by Cari Hunter
“Sanne—”
Sanne shook her head to cut off whatever Eleanor might say. She didn’t need placating or consoling, she just needed this case to stop fucking around with her. She lowered her hands. “How much did Joan have to do with all this?”
“We’re not sure. Plenty, I would guess, but she was in surgery last night, and no one’s been able to speak to her yet.”
“What about Billy? Has he been interviewed?”
Eleanor made a steeple out of her fingers and leaned forward until her lips rested against them. She appeared to be stalling, which was so out of character that it raised the hairs on Sanne’s arms.
“Cotter is on his way over here,” she said, choosing her words with care. “Sanne, he’s refusing to speak to anyone but you.”
*
Sanne took the paper towel Meg proffered and used it to dry the water she had just splashed on her face. She tossed the towel into the bin, and then held on to the edges of the sink and scrutinised her reflection in the mirror. She looked older somehow, as if the last twelve days had aged her prematurely, adding haggard lines to her brow and draining the colour from her complexion, leaving it a dull grey. The door rattled. She tensed, but the lock held.
“You can still change your mind,” Meg said, as the footsteps outside faded to nothing. “I’m sure Eleanor would understand.” She smiled when Sanne arched an eyebrow. “What? Were you expecting me to drag you home by your ear?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“San, in the last few days you’ve thrown yourself over the edge of a rock face, chased down a dark alley after a man twice your size, and beaten up an old lady.” She shrugged at Sanne’s horrified laugh. “Hey, she tried to knock your head off. Bottom line is, you’re a big girl who can make her own decisions, and you’re more than capable of taking on a piece of shit like Billy Cotter.”
“I’m not that big.” Unable to maintain eye contact, Sanne watched the dripping tap instead. “Billy didn’t give a reason for demanding to speak to me. What if he’s just coming here to play games? I don’t want to sit in front of him while he tells me everything he did. Not today. I can’t deal with that today.”
“So why did you say yes?”
It was a fair question, and one Sanne had been trying to answer for the last hour. “Because I might be able to get a confession, which could save Josie and Rachel from having to testify. He may even tell us what part Joan played, if he thinks there’s a chance it would reduce his sentence.”
Those were the official reasons, the ones Eleanor had taken to the CPS, who were so sure that witness testimony alone would secure a conviction that they were willing to allow an under-qualified detective to interview their main suspect. Sanne pushed away from the sink and placed her chilled palms against her cheeks, easing the heat from them. Her other reason wasn’t officially sanctioned.
“Meg, I think I want to look him in the eye and prove that I’m not scared of him.”
“How scared are you?”
Sanne leaned her head onto Meg’s shoulder, hiding her face and muffling her answer. “I’m fucking terrified.”
*
Sitting at the table in the interview room, Sanne thought she had prepared herself for Billy’s entrance. She imagined him striding through the door, his eyes ablaze with the victory he had won in getting her to agree to this. In all of the scenarios she had envisioned, though, she had forgotten that he’d broken his leg.
A bang on the door only partially opened it, and a flurry of curses preceded a second attempt. Sanne exchanged a puzzled look with Eleanor before a uniformed officer stepped into the room and held the door open fully, allowing his colleague to wheel Billy through. The officer struggled to manoeuvre the wheelchair in the confined space, giving Sanne ample opportunity to study Billy as he was positioned in front of her.
He seemed smaller than she remembered, sallow and unkempt, with a dusting of five o’clock shadow and an ill-fitting prison uniform. The left side of his face was grotesquely swollen and discoloured where Rachel had carved into him. Every time he moved, the cuffs around his wrists clattered against the table, as if he hadn’t come to terms with their presence.
Sanne waited until the officers left the room and Billy’s lawyer was seated. Then she set the recorder running. The standard opening—stating the time, date, and the names of those present—was reassuring in its familiarity, affording her an immediate sense of control over the proceedings. She didn’t react when Billy grinned at her, and his smile quickly faltered. He put a hand to his face as if the effort had pained him, and then looked past her to glare at Eleanor.
“What’s she doing here?”
His lack of respect made Sanne bristle. “She’s my boss. You can speak to me, that’s fine, but DI Stanhope remains in the room.”
“Not part of the deal, Sanne.” The singsong lilt he wrapped around her name sent acid swirling into her stomach.
“Deal’s off, then.” She checked her watch. “Interview terminated at—”
“Hey now, come on, play nice.” He had the audacity to look offended. “I wanted to apologise for last night.”
She couldn’t help but do a double take. “You what?”
Billy shook off the warning hand of his lawyer. “Oh, like keeping quiet will make a fucking difference,” he snapped at him. He turned back to Sanne. “I never meant for you to get hurt. We’re mates, aren’t we?”
“You drove your van at me! You almost killed me and my partner.”
He opened his hands wide, straining the cuffs to their limit. The overhead strip light glinted off the metal. “Your mate poked his nose where it didn’t belong. You were collateral damage.”
“Is that what Josie Albright was?” Sanne asked, sensing a way to get the interview on track. “Was she just collateral damage to you? It was Rachel you wanted really, but you took them both so you could use one to control the other, didn’t you?”
