by T J Harris
“Those are the projections in the presentation are they? They were dramatic.” said Hunter.
“Fifteen years is a long time though. Surely it’s not much of a problem.” said Carver, trying to take back the questioning.
“It’s the scale of what needs to be built.” continued Philips. “What she is basically saying is that we need four new nuclear stations like Hinkley Point C. Sounds OK, but that’s one every four years. The government gave the green light for that one eight years ago and it’s still not expected to be generating for another nine years at least.”
“If at all with Brexit on the horizon.” Hunter chipped in. “Can you really see the French continuing with the project after last month’s vote?”
“They say they will, but who knows. It’s certainly not going to speed things up, that’s for sure. There are alternatives but Helen was not convinced. She used to think that the people supporting small modular nuclear reactors had the better plan until she worked out that we would need to build one of them every five months to generate the same power. But that’s not all. We need over ninety gigawatts of new capacity in total and that’s on top of doubling our imports. It’s not just new nuclear we need to be building, but we also need a new gas powered station every six months, a new wind turbine every single day…”
“Every day.” butted in Carver
“Yes, every day between now and 2030. Her projection was from January the first, so unless we have put up” he checked his watch looking at the date numeral by the winder, “one hundred and ninety five so far this year, we are behind schedule already. We also need a new large-scale solar farm about once a week. It’s inconceivable that all the required planning permissions can be achieved in the time, let alone actually building the stuff.”
“This must be well known though.” said Carver. “She can’t be the first to realise it.”
“That’s true, but policy doesn’t seem to match the reality of the situation. Successive governments have dodged the issue. All the press talk about is how high prices are compared to the low cost of oil, as if that has anything to do with it. They just want to moan about how much profit the companies are making. The price we pay today does not take any of this needed investment into account. The government has had to guarantee a very high price for the Hinkley Point power just to get it built, but the truth is that we should all be paying that sort of price now anyway. But what politician is going to suggest that?”
“OK.” said Carver. He thought he had a handle on the situation now. What he needed to know is whether any of this was anything to do with his murder investigation. “Were you getting any pressure from the industry not to publish these observations?”
Philips appeared to pause slightly before replying. “Not really. We work mainly with the generating companies and they are just as concerned as she was.”
“Was she aware of any safety concerns that were being overlooked to keep the stations open for longer than they should be?”
“Absolutely not. Especially in the nuclear fleet.” He looked at them both seriously. “Let me make it absolutely clear that that is not the case. Those guys are fanatical about safety. Every meeting we have with them starts with a safety message. The topic changes daily and it’s taken very seriously. They know that the press would be all over them if they even burnt toast in the canteen. Those hacks would headline it as a nuclear disaster and that would force even earlier closures, not to mention further delays on the new build programme. People are scared of nuclear, but in reality it’s incredibly safe and clean. It has to be. Even including the historical disasters like Chernobyl, it’s been calculated as being a thousand times safer than coal per gigawatt generated. It’s far safer than domestic solar as well.”
The two visitors looked up quizzically.
“Too many people fall off roofs fitting and cleaning them. Per gigawatt generated, it’s massively deadly by comparison.”
They both nodded and smiled, getting the point. “What about the other sectors then?” asked Carver.
“They are not as strongly safety conscience, but there’re not far behind. No we have never seen a single hint of anyone trying to deny safety data or not taking it seriously.”
“What about the billing side?”
“Now that’s another story. We don’t have any direct dealings with them, but they should be highly concerned about the state of the industry. They stand to have a hard time if supply is stretched and more money is diverted towards the suppliers. They will come under pressure when they are forced to raise prices. But I can’t imagine it’s worth stopping Helen from talking at an industry event though. Sorry, I just can’t see it.”
“And the policy side?”
“I couldn’t say. We don’t have many dealings with them. The data is out there though, people have been saying similar things for ten years, so I can’t think that there is any motive there for you either.”
Carver was inclined to agree, but it left him with a worrying feeling. He thanked their host and they left just as the children eventually got bored with the trampoline and joined them breathlessly at the table to gulp down glasses of squash.
Once the boys had dashed inside to play a video game and he was alone at last, Philips reached for his mobile and called his Chairman. The man’s money and connections were invaluable but he was an oaf. Philips tolerated his brashness and prejudices only because he had no choice. Once connected he briefly explained the events of the last few days.
“At least she won’t be giving that damn speech.” The man responded after hearing the news. “That won’t upset some of my market friends. They’re still reeling from the fucking EU vote, the last thing we need is more panic and uncertainty. Much better to keep a lid on it for now, you’ll see. Shame though, she had a cute arse for her age.”
Philips felt physically sick. He hung up the call and took his glass of orange indoors in search of some more vodka to top it up and steady his nerves.
