‘ Isa Hart.’
He scribbled her name down on a piece of paper.
She turned to the worktop and began the tea-making process, facing away from Henry. She was leaning on the surface with both hands taking her weight. Henry thought she was watching the kettle boil. Then he saw that her shoulders were shaking. Her head dropped, chin onto chest, and she sobbed.
‘ You all right?’ he asked.
She tried to pull herself together, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse and tilting her head back as though to get the tears to roll back into her eyes. They would not stop coming.
Henry reached for the kitchen stool and placed it to one side of her.
‘ Hey, sit down before you fall down. C’mon,’ he said gently.
She lowered herself onto the stool and blinked despairingly up at him. Her eyes were pools of clear water and streams of tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped them irritably away. ‘I’m sorry. This isn’t getting the tea made.’
‘ That’s OK,’ he said, not bothered about tea. He was more aware that quite often, valuable information, sometimes good evidence, could be gained from emotional friends, relatives, lovers. His pleasant bedside manner was a bit of a con trick really. ‘D’you want to talk? I may be able to help, you never know.’
‘ No, no, it’s all right.’ She heaved a huge sigh. ‘It’s just… Oh God, he promised…’ She shook her head. ‘I’m lying, he didn’t promise a damned thing, but he said he loved me and suddenly we had a future, then in the next breath it’s gone.’
‘ Why did he do it?’ Henry asked.
Isa was worldly enough not to get taken in by that one, even in her turmoil. ‘I didn’t say he did it… but I know that he’s been set up and now he’s told me you lot are going to make certain he gets sent down. He doesn’t have a chance. We don’t have a chance. Oh God, I don’t know who I feel more sorry for, him or me.’
‘ You said he was set up?’ Henry’s ears (at least the unbitten one) had picked up gold dust from the emotional dross.
‘ Bastard Conroy!’ she wailed. ‘And now you’re working for him, aren’t you? Just like all the other cops on his payroll.’ The expression on her face taunted him. ‘I hope you’re proud of yourself. Guilty or not, you’re going to get him, aren’t you?’
She buried her face in her hands. ‘He’ll be an old man when he comes out, if he comes out, and I’ll have had a completely wasted life.’ Suddenly she flared up without warning, anger bubbling over. She propelled herself at Henry and attacked him, pounding her fists into his chest.
He grabbed her hands and bent them roughly back. She screamed. He tossed her away from him. She skittered across the floor and landed in a heap next to the washer where she continued to cry.
Henry rubbed his chest. Too many people were hitting it.
‘ Y’allreet, Sarge?’ A couple of the PCs had abandoned the search on hearing the commotion in the kitchen.
Henry nodded. ‘One of you make sure she’s OK and the other one take me back to the nick. Then come back and finish the search.’
Before leaving, Henry wrote his home number down on a scrap of paper and left it on a work surface. ‘If you feel like talking,’ he told Isa, ‘bell me.’
Henry ensured he was dropped off at the front of the station. Siobhan, if she was waiting, would probably expect him to come back via the rear yard, one floor below. He wanted to avoid her at all costs. He dashed in through the public enquiry area and was buzzed into the building. He dropped down a flight of steps into the custody office.
No sign of Siobhan. Good.
‘ Duty solicitor arrived yet?’ he asked the Custody Sergeant, who was dealing with a couple of juveniles.
‘ Nope.’
‘ I want to speak to Rider, about a matter not concerned with his arrest, not a criminal matter.’ Not strictly true, Henry had to admit to himself, but probably the only way he’d get to see Rider alone now.
Two minutes later they were face to face again.
‘ I won’t speak to you without a solicitor present.’
‘ I think you will. I’ve been to search your flat.’
‘ You won’t find anything unless you put it there.’
‘ I found a woman called Isa. She told me something very interesting.’
Rider sniffed indifference.
‘ You’re being well and truly shafted here, aren’t you?’
‘ You should know.’
‘ You’d be surprised how little I know. The name Conroy was mentioned.’
Rider bit the inside of his mouth with a squelch.
‘ Get to the point, Sergeant.’
‘ I may be able to help you, but in return you have to help me first.’
‘ Look — you’re out to get me, come hell or high water, and probably at Conroy’s bidding, so why should I help you? I mean, this whole thing’ Rider waved his hands at the room — ‘could be a set-up, just to get me to admit something. How do I know there isn’t a hidden mike somewhere?’
‘ You have my word.’
Rider nearly fell off his seat. ‘The word of a man who has already verballed me up? What’s that worth in real terms?’
Henry pushed himself to his feet. He walked to a corner of the small room and lounged there.
‘ I need a fag,’ Rider complained.
‘ Sorry, no smoking. Force policy.’
‘ Fuck force policy!’ Rider leaned his forearms on the table and intertwined his fingers. He twiddled his thumbs, rotating them against each other.
‘ You’ve got something together with Isa, haven’t you?’
‘ Did have.’
‘ She’s devastated, you being in here. Really fucked up.’
‘ Did have, I said.’
‘ You still could have, John — if you’d trust me. At the very least, what you’ll get out of this is a fair and honest investigation. If there is evidence of murder against you, you’ll get charged. If not, you’ll be released. But I promise there will be no evidence fabricated against you.’
‘ Sounds fucking great,’ he said cynically. ‘The devil and the deep blue sea.’
‘ It’s better than what you’ve got at the moment,’ Henry said pragmatically.
‘ What’s going on, Sergeant?’ Rider looked across at Henry with eyebrows raised. Henry strode back and sat down opposite Rider again.
His voice was earnest. ‘Isa says she believes you’ve been set up for this murder by a man called Conroy. Is that what you think?’
‘ You, him — and others, probably.’ Rider spoke guardedly, not wanting to say anything which might go against him.
Henry saw the look. ‘I’ll tell you why you can trust me.’
‘ Go on, astound me.’
‘ Do you think I’m doing this shite willingly? Well, I’ll tell you, I’m not. I’m doing it because if I don’t, I lose my job, my wife, my pension, my reputation, everything — and may even end up in prison. Yeah, it’s true. I’ve been set up too. In a different way, for a different reason — or maybe the same reason, I dunno. Maybe there’s some connection between us two. But there’s something I do know. If I convict you on false evidence I’ll be trapped for ever and I’ll be a bent copper for ever, unless I do something about it… and you’ll be in prison for the rest of your life. We could be the key to saving each other.’
Henry had been leaning forwards, becoming more and more intense as the words torrented out. ‘But if you’re not interested, let’s go down the road to hell together.’
The next official interview was over fairly quickly, much to Siobhan’s disgust. They presented Rider back to the custody officer and he was returned to the cells.
‘ Speaks,’ Siobhan demanded.
They adjourned to the interview room and closed the door.
‘ That was a poor performance, Henry. You didn’t seem to be trying very hard.’
‘ Just feeling my way, getting used to the situation.’
‘ Find anything useful at the flat?’
‘ Don’t know yet. Going to go back and check. Then we’ll move onto his club and do that.’
‘ Leave the club!’ Siobhan said sharply.
‘ Why?’
‘ Just leave it, that’s all. It’s an order. We’re not interested in the club.’