‘You love her.’
‘Of course I do.’ He sniffed and coughed as the blood ran down into his throat. A fine spray dusted the inside of the windscreen.
‘Do you know Harold Lowe?’
‘Who?’ Unfeigned confusion.
‘Twenty-two, Constantine Avenue.’
He shook his head again, but this time I didn’t believe it.
‘Did you go there? With Chloe?’
He closed the single eye and sighed.
Bingo.
‘Chloe suggested it.’ He sniffed, his eyelids creasing as he rode a wave of pain. It had to be hard for him to think straight. Easier, on the whole, to tell me the truth … ‘It was her idea. Her mum had the keys. Chloe took them.’
‘Why were you there?’
‘It was somewhere to go. Somewhere we could be on our own.’ He touched the tip of his tongue to his lips, assessing the damage. ‘We stayed at the back so the neighbours didn’t see. And so Chloe could see when her mum got home.’
‘What were you doing there?’
A one-eyed look, heavy with scorn. ‘Can’t you guess?’
‘With Chloe.’
‘She wanted it. I always liked her.’ With a flash of exasperation he added, ‘There’s no need to look at me like that. If it wasn’t me it would have been someone else. At least I was careful. At least I took care of her. I made sure she was on the pill. She didn’t care if I used a condom or not. She didn’t care about anything. I was the responsible one.’
Abuse? I wondered. That could turn a child hypersexual from an early age. But of course, Chloe wasn’t a child. She was an adult with adult desires and a diminished ability to understand the consequences.
‘If we asked Chloe, what would she say about her dad?’
‘I don’t know. I never asked her.’
I sighed, frustrated. ‘So what do you want to tell me?’
‘Why Chloe came back from her dad’s house early.’
‘Go on.’
‘Because when she’s there, her shitbag stepbrother comes into her room every night and puts his fingers inside her when he thinks she’s asleep. And her shitbag father is too scared of his evil wife to call the cops on him. It’s all an accident. All a misunderstanding. Fuck’s sake.’
‘Which stepbrother?’
‘The older one. Nolan.’ Under his injuries, Turner’s face was a mask. ‘I’ve never met him. I wish I had.’
There was something in the way he said it that made me shiver. ‘That’s what we’re for. So you don’t have to deal with these things on your own.’
‘Excuse me if I don’t think the cops are worth bothering with.’
‘Is that why you dealt with Ben Christie yourself?’ It was a shot in the dark. If he confessed to harming Christie I was screwed, because I hadn’t cautioned him. I was all too aware that would shut him up. Anyway, a half-decent defence lawyer would get the whole case thrown out, caution or no caution.
‘Why bring him up?’
‘Because I think you have a history of taking the law into your own hands and I think you’re not afraid to use violence when it suits you.’
‘I never touched him.’
‘What about Kate?’
‘I never touched her either.’
‘Did she know about you and Chloe?’
‘No. Definitely not.’
‘She wouldn’t have approved.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, wary. ‘I presume not.’
‘Because you do see where I’m going, don’t you? Kate’s dead. Her body’s probably in the river or dumped somewhere out of the way to rot. Now Chloe and Bethany are in the wind and we have no way of knowing if they’re safe but we do know they’re running from something. And usually, that means one of two things – they’re scared or they’re guilty.’
‘I don’t know why they ran away,’ he mumbled.
‘Would you do anything for them, William? Would you dump a body for them? Would you let yourself get beaten to a pulp for them? Would you die for them?’ I leaned over. ‘Would you kill for them?’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘We’ll be taking your car for forensic examination, to see if you moved Kate Emery’s body for the girls. And we’ll be finding you on CCTV. We’ll know where you went and what you did. We’ll take your phone and track everywhere you’ve been since Kate Emery died.’ I smiled. ‘Whether you cooperate or not, we’ll find out what happened and what part you played. Your best chance – your only chance – is to talk.’
‘I’ve said all I have to say. I’ve told you the truth.’
‘Where are they, William?’
‘I don’t know. They didn’t ask me to help them. I didn’t move any bodies or drive them anywhere.’
‘Let’s get you to hospital.’ I glanced across at him, observing the tremor in his limbs, the pallor of his skin where the blood wasn’t coating his face, the general wretchedness of his demeanour. There was the tiniest glint in his eye, though. He felt in his pocket and pulled out his tobacco tin, to my complete lack of surprise.
‘Not in my car.’ I started the engine. ‘And put your seatbelt on.’
21
I was in a cubicle with Turner when the curtain rattled back. I looked around, expecting to see a nurse, and found a grim-looking Derwent instead. He pointed at me.
‘You. Out here. Now.’
‘I don’t want to leave Mr Turner alone,’ I said. He was still hovering on the border between victim and suspect and I wanted to make sure he didn’t disappear.
‘That’s why I brought him.’ He moved to one side so I could see Chris Pettifer, who nodded at me. There was a hint of apology in his expression and the tentative way he edged into the cubicle.
I looked back at William Turner. ‘I won’t be long.’
He managed a tiny nod. He was looking worse by the second as the blood clotted around his nose and on his forehead. His right eye was still swelling and it looked as taut and shiny as a ripe plum. Someone had informed his mother but he’d asked – begged – for her to be kept in the waiting area, and I’d backed him up. The last thing I needed was her having hysterics over him, at least while I had to listen to it.
I followed Derwent into the busy area outside the cubicles where the nurses and doctors were hurrying up and down.
‘Not here,’ I said, on instinct. From Derwent’s expression, it was going to be a bollocking; it didn’t need to be public.
‘This way,’ he said, stalking out through a door marked ‘No Entry’. No one stopped him.
No one would dare.
I followed him through the door and found him waiting for me in a darkened, empty corridor.
‘Why is this bit shut up?’
‘They can’t use the beds in this section of the hospital. Not enough staff. Cutbacks.’ Derwent leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his eyes glittering in the half-light. Oliver Norris had left his mark. The bruise on his cheek was darker now, unmissable. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Well, where would you like to begin?’
‘You start. Tell me why you jumped into the middle of that confrontation when you didn’t have your radio or any protective equipment with you,’ I said.
‘Because that kid was about to get his head kicked in.’
A complete answer.
‘You could have been killed.’