Chapter 10
Carver decided to have Reid sit in with him for the second interview with Williams. It was an old fashioned notion, but he felt that the suspect would be more open about the affair, not to mention his internet browsing habits, with two middle aged men rather than have Moss in the room. She and Goldberg sat in the incident room watching on the live video feed.
They started by going through the series of events that had made him late for work on Thursday morning. Once again he insisted that he had left his house at seven thirty and that his car had broken down on the way in.
“The problem is, one of your neighbours clearly remembers seeing you leave your house at six fifteen?” Carver stated calmly, watching Williams’ face closely.
Williams just looked ahead. “No, I left at the normal time.” He said eventually.
“We have a sworn witness statement that you did indeed leave your house at six fifteen and not at seven thirty as you claim. Is that not true?” Williams shook his head slowly. “For the tape please Mr Williams.” Carver prompted him and elicited a weak “No.”
“OK, we can come back to that.” Carver changed tack. “You claim your relationship with Helen Brooks was entirely professional. Is that right?”
“Yes, she was just a client. I didn’t know her that well.”
“So you have not been having a sexual relationship with her. You have not been spending nights together in hotels.” Williams shook his head and once again and had to be reminded to speak for the tape.
“Does anybody other than you have access or use the computer at your house in Ledbury?”
The question seemed to puzzle Williams, it had come from left field. “No, of course not. I live alone.” He replied.
“You’re sure nobody else uses that computer or has access to it, just yourself?”
“Yes.”
Carver addressed the tape. “I’m showing the suspect exhibit HW15. These are transcripts of messages left in a draft box on an online email facility. Both yours and Helen
Brooks’s computers have been regularly used to access this account.” Carver turned the file round and pushed it across the table towards Williams.
“How did you… but I deleted them.” He looked up, knowing then that the game was up. “OK yes, we were having an affair. But I swear I didn’t kill her.”
They started once more at the beginning with Carver coaxing Williams along as he revealed how they had got on really well when Helen had first started therapy after her accident the previous November. “It was just after Christmas that things escalated.” He said.
As Williams told the story, he thought back to their first time together, it gave him a warm glow even then, in those extreme conditions. Helen had worked through her knee exercises as normal but had complained that her thigh muscles ached. He had suggested that it was due to them having to compensate as she protected her knee. It was the last appointment of the day, so he had offered to give her a massage to ease the muscles and reduce the ache. As he massaged her thigh muscle, he could feel her relax. She was laid back on the large massage table and her eyes closed as the tension started to rub away.
He remembered how beautiful she looked. He was watching her face as he worked, moving his hands in circles on the tired muscle and noticed her breathing was becoming a little shorter. On one circuit of his hands, quite by accident, his fingertip brushed against the cotton of her panties. It was like an electric shock that ran up his arm, registering panic in every nerve ending. He looked at her, expecting rage, but her eyes were still shut, her lips were slightly parted and she was definitely breathing more heavily. He continued the circular motions as if nothing had happened, he noticed that her cheeks were slightly flushed but she kept her eyes shut. Emboldened by this tacit invitation he allowed his hands to roam up her thigh again. Again her breathing deepened. He brushed against her a second time and thought he detected a slight moan. Now he was brushing against her with every stroke, she seemed to push slightly towards him. He took a step up the table and kept rubbing while he leaned over and gently kissed her on the mouth. She kissed him back immediately, wrapping her arms around him. His hand was now rubbing her crotch through the fabric of her panties, he pulled them aside and explored deeper. She moaned into his mouth.
She had then grappled with his tunic, desperate to free him. Once both naked they had gone at each other with a ferocious intensity that he had never known before. It was half an hour later that the storm eased and they lay on the floor in each other’s arms, both glistening in sweat.
The version he told the two interrogators was a little shorter however. “It just happened, I think that we had been both attracted to each other right from the start, but that evening it just clicked into place.”
“So who set up the email messaging, was that your idea?” Carver enquired.
“No that was all Helen.” Williams replied, talking more freely now. “She was adamant that we keep it very private. She told me she had no intension of leaving her husband or him ever finding out. I was banned from calling her or even texting her. The ‘drafts’ as she called it, were the only way she would communicate.”
“She kept coming to appointments though, she kept paying you for your services, how did that make you feel?” Reid asked, eyeing the man with poorly disguised contempt.
“She still needed the physio, and she insisted on paying. She said it would look odd otherwise, and besides, she was claiming it all back through her health insurance. We never had sex there again, a couple of times she came to my house, but she wasn’t comfortable there, so we used hotels mostly.” He looked across at Carver. “We took it in turns to pay for the rooms.” He added, as if that made it sound better.
“So what really happened on Thursday morning?” Carver sat back, inviting the man to level with them.
