‘If you could continue,’ Nick interrupted, ‘with your version of events.’ Tillman registered the emphasis, but carried on.
‘She got in, and we headed towards the café, but then she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’ The grin on Tillman’s face made bile rise in Kelly’s throat. ‘She said she’d never done anything like this in her life, but she’d always had this fantasy about having sex with a stranger, and what did I think? Well,’ he laughed, ‘what would you think? She said she wasn’t going to tell me her name, and she didn’t want to know mine, and then she directed me to an industrial estate on the outskirts of Maidstone.’
‘And what happened there?’
‘You want all the details?’ Tillman leaned forward, looking at Kelly challengingly. ‘There’s a name for your sort, you know.’
Kelly didn’t miss a beat. ‘And there’s a name for your sort.’ There was a knot of rage in her stomach, and she concentrated on keeping it there.
There was a pause. Tillman smirked. ‘She gave me a blow-job, then I fucked her. I offered her a lift back but she said she wanted me to leave her there. Part of the fantasy, I guess.’ He held Kelly’s gaze, as if he could sense there was a battle raging inside her; that this entire situation was unlocking something she’d so successfully suppressed. ‘She liked it rough, but then a lot of women do, don’t they?’ He smirked again. ‘Judging by the noise this one made, she loved it.’
She loved it.
The suspect hadn’t taken his eyes off Kelly for the entire interview. She’d been with a male colleague, and the offender hadn’t said anything provocative; hadn’t made any move to intimidate Kelly. It was when the tapes were off, and Kelly was leading him back to his cell alone, that he leaned in towards her. She felt the warmth of his breath on her neck, and smelt the stale tang of body odour and cigarettes.
‘She loved it,’ he whispered.
It had been like an out of body experience, Kelly had thought afterwards. As though it were someone else who had spun round with her fist raised; hitting him squarely on the nose, clawing at his face. Someone else losing control. Kelly’s colleague had dragged her off, but it was too late.
Kelly wondered when Lexi had written that letter to Durham Constabulary; whether even by that point Lexi cared less about the outcome than Kelly did; whether Kelly had almost lost her job for no reason.
‘That’s it, is it?’ Kelly said, pushing the image away. ‘That’s your story?’
‘That’s what happened.’ Tillman folded his arms again and leaned against his chair, making the plastic creak. ‘But let me guess: she’s had an attack of the guilts, or her boyfriend’s found out, and now she’s crying rape. Right?’
Kelly had learned a lot over the last few years. There were better ways to deal with criminals than by getting angry. She leaned back, mirroring Tillman; the palms of both hands raised as though she were accepting defeat. Waiting for the smug smile she knew was coming.
And then, ‘Tell me about find the one dot com.’
The change was immediate.
Panic flashed in Tillman’s eyes and his whole body tensed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘How long have you been a member?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Now it was Kelly’s turn to smile. ‘Oh really? So when we search your house – which we’ll be doing while you’re in custody – and we look at your computer, we won’t find any record of your visits to the website?’
A sweat broke out on Tillman’s forehead.
‘We won’t find details of the victim’s commute? Paid for? Downloaded?’
Tillman wiped his palm across his face, then rubbed the fabric of his tracksuit bottoms, leaving a dark patch of sweat on his right thigh.
‘What membership level did you go for? Platinum, right? A man like you wouldn’t settle for anything but the best.’
‘Stop the interview,’ Tillman said. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I want a solicitor.’
It didn’t surprise Kelly that Gordon Tillman wanted his own solicitor summoned, rather than the duty brief, and it was no skin off Kelly’s nose that he had to wait three hours for the privilege. In the meantime police in Oxfordshire seized Tillman’s laptop, along with the underpants he’d been wearing at the time of the alleged assault, which were lying half in, half out of the laundry basket in his bathroom. Met officers visited Tillman’s office to seize his work computer and the contents of his desk drawers, and Kelly took comfort from the fact that, whether a court found Tillman guilty or not, his career was over.
‘How fast can you process the laptop?’ Nick asked Andrew. He and Kelly were back at MIT, while Tillman consulted with his solicitor.