Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
They finally had Fabien in an interview room sitting next to the solicitor who took an age to arrive.
Gina leaned back in her chair and swigged a glass of water, knowing her jaw now looked a sight but recognising that finding Lindy was her priority.
Her face pain could wait. She hoped the paracetamol and ibuprofen she’d taken would kick in fast. The recorder was rolling, the introductions had taken place and Jacob was sitting next to her, ready to begin.
Fabien ran his fingers along his short brown goatee and sighed as if bored. Light glinted off the large diamond stud in his left ear and his full head of dark hair looked stiffly brushed back like he’d used too much hair gel.
‘Mr Stone, where were you between one p.m. on Friday the fourteenth of November and six a.m. on Sunday the sixteenth of November?’ Gina knew she had to get the questions in thick and fast. Time was ticking and now Craig’s face had already been reported in the lunchtime news and pasted everywhere online.
‘Saturday and Sunday is family time. That week, I had a long weekend with her. I didn’t work Friday. I was with Sheena, at home, building a cot.’
She thought about Zavier’s murder. ‘Where were you on the twentieth and the twenty-first of November?’
‘At the office and home at five each evening.’
‘Was anyone else in the building?’
‘Keri, the apprentice, and two other debt collectors.’
‘Will they be able to confirm that you were in?’
He shrugged. ‘I base myself on the top floor, the other collectors are on the middle floor and Keri does admin from the back room on the bottom floor. The cellar is used to keep the archives but you probably already know that. You can ask them but I don’t answer to anyone because I own the company.
I went home to work at lunchtime on the twentieth so I could be with Sheena.
I stayed in all day after about one. She’s pregnant and struggling, especially since that arsehole came by shouting his mouth off.
’ He licked his teeth and folded his arms.
‘Who are you referring to?’
‘Kain. She dared to post on Instagram about her pregnancy and that entitled prick came by shouting his mouth off a while back. He was mad that she’d apparently led him on and that she promised they’d have a family together.’
‘And did that make you angry?’
‘You bet it did. You’d be angry too if someone came by screaming their mouth off at the person you love. He spat in her face. Who does that?’
Gina wanted to reply, you, but she didn’t. She’d seen him spit at the PC during his arrest.
‘I don’t know what she ever saw in him.’
Gina was struggling to see what Sheena saw in Fabien too, but her taste in men was none of Gina’s business. ‘Is that why you killed him?’
Fabien leaned forward and stared at Gina for an uncomfortable few seconds. ‘Looks like you’ve already decided I did it. Really? Here I am, cooperating and not going no comment and here you are trying to trip me up PC, err… Who are you again?’
‘Detective Inspector Harte,’ she corrected him, knowing full well he was trying to get a rise out of her. ‘Tell me where you were last night?’
‘With Sheena, at home.’
The problem was, Gina knew that Sheena would most likely back his story up. ‘Did anyone else see you?’
‘No, because we were at home together, sitting on the sofa, reading and watching the TV. She was watching some sitcom on Netflix and I was reading Dostoevsky’s, Crime and Punishment.’
Great, he was reading a book written from the perspective of a man who’d committed a murder against a pawnbroker.
She wondered if Fabien saw himself as the protagonist in this real-life crime despite him being a debt collector – a bit of role reversal – and was doing no more than playing a game with her.
Why even mention the book? ‘How do you know Lindy Pickering?’
‘Not well. Lindy still talks to Sheena and they sometimes go for coffee. They were in each other’s lives for years and they got on so that’s nothing unusual.
Kain hated that they met up. Lindy told Sheena that Kain referred to her as the traitorous bitch when he’d had a few.
That’s the kind of man he was. I think he’d have had a lot of enemies. ’
‘He also had a lot of debt. Did you ever chase him for any of it? We will find out. There are officers going through your records as we speak.’ She knew it would take days to go through all the paperwork but he had to know he couldn’t hide that information from her.
‘Why would I care? The people we chase don’t owe us personally. What stupid logic you apply.’
Gina sighed and had to agree, but she had to ask the question.
Gina wondered if Sheena’s ongoing relationship with her ex’s sister caused Fabien to be jealous enough to make him want to hurt Lindy. After all, Lindy would have been keeping Kain in her life. ‘Where’s Lindy?’
He shrugged and smirked. ‘Have you tried knocking on her door and seeing if she’s in. Lindy makes a mean cup of coffee.’
Gina clenched her knuckles under the desk. ‘Whose blood is on your coat?’
‘Which coat?’
‘The blue puffer coat that was hung on the coat hooks at your business premises.’
‘That came from a dead rat that I trapped. We have a rat problem. That’s hardly a crime. The corpse is in the industrial bin out the back.’
Damn. Gina knew they’d have to get that confirmed and they would before he left custody. ‘Why is there a huge electroplating bath in your warehouse?’
‘Really?’
‘Please answer the question,’ Gina said.
He scrunched his neat brows. ‘I was going to start a new business. I’m faddy, what can I say? I didn’t buy it; it was in the warehouse when I bought it six months ago. The ex-owners used to electroplate car parts. I saw it as a potential opportunity.’
