‘You think I went out and attacked him myself? Are you out of your mind?’
‘Something happened that night, I don’t know what. But a girl is dead and a man was put in intensive care.’
‘You know what, Kate. I don’t have to listen to this shit!’
Laura drained her glass, stood up and snatched her jacket off the hook.
‘Why are you lying, Laura?’ Kate asked as the younger woman walked away. But she didn’t get a reply. Laura Chilvers was too busy walking out of the door and pulling out a mobile phone.
Sally Cartwright had her laptop open on the back seat of the car, a mobile printer attached to it. Delaney was driving, cursing under his breath as the car slid on the icy road.
‘Here we go, sir,’ said DC Cartwright as the printer chugged out a five-by-seven-inch colour photo of the technical manager of the Ryan Theatre at Harrow School. She had googled the place and found photos of the theatre staff on their webpage.
His name was Christian Peterson.
Delaney pulled the car to a stop outside the address that DIs Tony Hamilton and Emma Halliday had phoned through to Diane Campbell. Delaney got out of the car and lit a cigarette. A few seconds later Sally joined him and gave him a sharp look.
‘Yeah all right, don’t you start. I’m giving up in New Year.’
‘About time.’
Delaney took a couple of quick drags, then dropped the cigarette into the snow. They walked a few yards down the road and up to a mid-terraced house.
On the other side of the road a man slumped down in the seat of his van, ran his hand through a tangle of curly, dirty blond hair and watched. His eyes were blue, and intent. Filled with hate.
Delaney rang the bell and a woman in her late thirties answered the door. Michelle Riley had dark hair, cut in a bob to her shoulders. She was above average height and wore little make-up.
‘Why don’t you come in, detectives?’ she said.
‘Don’t you want to see some ID?’ asked DC Cartwright.
‘I know who you are. I have seen the inspector in the papers and on television.’
Delaney and Sally followed her down a narrow hallway and into a medium-sized front room. It had a desk, shelves full of books and files, a small sofa and a number of plastic chairs stacked atop one another against the side-wall. On the wall beside the desk there was a poster with the words RAPE SURVIVORS ONLINE with a web address underneath it.
Michelle Riley moved a stack of files from the sofa. ‘I’m sorry for the mess. This doubles as my office.’ She dumped the files on the desk and perched on the chair beside it as Delaney and Sally sat on the sofa, rather squashed.
‘That’s fine, Miss Riley, we’re not the tidiness police,’ said Delaney.
‘Just as well.’
‘We’re here to talk about Andrew Johnson.’
‘I know. Your deputy superintendent told me. It was all a long time ago. I can’t see why you’d need to revisit the incident. And what I did wasn’t a crime.’
‘No one was suggesting it was, Miss Riley.’
‘Michelle, please.’
‘That money he paid wasn’t fair compensation, but it was some compensation. It helped me set up the support group, for one thing. We used to meet here, I’d fund a counsellor. But it’s all online now, money is tight and … anyway I can help more people this way. Victims talking to each other can be the best kind of help, I have found.’
‘Yes, I imagine so,’ said Sally Cartwright.
‘I can’t say I shed a tear, though, when I heard that he’d jumped in front of a train.’
‘How long had you worked for Andrew Johnson before he assaulted you?’
‘Just over a couple of years.’
‘In that time did he have any particular friends or associates?’
‘Not that I recall. Can I ask what this is all about? I have to visit my mother in Watford this evening. I’ll be delayed as it is, what with the weather. And you know how the elderly are — they like everything to a routine.’
‘Andrew Johnson didn’t commit suicide, Michelle,’ Delaney said. ‘We believe he was murdered. We believe the same person also killed Michael Robinson the other day.’
‘I saw that on the news.’
‘We believe the two knew each other, part of a ring. Rapists. So I need you to think was there anybody you saw him with, someone you might recognise or know.’
‘His wife kept him on quite a short lead all the time. She was a fairly domineering character. There were the masons, of course, but that was about it.’
‘He was a mason?’
‘Yes. Is that relevant?’
‘I don’t know, Miss Riley. We’re just trying to put the pieces together, and the two people who could enlighten us are both dead.’
She shrugged apologetically. ‘That’s all I can think of.’
‘Did he have meetings at the pub?’
‘We had a back room, a function room. Every fortnight or so he would get cheese and wine in. Goodness knows what went on in there.’
‘You would recognise a photo of one of the men?’
‘I’m pretty sure I would. I have a good memory for faces. Names are another matter. Don’t get me started on names. But faces, I’m like an elephant.’
‘Would you have a look at a photo for us then, please,’ asked DC Cartwright.
Michelle Riley picked up a pair of black-framed glasses as Sally handed her the photo of Christian Peterson.
‘No,’ she said, without hesitation. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’
66
KATE WALKER WAS at her desk in her office at the station. She typed in some codes on her laptop, entered the name Dr Laura Chilvers and her police personnel file came up, starting with her full name.
Kate took a pen and wrote the name Angela Laura Chilvers. Underlining the first six letters of her name, twice.
Kate had suspected that Laura had been lying to her. Now she knew it. She flicked through her file and started checking her CV, the pen tapping on the desk once more as she read it.
She closed that page, then accessed the NHS database system, entering her security code and opening the files for Reading General Hospital. She put the pen aside and read the files from eight years ago. Twenty minutes later, she pushed the print icon and a photo printed from the wireless machine on top of her filing cabinet.
She slipped the print into an A5 envelope, then looked at her watch and cursed. She was running late. She was supposed to pick Siobhan up from dance school. The other matters would have to wait.
Stephanie Hewson drew the bolts on her door and opened it. Delaney and Sally Cartwright were standing on her doorstep and, as they walked into the house and the door closed behind them, the man with cold blue eyes in a van on the opposite side of the road made a fist of his gloved hands as he held them on the key in his ignition, then fired up the engine and sped away heedless of the frozen snow that was turning the road into a skating rink.
‘I thought now that he was dead it would all be over,’ said Stephanie Hewson.
‘I’m sorry, Stephanie,’ said Delaney, in no hurry to take off his coat. ‘But we are on it. I’ve spoken to Harrow nick and they are going to send some uniforms to stand guard here.’
‘But I don’t understand. Why would I need it?’
‘Because we think there is more than just Michael Robinson.’
‘A group of them,’ added Sally.
‘What, like some sick sort of club?’ said Stephanie Hewson.
‘It looks that way.’
‘Do you ever drink in The Castle pub?’ asked Delaney.
‘No. I’ve never even been there.’
‘You changed your testimony because someone threatened you, and I know I said I wouldn’t press you,’ said Delaney. ‘But I need to know what these people said.’