“She left a draft for me on Monday saying she wanted to see me, that she missed me. She had been away with her husband for the weekend and told me she needed a ‘good seeing to’. Her words.” He said looking Carver straight in the eye for the first time in the interview.
Carver pointed to the transcript on the table, still in front of them. “Can you verify that this is indeed a copy of the messages you left for each other on this email server?” Williams picked up the file and glanced through it. “Yes, it is.” He confirmed after a few moments.
“Can you turn to the last page and read out the message she left for you on Monday please.” Williams turned the pages confidently, then stopped and stared at the last page.
“No that’s wrong, that’s not what it said.”
“Can you read the message for the tape please?” insisted Carver.
Williams reluctantly read the message out load. “I can’t do this any more, I need to end it… That’s not her message though.” He stopped.
“You just told us that it was a genuine transcript.” Reid stepped in, playing the bad cop. Williams just looked down to the floor again.
“So, the following message arranging for you to meet at the New Fancy car park at seven am on Thursday. Isn’t that why you did in fact leave your house at six fifteen.”
“What, not at New Fancy. No, there’s been some mistake.” Williams grabbed the transcript again and stared at the last page shaking his head. “She said to meet at the Speculation car park.” He looked up, his eyes pooling, pleading for some belief from the two officers. “This is wrong.”
“So what you’re now saying, is that you did leave your house at six fifteen, but that you were sat on your own in the wrong car park for the best part of two hours before arriving late for work.” Reid looked at the man incredulously. “Presumably nursing a hard-on.” he added with a smirk.
“There’s no need for that.” The solicitor, who had sat in silence next to his client to this point, butted it.
“Sorry.” said Reid. Turning back to Williams he added: “Is that really what you expect us to believe?”
Williams was looking at the floor again. “That’s what happened. I didn’t want to leave in case she was running late and I missed her. I couldn’t call her, she would have been furious. I waited for as long as I could, longer in fact, then left and drove to work. I didn’t know what had happened to her until you turned up in the afternoon.”
Back in the incident room, Moss and Goldberg were hanging on every word. They had pulled up a map of the forest and pin pointed the two car parks. “Speculation is about four miles to the north of New Fancy.” pointed out Moss.
“Would that give him time to park up there, keeping his car out of the crime scene, then run through the forest, kill her and run back in time for getting to work at nine twenty?” Goldberg was thinking aloud while plotting distances on the projected map.
“He is fit, but it would be a push.” mused Moss, “and he would have to get lucky with finding Helen alone in the car park when he arrived. As a pre-meditated plan it’s not great. Surely he would have left home even earlier to be sure to be laying in wait when she arrived.”
“But who’s to say he really was in Speculation? He’s lied constantly since we started talking to him, only admitting things as we’ve caught him out. Look here.” Goldberg pointed up at a third marker he had positioned on the map. “If he had parked at the Speech House car park here, it would only be 2 miles, probably less using the forest paths. A fit bloke like him could jog that in twenty minutes easily.”
“OK, so assuming he left Ledbury at six fifteen, he would have got to the forest at…” She waited while Goldberg updated the software to put his home address as the start point and the Speech House car park as the destination. “Six fifty five.” she said as the screen updated. “He then runs to New Fancy looking like any other anonymous jogger, and gets there at seven fifteen. How long does he need to get back and into Cinderford?” She asked and once again the screen updated while Goldberg entered the new destination points. “So, only ten minutes to drive in, plus the twenty to jog back to his car.” She did the sums in her head. “He needed to leave New Fancy by eight te
n at the latest. That gives him the best part of an hour to wait for a quiet moment to move in and kill her. No one would have seen him lurking in the woods there, it’s quite dense.”
“Works for me.” agreed Goldberg. “Even if he was only there for half an hour, he’d have had plenty of time to dump his cloths and calm down a bit before turning up at work. His assistant said he was flustered but took that to be on account of his car trouble.”
Back in the interview room, Carver was reaching a similar conclusion. “Did anyone see you in the Speculation car park?” he asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t think so. I was tucked away in a corner, expecting Helen to join me.”
“Hmm. Shall I tell you what I think really happened Mr Williams?” Carver didn’t wait for a reply. “I think Helen had indeed told you she wanted to end the relationship. You didn’t want that and you were fed up with her dictating the terms. You had already lost your wife and you weren’t going to let this new lover walk out on you too. You didn’t park in Speculation and sit there for hours with your dick in your hand. You parked a lot nearer, if not in New Fancy itself as arranged. You got in the car with her, determined to dominate her for a change. When she wouldn’t have any of it you lost your temper, hit her and then killed her. You then left and parked up somewhere to clear your head and invent your ridiculous car trouble story before arriving late for work.” He leaned forward pinning Williams with his stare. “Isn’t that what really happened Sean?”
