Chapter Twenty-Eight
ROSS MAY THOUGHT THIS WAS HIS opportunity to prove that he was a good detective, worthy of promotion.
If he and Mel were going to start a family, she might want to stay at home with the kiddie for a bit, not go straight back to work at the end of maternity leave, and they’d be glad of the extra income.
He was nervous, of course he was. He’d watched Venn and Jen Rafferty operate.
At first, it had seemed easy, the way they got people to talk, but he wasn’t sure he could work their magic.
He’d learned that you needed patience and he’d never been good at that.
He could deal fine with the little scrotes from the old council estates who stole cars and dealt drugs to the public-school kids hanging out in Croyde for the surfing to celebrate the end of their exams. He’d grown up with kids like that, gone to parties with them.
Smoked a bit of weed with them. He thought Daniel Miller wouldn’t be very different.
But his parents were different, and the idea of them sitting in on the interview made him feel intimidated.
The mother, Belinda, opened the door to him.
‘Daniel’s waiting for you in his father’s office.
’ She had a narrow face, a bit rat-like, and hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.
A sleeveless top, showing arms that were firm, almost muscular despite her age.
A good body for an older woman. Anyone over thirty-five was middle-aged to him.
Ross was expecting the father to be in the room too, but there was just Daniel, sullen and unresponsive, sitting on one of the easy chairs by the window.
‘Would Mr Miller like to join us?’
‘He’s had to go back to London,’ Belinda said. ‘A crisis with one of his clients.’
Ross relaxed a little. Women, he could deal with.
‘Would you like tea?’ she said. ‘Coffee?’
He could tell that she was more nervous than he was and he relaxed a little more.
‘No thank you.’ Making the words brisk and formal, showing her that this wasn’t a social call.
‘Should I leave you to it?’ Again, she sounded tentative.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘I’m sure you have other things to do.’ He gave her his best smile. Mel always said he’d charm the birds off the trees with that smile. After all, she often told him, he’d charmed her, hadn’t he?
Belinda scuttled out of the room, and he sat on the chair that faced Daniel’s. The student looked pale and tired as if he hadn’t slept much the night before.
‘Now,’ Ross said, ‘let’s stop pissing about, shall we?
We know you spent Sunday evening with Lottie Cauldwell at Tide House.
The CSIs have found traces of a person not yet recognized and you’re the only possible visitor that night.
If you keep lying, you’ll find yourself in serious bother.
I’m told you’re bright, with a great career ahead of you, and a police record will fuck that up.
So, why don’t you just give me the truth? ’
For a moment, Ross thought the bluff wouldn’t work. This wasn’t someone who was used to being told what to do. He’d probably been spoiled rotten as a kid and believed he could get away with anything.
Daniel didn’t respond immediately. He sat, looking out of the window. A sulky child.
Ross pressed home his advantage. ‘We still have a team of CSIs in Tide House. They could be there for days. Taking fingerprints, looking for fibres. I’ll need to take away the clothes you were wearing that night so they can do a comparison, and of course we’ll have a reason now to take your fingerprints too. ’
Daniel turned back to the room, and he shrugged, a bully’s attempt, Ross thought, to save face.
‘You might be able to prove I was there over the weekend. You can’t tell when.’
Ross was close to losing his temper, but he tried to think what the boss would do in this situation. He’d keep his calm. Sometimes, Venn would say, it’s best to do nothing. Silence is one of the best weapons we have. So, Ross said nothing, and he waited.
Daniel didn’t like the silence. He fidgeted.
The window was open, letting in evening air from the garden, but he was sweating.
At last, Ross did speak. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?
Start with the girls coming into the bar that Friday night and take it from there.
Every detail. The whole story. I’ve got all night, and I’ll record it, so you won’t have to go over it again. ’
As Ross set his phone on the windowsill to start the recording, he looked to see if there was any message from Jen. Nothing. Nothing from the boss either. There was a fleeting moment of worry, before he looked directly at Daniel. ‘Go on. I’m listening.’
Miraculously, the student started talking. Perhaps he was too tired to fight any longer. He’d driven all the way from Cambridge. Ross preferred to think it was because he’d handled the situation perfectly. That at least would be the story he’d tell his colleagues when he got back to the station.
The boy’s voice was flat at the start.
