‘Were you driving it at approximately quarter to nine yesterday morning?’
‘You know I was.’ Tillman was relaxed, his arms folded across his chest as he answered Kelly’s questions. He hadn’t asked for a solicitor, and Kelly hadn’t yet worked out how the interview was going to go. Full admission? It was looking that way, and yet … there was something in Tillman’s eyes that suggested it wasn’t going to be quite that easy. She had a sudden memory of another interview room – a different suspect; the same crime – and she clenched her fists tightly beneath the table. It had been a one-off. He’d pressed her buttons but she was younger then, less experienced. It wouldn’t happen again.
But sweat trickled down her spine, nevertheless, and she had to fight to keep focus. It had never come back to her; the words whispered in her ear. The words that had tipped her over the edge and caused the red mist to descend so completely that she lost control.
‘Could you tell me, in your own words, what happened between half past eight and ten o’clock yesterday?’
‘I was returning from a conference I’d been to the night before. There was a dinner afterwards and I stayed the night in Maidstone so I was about to head back to Oxfordshire. I was going to work from home for the rest of the day.’
‘Where do you work?’
Tillman looked at her, letting his eyes flick briefly, but very deliberately, down to her chest before he answered. Kelly felt, rather than saw, Nick lean forward in his chair. She willed him not to speak. She didn’t want to give Tillman the satisfaction of knowing she’d even noticed where his gaze fell.
‘In the City. I’m a wealth manager for NCJ Investors.’
Kelly hadn’t been surprised when the DI had told her he’d be sitting in on the interview. She had begged him to let her interview Tillman, reminding him of how hard she’d worked on the case, and how badly she wanted to be there at the finish. He had taken for ever to reply.
‘Okay. But I’ll be there too.’
Kelly had nodded.
‘You’re too inexperienced to lead this alone, and there’ll be a few noses out of joint in the office as it is.’
The other reason lay unspoken between them. He didn’t trust Kelly not to lose it. How could she blame him? She didn’t trust herself.
She had been suspended instantly, the threat of criminal proceedings running alongside the internal disciplinary.
‘What the hell were you thinking?’ Diggers had said, when Kelly had been hauled out of custody, her shirt ripped and a bruise forming on the side of her face where the suspect had fought back. She was shaking violently, the adrenaline leaving her body as quickly as it had arrived.
‘I didn’t think at all.’ That wasn’t true. She’d been thinking about Lexi. It was inevitable, she’d known that as soon as the case came in. A girl, raped by a stranger on her way home from school. ‘I’ll take it,’ she’d told her DS instantly. She’d treated the victim with the compassion she had wished her sister had experienced, feeling like she was making a difference.
A few days later they brought in the offender; a DNA hit on a known sex offender. He declined a brief; sat smirking in the interview room in a paper suit. No comment. No comment. No comment. Then he yawned, as if the whole situation were boring him, and Kelly had felt the rage building inside her like a kettle about to boil.
‘So you were driving home …’ Nick prompted, when Kelly didn’t say anything. She forced herself to focus on Tillman.
‘I was coming past the station and I realised I was probably still over the limit from the night before.’ The corner of Tillman’s mouth curled into a smile, and Kelly realised he knew full well the admission could never result in legal proceedings. She would have bet her pension on Gordon Tillman being a regular drink driver: he was just the sort of arrogant wanker who would claim to drive better after a few pints. ‘I thought I’d better stop for a coffee, so I pulled over and asked a woman if there was somewhere nearby.’
‘Can you describe this woman?’
‘Mid thirties, blonde hair. Tidy figure.’ Tillman smiled again. ‘She recommended a café relatively close, and I asked if she wanted to come with me.’
‘You asked a complete stranger out for coffee?’ Kelly said, not bothering to disguise her disbelief.
‘You know what they say,’ Tillman said, the smirk still playing across his face, ‘a stranger’s simply a friend you haven’t met yet. She was giving me the eye as soon as I pulled up.’
‘Do you make a habit of asking women you haven’t met out for coffee?’ Kelly persisted.
Tillman took his time; looking Kelly up and down again, and shaking his head very slightly before answering. ‘Don’t worry, love, I only ask the pretty ones,’ he said.