by LJ Ross
“I forgot.”
Ryan had to laugh but he took out another bundle of documents.
“Here, I have copies of sworn statements provided by staff members of the Theatre Royal in Newcastle, at the Union Bar at Newcastle University, at the Golden Dragon restaurant…” he flipped through the sheaf of papers faxed through from officers working CID in Newcastle. “They all confirm they saw you with Lucy Mathieson on separate dates through the summer. Did you forget all that?”
“It must have slipped my mind.”
Ryan removed one of the statements.
“This statement was provided to us by a well-known member of the Lindisfarne community. It states that they observed you in an intimate exchange with the deceased here on the island, very recently. Does that jog your memory?”
Walker struggled to swallow.
“I have a busy life, I meet a lot of people. I don’t remember meeting Lucy recently.”
“How long have you lived on Lindisfarne, Alex?”
“What is the relevance of that question, Chief Inspector?” the solicitor chirped up.
He didn’t bother to look at her. “Pertains to the line of questioning. Answer me, Alex.”
He looked nervously at his solicitor and his chin wobbled.
“I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
“My whole life!” he burst out, then closed his mouth quickly.
“Thank you. Ms Mathieson was also born and raised on Lindisfarne. Are you aware of the population of the island?”
“No.” He was aware.
“Just over two hundred,” Ryan supplied helpfully. “Do you agree that your position as Coastguard on the island makes you a recognisable figure, even amongst such a small population?”
“How should I know?”
Ryan let the silence hang.
“All right – yes!”
Ryan smiled inwardly. The golden boy was soft as a peach.
“Do you also agree that, as such a recognisable figure, within a small population and a close-knit community, an islander would be unlikely to mistake you for someone else?”
“Could have seen the red jacket and mistaken me for someone else,” Alex thought with a flash of inspiration.
“Indeed, they could,” Ryan said agreeably, “except that, in this case, they saw you without a jacket. In fact,” he looked up the relevant passage and quoted from it, “our witness states that they saw you, ‘in the buff, around the back of the lighthouse, going at it like rabbits.’”
Ryan thought momentarily of his love for the northerners and their unique turn of phrase but his face was bland. Walker looked worried now and turned to his solicitor.
“My client would like a moment to confer.”
“No problem,” Ryan said and stopped the recording after reciting the time. “Five minutes,” he said to both of them before he and Phillips left the room.
Outside, Phillips turned to him.
“I don’t understand why he’s drawing this all out.” Phillips tugged at his tie to loosen it. “Why not just admit that he banged the girl before she died and move on?”
“He’s scared.”
* * *
Five minutes later, they re-entered the kitchen-diner and took their seats.
“Ready to proceed?” Ryan asked politely.
“My client would like to make a statement regarding his relationship with Lucy Mathieson,” the solicitor said primly.
“We’re all ears,” Ryan said, before switching on the tape recorder and turning to Walker with an expectant look on his face.
The other man shuffled in his chair before he eventually reiterated what he had told Ryan outside the pub the previous night.
“Thank you,” Ryan nodded. “Can you tell me why you have been uncooperative in confirming those simple facts? Please be aware that inferences can be made from a refusal to answer when questioned.”
Walker paled again.
“I had my reasons,” he muttered.
“You’re going to need to share those with us, son,” Phillips interjected in his conversational way. “So far, you’ve told us that you went straight home alone after the pub on 20th and nobody saw you after then until you re-joined the coastguard with Pete at 5am the following morning of 21st and came along to help guard the scene at the Priory.
“Then, you can’t tell us where you were between 4.30pm and 7pm on 21st, which coincides with the time period when Megan Taylor lost her life. It doesn’t look good, does it?”
Ryan couldn’t have put it better himself and so he merely cocked his head at Alex and waited for a response. Walker was looking distinctly uncomfortable and his styled hair was sagging already.
“I’ve told you, I was at home a…a…asleep in bed when Lucy was killed,” his voice wobbled. “The first I heard of it was when you rang me in the morning.” He turned appealing eyes towards Ryan.
“My client has already confirmed his whereabouts that night, any further badgering on that topic would be classified as harassment,” the dutiful solicitor said.
“Thanks for your input,” Ryan said mildly, thinking that they both knew there were no grounds whatsoever for harassment. He turned back to Alex.
“I was at the pub yesterday afternoon,” Alex offered. “Remember? You saw me there,” once again his eyes appealed to Ryan for confirmation.
“Sure,” Ryan shrugged his shoulders. “I saw you around eight-thirty. We have confirmation that you were there from around seven. What we don’t know is where you were before then, Alex.”
“I visited my family,” he said desperately.
“I know that’s what you claim, however when one of our officers questioned your mother,” he glanced at his papers briefly, “Yvonne Walker, she could not confirm. In fact, she said she hadn’t seen you all day.”
Walker swallowed and said nothing.
“You should really talk to your parents before attempting to incriminate them in false statements made to the police,” Phillips tutted.
Walker’s hands clutched at the table.
“My dad – it was him I saw. I meant to say that I saw him.”
Ryan just shook his head. “Doctor Walker was out doing his rounds all afternoon, which has been confirmed by several members of the island community.”