A smile spread slowly across Billy’s face, and for the first time Sanne glimpsed the man she had spent almost two weeks hunting down. He used his index finger to wipe a slick trail of saliva from his bottom lip.
“It worked well, for a while.” He spoke in a hushed voice, as if divulging a secret. “After a little persuasion, Rachel did everything I asked, and the other one didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on. I blame Mal, y’know. Fucker cuts his stuff with a right load of shit. Probably sold me a weak batch. I get back there, and that bitch has scarpered.”
“Mal—that would be Malcolm Atley,” Sanne said.
Billy tried to appear nonchalant at the mention of Atley’s name, but an involuntary twitch at the corner of his jaw gave him away. “You’ve been doing your homework. Is that how you knew it was me? Because I’ve been wondering. I thought Ned might finally have cracked, but I don’t think he did, did he?”
“No, you had Ned right where you wanted him. He never gave you up.”
Billy beamed, obviously proud. “I was so close, so close to pulling this off. I just held on to her for too long. Couldn’t let her go, you see? My mum nagged me, even offered to do it herself, but I begged, begged for another week, and look where it got me.” He rattled the handcuffs.
Sanne could practically feel Eleanor’s eyes burning into her back, urging her not to fuck this up. Billy, still full of bravado, didn’t seem to recognise the significance of what he had said.
“What did your mum offer to do, Billy? Did she have a plan to get rid of Rachel?” She kept her voice level and conversational, as if the questions weren’t a big deal.
Billy nodded, unthinking. “Yeah, we were going to weigh her down at one of Ned’s lakes, once the fuss died down a bit. My mum knew you’d been searching out there.”
Eleanor let out a breath as Billy’s lawyer shook his head in dismay. Sanne ignored them both. “Your mum knew about the pornography as well, didn’t she?”
Billy’s face reddened slightly, giving the impression he was more ashamed of that than of a
nything else he had done. “She told me to hide it. She said my dad would leather me if he found it.”
“So you asked Ned to keep hold of it, and voilà, he’s your perfect fall guy.”
Billy smirked. “Had you all chasing your fucking tails for a while, didn’t I? You and your mate standing there in my garage, asking your questions. You know what I’d been doing half an hour earlier?”
Sanne didn’t want to know. She couldn’t even bear for him to keep looking at her, so she shut him down. “When did your mum kill your dad, Billy?”
He gaped at her and then closed his mouth so viciously that his teeth slammed together. A faint pink spot on one of his dressings began to spread and darken. “I’m not talking about that,” he muttered.
She didn’t care that he was bleeding. She wanted to push him until he snapped. She wanted this to be over. “Did he find Rachel? Was he going to come and tell us?”
“I fucking mean it, Sanne. I’m not—”
She slammed her palms on the table, cutting him off. “How long did he live for after she hit him? Days? Was he conscious, Billy? Did he understand what was happening to him?”
“Shut the fuck up!” Billy tried to stand, but his fractured leg collapsed beneath him. “Shut the fuck up, you bitch. I mean it.”
Sanne didn’t even blink. “Would you like to take a break?”
“No.” He was sweating, the sharp smell filling the room.
“Okay.” She couldn’t remember the bullet points Eleanor had suggested, and the notes in front of her seemed nonsensical. She stopped trying to decipher her handwriting. There was only one more thing she needed to know. “Why Josie and Rachel? Why did you choose them?”
He closed his eyes, twining his fingers around the length of chain between his wrists and stroking it gently. “I asked Rachel out for a drink,” he said, still working the metal. “The day I went to the cottage to fix their car. The other one laughed at me. I didn’t get it at first, didn’t realise what the joke was.” He dropped the chain and looked directly at Sanne. “I knew where Ned kept the keys to the cottage. I found a route they’d planned, and I followed them up onto Corvenden. They couldn’t have made it easier for me. It was the perfect place to teach them a lesson.”
He lunged suddenly, his hands sliding across the table to brush against Sanne’s. Her chair scraped the floor as she shoved herself beyond his reach.
“I wanted you to know.” He was panting, his nostrils flaring. “That’s why I came here, Sanne. I wanted you to know how fucking lucky you are.”
Eleanor stepped forward and slammed her hand onto the recorder to stop it. She shouted for the officers, who came and hauled Billy back into his wheelchair, but he never took his eyes off Sanne. Blood soaked into his bandages as he laughed at her.
“Get him out of my sight,” Eleanor told the officers. She waited until his lawyer followed him out. When the door had closed, she turned back to Sanne. “Are you okay?”
“No.” Sanne couldn’t move from the chair; her legs were shaking.
“Do you know what he meant by that?”
Sanne nodded silently.
Eleanor ejected the disc from the machine. “Off the record, Sanne.”
The room felt as if it were collapsing in on Sanne, Eleanor’s question barely making it through the ringing in her ears.
“About three years ago, Billy asked me out,” she whispered. “I laughed at first. I thought he was mucking about. I had to tell him I was gay.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Sanne wrapped her arms around herself, shivering uncontrollably. “Can you find Meg? I want to go home.”
