The young man ran a hand over his face, his sleeve of tattoos flashing at Alex. ‘I’m on probation,’ he told her, his hands twisting in his lap. ‘I’ve been to prison before for car theft. It’s one of the things I’m supposed to do to keep from going back in.’
That would be easy enough to confirm, Alex thought. She wondered if car theft was this young man’s only crime.
‘Where were you on Friday?’
‘At home. I’m back staying at my mother’s; she was there.’
Alex turned to the third person, a bull of a man who had sat glaring at her the whole time she had been speaking, his bottom lip protruding slightly like a child contemplating a full-blown tantrum.
‘Carl Henderson?’
The man nodded in acknowledgment of his name.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t exactly seem the type to attend an anxiety and depression support group.’
‘You saying I’m a murderer?’
Alex pulled a face. ‘I didn’t say that.’
The room was awkwardly silent. Sean Pugh distracted himself by picking dry skin from his elbow. Carl Henderson grimaced at Alex, the look enough to curdle the milk in Tim Cole’s cup of tea.
‘Could you please tell us when you started attending these meetings, Mr Henderson, and why you started coming here?’
Carl folded his large arms across his chest. ‘April.’ He held her eyes, defiant.
‘Why?’
Carl shrugged. ‘Something to do.’
Alex’s lip curled. She glanced at Chloe, who had been watching Carl Henderson with fascination. ‘That’s it? Something to do?’
Carl gave another shrug.
‘Friday. Where were you?’
‘Work. Pulse, the club in Ponty. I work the doors.’
‘You must get to meet a lot of women that way?’
Beside Chloe, Tim Cole’s face had reddened so deeply he looked as though he might spontaneously combust. He looked imploringly at Chloe, willing her to say something to Alex. She gave him a shrug, mirroring Carl Henderson’s nonchalance.
‘S’pose so,’ Carl finally responded.
Alex pushed her chair back. ‘We’ll be looking into the things you’ve told us, so don’t be surprised if you hear from us again soon. In the meantime, you’re all required to attend the station for DNA testing.’
Tim Cole followed Alex and Chloe from the building.
‘I’m not happy with the way you went about things in there.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Alex said, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘Next time I’ll try to be a bit more sensitive to people’s emotions. I’m sure that’ll do Sarah Taylor the world of good.’
Tim Cole had the decency to look away.
‘The records we asked for earlier,’ she said. ‘Have you got them for us?’
Tim looked back to her, his expression altered now. ‘That’s what I needed to tell you. I went to get them earlier, when I arrived at the hall. They’re gone.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘Where the hell are those records?’ Alex asked, giving voice to her thoughts. She gripped the steering wheel between tightened hands. She felt so frustrated by the lack of progress. Every minute that passed was another minute lost to Sarah.
‘Tim seemed pretty surprised they weren’t there,’ Chloe said. ‘Unless he’s a good actor, I reckon he was genuine. If the only other person who had a key to that filing cabinet is Connor, looks as though we’ve got even more to go on.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Alex said, her voice betraying her frustrations. ‘It still doesn’t give us any real proof of anything.’
The Twitter account Tim Cole used as an emergency contact for group members had thrown up no results. Other than tweets with details of meeting times, there was nothing. No one had used it to contact him privately. It seemed an hour a week’s contact with Tim Cole was enough for anybody.
They were going to have to release Connor Price from custody. They had held him for as long as they could, and in that time no concrete evidence against him had come to light. They couldn’t keep him at the station for being a liar and an adulterer.
‘He could get away with this,’ she said, once again thinking out loud.
Chloe’s head was turned away from her, facing the window. ‘He wouldn’t be the first,’ she muttered.
Alex cast her a sideways glance. ‘You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself, Chloe. You’re torturing yourself.’
‘I have to find out what happened.’ Chloe turned to face her, her expression defiant.
Alex looked at the young woman incredulously. ‘Were you not there in Blake’s office the other day?’
‘You expected me to just turn it off at his say-so?’
‘You need to wait until we’ve found Lola’s murderer before you do anything more about Luke, OK? You managed years without pursuing this – why is it so difficult now?’
‘I tried to pursue it,’ Chloe snapped defensively. ‘I tried years ago and no one would listen to me, no one would take me seriously. I was just a kid back then. Things are different now.’
Those emails, Alex thought. Who the hell had sent them? Without them everything would have been different. Those emails seem to have prompted an accusation: she hadn’t done enough. It was this guilt that was driving Chloe to behave the way she was now: so erratically; so completely out of character.
Perhaps it would have been better for Chloe if she’d stayed in London and not come back to Cardiff. Old wounds were bound to be reopened eventually, although maybe that’s what Chloe had been hoping for.
‘Promise me.’
Alex looked sideways at Chloe. The young woman’s head was turned to the window, her face obscured by shadow.
‘Chloe.’
‘OK,’ she said, too quickly. ‘I know.’
Alex sighed. Chloe was bright, astute, intelligent, but here was her weakness. Given the wrong opportunities, she would throw her career away over a truth that might never see the light of day. Luke was gone: nothing would change that. Alex felt a responsibility to stop Chloe throwing her own life away.
‘Your brother wouldn’t want you to jeopardise your career.’
Chloe’s head snapped towards her, her face stained with an uncharacteristic anger. ‘What would you know about it? Luke wanted the truth. He would still want the truth, whatever it takes.’
‘Ruining your life?’ Alex challenged.
Chloe turned her head back to the window. ‘This is my life. Some of us put our families before our careers.’
The words cut through Alex’s reserve. They were all the more painful for their unexpectedness. This was a side to her colleague she had never seen before, and one she didn’t want to make a habit of seeing.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing. Forget it.’
Alex pulled the car to the kerbside, the engine still running. ‘Clearly not nothing. What are you suggesting?’ She didn’t have a family. That ship had long since sailed. Was Chloe referring to her marriage breakdown?
Could she really be that cruel, to use it against her?
Of course she could. When someone hurt enough, the cruellest of things could pass their tongues.
Chloe reached for the handle and opened the car door. A blast of chilly evening air greeted them.
‘Chloe, don’t—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Chloe said, cutting her short as she stepped out the car.