‘They made an entrance, you know. All dressed up. Make-up and heels. They wanted to be noticed.’
Even Hannah? Ross wanted to ask, because all they knew about Hannah was that she wasn’t that type. But he didn’t ask, because he didn’t want to break the flow. Questions could come later.
‘They might have been drinking before they came in,’ Daniel went on.
‘Or smoking a bit of weed. They were giggling as they came through the door, as if they’d shared a joke outside.
Even Hannah and that wasn’t like her. I’d seen her in the Fisherman’s before with her parents, and she’d always seemed quiet. A bit straight. You know.’
Ross nodded but he didn’t speak. Silence is our weapon.
‘Hannah soon sobered up when Jim told them he wouldn’t serve them.
She was mortified; I could tell. But that Lottie, she didn’t give a shit.
’ There was admiration in his voice. ‘It was almost as if she was glad Jim had refused. She waltzed out of the bar like she’d won an argument. She was triumphant.’
‘You fancied her?’ This time Ross couldn’t help asking the question.
Daniel nodded. ‘Anyone would. She was hot and reckless, and she looked at me as if she’d be up for anything.
’ He paused to think for a moment. ‘I followed them out, saying I was going to clear the tables in the garden. I wrote my number on the scrap of a bar mat and slipped it into Lottie’s hand.
She laughed, as if that sort of thing happened all the time.
As if she was expecting it. But she put it into her bag and gave me a kind of knowing smile.
“Well,” she said. “I might just be in touch.”’ He paused.
‘I was like a kid all the next day, hoping she’d ring.
It was a kind of madness. I’d only seen her for a few minutes, but I couldn’t get her out of my head.
I hadn’t felt like that since I was fifteen. ’
Ross nodded, but he thought he’d never felt like that. Not even with Mel, who he’d known from school before he was fifteen. He’d liked her, of course, fancied her, but not in the crazy way that Daniel was describing. Perhaps that was a posh boy thing too.
The student had started talking again. ‘On Saturday, I was left in charge of the Fisherman’s because Mag and Jim were manning the festival.
I could hear the music from the field, and I knew that Hannah and Lottie would be there.
It was a kind of torture. By the time my shift was over the place was quiet.
I assumed they’d gone back to Tide House. ’
He stopped. There was a bottle of water by the side of his chair, and he drank from it. Ross was thirsty too, and thought he should have asked Belinda for water, but didn’t want to break the spell now.
Daniel replaced the water and continued speaking. ‘I walked down the lane towards the house. I thought they might be in the garden having a drink. Or maybe Hannah had already gone to bed and Lottie might like some company.’
This time the silence dragged on for too long and Ross did ask a question.
‘And did she?’
Daniel hesitated a moment before answering.
‘Lottie wasn’t on her own. They were both there, in the pool.
Skinny-dipping. There were fairy lights strung through the trees and moonlight on the water, and I stood for a bit just watching.
I know it was weird, but I couldn’t help it.
I was kind of entranced. It looked like a piece of film or art.
The bodies, wet, and gleaming gold in the moonlight, slipping in and out of the pool.
I wasn’t sure what to do. If I bowled up then, they might think I was some kind of pervert.
I thought I’d wait where they wouldn’t notice me, until they got out, until they’d put some clothes on.
’ A pause. ‘But then I heard a car turning down the lane towards me. It occurred to me that it might be the Armstrongs. I didn’t know what time they were supposed to be arriving.
What would they think if they saw some strange man gawping at the girls when they were naked?
So, I moved into the shadow of the house and went back to the pub and my car. ’
‘What make was the approaching car?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was just a shadow. Big. Boxy.’
‘Did the girls hear it? Do you think they were expecting someone?’
‘I don’t think so. It stopped quite a way from the house. The headlights were switched off as soon as it was stationary. If they did hear anything, they might have thought it was just late drinkers leaving the pub, or guys from the festival driving home.’
‘Did anyone get out of the car?’
‘I didn’t see anyone. But I was spooked by then.
The magic was gone. I just wanted to be home.
’ Another pause. ‘I knew I’d be working the festival beer tent the next day and I thought I might catch up with Lottie in the morning.
Or she still might ring. So, it wasn’t all anti-climax, you know. There was anticipation too.’
‘Let’s talk about the next day then,’ Ross said. ‘The Sunday.’