‘What parallels?’
‘Between nicking dogs and then finding them to boost your reputation as a so-called psychic, and kidnapping a child to do the same.’
‘What?’ Latham looked stunned. Then he started to cry again. Harder this time.
‘All that publicity. All that TV exposure. All that money.’
‘That’s not … what … happened.’
Marvel shrugged. ‘Maybe you didn’t mean to hurt her. Maybe you were going to keep her for a bit and then return her, just like with the dogs. Maybe something went wrong.’
‘No!’ cried Latham. ‘Nothing went wrong! I didn’t take her and I didn’t hurt her! I’d never even heard her name before the police called and asked for my help! I didn’t even know she was missing!’ His weeping now was unrestrained and noisy, with streamers of clear snot looping off his nose and chin. ‘When I found her it nearly destroyed me!’ he bawled. ‘It nearly killed me! You don’t understand what it’s like! You’re there. You feel what she feels! Never again! That’s why I wouldn’t help that woman with the picture of her son.’
He stopped talking and took off his glasses so he could wipe his eyes.
Marvel sat back in his chair and watched Latham through narrowed eyes. Brady was shooting looks at him, but knew better than to interrupt him at a critical point. Or at any point.
Marvel made a face, as if he was finding it all very hard to believe. ‘So what you’re telling me, Richard,’ he said carefully, ‘is that you kidnapping the dogs has nothing whatsoever to do with the kidnap and murder of Edie Evans.’
‘Nothing,’ said Latham eagerly. Then his eager look faded as he realized what he’d done, and his lips turned down yet again.
With grim pleasure, Marvel realized that – if he played this right – he might get everything he wanted and needed out of Richard Latham. With the leverage of that one-word confession, he might solve the Edie Evans case and let Superintendent Clyde off the hook. A double-whammy of promotion-worthy proportions.
With perfect timing, the door of the interview room opened and Dale Proctor strode in. He dropped his tatty old briefcase on to the table with a great puffing out of cheeks to indicate that he’d been moving Heaven and Earth to get there as fast as he could.
‘Say nothing,’ he barked at Latham.
‘Why is my client crying?’ he demanded of Marvel.
Marvel ignored him and leaned across the table to look deep into Latham’s eye. ‘I might be able to get you a deal, Richard.’
‘My client has done nothing wrong,’ said Proctor. ‘So why would he make a deal?’
But Latham glanced up. He reached forward slowly and picked up his glasses, then put them on so he could see Marvel properly. ‘What kind of deal?’
‘Hey!’ said Proctor irritably. ‘We’re not making deals. Dale Proctor is not in the deal-making business!’
Marvel looked at the lawyer. ‘Your client just admitted his involvement in a plot to steal dogs and to extort money from their owners.’
Proctor rounded on Latham. ‘Jesus! You didn’t, did you?’
Marvel went on: ‘And those owners include the wife of a senior Metropolitan police officer.’
‘Nobody’s supposed to speak to my client until I get here!’
‘That’s what he kept saying,’ grinned Marvel. ‘You can hear it on the tape if you wind it back. Along with his confession to theft, fraud, deception and extortion.’
They both looked at Latham, whose ruddy, tearful face acknowledged that all of it was true.
‘Bollocks,’ said Proctor. He slumped down into the chair next to Latham.
‘Sorry,’ said Latham.
‘Hey,’ shrugged Proctor, ‘it’s your neck.’
‘What about the deal?’ said Latham.
Proctor made a long-suffering face. ‘All right,’ he said grumpily. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘I’m not promising anything. I need to tell you that right up front. But I might be able to make this dog thing go away.’
Marvel spoke with caution; people never wanted something you were too keen to give them.
‘Yeah?’ said Proctor. ‘Tell me more.’
‘Your client gives us complete cooperation on the Edie Evans case.’
‘Who’s Edie Evans?’ said Proctor.
‘She’s a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared just over a year ago. Mr Latham here was employed by us in his capacity as a psychic, but she was never found.’
‘Is my client a suspect in that case?’
‘No,’ lied Marvel. ‘But he admits he’s withholding information that might be vital.’
Proctor exchanged a brief glance with Latham, who did not deny it.
‘And what would that cooperation involve?’
‘Not much. Just look at some pictures and use his … gift. We have new information he hasn’t worked with before. See if he can get anything from it that might be helpful to us. If he can’t, he can’t – but right now he’s not even prepared to try. That’s all I ask – that he tries.’
‘Shit,’ said Brady.
Proctor laughed and nodded at him. ‘Even he thinks it sounds too good to be true! What’s the catch?’
‘The only catch is, the deal’s so bloody good the super might not go for it.’
The super would bite his hand off up to the elbow. Marvel couldn’t believe his own genius. It was the perfect solution. He would be able to offload the Mitzi Clyde millstone and reopen the Edie Evans case in one easy step. At best, Latham might incriminate himself while revisiting it. At the very least, he could shed valuable light on the one case that still had the power to keep Marvel awake at night, blinking up at the charcoal ceiling while Debbie slept the sleep of the ignorant beside him and Buster snored on his feet.
Proctor turned to Latham and asked, ‘What do you think?’