‘I have no idea.’
Sharp’s sigh was audible. ‘Can you confirm the golf club belongs to you?’
‘It does.’
‘And why is there blood on it?’
‘I have no idea. Look, I didn’t kill Sophie Whittaker. Neither did Josh. Why would we?’
The interview continued for another forty minutes, Larch letting Sharp take the lead with the questioning, interjecting occasionally, and appearing uncomfortable during the whole process.
In the end, they’d brought the interview to a close and informed Blake Hamilton he’d be transferred to the cells.
‘What?’ He pushed his chair back, towering over the two detectives. ‘Are you out of your minds?’
His solicitor placed a warning hand on his forearm and pushed him back into his seat before glaring at Sharp.
‘Is that necessary?’
‘We’re conducting a murder investigation,’ said Sharp. ‘I’d say that it was necessary, wouldn’t you?’
Kay exhaled, lowered her feet from the desk and cricked her neck while the CCTV cameras showed Larch and Sharp as they left the interview room and entered the one next door containing Josh Hamilton.
The teenager had been slumped in his chair, ignoring the solicitor next to him but lifted his head when Sharp and Larch entered the room and leaned forward.
‘I didn’t kill Sophie,’ he blurted out.
Sharp held up a hand, waited until Larch had sat down, and then formally began the interview once they were recording.
‘Tell me about the golf club we found at your house,’ he said. ‘Did you use it to kill Sophie?’
‘No! You’ve got to believe me – I never hurt her. I loved her.’
‘Then why is there blood on it?’
Josh ran a hand through his hair. ‘Look, two days ago I found a rabbit outside the back door. It had that myxomatosis disease. It was starving, blind. I wanted to put it out of its misery, so I hit it over the head with the golf club.’ His gaze dropped to his hands. ‘I didn’t want to kill it, but I couldn’t stand it being in so much pain.’
‘And you expect us to believe that?’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘What did you do with the body of the rabbit?’
‘I put it in the bin.’
‘Convenient, Josh. The bins get emptied out your way on a Monday, don’t they? So we can’t corroborate your story.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘We’ll see.’ Sharp terminated the interview, nodded at Larch, and the two men left the room.
Kay switched off the computer monitors and scrambled from her seat, wrenching open the door as the two senior officers passed.
‘Get Harriet to process that golf club as soon as possible,’ said Sharp. ‘I want to know by the morning if we have Sophie Whittaker’s killer in custody, or a teenager that has a knack for killing sick rabbits.’
Thirty-One
Matthew looked up from his computer as Diane pushed the door to the study open, a couple of glasses of red wine in her hands.
‘I thought you might like a drink,’ she said, her stockinged feet silent on the parquet floor.
‘Where’ve you been all day?’
‘I went over to see Blake and Courtney.’
‘But you didn’t stay there, did you?’
She shook her head, and then frowned. ‘How did you—’
‘Courtney phoned here, looking for you. Said she couldn’t reach you on your mobile.’
‘Oh. I was shopping in Tunbridge Wells. The battery had gone dead.’ She put the wineglass on the desk before wandering over to a leather armchair, curled her feet up under her, and took a sip of her own drink.
Matthew leaned back in his chair and reached out for his wine. ‘I didn’t hear you come back.’ He rubbed his hand over his eyes before gesturing to the paperwork strewn across the desk. ‘I must’ve been lost in my own world with all this.’
‘How long have we got?’
‘Two months, maximum. I’m so sorry, Diane. I’ve tried everything. I don’t know what else to do.’
She turned her wineglass in her hands, and then raised her eyes to his. ‘I thought I had it all worked out. How to save the house.’
He snorted, and held up a page. ‘Have you seen these figures?’ He tossed the document to one side. ‘Unless you’re able to perform miracles.’
She sighed. ‘Almost.’
‘Really? What exactly did you have “all worked out”?’
‘Josh and Sophie,’ she said, and shrugged. ‘The purity pledge and their engagement.’
‘Diane? What are you going on about? What’s that got to do with the house?’
She bit her lip, her eyes darting to one side, avoiding his gaze. ‘I made an arrangement with Blake Hamilton that if I convinced Sophie to marry Josh, he’d pay us a dowry. More than enough to cover all that.’ She waved her hand at the accounts. ‘Josh would marry into English aristocracy – which suited Blake and his business interests – and I wouldn’t lose the house.’
Matthew’s wineglass hit the surface of the desk with a thud, his hand gripping the stem, his knuckles white. ‘You did what?’
‘It was for the best, Matthew.’
‘Don’t take on that whining tone with me. It won’t work.’ He pushed back his chair and began to pace the floor. ‘What exactly did Blake Hamilton offer?’
‘To clear all your business debts with the first half of the payment, which we’d have got one month after the engagement party, and then a stipend every year once Sophie and Josh were married.’ She wiped at her eyes. ‘There was even a bonus payment once they produced a grandchild.’
‘Produced? Have you listened to yourself, Diane? You’re talking about our daughter like she was a bloody commodity to be bought and sold, for chrissakes!’
