Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [75]
Again the mention of his name failed to startle her. ‘I thought you wanted to ask me about Lorna.’
‘Didn’t you realize they’re connected?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know who this Colin Willis is.’
‘You must remember hearing about an unidentified body being pulled from the Cam back in March?’
‘Yes, vaguely.’ She blinked slowly, her eyelids swooping gracefully down and up. She still maintained an emotionless expression. ‘Was that his name, then?’
Kincaide moved on. ‘He was strangled. Did Lorna mention him?’
Goodhew cut in. ‘Along with the body we recovered a dog’s choke chain. That’s why we’d like to take a hair sample from Bridy.’
‘Fur,’ Kincaide corrected.
‘For purposes of elimination?’ she asked.
Kincaide spoke again. ‘We will be forced to insist if you don’t agree to it.’
‘Really?’ She sighed. The interview was still only in the first twenty minutes, but each time she spoke she sounded increasingly weary. ‘On what grounds?’
‘Yes, for purposes of elimination,’ Kincaide conceded. His response was a deliberate echo of her own question, and that seemed to amuse him. He leant back in his chair as he waited for her to speak further.
She turned her head towards Goodhew, but kept her eyes fixed on Kincaide for a beat longer, before slowly shifting her gaze too. If that was supposed to convey any kind of message, it didn’t reach him. As soon as she’d emerged from the ladies’ toilet, she’d seemed to switch into a partially catatonic state. Goodhew wondered whether she was inwardly reciting some deep-relaxation mantra, since her calmness was now bordering on the unnatural. She spoke only slowly, showing mild interest and zero anxiety. He wasn’t convinced. Either through strict self-control, or as an involuntary reaction to her situation, she had somehow deployed a huge and effective layer of emotional insulation; their questions didn’t appear to be making a dent.
Goodhew decided to give her an opening. ‘Have you lost a choke chain at any point? Or could someone else have used it?’
Again she blinked before replying. ‘I’m perfectly happy for you to take a sample.’
‘Thank you, Ms Moran. Colin Willis was a distinctive-looking man, I’d now like to show you a photograph.’
‘Of him dead?’ she asked bluntly.
‘We have a couple of previous shots. I can find one of those.’
‘I’d prefer it.’
Goodhew flicked through until he found the two-year-old mug shot, and passed it across. He put the file back on the table, and Kincaide quickly picked it up. ‘I’ll find the other one,’ he explained.
Jackie did the slow blink thing again, before raising the photograph into her line of sight. It was as if it took a couple of seconds before what she was now viewing connected with her brain. The change in her was minuscule: simply a dilation of the pupils. ‘He was a criminal, then?’
Before, Goodhew had a chance to respond, Kincaide spoke. ‘Have you seen this yet?’
She looked towards him, and so did Goodhew. Kincaide was holding up a morgue photo of Willis’ head and torso. It was one of those shots that gave a very good idea of how the morgue must have smelt, and it wasn’t pleasant.
TWENTY-NINE
DI Marks intercepted Goodhew as he walked back from the canteen with a sandwich. It had been the last one that looked vaguely edible: turkey salad, according to the label. The two slices of bread had already begun to curl, no sign of even a lettuce leaf, and the uniformly thin slice of too-pink filling looked more like a play mat for salmonella than anything that had ever boasted feathers.
The sandwich failed to rouse Goodhew from his current vicinity of depressed/embarrassed: depressed because he’d failed to notice that his fledgling relationship, far from being just one-sided, actually didn’t exist, and embarrassed because it was now crystal clear to everyone concerned what an idiot he had been.
He gingerly lifted the corner of one slice for further scrutiny. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and, although he didn’t feel very hungry, he’d decided that missing lunch reeked too heavily of self-pity.