“Christ.” Cole sounded like I’d punched him in the stomach all over again. “No, I spoke to him… Friday, I guess? We were talking about going for a beer—he sounded completely normal. Is that the police theory too?”
“I don’t know. They seemed completely at sea yesterday, but they rang me this morning and asked me to come down to the station, and it sounded… well, I thought it sounded like they might have found something. Maybe. But I’m not sure—I don’t know if I should be discussing this stuff.” I had no idea what the rules were. Was I allowed to talk to people about what had happened? What if the police wanted to keep some pieces of information back? “Look, it’s probably better not to repeat any of this,” I said at last. “I might be totally wrong.”
There was a long silence, as if Cole was trying to take in what I had just told him. I didn’t blame him. When he spoke again, it sounded like he was trying to pull himself together.
“Jack, listen, if I contact people—I need to know what to say. How do you want me to put this? And they’ll want to know if they can get in touch with you.”
“I—” I hadn’t thought about that one. Part of me couldn’t face the calls, the curiosity, the sympathy. It was different with Cole and Hel; Hel was family, and Cole had loved Gabe as much as I did… but Gabe’s other friends, especially the ones I didn’t know so well… “I guess just say the truth—we don’t know what happened. The police are investigating. As for me… the police have my phone. So people can’t contact me on my usual number. This one is borrowed from my sister and I’m not sure how long I’ll have it. Maybe you could tell them I’m only on email for the moment?”
“Sure. I mean of course. And I can pass on messages if anything comes up.”
“Thank you.” I looked up at the clock. “Cole, listen, I’m so sorry, I have to go. I’m due at the police station soon. Are you—”
I wanted to say, Are you okay? Are you going to be all right? But it sounded so transparently stupid. Of course he wasn’t okay. Neither was I. Both of us had just had our lives ripped apart.
“Listen, Jack,” Cole said, filling in the silence. “Anything you need, okay? Anything. I mean that. Gabe—he’s—” He stopped. I heard him swallowing on the other end of the line, trying to control himself as he corrected the tense. “He was, well, he was pretty much like a brother to me—you know? Which makes you my sister. So you call me, okay? Day or night—literally.”
“Thanks, Cole,” I whispered. And then I put the phone down and sat staring into space until Helena came down the stairs.
By the way, what did your solicitor say?” Hel asked as we pulled into the car park behind the police station. “Are they meeting you here?”
I said nothing, and she yanked on the handbrake and turned to face me, her expression stony.
“Jack. Please tell me you did call the solicitor?”
“I didn’t get round to it.”
“Jack—” Hel began, but I cut in.
“Look, you’ve made your views on this perfectly clear. But I just think—I don’t know. I just think it looks really weird and antagonistic if I start getting lawyered up. I have nothing to hide. If some lawyer starts telling me not to answer questions—that’s not what I want. I want them to find Gabe’s killer.”
“I know you do,” Hel said. “And I know you have nothing to hide. I just hope the police realize that.” She drummed her fingers on the wheel. “Look, I can’t make you do this, but will you swear to me that at any hint, any hint at all that things are going sideways, you’ll stop the interview? Don’t agree to say or do anything until the lawyer gets there. Just say, ‘I’m exercising my right to have a lawyer present, and I won’t be answering any questions until he or she gets here.’ Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “But honestly, I think you’re being neurotic.”
“I really don’t think I am, Jack. I don’t want to be brutal about this, but there’s a reason they always suspect spouses. You’ve got means, and you’ve got opportunity. The only thing they’re lacking to make a case is a motive. So please, please be really careful not to give them one.”
But she’d gone too far with that last remark. I didn’t say anything, just looked at her, and she grimaced.
“Sorry, that came out wrong. Look—I know you had no reason to kill Gabe, and I’m probably being paranoid. But have you got one?”
“A motive?” I felt my voice sliding up an octave. “Are you shitting me? Of course I don’t have a fucking motive. What would that even look like?”
“I didn’t mean that—I meant, have you got a lawyer.”
“Oh.” I paused, trying to remember. “Yes, we’ve got this woman… Melanie, her name is. She works for a firm called Westland Law. We’ve used her a couple of times when things went south during jobs.”
My phone beeped with an email and I looked down at it automatically. It was a client, expressing sympathy and telling me not to hurry back on their account, but the clock at the top was showing eleven a.m. and I turned and unclipped my seat belt.
“Okay. Here’s hoping they’ve found something.”
“Hear, hear. Do you want me to wait?”
“Better not. I have no idea how long it’ll take. I can get a cab back if need be.”
“Sure. Okay, well… take care.” Hel leaned across the car to kiss my cheek and I hugged her back. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Have you got any money?”
I was about to roll my eyes and tell her to stop fussing when I realized I actually didn’t. I didn’t even have a credit card—I had left my wallet in Hel’s spare room.
Hel saw my expression and pulled out her purse.
“See? Mother hens are good for some things. Here, it’s all I’ve got in cash, but it’ll have to do.” She held out two notes, a ten and a twenty, and I made a face and took them, tucking them into my phone case. “And repeat after me: Hel is always right.”
“Hel is always right,” I said, forcing myself to smile at her. Then I climbed out of the car, feeling her eyes on me as I crossed the car park and opened the door to the police station.
Inside the station it was noisy and smelled of cleaning fluid and used coffee cups. As I waited in line to speak to the officer behind the front desk, I couldn’t help scoping the place out as if I were on a job. Two exits—one to the street, unmanned; one to the interior of the station, no lock as far as I could see. There was probably an activation button under the desk. One fixed CCTV camera in the corner with a huge blind spot that covered most of the right-hand wall—not a very good design for a police station. The odd thing was that I had no memory of any of it from before. Shock had wiped half the night’s events from my brain—which felt strange, but no stranger than mechanically assessing the building’s risk profile in a world in which Gabe no longer existed.
When it was my turn, I gave my name and explained I was here to see DS Malik. The officer behind the desk smiled politely and told me to take a seat, but I had barely done so before Malik herself came out through the interior door. I tried to read her body language. She didn’t look like someone who had solved her case, and I felt my anxiety spike a little as I stood up.
“Hi.”
“Jack, hi, thanks so much for coming in. There are just a few points we wanted to clarify from our last interview. If you could follow me through here…”
“No problem.” She led me through the door, her pace quickening as we passed a warren of rooms and back offices. “Have you got any leads?”
“Your family liaison officer is the best person to talk to about that. Has she been in touch?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay, well, I’ll chase that up,” Malik said. She ushered me inside an interview room that was similar to the one we’d occupied the other night.
“Jack, hi.” DC Miles was already there, and as I entered he stood up and shook my hand. I noticed again how young he was—barely out of uni, by the looks of it. There was a tape recorder on the desk and as we sat down, Miles clicked it on and looked at DS Malik, who nodded and spoke.