“I didn’t kill anybody, ok?” Walker’s voice started to rise in panic.
“Where were you, Alex?”
Walker dropped his head in his hands.
“I can’t…I can’t tell you. You’d never believe me.”
“Try me,” Ryan offered, leaning forward to create a sense of confidence.
When Alex raised his head again, his face was miserable.
“Please…you can’t tell anybody. Please.”
“I can’t make that promise, Alex, but I will treat the information you give me with respect.”
“I was with Rob,” he whispered in a voice that was almost inaudible.
Phillips and Ryan exchanged a quick look and a sharp shake of heads to confirm that the man was, as yet, unaware of Rob Fowler’s death. Ryan treaded carefully, interested to hear what Alex would say.
“By ‘Rob’, you are referring to Robert Fowler, the coastguard volunteer?”
“Yes.”
“So, you were with Rob. Doing what?” Phillips asked innocently.
Three heads turned to look at him incredulously. After a moment, Phillips’ baffled expression changed to embarrassment.
“Ah…” he shuffled papers and looked like he wished the ground would swallow him up. The gay porn they’d found in Walker’s house made a lot more sense now.
Ryan took the helm again.
“You were with Rob Fowler, intimately, on the dates and times in question?”
“Yes.” Walker looked beaten and Ryan began to feel sorry for him, before remembering he had a job to do.
“How long were you and Mr Fowler in a relationship?” Ryan wondered if the othe
r man would pick up on the past tense.
“On and off, around six years.” Walker didn’t notice any subtleties.
Ryan’s eyebrows rose.
“Throughout your marriage, whilst you were ‘seeing’ Lucy Mathieson?”
“Yes,” Walker admitted in the same monotone.
“Would you describe yourself as bisexual?”
“Yes,” Alex nodded tiredly.
“Mr Fowler was comfortable with this?” Past tense, again.
Alex shuffled. “No, not really. He tolerates it because he knows I’m no good with commitment. Rob’s never, you know, been with a woman. Kissed a few but he realised pretty early on that he wasn’t interested. I’m different, I suppose. I never really had a preference. He finds that hard to accept.”
Ryan flipped through his folder and retrieved Rob Fowler’s statement of events from the evening of 20th December and early 21st. He skim read for a few moments and then raised cool grey eyes again.
“Mr Fowler states that, in the early hours of 21st, he was on duty throughout that time.”
“Technically, he was. He started his shift when mine ended, around eleven. He did an hour or so down at the station. I had a couple of pints in the pub and then went to see him. We had the place to ourselves.”
“What time did you head home?”
“Must have been after one,” Alex said vaguely.
“Your route home would have taken you past the Priory,” Phillips commented, beating Ryan to it.
“Yeah, it did.”
“You didn’t see anyone, en route?” Ryan listened closely to the next answer. At around one in the morning, their killer would likely have been killing or transporting Lucy’s body.
Walker screwed up his face in concentration, which caused his mop of blonde hair to rise and fall like a comedy wig. Ryan tried not to notice.
“I don’t remember seeing anyone but to be completely honest with you, Ryan, I was tired and still a bit drunk. It was dark, too. They don’t spring for streetlights here.” He paused. “I think I remember hearing a boat or a car somewhere over the other side of the Priory – the hilly side – but that’s about it.”
“What makes you think it was a boat?”
“Sounded like an engine spluttering,” Walker said.
That made three people commenting on a boat or a car engine, around the time and near the access point that the CSI’s had located. Ryan filed it away.
“Why would Mr Fowler omit to tell us that he spent part of his evening with you?”
“Because I asked him to keep our relationship private and, I suppose, because he was in violation of his duty.” Walker took a deep breath before speaking. “I’ve never been comfortable with that side to my sexuality.”
Ryan sighed. This wasn’t a chat show and he wasn’t Oprah.
“What about yesterday afternoon?”
“I had been helping out manning the Priory entrance during the morning, actually until around lunchtime. Rob had been working the traffic block with Mark. You know all that. I met up with Rob around quarter to five and we went back to my place. We both went for a drink down at the pub around seven.”
“Are your family aware of your relationship with Mr Fowler?”
“No. They’d never understand. They’re just outdated,” he explained. “My parents are good people, Ryan, but the reason they live so well on Lindisfarne is because old-fashioned values agree with them. I’m all they have and I’ve already let them down by not becoming a doctor.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was never any good at science and I feel queasy at the sight of blood.”
Walker looked up and let out a half-laugh.
“You don’t have to believe me,” he shrugged it off, tired all of a sudden. “The only other thing my parents always wanted was for me to find a nice girl and settle down. They loved Anna, so naturally I pushed her away. They hated Megan, which made it easy for me not to settle down,” his smile became slightly lop-sided. “In the end, I hated her too. She knew about Rob,” he added.
His solicitor, who had been listening avidly much in the same way she enjoyed watching her evening soap opera, stirred herself enough to put a warning hand on her client’s arm.
“No,” he shrugged her off. “I want to tell them.” He turned back. “You’re the only people I’ve ever told.”
