It seemed like hours since Mr Wilson had arrived to whisk them off to the police station. A Division, Kirsty had told him, as though that might mean something to him. He had been waiting in that reception area for ages, watching the shadows of officers behind the frosted glass screens, looking up every time a figure emerged from the wooden doors, following them with his eyes when they went out into the streets, wondering if they were police officers or not. Plain clothes? Undercover? Some of them looked so ordinary he simply couldn’t decide.
Kirsty had been first to go, then Rodge and then Gary, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Colin stood up and wandered across to the square window of the office that looked out onto the street. A thin drizzle still fell, the grey pavements slick with rain that had been falling all morning. He could see a couple hurrying along under a huge golf umbrella, their faces hidden by the way one of them held it, slantwise against the driving drops. For a moment he let his mind wander, making up a story about them, giving them a history, a shared past that had brought them to this moment on a Glasgow street. If he had been at home, his laptop open on the desk, then perhaps these strangers might have come alive under his imaginative fingers. Then the thought of home, the flat in Merryfield Avenue, brought Colin back to why he was here, waiting in this room inside the vastness of a Strathclyde divisional headquarters.
The jittering began in his face as though his cheeks had become icy cold.
Putting his hands out against the window sill, Colin tried to remember what Kirsty had told him about breathing against these rising panic attacks that she had witnessed back at the flat. He gulped air into his lungs, held it there for a count of four then exhaled as slowly as he could, feeling the shivers gradually subside. A numb sensation crept over his nose and mouth and Colin turned to grasp the back of the chair. Breathe, breathe, he told himself, but with every gulp of air he took, he could see Eva’s lifeless face, all her breath snuffed out for good.
‘Mr Young?’
Colin looked up sharply as the woman came into the room, the sudden motion making him feel light-headed and nauseous.
‘Detective Inspector Grant,’ the woman said. ‘Would you like to follow me, please?’
Colin stood up, forcing his feet to walk across the floor and out into a corridor. The ringing in his ears subsided as he tried to match the dark-haired woman’s stride, the sound of their footsteps unnaturally loud. They passed several doors, one marked VIPER, another FORENSIC DRYING CABINETS, before the woman stopped and turned towards him.
‘In here, please.’ DI Grant was smiling at him encouragingly, her hand raised to indicate that Colin should enter the door marked INTERVIEW ROOM 3.
Taking another deep breath, Colin walked into the room. His first thought was of all the real criminals who had been here, quizzed about their terrible misdeeds. A throbbing began in his temple. Was that tension headache returning, or was it that the very air shimmered with the lies that had been spun like spiders’ webs over the years?
‘Mr Young? Are you all right?’ DI Grant was taking Colin by the arm now, sitting him down in that blue padded chair by the table. ‘Would you like a drink of water?’
Colin nodded then licked his lips and swallowed. ‘Please,’ he whispered.
She was gone and back in less than a minute, returning with a bottle of mineral water and a plastic beaker. Not glass, Colin realised, imagining a mad thug smashing a tumbler and hefting it across the woman’s face. He winced, the image was so real, then took the bottle and poured it into the beaker, watching his hand shaking all the time. She must see that too, Colin realised, grasping the beaker and taking deep gulps of the water.
‘Better?’
Colin nodded and stifled a sigh. Glancing up, he looked at the detective properly for the first time. Detective Inspector Grant was quite a pretty woman, her dark hair cut short in a way that suited her elfin face. She had little make-up on that he could see and the tiny silver earrings shaped into knots were her only adornment. Colin’s gaze fell onto her fingers. No rings. Not married, then, he thought, trying to sum her up as best he could. Her rust-coloured shirt and dark brown suit were smart but not intimidating and he had noticed her high-heeled shoes tapping a beat along the corridor before him. A stylish lady, he would say were he asked, but not the sort of woman he fancied.
Her grey eyes were looking into his face as he regarded her and Colin blushed, suddenly aware that he was staring.
‘Okay, well, thanks for coming in today, Mr Young. We know it’s been a pretty traumatic time for you all these last couple of days so we do appreciate your being here.’
Colin looked up over her shoulder, seeing a uniformed officer for the first time standing by the door. Of course there had to be a second person there, hadn’t Kirsty told him that? They needed to corroborate any witness statement, didn’t they? Or was it in case one of the people being interviewed turned nasty?
‘… want you to tell me about the party,’ DI Grant was saying, her words cutting in on Colin’s thoughts.
‘Party?’ He gave his head a little shake as though to clear it. ‘Oh, right. What can I tell you?’ he asked, his hands clenched together under the table where he hoped she could not see them.
‘What can you remember of Eva’s movements that night?’ the detective asked.
They were dancing together, Eva’s hand clasped in his when he pulled her closer, smelling the sweet scent of her hair, feeling her body mould itself to his. Did she notice his hardness? She’d smiled up at him as though it were the most natural thing in the world; a cat’s smile of satisfaction, he remembered. Then his arms were around her and they were kissing, moving into a darker corner where he swayed to the music, wanting her, wanting her…
‘She was dancing quite a lot,’ Colin began, swallowing hard and avoiding eye contact with the woman opposite.
‘With anyone in particular?’ Grant asked, her tone sharp, reminding him that this was an official enquiry.
Colin shook his head, not trusting his voice to add to all the years of lies that smothered the air in this room.
‘Can you remember when she left the party, perhaps?’
Sleep must have overtaken him afterwards, for when he eventually did awaken, she was gone, leaving him shivering and alone. Had he imagined that too? Had that longing translated itself into a dream or reality? Wandering back into the main room his eyes had peered through the gloom, trying to catch a glimpse of her in that pretty frock, hoping that she wasn’t one of the couples necking in a corner. And then, when he was sure she had gone, stumbling down the front steps and walking all the way back to the flat. He had walked for the best part of an hour, in a daze, holding onto the magic of the night like a fragile balloon that might blow away at the first tug of a freakish wind.
‘Mr Young?’
‘Sorry, think I was out of it,’ Colin shrugged. Would she take his diffidence for embarrassment that he had been too drunk to know what had been going on?
The DI laid down her pen and clasped her hands together, resting her chin upon them. ‘Can you tell me what she was like, Colin?’ she asked, startling him by the use of his first name.
‘She was beautiful,’ he blurted out before he could stop himself.
Then, to his horror, Colin Young began to cry.
CHAPTER 13
The plane flew through a bank of pale grey clouds blotting out the dull green landscape that had been visible moments before. Henrik Magnusson sat by the window, staring out, too afraid to catch the eye of any person on this flight lest his weeping begin once more. Even the kindly smile from the purser as he had entered the cabin had made him bite his lip to control his emotions, though he wasn’t to know that the woman had given each and every passenger the same friendly greeting.