Astrid gave Church a minute to purge some of his distress before speaking.
‘I didn’t know George had a nephew.’
He rolled his head in his hands and lifted it from the table. Shaking fingers wiped the tears from his face and he stared at her like a rabbit in the headlights.
‘I’ve no idea who you are.’ He sucked air into his lungs and seemed to gain a semblance of control. ‘You sound English. My uncle is English.’ Church appeared confused.
‘Yes, George.’
He used his arm to wipe the spit from his lips. ‘Yeah. I’ve never met him, but I know he lives in England somewhere. He’s my mother’s older brother, but they were separated years ago.’ His eyes glazed over. ‘George. George Cross. It’s a funny name, right, because I know a George Cross is a British medal.’
George, you old devil. You never told me you had relatives, let alone any in America.
‘He sent me here, Adam.’ She let that information sink in. ‘Do you want my help?’
He sat up straight, seemingly looking at her for the first time. ‘Really, Uncle George sent you here?’
Astrid checked for new texts on her phone and discovered none. ‘Yes. Do you want my help?’
He didn’t reply immediately, which surprised her.
Maybe he’s guilty.
‘Yeah, of course, yes. I mean, I need all the help I can get.’
‘Did you kill those girls?’
‘No, no, definitely not. I was in the basement, checking on stuff, when I found them. I’ve no idea what happened to the girls or how they got there. The house was locked when I left, and you need a digital code to get through the security, and a key to the front or back door as well.’
Astrid glanced at Hudson. The detective was smiling, a grin which told her she knew something they didn’t.
‘The police claim there was no sign of forced entry to the house.’
Adam seemed confused. ‘I don’t know about that.’ He sank his head into his hands again, and his whole body trembled.
‘Why don’t you already have a lawyer?’
He spoke with his face pressed into the table. ‘Everything has happened so fast. My head’s never stopped whirling since they brought me in.’ He lifted his head and looked at her. ‘Aren’t you a lawyer? Isn’t that why Uncle George sent you?’
‘No, I’m not, Adam. My skills lie somewhere else.’
She glanced at the blank walls and considered what she could do to help him. She didn’t know if he was innocent or not, not yet, but she knew she’d do George this favour.
‘So how will you help me?’
She spoke to the detectives. ‘Can you share the case file with me?’
Hicks snorted laughter across the room. ‘I don’t know how criminal investigations work in Britain, but we don’t share information with members of the public.’ He moved from the wall and opened the door. ‘And now you’ve used up all your time with him.’
She stood, knowing it would be fruitless to argue, but she needed to speak to Church again.
‘When you have a lawyer, they’ll have access to the evidence against you, and I need to see that. They should also be able to get me into the crime scene.’
‘You want to go to my house?’
‘I need to if you want me to prove your innocence.’
That’s if he is innocent.
‘Okay, I’ll do all that, but you have to do something else for me.’
Here it comes.
‘What?’
He pushed his thumb into his palm, rubbing at the skin so much, she expected it to come away and reveal the blood and bone underneath. ‘Will you tell my sister Eve what’s happened?’
Astrid’s eyebrows arched towards the ceiling. ‘Your parents named you Adam and Eve?’
Dark shadows consumed him. ‘They were deeply religious.’
‘Were?’
‘They died in a car crash five years ago. It was ironic, really.’
‘In what way?’
‘They were leaving an event they’d organised, Christians Against Sin, when a drunk driver drove into them.’ A tiny grin crept across his face. ‘God does work in mysterious ways, after all.’
He appeared unsympathetic to the loss of his parents, or it may have been the shock of his situation overwhelming him, but she couldn’t hold that against him.
‘Where is your sister?’
His shoulders shrank into his chest. ‘Eve checked herself into a facility when she was eighteen. She can leave anytime she wants, but she’s been there for seven years.’
He gave her the name and address: the Tranquil Waters Rest Home. It sounded divine. At least it was something to do while waiting on the lawyer.
‘Which of you two is the older?’
Adam’s face twitched upwards so he stared at the blank ceiling. ‘That would be me by five years.’
‘Why haven’t the police contacted her if she’s your closest relative?’
Astrid was reluctant to say Eve was his next of kin, thinking it implied his guilt, and then the death penalty. She wasn’t even sure if Texas executed some of its criminals, but if she had to guess which of the American states did, she’d go for the Lone Star State.
Church looked between Hudson and Hicks. ‘I didn’t tell them where she is.’ He pressed his fingers into his forehead, and she thought he might be trying to drag his brain from his skull. ‘Evie was, is, very self-conscious about, well, everything, and it would mortify her if anyone found out where she’d been living these last seven years.’