“You’ve just said that Megan Taylor knew of your relationship with Rob,” Phillips prompted.
“She walked in on us one night,” he admitted. “She called us names, terrible names, and said I disgusted her.” Walker stopped to take a shaky sip of his water. “We weren’t…that is to say I wasn’t ready for people to know. I had to pay her to keep quiet about it.”
“Ms Taylor blackmailed you?”
“Bled me dry,” Alex muttered, then raised horrified eyes at his unfortunate choice of words. “That is - ”
Ryan just looked at him. “Did you stop by Megan’s place on 22nd?” He already had Anna’s statement of events which told him that Walker had been there around four-thirty but he wanted to hear it from the man himself.
Alex let out a breath. “Yes, I did. Around four-fifteen, maybe a bit after, I went over there to try reasoning with her, like I did every time a payment was due,” he said bitterly.
“What did she say?”
“Same old,” Alex lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “She liked to say that the money I paid her was a kind of compensation for all the pain and suffering I caused her. Load of crap,” he added with feeling.
“Did you notice anything unusual?”
“Not really. I thought she would be at work, but she was lounging around her flat. She didn’t seem unwell or anything. She looked like she was primping,” he said.
“Primping?” Phillips queried.
“Yeah, she was covered in perfume, fancy red underwear was lying on the bed, that sort of thing,” Alex supplied.
“You think she was going out?”
Alex’s mouth flattened. “Megan didn’t always have to be going out to get dolled up like that.”
Phillips and Ryan nodded, understanding.
“Did you run into anyone else around that time?” Ryan asked casually.
Alex looked confused for a moment and then his face cleared.
“Yeah, I did actually. Bill was changing the barrels, so he was in and out of the courtyard around then. We said ‘hello’ and that,” he took another sip of water. “I ran into Anna. I saw her up at the top of the stairs chatting with her sister, around half past four, so I thought I’d wait until she’d finished. I didn’t want her knowing I was on my way up there.”
Ryan nodded and felt a wave of relief. Megan had been alive when Anna had left her, at least. He didn’t want to add Anna’s name to his list of suspects.
“Do you remember what was said between you?”
“Sure,” Alex nodded. “Anna ran into me having a cig in the courtyard. Could use one now,” he added hopefully, but his plea fell on deaf ears. He continued, “It was a bit awkward, to be honest.”
“How so?” This was pure curiosity, Ryan admitted.
“She and I used to be engaged, years ago when we were kids.”
“Uh huh,” Ryan nodded. “Until you slept with her sister.”
Alex had the grace to look abashed.
“Gotta get me some of your aftershave, son,” Phillips remarked with a grin, quickly extinguished.
“It was for the best,” Alex said in his defence. “I could never have made Anna happy.”
It was on the tip of Ryan’s tongue to agree with him but he managed to control himself.
“You didn’t have many reasons to like Megan Taylor,” Ryan said instead, thinking that he would run a check on Megan Taylor’s financial data at the earliest opportunity. If she had been fleecing Walker, who was to say she hadn’t been squeezing a few other people?
Alex took the meaning straight away. “Look, she was vindictive,” he said, leaning forward again. “I’ve told you, I ended up ha
ting her for it, but I didn’t kill her. Rob can tell you I was with him from around quarter to five until around seven, when we stopped in at the pub again.”
Ryan thought that Alex could still have killed Megan Taylor around four-thirty, just after Anna left her sister, but it would have been a push. He took pity on him in more ways than one. The time had come to put their cards on the table.
“I am afraid Mr Fowler will be unable to confirm your whereabouts on either occasion, Alex. I regret to inform you that Robert Fowler was found murdered earlier this morning.”
Every ounce of blood drained from the other man’s face.
“You’re…you’re lying!” he thrust upwards, over the table, to grab at Ryan’s shirt. Ryan put a restraining hand on each of the man’s arms but that was all. He had seen the grief, the terror and disbelief.
“I’m sorry.”
Alex fell back into his chair and Ryan watched him fall apart. Gone was the cocky look in those twinkling cat eyes, replaced with a deep sorrow which was only really beginning. Walker hugged himself to fend off the chill in an otherwise heated room. Tears fell openly down his face, unchecked.
Several minutes passed, during which time the tape was stopped and refreshment was given along with a few moments’ privacy.
In that time, Ryan had also decided that Alex Walker was not his man. The evidence they had found reeked of a plant.
“Did anyone else know of your relationship with Mr Fowler?”
“No…that is, Kim does. It’s the reason she’s divorcing me.” Ryan held off commenting that, given the man’s record on infidelity, Rob Fowler was probably the least of his wife’s worries. Instead, he made a note to contact Kim Walker for confirmation of Alex and Rob’s relationship. It added weight to the growing belief that Walker wasn’t their man.
“Megan does. Did know about us,” Walker continued, dragging a hand over his eyes which were red and swollen.
“Would she have told anyone?”
“I was paying her not to. I don’t know if she would have kept her word but since I never heard any gossip about us, I assume she did.”
“What about your parents, Alex?” Ryan’s voice was almost gentle. He knew a broken man when he saw one.
