Chapter 29 Ian
Ian
NOW
He could do with a smoke now as he observes the Harry Tomlinson interview.
No doubt about it, Tomlinson is a sick prick.
His diary entries attest to his obvious fetish for young female students in general and his obsession with Sasha Spencer-Lyles in particular.
He also had a whole load of child pornography on his computer.
He was Millie’s physics teacher, too – Ian checked with Millie and Jo.
Tomlinson won’t be teaching physics to her or any other youngsters again, which is a relief.
If he does go down for Josh’s murder, he won’t last a week in prison. They hate kiddie fiddlers inside.
Strictly speaking, Ian shouldn’t be here, listening in from the viewing quarters.
The superintendent is standing next to him, behind the one-way glass, eyeballing him from time to time, no doubt to remind Ian that he has work to do and that this is not his case anymore.
It’s Helena’s. DI Helena Baker. His deputy SIO when he was in charge.
Helena is dogged in her pursuit of the truth and justice.
She never seems to be tired, never gets emotional and she’s super-efficient.
She’s got a rep as a bit of a ballbreaker, but she wouldn’t be where she is now if she wasn’t.
She’s the same rank as he is, but she’s at least four or five years his junior.
He can’t fault her or DC Gail Ward, who are conducting the interview. They’re doing everything by the book.
Helena is flicking through some photocopied pages. ‘Mr Tomlinson,’ she says. ‘According to your diary, you had a three-month relationship with a fifteen-year-old, which ended six months ago. You refer to her as “R” in your diary. Can you tell me who “R” is?’
Tomlinson just looks at her. Ian has to admit, he’s a good-looking bastard.
Tall (his legs barely fit under the table), muscular (with an unnecessarily tight T-shirt, no doubt to showcase his biceps and triceps), blond with a spiky goatee that Ian imagines is a failed attempt to look a little older than he is (twenty-five).
Creepy, though. It’s the electric blue eyes.
The stare. The silence. Ian can’t see Tomlinson’s feet.
He wonders what size they are. You never know, they might be disproportionately small for his height and build.
‘What does “R” stand for, Mr Tomlinson?’ Helena repeats.
Tomlinson is not ruffled in the slightest, or at least that’s the impression he gives. Ian suspects it’s an act. A mask that will drop eventually. The soulless interview room, with its furniture bolted to the floor and lack of natural light, was purposefully designed to make suspects crack.
Millie told Ian that a lot of girls at South Lydacombe had a crush on Mr Tomlinson. Ian supposes the pervert tried to use that to his advantage. He couldn’t get Sasha Spencer-Lyles to fall under his spell, though. Not that she made a much better choice with Joshua Knoll.
Just when Ian wonders if Tomlinson is going to answer at all, he says, ‘I didn’t write that diary. My ex-girlfriend is stitching me up.’ He emphasizes the ‘ex’.
Helena riffles through more pages. ‘I have some homework here,’ she says, ‘that you marked for Sasha Spencer-Lyles. You gave her a glowing comment and an excellent mark.’
‘So?’ Tomlinson says. ‘She’s a good student.’
He might not be able to see where Helena is going with this, but Ian can.
‘So, I’m no expert, but the handwriting looks very similar to the scrawl in the diary. What do you think, DC Ward?’
‘The same, I’d say,’ Gail agrees. ‘Almost illegible.’
‘I mean, we could get handwriting experts to confirm you wrote the diary or you could save us some time here,’ Helena continues.
‘Notch up some Brownie points,’ Gail chimes in.
‘Or are you going to pretend your ex-girlfriend marked your pupils’ homework, too?’
‘It’s pure fantasy,’ Tomlinson says. ‘There is no “R”. I made her up. All right?’
Tomlinson is clearly a natural-born liar, but Ian is inclined to believe him on this.
His bullshit detector was flashing madly when, at Helena’s request, he read the diary to share his thoughts with her.
(Helena was obviously just being nice. Ian knows she made up her own mind about it before she pretended to ask for his opinion.)
‘It’s a badly written young teacher / submissive schoolgirl fantasy,’ Ian had said. He didn’t add that Tomlinson had probably penned it as a quick, one-handed read. Ian was glad he was holding photocopies of the diary and not the original.
‘Well, quite,’ Helena had agreed.
Ian hasn’t been able to get that song by The Police out of his head since.
‘So you did write the diary?’ Gail asks now.
‘So what? There’s no crime in that, is there?
There’s no crime in indulging in sexual fantasies, is there?
’ He glances at the duty solicitor, as if to check that.
The solicitor gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head, which Ian doesn’t know how to interpret.
Tomlinson doesn’t seem to know either. His eyebrows have formed a deep groove when he turns back to glare at Gail and Helena.
‘I’d like to read an extract from your diary out loud, if I may,’ Helena says to Tomlinson.
‘It says here: “I can’t get Sasha out of my head. I’m sure she knows it.
She’s a prick-tease. Always wearing make-up and smelling good, her school skirt hitched up way above her knees, flicking her shiny hair when she realizes I’m looking at her.
What she’s doing with Joshua Knoll is beyond me.
She needs a real man. I’d show her what a real man is.
I doubt she’s a virgin, unfortunately, but I could show her how a real man fucks.
I just need to get Knoll out of the picture.
” Mr Tomlinson, would you please explain to DC Ward and me how you planned to get Joshua Knoll “out of the picture”, as you phrase it in your diary? ’
‘I didn’t … I’d forgotten … I don’t know what you’re implying …’ Until now, Tomlinson has been unfazed. But now he’s clearly rattled. Well done, Helena! Tomlinson glances at his solicitor. ‘No comment,’ he mutters, lowering his head.
‘It’s an unfortunate choice of words, given the circumstances, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Tomlinson?’ Helena says.