She brought a shaking hand up to her throat. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Yes, you did.’ He stopped pacing, and tried to fight down the fury that was seething through his body. Anger clenched in his chest, his heart beat painful. ‘Who else knew about this arrangement?’
‘I – I don’t know. Only Blake and I were—’
‘Are you sure?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Come to think of it, no.’ She tapped her fingernails against her wineglass, before she jerked her chin up to him. ‘Peter Evans must’ve found out – that’s why he killed her!’
Matthew clenched his jaw, and fought down the urge to grab her shoulders and shake her.
‘You have no idea, do you?’
Confusion spread across her features. ‘About what?’
He shook his head. ‘The police are investigating the Hamiltons. What’s really going on, Diane?’
Her mouth open and closed, her eyes wide, and then she found her voice. ‘Investigating the Hamiltons?’
‘That’s why Courtney was trying to phone you earlier. To tell you Blake and Josh have been taken in for questioning by the police this afternoon.’
‘What for?’
He raised his gaze until he met hers, and tried to recall why he’d found her so attractive all those years ago. He knew she was shrewd and calculating, qualities which once had endeared her to him as the business had grown with her input, but that had been tainted by her obsession over retaining a title that had little of the power she pretended it had, and a house that was falling down around her ears.
‘Courtney said the police found the suspected murder weapon in Blake’s possession.’
Diane emitted a gasp, and paled. ‘What?’
He turned to the computer, reached out to switch it off, and then gathered together the documentation that covered his desk. He pulled over the wastepaper bin, before he started to tear up the pages.
‘I think you should call your solicitor tomorrow, Diane.’
‘What for?’
‘I’ll be seeking a divorce.’
‘Matthew – no, please!’
‘It’s quite evident to me that you’ve been us
ing me and my business enterprises to simply prop up this dilapidated building,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘And when you’d sucked me dry, you turned to your daughter.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘You tried to sell your daughter to keep your damn house.’
‘Please, Matthew – I didn’t mean it like that. I’ll work something out, I promise.’
‘Forget it. I knew you were cold-hearted, Diane, but that was low – even for you.’
‘I was trying to save my home!’
‘Get out of my sight.’
Thirty-Two
Kay sat at the worktop spinning the stem of her wineglass in a pool of condensation, her chin in her hand.
The back door was open, a warm summer breeze on the air carrying the scent of freshly cut grass from their neighbour’s property. Adam appeared, his hands full of small tomatoes that he had plucked from the plants they had been growing at the bottom of the garden.
He took one look at her face, dumped the tomatoes on the draining board and wiped his hands down his shorts, before grabbing a cold beer from the fridge and sitting down opposite her.
‘You’ve got a face like thunder. What happened at work?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you. They know about my miscarriage. I don’t know how although I’ve got my suspicions, but it seems my secret is out.’
Adam rocked back on his bar stool, his face stricken. ‘Who else knew?’
Kay took a sip of her wine before responding. ‘The only person who knew was Carys. When we were burgled, she saw the baby clothes. She promised me she wouldn’t tell anyone.’
‘And you think it was her?’
‘Who else could it be?’
‘I thought you said Carys wasn’t the sort of person to gossip.’
‘I thought she wasn’t.’
‘Then maybe it wasn’t her. Have you tried talking to her about it?’
‘Not really. It was awful. Everyone in the incident room was staring at me when I got into work and then Sharp called me into his office. He asked if I should be there, as if it had only just happened. He seemed quite surprised that it happened months ago. I think he was annoyed with me that I didn’t tell him at the time, but I pointed out to him he was still dealing with the aftermath of the Professional Standards investigation into my conduct – it wasn’t exactly a good time to bring it up.’
Adam grunted in response and took a swig from his beer before setting the bottle on the worktop. ‘If Carys doesn’t normally have a reputation for gossip, then I’d be surprised if she started this.’
Kay didn’t say anything, but she was inclined to agree with him. The young detective constable was too ambitious to let rumours and office gossip ruin her reputation, and had become firm friends with Kay and Adam over the past few months. They had had a couple of barbecues in the garden since the beginning of summer, and the rest of the team had often been in attendance. Carys had never brought up the issue of Kay’s miscarriage then, so it didn’t make sense for her to start now.
‘If it’s not Carys, then I can’t think who it could have been.’
‘Maybe have a word with Carys – patch things up with her, and see if she’s got any ideas as to how it started.’
‘Yeah.’
He leaned across and wrapped his fingers around her forearm. ‘Are you going to be okay? I don’t know about you, but if gossip starts at our place, it usually stops after couple of days when people find something else to talk about.’
‘I think so. It’s more the shock than anything else.’
Her mobile phone began to vibrate on the worktop and Adam withdrew his hand after giving her arm a quick squeeze.
‘Best answer that. I’ll make the salad.’
She smiled and reached out for her phone, a familiar name displayed on the screen.
‘Hey. What’s up?’
‘I found some interesting information about Blake Hamilton,’ said Barnes. ‘According to the initial information we’ve received from his bank, he made a sizeable cash withdrawal in the past four weeks.’
