There is silence as the three of them listen, Hind looking at the surface of his desk, Harriet and Manon scrutinising his face. He appears to be making a decision.
‘You can’t prove that’s me,’ he says.
‘Actually, we have traced the phone. It was purchased by you from Phones 4U on Hampstead High Street on fifteenth of July 2010. We’ve got a positive ID from the cashier,’ says Harriet.
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I want to give the police absolute assistance in finding my daughter, I really do. I was talking to Rog about it only the other day – Roger Galloway, I mean. I was at the Commons and I told Roger how talented I felt the Cambridgeshire team was – you in particular, DI Harper – and that if he was looking at fast-tracking female officers—’
‘Ian Hind, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Taylor Dent—’
‘Just a minute, detective,’ he says, sitting upright. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m sure we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement without all that caution business.’
‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence—’
‘One call to Roger and you could move up the ranks very quickly indeed, smart pair like you. He’s always saying he wants to see more women in the force.’
‘He should stop promoting men, then,’ says Manon.
Harriet sighs heavily. ‘If you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’
‘I can bury you too, you know.’
‘Do you know where Edith is?’ asks Harriet.
‘God, no, of course not. Look, can we all sit, just for a moment?’ he asks.
They nod and sit opposite him on the metal-framed chairs reserved for patients.
‘I am not a bad man,’ he says. ‘It was all sort of an accident. He was blackmailing me, you see.’
‘We would advise you to have a lawyer present before you go any further,’ says Harriet.
‘Yes, of course. Can I ask one thing? Don’t tell Rosemary outside. There’s no need to cuff me or anything, is there?’
‘No, we can walk out together.’
In an interview room at Kilburn station, after many hours with an expensive solicitor present, Sir Ian Hind signs a statement.
I met Taylor Dent six months previously, in June 2010. He was working on a building site opposite my home and he would catch my eye as I left the house, smile at me, bare-chested in the heat. I found myself attracted to him. I’ve been happily married for twenty-five years, but over the years I have had occasional sexual encounters with men. All very transactional – in the showers at the gym, that sort of thing. They were infrequent and never a relationship of any sort. My family are everything to me.
The encounters with Taylor were different. He awakened in me feelings I had last experienced at school. Up to this point, I had managed to compartmentalise my encounters with men from my life as a loving husband and father. But with Taylor, for the first time, something was building. We began meeting on Hampstead Heath. I didn’t want Miriam finding out so I bought a pay-as-you-go phone for the sole purposes of contacting him. I told myself it would soon be over – I would give him up, like a bad addiction – and life would return to normal. Yet I couldn’t stop. It was more than just the sex, for me at least.
Taylor started asking me for money. It was never explicit, what I was paying for. I would tell him I wanted to help him when we met, give him ￡50 usually, then it went up to ￡100 as he became more confident about the relationship. He was asking for money for specific things, trainers for his younger brother, that kind of thing. Then he asked if I had access to drugs at the surgery – he wanted ketamine and barbiturates. I assume he wanted to sell them on the street. I began to supply him with very small amounts, and on one occasion in late September, we took some ketamine together. The drugs made it easier for me to engage in … the things we were engaging in … the dangerous, illicit things about which I was generally inhibited.
I realised I was slipping into a lifestyle I didn’t even recognise, one which threatened everything I had – my work, my family, my marriage. I told him I wanted to stop meeting, that I’d had enough. I wanted my life back, unsullied, but I suppose he’d become dependent on my money and the supply of prescription drugs.
Towards the end of November, he threatened me. He started to tell me details about my family to prove how much he knew. He said he’d tell Edith and Rollo and Miriam what I was – what I’d been doing on the Heath with him. He wanted ￡10,000 to keep quiet and to go away forever. I agreed to give it to him, that’s why I left that message. I agreed to hand over the money on the evening of Sunday eleventh of December. I wanted to pay him off, told myself I was going to resolve this issue once and for all and then we could relax, I could enjoy Christmas with my family.
[Suspect breaks down in tears. Interview suspended.]