42

The early morning was golden on the wide streets of Hampstead. Curtains were drawn. The immense trees with their grey patterned trunks and broad leaves had the neighbourhood largely to themselves. A few men and women in smart suits and expensive shoes hurried with an air of brisk satisfaction towards the tube. Elaine was driving and Sarah, in the passenger seat, was free to look at the blue plaques that remembered the former occupants of the million-pound houses. Poets, writers, dancers, photographers, painters had all lived here.

Lee, sitting in the back seat, said, ‘More plaques on these streets than you can shake a stick at.’

Elaine said, ‘I wonder when they’ll start doing them for hedge-fund managers.’

They parked a few doors down from the address and the search team drew up behind them. Opposite was an eighteenth-century house with wrought-iron gates and a large cobbled courtyard. On the other side, a row of imposing brick Victorian semi-detacheds with stone steps up to the front doors.

Sarah said, ‘OK, we’ll go in and explain what’s happening. Then, Elaine, you make the arrest and we’ll get the search team in.’

They climbed the steps together, warrant cards ready in their hands. Sarah gave the brass knocker two taps and waited. Lee smoothed down his hair.

Richard Stephenson looked all of his sixty-two years but was still an imposing figure: tall and angular, with a large mouth, a craggy look about his face – tan lines and a hint of stubble. His hair was grey, short on the sides and long on top, with just the suggestion of a quiff. He wore indigo jeans and black brogues. Over a white cotton shirt with an open mandarin collar was a dark-blue velvet waistcoat. The look was theatrical – Confederate colonel perhaps – and he bore himself like an actor who had perhaps come to believe he really was one of those men he’d spent a lifetime playing.

Sarah showed her warrant card and Stephenson greeted her with an impatient smile. His eyes travelled to Elaine and Lee, standing on the step behind, and then back to Sarah. He spoke as if he was distracted, as if he belonged to a category that didn’t usually have to concern itself with police officers. ‘Yes. What can I do for you?’ He glanced up the street. ‘Has there been a burglary?’

‘Detective Inspector Sarah Collins. Can we talk to you inside?’

‘Certainly.’

He led them down the hall.

A black baby grand stood in the sitting room. On its shiny top was an open violin case. Above the mantelpiece was a dark oil painting of two young women in hats sitting in a café. The surface of a glazed walnut cabinet was covered with silver-framed photos. Elaine had moved over to the big bay window that looked out over the Hampstead street.

‘Lovely place you’ve got.’

Stephenson appeared briefly gratified and bestowed a gracious smile. ‘Thank you.’ He opened his hands despairingly. ‘Unfortunately commuters use the road as a rat run.’

Elaine turned to him with a deadpan expression. ‘That must be irritating for you.’

There was enough rudeness there for Stephenson to have noticed it. He addressed Sarah with raised eyebrows, as if puzzled by the lack of manners displayed by her officer.

‘So, Miss, um, Collins, I believe you’re the senior officer here. Why don’t you tell me what this is about?’

‘We’ve found the body of Tania Mills.’

He frowned as if he was struggling to place the name.

Sarah said, ‘Come on, you must remember Tania Mills? She was a student of yours.’

He nodded gravely. ‘Ah yes, you’re right. The poor girl who disappeared after the great storm.’

‘We found her body yesterday beneath the car park of Morville Park, where you helped with the replanting of trees. The warden there has given a statement that you had access to the car park not long after the storm – in fact, you insisted on leaving your car there even though they were re-tarmacking. There’s been no work done on the area since, so Tania must have been buried in just that interval. Have you anything to say about that?’

A shimmer of tension flickered across his face. ‘No, nothing.’

Sarah turned to Elaine. ‘I think you should go ahead.’

She stepped forward. ‘Richard Stephenson, I’m arresting you for the murder of Tania Mills on the sixteenth of October 1987 . . .’

He appeared to be listening with intense concentration. While Elaine completed the arrest and explained that they had a warrant to search his house, Sarah moved over to the cabinet and studied the photos in their silver frames. All recorded professional triumphs. Stephenson looking chummy next to celebrity musicians, both popular and classical. A photo of him outside the EMI recording studios on Abbey Road. Another with a man Sarah couldn’t place but whom she thought was a film director. Stephenson in white tie outside Buckingham Palace, holding up the red ribbon and silver cross of his MBE. A woman maybe twenty years his junior in a blue silk suit with a matching veiled pillbox hat was by his side, smiling.

‘Miss Collins’

She turned back. Elaine had handcuffs ready. Stephenson, his hand up to delay her, said, ‘My lawyer’s card is in my wallet. May I call him?’

Sarah nodded. ‘Lee, can you help Mr Stephenson with that?’

