Amelia stood, moved around the table and enveloped Molly in a hug. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong, remember?’
‘I don’t think Jack would agree with you,’ Molly said, giving a loud sniff. ‘And the police… I know they don’t believe me.’
‘They have to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. It’s the way it works. You’ll go, answer questions you’ve already answered, and come away wondering why you were worried.’
‘Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.’
‘I read all those crime novels and watch every crime drama,’ Amelia said, sitting back in her chair. ‘I’m almost an expert. I know how it goes.’
No, you don’t, Molly wanted to scream, you’ve no bloody idea. Nothing she had ever read or seen on the TV had prepared her for being involved in something like this. But Amelia was trying to be kind and supportive, the way Jack should have been, so she merely shook her head and shut her eyes briefly to hide the fear she knew was lurking there. ‘West End Central Station,’ she said a moment later, attempting to sound amused. ‘He said it as though I’d know where that was, as if I were acquainted with police stations. I’ve never been inside one before.’
Amelia stretched behind her for her iPad. ‘We’ll soon sort that out,’ she said calmly. ‘Okay, here it is. Fairly convenient, actually, it’s on Savile Row.’ She looked up. ‘Easy, you get the Circle Line to Oxford Circus, then head down Regent Street, take a right on New Burlington Street and it’s at the end of that road. Six minutes’ walk. It’ll only take you thirty to forty minutes max from here.’ She tilted her head. ‘Why don’t you ring Jack and ask him to go with you?’
‘No,’ Molly said, wishing she could. ‘Jack mentioned being really busy. I’ll be fine. You’re probably right, anyway, they’re simply going through the motions.’
‘I could go with you, if you like?’
‘That’s very kind,’ Molly said, genuinely touched. ‘But honestly, I’ll be okay.’
‘Well, at least let me make you a sandwich. I bet you didn’t have any breakfast.’
Molly smiled her gratitude and sat back while Amelia bustled about in the kitchen. Molly had plugged her mobile in to charge and checked it for messages, hoping for one from Jack. He would forgive her eventually, but she wondered how long it would take her to forgive him for not standing by her when she needed him most. It was ironic when she thought of how much time she had spent in the last couple of weeks worrying about him.
She wondered what the police wanted to ask her. There was nothing she hadn’t already told them. She’d been an idiot, but that wasn’t a crime.
The sandwich Amelia made her was probably nice, but it tasted like cardboard in her mouth. She struggled to eat half, pushing the rest away with an apologetic shrug. ‘I’ve got collywobbles, I’m afraid. But thank you, even that much was enough.’
At one, she unplugged her phone. ‘I’ll go now. I’d prefer to be early.’
Amelia gathered her in a hug. ‘You stay strong, okay. Remember, you’ve done nothing wrong.’
There was light rain falling when she left Oxford Circus. Of course, she hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella. She took it as an omen that the rest of the day was going to be a hellish one. Turning down New Burlington Street, she saw the imposing grey building immediately ahead, police vans parked either side of its entrance. There was nothing threatening about the grey brick or the almost startling white window frames, but her insides spasmed with a fear that intensified as she approached. She could turn and run away but what then? ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ she muttered as she used the handrail to negotiate the nine steps to the front door. Another bad omen: lust was one of the nine circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno and isn’t that what had started this nightmare in the first place?
Inside the station, she gave her name to the bored counter clerk and took a seat to wait. It wasn’t long before DS Carstairs arrived, his too-knowing eyes sliding over her, making her skin crawl.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘We’re this way.’ He headed off down the corridor without another word.
Instantly irritated at his attitude, Molly lifted her chin and followed.
He stopped at a door and pushed it open, indicating with a silent jerk of his head that she went inside. It was a standard cold interview room. The only thing that made it different to any number of small conference rooms she’d been in over the years was the table screwed to the floor. The chairs weren’t, she was pleased to see, but they were light moulded-plastic ones that wouldn’t cause much damage if smashed against the side of someone’s head.
Not that she was planning on doing any smashing, despite the look on the detective’s face that said, as clearly as if it had been written there, that he didn’t think much of her. She met his gaze straight on, her eyes never wavering as she sat on one of the chairs. There was only one way to deal with people like him – show them you weren’t afraid. She guessed she did an okay job as he immediately looked away and told her he’d be back in a few minutes. But if he thought she wasn’t afraid he was a poor judge of people: she was terrified.
The room was warm. When he left, she took off her dark-blue coat and hung it over the back of the chair beside her, dropping her bag on the seat rather than a floor that looked as if it only ever had a faint relationship with a mop.
It was after two. She was wondering how long she’d be kept waiting when the door opened and DS Carstairs returned, DI Fanshawe close behind. Neither thanked her for coming in. DI Fanshawe took the chair opposite and put a slim file on the table in front of him before looking at her, his eyes assessing.
His expression, unlike his colleague’s, didn’t appear to be condemnatory, his grey eyes a little warmer than she remembered. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Tension made her shoulders ache.
