Murder Club - Mark Pearson [94]
‘And yet you said he was fit to be charged and released?’
‘Can you cut me some slack here? All right, I was keen to get off. You know that. I had a hot date. Somebody special, maybe the one. Might be I dropped the ball a little with Bible Steve.’
‘And your date can back this up, can she?’
‘What are you talking about?’
Kate stared at her colleague’s still-bruised knuckles. ‘What happened to your hand?’
‘You think I went out and attacked him myself? Are you out of your mind?’
‘Something happened that night, I don’t know what. But a girl is dead and a man was put in intensive care.’
‘You know what, Kate. I don’t have to listen to this shit!’
Laura drained her glass, stood up and snatched her jacket off the hook.
‘Why are you lying, Laura?’ Kate asked as the younger woman walked away. But she didn’t get a reply. Laura Chilvers was too busy walking out of the door and pulling out a mobile phone.
Sally Cartwright had her laptop open on the back seat of the car, a mobile printer attached to it. Delaney was driving, cursing under his breath as the car slid on the icy road.
‘Here we go, sir,’ said DC Cartwright as the printer chugged out a five-by-seven-inch colour photo of the technical manager of the Ryan Theatre at Harrow School. She had googled the place and found photos of the theatre staff on their webpage.
His name was Christian Peterson.
Delaney pulled the car to a stop outside the address that DIs Tony Hamilton and Emma Halliday had phoned through to Diane Campbell. Delaney got out of the car and lit a cigarette. A few seconds later Sally joined him and gave him a sharp look.
‘Yeah all right, don’t you start. I’m giving up in New Year.’
‘About time.’
Delaney took a couple of quick drags, then dropped the cigarette into the snow. They walked a few yards down the road and up to a mid-terraced house.
On the other side of the road a man slumped down in the seat of his van, ran his hand through a tangle of curly, dirty blond hair and watched. His eyes were blue, and intent. Filled with hate.
Delaney rang the bell and a woman in her late thirties answered the door. Michelle Riley had dark hair, cut in a bob to her shoulders. She was above average height and wore little make-up.
‘Why don’t you come in, detectives?’ she said.
‘Don’t you want to see some ID?’ asked DC Cartwright.
‘I know who you are. I have seen the inspector in the papers and on television.’
Delaney and Sally followed her down a narrow hallway and into a medium-sized front room. It had a desk, shelves full of books and files, a small sofa and a number of plastic chairs stacked atop one another against the side-wall. On the wall beside the desk there was a poster with the words RAPE SURVIVORS ONLINE with a web address underneath it.
Michelle Riley moved a stack of files from the sofa. ‘I’m sorry for the mess. This doubles as my office.’ She dumped the files on the desk and perched on the chair beside it as Delaney and Sally sat on the sofa, rather squashed.
‘That’s fine, Miss Riley, we’re not the tidiness police,’ said Delaney.
‘Just as well.’
‘We’re here to talk about Andrew Johnson.’
‘I know. Your deputy superintendent told me. It was all a long time ago. I can’t see why you’d need to revisit the incident. And what I did wasn’t a crime.’
‘No one was suggesting it was, Miss Riley.’
‘Michelle, please.’
‘That money he paid wasn’t fair compensation, but it was some compensation. It helped me set up the support group, for one thing. We used to meet here, I’d fund a counsellor. But it’s all online now, money is tight and … anyway I can help more people this way. Victims talking to each other can be the best kind of help, I have found.’
‘Yes, I imagine so,’ said Sally Cartwright.
‘I can’t say I shed a tear, though, when I heard that he’d jumped in front of a train.’
‘How long had you worked for Andrew Johnson before he assaulted you?’
‘Just over a couple of years.’
‘In that time did he have any particular friends or associates?’
‘Not that I recall. Can I ask what this is all about? I