From the anxiety seeping from his eyes and the way his hands twitched as he spoke, Astrid assumed the Church siblings had some personal issues they had yet to overcome. Still, who was she to judge how families functioned? Her relationship with her sister, Courtney, currently resided below the seventh level of Hell, hanging together by the tiniest margin called Olivia, Astrid’s niece.
He continued talking, but she didn’t hear any of his words. She pictured where she should have been right then, feeling the frigid blast of her sister’s gaze as she handed Olivia the presents she’d bought in America: Mickey Mouse wearing a Ramones t-shirt and the Sherlock Holmes Children’s Collection. Courtney would likely frown at her daughter reading such books, but Astrid thought a seven-year-old as clever as Olivia, and she was much brighter than either Astrid or her mother were at the same age, should be challenging her mind all the time.
She pushed the image of Olivia back into the shadows of her head. ‘What did you say?’
He leant closer to her. ‘Be careful when you tell her about this; she’s quite fragile.’
She peered at him and wondered what he was hiding. Hicks’s scowl told her it was time to leave, so she followed Hudson from the room as her partner stayed behind. She didn’t know Adam Church from Adam, but George was the only person she called a friend, and she’d never let him down.
Astrid was moving down the corridor towards the exit when Hudson’s fingers landed on her shoulders. In any other situation, she might have broken the detective’s wrist but now wasn’t the time. She stepped to the side and away from her reach.
‘Can I have a few words before you go?’
‘Is this a demand?’
Hudson held up her hands and grinned. ‘Just a simple request from one investigator to another.’
Astrid contemplated the situation before acquiescing. There was no point in pissing off the police when she might need them later.
‘How about quid pro quo? You share something with me, and I’ll do the same.’
Hudson pointed at the desk behind them. She strode towards it, and Astrid followed. As she sat, she examined the clutter there: printed emails and faxes, a half-full cup of cold coffee, three books on policy standards, and a photo of two kids grinning into the camera. There was no image of any significant other.
She’s married to the job.
Hudson pushed her face into the computer as if she’d forgotten her glasses and tapped at the keyboard.
‘Your name is Astrid Snow, and you’re British.’
‘I’ll give you those for free.’
‘What are you doing in the US?’
‘Sightseeing holiday.’
Hudson pressed a single key. ‘Before coming here, you visited New York and Washington.’
‘That’s correct.’
The detective sank into her chair. ‘So what type of investigator are you?’
Astrid sighed inwardly. No matter how hard she tried to leave her past behind, she could never get away from it. She could lie, but didn’t see the point. ‘I worked for the British government. I can’t tell you any more than that.’
‘That must be why I can’t find a file on you anywhere. Not with the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, or the NSA.’
Astrid shrugged. ‘I’m a responsible citizen.’
‘Oh, I think you’re much more than that, Ms Snow.’ She picked up a pen and used it to tap the screen. ‘What most American people don’t realise is that each one of them, responsible or not, has a file about them somewhere. Since 2001, every American government has collected personal data on all of its citizens. They can access some of it if they ask, but most of it is off-limits. But, even though you’re a foreign national, to have no file at all is quite exceptional.’ She paused and waited for a reply. Instead, Astrid asked a question.
‘What are you allowed to tell me about the case against Adam Church?’
Hudson dropped the pen on to the desk. ‘He called the police to say he’d found the bodies of two girls in his basement. He claims the house was locked all day, and no one else has a key or code to the building. There was no sign of a break-in or forced entry.’
‘How were the girls killed?’
‘Someone strangled them. His DNA is all over them. His hair and skin were on their clothes.’
‘Wouldn’t that be expected inside his home?’
‘There’s more evidence I can’t reveal to you.’
‘But you’ll have to tell his lawyer.’
‘Yes.’
‘And they’ll tell me.’
‘That’s up to them.’
Astrid stood and turned to leave. ‘Is there anything else you want to know about me?’
‘The evidence we have is bulletproof, so why are you helping him? He’s as guilty as sin.’
She thought again of being back in England and bathing in her niece’s smile. ‘Because I have a friend who, no matter what I do, I can never repay what I owe them. But this is a start.’
Detective Hudson shook her head. ‘It’s a start, all right; the start of Adam Church’s journey to a lethal injection.’
That answered the question regarding Texas having the death penalty. There was one last thing she needed from Hudson.
‘Is there somewhere nearby I can hire a car?’
‘Sure. Do you need anything else?’
‘Give me the address where you found the bodies.’