Without a word, Fanshawe opened the file, withdrew a photograph and slid it across the table toward her. ‘Is this the man you met on the canal?’
Grateful that he had said met rather than any of the words he might have used, and certainly one of the words Carstairs would have chosen, she looked down at the photograph. Her initial reaction was no, it wasn’t him. This man had blue eyes, his skin was pale, hair tousled. But there was something… ‘It might be,’ she said, ‘but his eyes…’
Fanshawe took a sheet of acetate from the file and laid it over the photograph. ‘What about now?’
Molly gasped, reaching out and pulling the photograph closer. How well she remembered those fabulous turquoise eyes. Too fabulous; like a lot of that encounter, they weren’t real. She looked at the DI. ‘He was wearing coloured lenses.’ It wasn’t a question; she’d been fooled, but she wasn’t stupid.
He nodded. ‘When you mentioned his eye colour more than once, it reminded me of a case about a year ago where a witness spoke about a man’s amazing brown eyes. I pulled the case file.’ He tapped a stubby finger on the edge of the photograph. ‘His real name is Lucien Pleasant. He’s been implicated in a number of cases where people, usually women, have been conned out of a lot of money. He’s a slippery individual, we never managed to nail him down until last year when one of his alleged victims was found dead. He was arrested but unfortunately’ – Fanshawe’s lips narrowed – ‘the case was thrown out on a technicality and he disappeared.’
Molly’s eyes dropped to the picture and a wave of sadness swept over her. She’d been foolish, ripe for plucking. Her cheeks flushed with colour that was part embarrassment, part anger. ‘He was a con man,’ she said, gritting her teeth.
Fanshawe shook his head. ‘A very clever and slick operator which was why he was able to evade prison for so long.’ He sat back, his hands clasped over the hint of a belly and tapped his thumbs together. ‘Pleasant was way too clever an operator to be sitting by the canal on the off-chance that someone worth targeting would wander by.’ He waited for that to sink in before continuing. ‘Did you get any sense that he was waiting for you?’
She shook her head slowly, thinking back to that morning. ‘No, I didn’t. I had slowed to a walk and was thinking about turning to go back to the hotel when I saw him.’
‘Okay,’ he said, looking down at his notebook. ‘Then Pleasant said hello, you said the same and he asked the time. Is that it?’
‘Yes.’ She had been over this so often. There were few words spoken between them during that first encounter. Her indrawn breath was sudden and loud. Eyes wide, she stared across the table. ‘He asked me the time.’
Fanshawe waited.
‘After I sat beside him, he pointed to where he’d seen a kingfisher.’ She met the inspector’s eyes. ‘He was wearing a watch. It didn’t register with me then, but now…’
‘Pleasant was waiting for you specifically.’ He nodded as if it was what he’d surmised. ‘And you still maintain that nothing happened between you?’
‘Nothing.’ Molly’s hair had fallen forward, she brushed it back behind her ears. ‘I was carried away by the romance of it all. It was like something from a movie, you know.’ She avoided looking at Carstairs, guessing he’d find what she said amusing, maybe even pathetic. ‘Had he wanted more, that second morning, I think I might have been tempted. For a moment, I felt young and desirable but it wasn’t what he wanted from me.’
‘Then what was?’ Fanshawe said, a frown appearing between his eyes. ‘You mentioned that you thought he’d gone to your house with the intention of blackmailing you. Are you very wealthy, Mrs Chatwell? If he had succeeded, how much could he have hoped to achieve?’
Molly had made an error of judgement; would she have paid up to stop Jack finding out? She remembered his stricken face, his anger. Yes, she’d have paid anything to prevent that. ‘We’re not wealthy but I suppose I could have got my hands on twenty thousand,’ she said quietly.
Fanshawe tapped his thumbs together again and his frown deepened. ‘I doubt he’d have settled for that. He knew where you lived, he’d know there was more.’
‘But how did he know where I lived?’ Her voice cracked.
‘That’s something we’ll be trying to find out,’ he said, taking the photograph and slipping it back into the file.
‘There was something else,’ she said, her lower lip quivering. ‘It may be nothing, but I’ve been going over and over the encounter.’ She saw Carstairs’ raised eyebrow and ignored him, keeping her eyes on the inspector. ‘Although he’d looked appalled when I tried to kiss him, when I went to run away I had to wrench my T-shirt from his hand. Why was he holding on so tightly? And why did he run after me for as long as he did? I’m fast and I soon left him behind, but I could hear him shouting after me. Why?’ She shook her head. ‘I’d embarrassed myself, but he’d done nothing. Why not just leave it?’
‘You couldn’t hear what he was shouting?’
Molly shook her head. ‘I was moving too fast and my feet were crunching noisily on the stony path.’
‘Probably called you a tart,’ Carstairs suggested.
She shot him a look. ‘He would have had no reason to, would he? As I have said, more than once, nothing happened. I only heard one of the words he was shouting,’ she said, looking back at Fanshawe. ‘It was, understand.’