Lee took the card, dialled the lawyer’s number, then passed the phone to him.

‘May I have some privacy?’

‘I’m sorry. We’ve got nowhere here where we can give you privacy that’s secure. You can talk to your lawyer in private once you’re in custody.’

Stephenson muttered under his breath but loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Fucking little Hitler.

Elaine grinned.

He spoke into the phone, giving brief details of the arrest and listening to the voice at the other end. After a few moments, he passed the phone back to Lee.

‘They’re sending someone over here to be present during the search. If you would be so kind as to wait till then before starting?’

‘Of course, the search team will wait outside. We’ll put a seal over the door while we drive you to the station.’

Elaine stepped forward with the cuffs in her right hand. ‘Sir, if you’d just crook your right hand in your elbow, please?’

His lips gave a little twitch. ‘Is that really necessary?’

‘You’re an unknown risk, sir. It’s just to protect you and us until we get you to the station.’

He flicked the fingers of his right hand out as though he was dismissing a fly.

‘Well, I suppose I won’t wait for the lawyer then. Save you the trouble of taking me away.’ He flicked his hand again. ‘I have an alibi for the sixteenth of October.’

Sarah intervened. ‘Mr Stephenson, you are under caution. You might want to wait—’

‘No. I don’t want to wait!’ he snapped. His lips shaped themselves into a tight little moue. Then the words rushed out of him. ‘Why should I waste my day when it’s simply not necessary? I remember the sixteenth of October very well because of the storm. I was with Tania’s friend Katherine Herringham all day.’

There was a pause.

Stephenson cleared his throat in two little quick twitches of his Adam’s apple. ‘So.’ He seemed all expectancy, as though he had just cleverly played an unexpectedly high card. But there was fear there too, lingering behind the brittle smile.

Elaine had put her cuffs away and was scribbling in her arrest book. Sarah glanced across at Lee, just to make sure he was paying attention. Then she spoke in slow, measured tones. ‘You remain linked to the discovery of Tania’s body in the car park. You are still under arrest. We need to investigate your alibi and to interview you under caution.’

‘That’s bloody ridiculous!’

Sarah saw, out of the corner of her eye, Lee’s hand go to his asp. She said quietly, ‘Lee, why don’t you put the handcuffs on?’

For just a second there was something wild in Stephenson, as though, against all odds, he might actually fight, but as Lee stepped forward, he nodded tightly and complied.

Elaine, who had been leaning her arrest book on her knee, looked up and said, ‘I’ve written down your comments. I think I’ve got this right. Let’s see: “I remember the day very well because of the storm. I was with Tania’s friend Katherine Herringham all day.” Would you like to sign that as a true record of what you’ve said?’

‘No, I wouldn’t! I am going to sue the arse off the Met when this is over.’

Sarah said slowly, ‘I did warn you, Mr Stephenson, that you were under caution. It’s correct procedure to record everything significant you say from now on.’

Elaine had started writing in her notebook again and Stephenson turned back to her, furious.

‘What the FUCK are you doing now?’

‘Just writing that you’re refusing to sign. It’s standard procedure. The other officers present will sign to corroborate that.’

‘But I’m not refusing to sign!’

She offered the notebook again. ‘So would you like to sign my notes then?’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake. It’s like speaking to idiots! Look, if you’re taking me to the station, you might as well forget I ever said that!’

Sarah spoke as if she was genuinely baffled. ‘Forget what you’ve said, Mr Stephenson? You’ve been arrested for murder.’

‘And I am innocent! Why don’t you write that down?’

‘Sir, you are under caution. Did you listen to the wording of that – anything you say may be given in evidence? Elaine will be writing down anything significant you say – including, please, Elaine, Mr Stephenson’s suggestion that you forget about his alibi.’

‘Yes, I’ve got that, Sarah.’

Stephenson pressed his lips together until they were white. It seemed to last an age. ‘Well then.’ He adopted the tone of an intelligent man beset by fools. ‘Very well. May I take a score with me to the station? I understand that there may be some waiting around.’

Sarah looked at Lee. ‘Could you help Mr Stephenson find the score he wants to take with him?’

Stephenson asked Lee to find a jacket for him to throw over his shoulders to cover the cuffs. They sealed the door and went to the car.

They sat him in the back passenger seat. Elaine wriggled in beside him, huffing and puffing and saying, ‘Shove up, would you?’

Sarah wondered if she was doing it on purpose. Lee was staring forward giving every impression of stifling a giggle and Sarah too found she had to resist the temptation to look at her two passengers in the rear-view mirror.

Elaine and Sarah left Lee arranging for Stephenson to see his lawyer and drove the forty minutes west to Katherine Herringham’s house.