‘An uncanny coincidence that you wanted Joshua Knoll out of the way and a few months later, he was found dead,’ Gail says. ‘Do you know Buryknoll Wood very well, Mr Tomlinson?’
Tomlinson pales. ‘I go for a wander in the woods sometimes, but I had nothing to do with that kid’s murder,’ he protests. He looks from one police officer to the other. ‘You have to believe me!’
‘Mr Tomlinson, do you remember where you were on Wednesday the twenty-eighth and Thursday the twenty-ninth of August?’
There is a knock at the door of the viewing quarters.
‘Come in!’ Superintendent Hall barks.
A uniformed officer enters. ‘Ah, DI Rowland,’ she says.
Ian recognizes her as one of the front counter staff, but has no idea what her name is, which strikes him as elitist and wrong, seeing as she knows who he is.
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir,’ she says, ‘but there’s a lady downstairs who is very distraught. She insists on talking to you.’
‘Did she say what about?’
‘Her daughter has gone missing.’
‘OK. On my way.’ He follows her out of the room.
‘Did she give her name?’ Ian asks as the officer holds the door to the staircase open for him, thinking he should have asked the officer for her own name.
He steals a very discreet glance at her chest now he’s close enough to read her name tag.
She’s Moody, apparently. Easy enough to remember. ‘How come she has asked for me?’
‘She says she’s a friend, sir. Her name’s Carla Ashford.’
Carla? Oh, God, no. Iris? Missing? Ian races down the flight of stairs to the ground floor as if the building is on fire.
He sees her as soon as he bursts through the doors. She’s pacing up and down the wooden floor in the large entrance to the police headquarters. As he rushes towards her, he clocks Daniel Duffy sitting on a plastic chair and does a double take. What’s he doing here? Where’s Ash?
It takes only a split second for the penny to drop. Margo is missing. Ian feels a flicker of relief it’s not Iris, followed by a stab of shame.
He leads the way back upstairs, to his office.
Carla should have called 999. She has leapfrogged the first responders by coming to him.
They would have come out from Barnstaple.
Instead, she has come to him in Exeter. Carla must mistrust the police; he gets that.
She thinks the police failed Iris. He should really send Carla through the correct channels.
But he can’t let her down. He was of no use to the Ashfords when they needed him and he’ll never forgive himself for that.
Carla leaves the talking to Daniel. Ian takes notes.
‘She’s been gone since yesterday evening. She didn’t come home last night. She went to her friend’s house – Ellie. But Ellie told me this morning when I went to pick up Margo that Margo had left early to go to Carla’s. She—’
‘Sorry, to go to Carla’s?’ But as soon as the words leave his mouth, Ian remembers Ash telling him Dandruff had left Carla and taken Margo with him. ‘Where were you staying?’
Ian looks up from his notes and sees Daniel blush. It starts off like a red rash around his neck, spreading upwards, until even the top of his bald head is bright pink. In other circumstances, Ian would find this amusing.
‘At my mother’s house in Brayworthy. Margo wanted to walk—’
‘Brayworthy,’ Ian repeats, deadly serious, cutting Daniel off mid-flow. ‘And does Margo’s friend Ellie also live in Brayworthy?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Go on.’
‘Well, she never arrived at Crooked Oak Cottage, obviously. And she’s not answering her phone.’
‘It must be switched off,’ Carla says. Ian is struck by her pallor. ‘I have the Find My app on my phone. Margo’s last location is showing as Coombe Farm in Brayworthy – that’s where Ellie lives – at five twenty-two yesterday evening.’
Daniel reaches out and takes Carla’s hand.
Of the two of them, he’s holding it together better than she is, at least on the surface, and yet he’s Margo’s father; Carla is her stepmother.
Ian remembers Ash saying that Carla considers Margo to be her daughter, whereas Daniel is very much Iris’s stepfather.
He closes down that train of thought. Something is niggling Ian and that’s not it. As he asks for more details and jots down Daniel’s answers, he tries to put his finger on what it is. ‘So Ellie’s address is Coombe Farm, Brayworthy. Was Margo there for a sleepover?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Daniel says.
‘She’s been taken, Ian,’ Carla says. Her voice trembles with panic.
‘We don’t know that,’ Daniel says. Ian thinks he detects a tear in his eye. ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’
‘What’s Ellie’s surname?’ Ian continues. They need to act fast, whether Margo has been taken or not. She’s been out all night and may not have eaten or drunk anything since yesterday afternoon.
‘Beare.’ Daniel, perhaps reading upside down, spells it for Ian, who has written it down as ‘Beer.’
‘When did Margo leave Ellie’s house?’
‘At half past five, according to the Beares. Margo told them she was going back to her grandmother’s. It’s really only round the corner and it was still light. They offered to walk her back, but she refused.’
‘And when did you realize Margo had gone missing?’
‘When I showed up this morning. It was about 10 a.m. Ellie admitted she was covering for Margo and said Margo had deliberately set out yesterday evening to walk to Holtleigh from Brayworthy.’
Brayworthy. That’s what’s bothering him. Daniel’s mother and Margo’s friend aren’t the only people who live in Brayworthy. The Knoll family live in that massive house at the top of the hill. Hilltop House, that’s it. Not a very imaginative name, but it does what it says on the tin, he supposes.
His mind drifts down the corridor to the interview room where Harry Tomlinson is being questioned in connection with Joshua’s murder. A thought entwines itself around his brain and his stomach fizzes in fear.
Tomlinson spent last night in police custody, here, at the Devon and Cornwall Police Headquarters in Middlemoor, in a holding cell. He can’t have taken Margo, if she has indeed been taken. But is there any way Joshua’s murder and Margo’s disappearance could be linked?