“Mr Thomas Wilkinson, of Grant, Harding and Wilkinson,” he said.
The solicitor looked to be in his late forties. He was slightly overweight, with a good head of wavy brown hair, beginning to grey. He wore a dark pin-striped suit, white shirt and a blue and pink striped tie. Hunter said, “I presume you have fully briefed your client and he understands why he’s here?”
“Two o’clock this fucking morning when I was banged up. For the murder of my wife, they said. You have to be kidding.”
Hunter edged forward slightly, pointing at his own head. “Does this face look like I’m kidding?”
The solicitor made an exaggerated attempt at clearing his throat. “No need for sarcasm, officer.”
Grace quickly intervened. “Peter, we’re going to tape record an interview with you.” She switched on the equipment and began the open preamble and formally cautioned him.
Hunter reached across the table, interlaced his fingers and fixed Peter Blake-Hall with a determined look. He took a deep breath and composed himself. His partner’s well-timed intervention reminded him not to lose it. “As you rightly say, you have been arrested on suspicion of the murder of your wife Lucy back in nineteen-eighty-three. I say murder Peter, because although we never found your wife’s body, someone else was charged, tried and convicted of her murder. However, recently, evidence has come to light which throws that conviction into doubt. So we have begun a new investigation and as a result of our enquiries you have been put into the frame for her disappearance.” Hunter never took his eyes off Blake-Hall, though he could see that his opening sentence had no effect. Blake-Hall’s arms remained locked in their folded position and he stared back straight-faced.
Hunter opened up his folder and slipped out several witness statement forms which he carefully laid out across the table.
“Peter, I have here a photocopy of the original statement you made to Detective Sergeant Alan Darbyshire and Detective Constable Jeffery Howson, who came to see you after you had reported Lucy going missing on the morning of Saturday twenty-seventh August, nineteen-eighty-three. Can you recall making that statement to those detectives?”
“Yeah, though I can’t remember what I put in. It’s so long ago.”
“That’s understandable, but don’t worry because I’m going to take you through it.” Hunter picked up the first page. “According to this, you told those detectives that you last saw Lucy at about seven pm on Friday twenty-sixth August, when she left the house, telling you that she was meeting up with a couple of friends.”
“Yeah, Amanda Smith was one of them. I think she’s called Rawlinson now. She was a friend of hers from school. She was a bridesmaid at our wedding. I can’t remember the others though. It’s such a long time ago now.”
“No problem Peter. And you say you think she caught the bus into town. Well at least that was her intention.”
Peter nodded, “Yeah. She did as well because I can remember they tracked down the bus driver who dropped her off near the market place.”
“Did she tell you what her arrangements were that night?”
“You mean regarding her meeting up with Danny?”
“Well, I’m after what she said to you.”
“She didn’t mention that slime-ball, if that’s what you’re getting at. She said she was just meeting up with a few friends. She said she’d be back about ten. I was looking after Jessica and she knew I normally went to the club about that time. I expected her to be back. When she didn’t come back I rung round some of her mates, Amanda first, and that’s when I realised she hadn’t gone out to meet them. I waited ’til midnight and then when she still hadn’t come in I rang the police. I told you the rest the other day.”
“Yes you did Peter.” Hunter scanned down the witness statement. “You’ve put in this statement a description of the clothing she was wearing when she went out. Can you remember that still?”
Peter Blake-Hall stared up to the ceiling. He appeared to be deep in thought. Then he replied, “She had on a yellow dress and a fawn cardigan. That had some kind of design around the neck and cuffs. She had her handbag with her as well. The one you lot found in Danny Weaver’s shed.”
“The one Alan Darbyshire and Jeffery Howson found, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“They showed you that bag on the Sunday, according to your statement?”
“Yeah, that’s right. They brought it to my house. Asked me if I recognised it. It was Lucy’s, I told them and that’s when they told me they had Danny locked up. And that’s when they also told me she’d been carrying on with him for six months.”
“So until Alan and Jeffery told you Lucy was having an affair with Danny Weaver, you had no idea.”
“None at all. It was a complete shock.”
“Can I just take you back to that Friday night when Lucy went out?”
Blake-Hall tipped his head.
“You said, both in your statement, and just now on tape, that when Lucy had not come home you first phoned round her friends and then just after midnight you rang the police?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you go out looking for her?” Hunter thought he caught a flicker of unease in Peter’s eyes. The man tightened the lock in his folded arms.
“No.” A split-second later he added, “I was looking after Jessica, wasn’t I. How could I go out?”
“Yes, of course you were.” Hunter looked down at the last page of Peter’s statement. He moved his head to make it look as though he was reading what was recorded, then he raised his eyes. “Peter, just one thing. Can you remember what car you were driving at that time?”
Blake-Hall frowned. “What’s the relevance of that?”
“It’s just that it’s cropped up in our enquiries.”
Blake-Hall shrugged, “No idea.”
“What if I give you a bit of a help?” Hunter leafed through his folder again and picked out the recent witness statement supplied by Lisa Aldridge. Instead of laying it out over the table in full view, he tantalizingly held it at an angle. In the periphery of his vision he caught Peter Blake-Hall making a slight movement, craning his neck, though doing his best not to appear curious. Hunter inwardly smiled.
“What about a red Mercedes Benz on German plates?” He knew the first bit and guessed the second. “I am right in thinking that around that time you were importing cars from Germany, Mercedes and BMWs?”
“No secret. They were cheaper from there. You didn’t have to pay VAT on them. I wasn’t doing anything illegal.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just trying to help you recall if you owned a red Mercedes saloon on the night of Lucy’s disappearance.”
“Can’t remember. Might have done. I’ve owned one in the past.”
“What if I help you out further by telling you that we have checked your records at the DVLA and they show that in ninety-eighty-three you owned a red Mercedes-Benz 380SL on German plates, which you re-registered in October of that year.”
Before Peter Blake-Hall had time to reply his solicitor intervened with, “Detective Sergeant, what is the relevance to this line of questioning?”
Although Hunter was replying to the solicitor, he looked squarely into the eyes of Peter Blake-Hall, “The relevance is that this statement here,” Hunter began shaking Lisa’s witness statement, “Puts your client in Barnwell market place at around ten-forty-five pm, on Friday twenty-sixth August, nineteen-eighty-three, firstly he was seen driving his red Mercedes, and then seen dragging his wife, Lucy, into the front passenger seat, before driving away. Unlike his own original statement, which states nothing of the sort. According to this statement, your client, Mr Wilkinson, is the last person to have seen Lucy and in my book, that puts him clearly in the frame as a suspect.” Hunter watched Peter Blake-Hall’s face turn ashen. He was waiting for him to respond when the solicitor laid a hand on one of his tightly folded arms.
“In the light of this recent evidence, I would like to confer with my client.”