‘“A man can’t call himself a man unless he can protect his wife and then his children. A real man will do anything it takes. Are you a real man?” These are your words, aren’t they?’
He frowned and recoiled.
Gina pulled out a photo and showed him his Instagram post.
‘So, I’m not ashamed of taking my duties as a man and a father-to-be seriously.’
‘Did you go as far as murdering Kain to protect your wife and unborn child?’
He let out a laugh. ‘You are so bad at this.’
‘How do you know Craig Crawford?’
He raised his brows. ‘Am I meant to recognise that name?’
Jacob passed Gina the photo of their social media selfie. ‘Well, you are here together, after just completing a triathlon and you both look to be friendly.’
Fabien’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. ‘That was ages ago. I know him from the gym.’
‘So why didn’t you say you knew him?’
‘I didn’t know his surname was Crawford and there are three Craig’s at my gym.’
‘When did you last see Craig Crawford?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t remember.’
Gina pulled out another photo, one showing the torn-up photos from his warehouse. ‘Why did you have clothes belonging to Kain Pickering and photos of Kain stashed in a box in your warehouse?’
‘You really suck, sweaty ass.’
Gina felt rage building up inside. ‘Answer the question, Mr Stone.’
‘They are the items that Kain left behind when Sheena threw him out. He never came to collect them and she wanted them out of the house so I took them out of her way. I wanted to bin them but Sheena, being the good person that she is, wasn’t having any of it.’
‘How about this?’ Gina pulled out a photo of the blue metal racking rod.
Fabien furrowed his brows, the creases at the bridge of his nose deepening as he tilted his head slightly. ‘That wasn’t in the box. I put those things in the box myself. What is this? You’re framing me.’
‘So, it won’t have your prints on it?’ Gina knew their perp was forensically aware so the likelihood of prints was low but had the perp slipped up this time?
‘That’s not mine. I didn’t put it in the box. Why is it there? Why?’ He kicked the desk leg, nudging it.
Gina stood, not wanting to be on the receiving end of Fabien’s violence for the second time that day. ‘You’re a violent man, would you say so, Mr Stone?’
‘No, no, no. You lot are framing me.’
Gina had a flashback to Briggs threatening to frame Stephen a few years back, but that was to protect her.
Knowing that Briggs had done something wrong was filling her head with thoughts, and she didn’t like them.
Briggs was forensically aware and he’d been in some sort of trouble and Brodie couldn’t go into detail.
But they had let Briggs go, for now. He had an alibi for the kidnapping of Lindy.
She tapped her feet nervously on the floor.
Briggs still hadn’t messaged and she shouldn’t call him.
Her mind bounced to the article they’d found under Craig and Justine’s bed.
Briggs could not break into two separate buildings to plant evidence and be involved in killing two people and organising the kidnapping of another.
Or could he? ‘Did you murder Kain Pickering?’
‘No.’
‘Where’s Lindy Pickering?’ It had to be him, not Briggs.
‘I don’t know.’
His solicitor stood. ‘Stop, my client needs a break. He’s been more than cooperative with you. Either charge him or let him go.’
‘We still have twenty-two hours left and he will be charged for assaulting a police officer after hitting me in the jaw earlier. Do you need a break, Mr Stone?’
‘No.’
‘What happened when Kain came by to speak to Sheena? Did you tell him that a real man will do anything it takes? Are you a real man? Did you permanently remove Kain from Sheena May’s life? Did Craig Crawford help you? Where is he?’ She was going over it all again in the hope that he’d slip up soon.
There was a knock at the door. Jacob spoke for the tape. ‘Interview paused at twelve thirty-eight.’
She stood and opened the door to Wyre, and stepped out, letting the interview room door slam before speaking quietly to Wyre. ‘What is it?’
‘We’re interviewing Sheena at the moment and she slipped up and told us that when Kain came to hers verbally attacking her and Mr Stone, Mr Stone punched him in the chest then kicked him to the floor.
She started crying, saying she didn’t want to get him into trouble as in her words “he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
”’ Wyre raised her brows. ‘Anyway, she said some of the neighbours came outside and it would only be a matter of time before someone told us what had happened. She said Mr Stone shouted that he was going to kill Kain and anyone else who dared to upset his wife-to-be and that he should also tell his piece of shit friend Zed to not pop by theirs looking for him again.’ Gina raised her brows at the mention of Zed.
‘Then she said he went on about how Kain’s family needs to keep out of her life now they’re not together anymore.
Sheena got upset and they argued after Kain had gone because she said she regards Lindy as family.
I’m heading back in there to resume the interview.
I just thought you’d like to know all that. ’
‘Thank you. That’s brilliant.’
Jacob started the tape again. ‘Interview resumed at twelve forty-three.’
Gina sat back, pausing for a moment and looking directly at Fabien Stone. ‘Tell me about when you assaulted Kain. You hit him and then you kicked him to the ground.’ Gina relayed everything Wyre had just said.
‘No comment.’ Fabien calmly sat back and bit the insides of his mouth but Gina could tell he was worried. ‘I’m ending this farce now. No fucking comment.’ He paused and shouted at the top of his voice. ‘No comment, no more comments, no comment!’