‘Why would Blake Hamilton be dealing in cash? His business has no need for it. It’s all mergers and acquisitions, and I got the impression he earned his money from gaining shares in companies.’
‘Exactly, and I’m going to speak to Sharp in the morning to draw his attention to it. It’d be worth our while asking Hamilton about it, because it’s so out of character. All the other transactions on the statements seem pretty straightforward.’
‘I’d have thought someone in his line of business wouldn’t be able to withdraw large sums of money without having to declare what it was for. How much are we talking?’
‘Six thousand pounds.’
Kay emitted a low whistle. ‘Is there any way of telling where it went?’
‘Not from the statements.’
‘All right. Well, as you say, have a word with Sharp first thing so he can question Hamilton about it. Regardless of whether it has a bearing on Sophie’s murder or not, we should still investigate it.’
‘Will do. See you in the morning.’
Kay ended the call and slid the phone across the worktop
‘Everything okay?’
Kay sighed, and drained her glass. ‘The plot thickens,’ she said. ‘And nothing in this case is straightforward.’
Thirty-Three
When Kay got to work the next morning, traffic had backed up along College Road and, realising she was going to be late for the briefing, she gave up any hope of reaching the police station in time and instead parked close to the Bishop’s Palace before walking the rest of the way.
Exhaust fumes hung in the air as impatient drivers honked car horns and tried to change lanes in an attempt to manoeuvre their way around the ring road.
As she crossed the road, the dark brickwork of the police station came into view and her jaw dropped as she saw the cause of the delays.
Two television vans were parked opposite the police station, the crews’ cameras aimed at the front steps of the building while at the same time capturing the excited reports from the journalists standing in front of them. Beside them, a huddle of reporters stood with smart phones poised ready to take photographs and record the comings and goings of uniformed personnel.
Confused, she tried to recall whether she’d seen a notice or an email to say the Chief Superintendent was due to make a media statement, as it was rare to see such a large gathering of reporters at the police station. Normally, they could be found hanging around police headquarters looking for a story, but not here.
She kept her head down and hurried round the side of the building, swiping her card against the security panel and hurrying through the security gate as it opened rather than trying to push past the reporters on the front steps.
She swiped her card again to enter the building from the side door and made her way up to a subdued incident room. Faces turned as she entered, and her heart ratcheted up the beat as she sensed the change in tone.
She held her breath and slipped her handbag under her desk wondering what had happened, but afraid to ask.
She didn’t have to wait long.
DCI Larch appeared from Sharp’s office. ‘Get in here, Hunter. Immediately.’
She locked eyes with Barnes as she passed his desk, but he shook his head.
‘I’ll meet you outside afterwards,’ he murmured. ‘We need to talk.’
As she entered Sharp’s office, Larch slammed the door.
Sharp leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his face grey.
‘What’s going on?’
Larch pointed at one of the visitor chairs next to the desk. ‘Sit.’
Larch stalked past her, snatched up a newspaper from Sharp’s desk and thrust it under her nose.
Her heart sank as she read the headline.
Eminent local businessman linked to high society murder.
‘Care to explain yourself, Hunter?’
‘Nothi
ng to explain, sir. This didn’t come from me.’
He sneered at her. ‘Read the fourth paragraph.’
She swallowed, her eyes skimming over the words.
Detective Sergeant Kay Hunter confirmed that police were investigating a large cash withdrawal made by Blake Hamilton in the weeks leading up to Sophie Whittaker’s death.
‘I’ve never spoken to the press,’ she said, and tried to stop her voice shaking. ‘We have policies and procedures that set out very clearly how the media will be kept informed during the murder investigation. And you, sir, have made it very clear how important it is that this case remain out of the press given the parties involved.’
‘Then how do you explain this, Hunter?’
‘I can’t. There’s obviously a leak here, but it isn’t me. Someone’s trying to set me up.’
Larch flung the newspaper back onto the desk and spun on his heel to face her once more.
‘I have a meeting with the Chief Superintendent in five minutes. I would be very surprised if you don’t find yourself facing another Professional Standards investigation over this.’
He moved to the door and wrenched it open, slamming it shut in his wake, the frosted glass panel in the middle of it shaking with the force.
Sharp eased himself away from the wall at last, and crossed the room to the desk before sinking into the chair next to Kay.
‘I’m not the source of the leak.’
‘I believe you, but someone was and they’re determined to make it look like you were. Have you got any idea who it could be?’
Kay fought down the panic, her thoughts turning to Barnes’s cryptic words before she’d entered the office.
Was he the source of the leak?
Or was somebody trying to tear the team apart, forcing her to question who she could trust?
And why?
‘No, I haven’t,’ she said eventually. ‘I can’t believe anybody out in that incident room would do this to us, to me.’
‘I’ll make some phone calls. I’ll speak to the reporter who authored this article, and see if I can find out who she spoke to. If it wasn’t you, and somebody has contacted the newspaper impersonating a police officer, I want it investigated.’
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