‘Automatic number plate recognition software. It means we can trace anyone who’s been using major roads,’ Pettifer said. ‘We’ve got cameras everywhere.’
It was a slight exaggeration, but Nolan believed it. ‘I didn’t go to London.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Oxford.’
‘Where in Oxford?’
‘I don’t want to get into trouble.’
‘You’re already in trouble,’ I snapped. ‘Where did you go?’
‘A house off the Iffley Road.’
‘Why?’
‘To buy drugs.’ He dropped his head down to his chest and took two or three deep breaths.
‘For your personal use?’
‘Don’t answer that,’ Miles said and Nolan looked up at him, surprised.
‘What kind of drugs?’ Pettifer asked.
‘E.’
‘Ecstasy?’ I checked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Have you taken it?’ If he had, there was no point in going on with the interview.
‘No.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Upstairs in my room.’
Which meant I was going to need to seize it before I left. Nolan was making work for me with every answer he gave. ‘How did you know where to find a dealer?’
He looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘They’re on Facebook.’
Of course they were. ‘Why didn’t you say this before?’
‘I’d get expelled. There’s a no-drugs policy at my school.’
‘But according to your stepfather, you’ve been expelled already,’ Pettifer said.
‘Yeah, but it’s not my fault really, so much, at the moment. They don’t know where I was. So it’s not so bad. I could get into another good school, probably.’ He snorted. ‘Brian will pay any money to get me out of the house.’
‘Now, now.’ The chill in Harry Miles’ voice turned the air around them to ice.
‘Tell me about Chloe,’ I said.
Nolan’s face darkened. ‘I don’t like her.’
‘Why not?’
‘She tells lies. She said to my mum that I’d been groping her.’ His fingers clamped together: white plump hands, bitten nails. Ugly hands.
‘Had you?’
‘It was her imagination. She was half asleep.’
‘Was this the last time she was here?’
A nod.
‘Were you in her room?’
‘Yeah. I went in to – to borrow something. She woke up and started screaming.’
‘What time was it?’
‘Two?’
‘In the morning?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What did you want to borrow at two in the morning?’ Pettifer asked, frank disbelief on his face.
‘Wait a moment. Has Chloe made a formal statement?’ Harry Miles asked smoothly.
‘No.’
‘So you’re fishing.’
I smiled at him pleasantly. ‘I wanted to know why she ran away the last time she stayed here. Something sent her back to London in the early hours of Sunday morning. And I heard from a friend of hers that it was because of Nolan here.’
‘That’s not evidence.’ Miles turned to Nolan. ‘You don’t have to answer any more questions.’
His face was red, his neck flushed too. ‘She made me out to be a pervert. She told my mum I was a freak.’
‘Was it the first time you’d done it?’ I asked.
He glared at me, his eyes hostile. ‘I’m not going to say yes because then that’s like saying I did it. And I’m not going to say no because that’s like saying I did it a lot.’
‘It’s not a riddle. I want you to tell me the truth.’
‘I’d never touched her before, and I didn’t touch her then.’ He looked straight at the bridge of my nose as he said it: a liar’s trick.
‘Then why was she so upset? Why did she run away very early in the morning without talking to anyone?’
‘Because she knew she was going to get shit from Mum.’ A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Mum was fucking livid when she went whingeing to her. And it is her fault, really, because she’s always wearing skimpy clothes and acting like a slut.’
I unclenched my jaw to say, ‘I thought nothing happened.’
‘Er, what?’ He looked over to Harry Miles for reassurance and got a cold stare.
‘So what was her fault?’ I asked. ‘If nothing happened, I mean.’
Silence.
‘Do you have enough for the moment?’ Harry Miles asked me.
‘I think so. I’d better have a word with Nathan too.’ I smiled at his brother. ‘Just to be fair.’
‘Nathan doesn’t know anything.’ Nolan sniffed, his eyes suddenly wet. ‘Nathan thinks it’s funny that I’ve been expelled. He did last time too.’
‘You’ve been expelled before?’
‘Three times.’ Another sniff. ‘Mum says it’s their fault for not understanding me.’
He was lucky to be rich, I thought, as Nolan shambled out of the room, his head down. If he’d been born poor, he’d have been in prison early and often. But Brian’s money would pay for good schools, fine solicitors, top briefs, sympathetic psychologists’ reports, expensive rehab. And Nolan would go on taking drugs and taking advantage of women, taking what he wanted, assuming it was his right.
Nathan was a cut-down version of his older brother, wide-eyed and childish rather than sullen but with the same drawl, the same expectation that what he wanted was what should happen, the same veneer of manners over a self-centred personality.
‘Why do I have to talk to you? I was watching TV.’
‘Because it’s police business.’ Harry Miles glared at him. ‘So answer their questions unless I tell you not to.’
In fairness to Nathan, he did his best, but he couldn’t add much to what Nolan had told us. Except one detail he added to my picture of Chloe, a detail that, much to my surprise, corroborated what Turner had said.
‘She showed me her – you know. Tits, I suppose.’ He giggled.
‘On one occasion or more often?’ I asked.
‘Once. I didn’t ask her to. She was jumping on the trampoline and she saw me watching her. She got off and she lifted up her top.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing.’ He looked scandalised. ‘I’m fourteen.’
‘Did you tell your parents?’
‘No.’
‘Nolan?’
‘No way. He’d have taken the piss out of me.’
‘Do you know why she did it?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Because she’s mental?’
When he left the room, Harry Miles behind him, I fell back against the perfect cushions and groaned. ‘What the hell was going on in this family?’
‘Nothing good.’ Pettifer got to his feet with a grunt. ‘Do you know what surprises me?’
‘What?’
‘That there was only one murder. I can think of two or three candidates and I’ve only just met them.’
23
I walked into the office on Monday morning in a Monday-morning mood, and I wasn’t the only one. I could hear Derwent holding forth even before I got through the door. He was in Una Burt’s office, the door closed, but the view through the window told me he was furious.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Liv.
‘No idea.’
The two of us stood and watched for a minute, like tourists on safari watching a bloody kill. I tried to pick out individual words. Derwent was doing all the talking – well, shouting. I moved to see Una Burt’s expression: bored, largely. She caught sight of me and beckoned to me imperiously.
Shit.
I trudged across to her office and opened the door. Derwent wheeled around.
‘Oh, you’ve made it into work, have you?’
‘I’m not late,’ I said, knowing that I wasn’t, resisting the urge to check my watch anyway. ‘What’s up?’