*
The late evening sun still felt warm on Meg’s face. Above her, the treetops caught the lingering rays, their leaves bright and lush after all the rain. The stream was high, rushing over her bare feet and splashing her ankles. Keeping her toes in the water, she leaned back on the rug spread across the bank.
“I think I need a holiday,” Sanne said, shifting a little to give her more room. They were the first words she’d spoken since Meg had brought her down into the garden. She sounded shattered.
“Where do you fancy?” Meg kept her tone light, trying to engage Sanne’s interest.
“I have no idea.” Sanne turned toward her. “Somewhere with perfect blue sea, sandy beaches, and wall-to-wall sunshine.”
Meg looked at her in mock-horror. “Sanne Jensen, are you actually planning to leave the country?”
The ghost of a smile touched Sanne’s lips. “I might well be. Not till after the trial, but yeah, a break would be good.”
“Do you think it will go to trial?”
“I’m not sure.” She sighed, and her shoulders dropped in defeat. “The weight of evidence against Billy is enormous, but some people like him get a thrill out of forcing their victims to testify. He didn’t even mention that today. He just…well, you know what he did.”
“I know, love.” Meg had coaxed most of the details from her before they left headquarters. She still felt livid, but she tried to keep her expression neutral. Sanne was upset enough and didn’t need Meg’s reaction to contend with. Instead, Meg returned to a less emotive subject. “So, what about one of the Greek Islands? They’re supposed to be beautiful.”
“Mm.” Sanne yawned and scratched her nose absently. “Do you want to come with me?”
“I’d love to, but I’d cramp your style something rotten.”
“That’s not true.” Already half-asleep, Sanne didn’t seem to be processing much of the conversation.
Meg took hold of her hands and pulled them until she sat up. “Bedtime, San.”
“I’m comfy here. Can’t we camp out?”
“No.” She saw Sanne’s frown and ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “We’ll get midged to death, it’s already getting chilly, and we’re not twelve years old. Our bones are too brittle to spend a night on the ground.” She hauled Sanne to her feet. “Oh, and did I forget to mention your head injury and the bruise covering most of your back?”
“Okay, okay, point taken.” Sanne stumbled up the bank and walked zombie-like toward the patio doors.
“Go and get ready for bed,” Meg said. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Can I have a cup of tea?”
“I reckon I can manage that for you.”
Sanne stopped in the kitchen doorway. “And a couple of biccies?”
“Don’t push your bloody luck.”
Sanne laughed as she carried on up the hallway, the sound so heartening that Meg found a brand new packet of biscuits for her, and then added cake.
Epilogue
“I really appreciate this,” Sanne said. The traffic jam ahead of them crept forward as people lugged suitcases from car boots and ran through the rain into the departure lounge.
“Not a problem.” Nelson pulled on his handbrake and let the engine idle. “We bring the girls here sometimes to watch the planes. I might park up, grab a bacon butty, and wave at you taking off. Who are you flying with, again?”
“QuickJet.” Dread made Sanne’s mouth dry. A plane roared overhead. She craned her neck to watch it go over, trying to convince herself that thousands of people did this every day and hardly anything bad ever happened.
Following her sightline, Nelson could guess what she was thinking. “Come on, you’ll love it. It’s no different from being in the chopper, really.” A smile lit up his face, all the strain of the last two months vanishing.
“You’re going to text me and let me know about the sentencing, aren’t you?” she asked.
“As soon as I hear anything, I promise.” He gestured to the newspaper on her lap. “What does that have to say?”
Unfolding the paper and holding up the front page so he could see the headline, she paraphrased the lead article. “Last-minute change to a guilty plea by mother and son. CPS delighted for the victims and the victim’s families. Sentencing to be determined in the next ten days, and both defendants can expect lengthy
prison terms. DI Stanhope is very proud of everyone involved in the investigation, and wishes Sanne Jensen all the best on her first holiday abroad.”
Nelson laughed. “You made that bit up, you bugger.”
“I might have embellished a little.” She refolded the paper, leaving the back page uppermost. “Let’s see the local forecast. Rain, rain, rain and wind, oh, and more rain.”
“I hate you.” He pulled into a drop-off slot. “Need a hand with your bag?”
“I’ll manage, thanks.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, partner.” He shooed her away. “Go on, before I start blubbing.”
She dragged her holdall from the backseat and set it on its wheels as cars farther back in the queue beeped their horns impatiently. She blew Nelson a kiss and waved until he rounded the corner. The rain began again with renewed vigour. She touched her pocket to check her passport was still there and joined the crowd heading into the departure lounge.
*
Jetting off to a private villa on a Greek island had sounded dynamic and adventurous, but thus far it had involved a mauling from a woman on security, followed by a lot of sitting around. Sanne played her finger over the shutdown option on her phone before deciding to leave it on for another five minutes. Although her flight had been called, nothing seemed to be happening at the gate. The screen of the phone had gone blank, and it stayed blank. It was only eight a.m.; Meg was probably still in bed after her late shift.
