead into an uneasy unforeseen intimacy with a nobody like me.
The truck in front inches forward, then the brake lights come on. Quinn mutters something under his breath. But now the lorry’s moved I can see the sign ahead. We’re less than a mile from the A3 turn-off. Cobham one way, Wisley the other.
I point. ‘Let’s come off there.’
Quinn frowns. ‘Are you sure? It’ll be a crap route across country from there.’
‘That’s not why I’m suggesting it. Melissa Rutherford lives in Cobham.’
* * *
‘You don’t recognize him?’
The woman sighs and takes the picture again. ‘It’s not very clear, is it?’
Bradley Carter gives her a weary look. ‘I’m afraid it’s all we’ve got.’
The hotel’s called the Park View, but unlike Heathside, it’s not living up to its name. The only vista on offer is the kebab house and bookmaker’s on the other side of the street, which is solid now with rush-hour traffic. Park View is a four-storey Victorian building and must once have been quite an impressive family house, but hard times have fallen and it has a down-in-the-mouth feel; grimy, peeling, faded, cracked.
The receptionist hands him back the picture. ‘I don’t think he was here, but I can’t be a hundred per cent sure. Sorry.’
‘Did any of your guests leave at the weekend without letting you know?’
She gives him an arch look. ‘I don’t keep tabs on ’em, love. It’s not the bleeding Ritz. They pay up front and I don’t ask questions. If they want to leave early then that’s fine by me.’
‘Is there anywhere else round here you can suggest I try?’
She shrugs. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. There must be fifty places like this within shouting distance – you’re going to be at it all night.’ He looks dejected now, exactly the same face he must have had as a chocolate-deprived twelve-year-old. She smiles briefly. ‘We have a vacancy, if you need a place to crash. I can do you it for thirty quid – special discount.’
Carter slides the picture back into his jacket. ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘I’ll check with the office and get back to you.’
* * *
Adam Fawley
24 October
18.15
I knew Melissa Rutherford had money – that corner office on the documentary was a bit of a giveaway – but the house still manages to be impressive. Big windows, lots of glass and timber and light. It looks like it should be on Grand Designs. Perhaps it was; because something tells me she didn’t just buy this, she had it built.
She doesn’t answer the door, though. It’s another woman, wearing a black crew neck and dark trousers. She’s barefoot, so I guess the swanky spec included underfloor heating.