TWENTY-TWO

Cornish reminded Linda that the interview was being recorded, that she would be presented with a copy afterwards, that she was being questioned under caution as a witness and that she had waived her right to have a solicitor present.

‘I don’t need one, do I?’ Linda asked.

‘You have the right to one. We need to make sure you’re fully informed of the fact, that’s all.’

Linda nodded and smiled nervously across the table at Sophie Carson, who was sitting next to Cornish. Carson did not smile back.

‘You’re probably aware that a body was discovered early this morning in woodland to the west of town.’

Linda nodded. Even if she had not seen the news, the rapid expansion of the crowd outside the house would have told her something significant had happened. She had watched the TV report with a growing sense of dread; a sick feeling spreading from her stomach, prickling on her arms and legs. She had fought to keep it from showing on her face, all too aware that Carson, Gallagher and the other cops in the living room were looking for any reaction; watching her watching.

‘Which one is it?’ she asked Cornish. ‘Poppy or Jess?’

‘There’s been no formal identification as yet,’ Cornish said. There was a good reason why not, but he did not want to get into that for the time being. He was holding that back until it was needed. ‘But I can tell you with certainty that it was the body of Jessica Toms.’

‘God . . . ’

Cornish and Carson waited a few seconds, watched Linda’s shoulders slump, her head shake slowly.

‘Did you know her?’ Cornish asked.

‘I knew who she was. But I didn’t know her.’

‘What about Steve?’

‘Same.’

‘She’d never been in his car?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Right,’ Cornish said. ‘That’s what he told us.’

Linda had been staring at a spot on the other side of the table, at Sophie Carson’s hand lying across a manila folder. The nicely kept fingernails, pillar-box red. Now, she looked at the woman’s face and at Cornish’s. Neither told her anything. She said, ‘I’ve already answered questions like this.’

‘Your husband told us that Jessica Toms had never been in his car,’ Cornish said. ‘But I’m afraid to say he wasn’t telling the truth. The forensic tests prove beyond any doubt that she had been.’

‘So there must be a mistake.’

‘DNA doesn’t lie,’ Cornish said.

‘But people make mistakes. The police make mistakes.’

Cornish looked away for a few moments. ‘Steve smokes Marlboro Lights, doesn’t he?’

Linda did not answer immediately. It was starting to feel as if every question they asked, however simple it sounded, was nudging her a little further into a minefield. ‘Yeah, so?’

‘We found a cigarette end with the body. Caught in the plastic.’

‘What plastic?’

‘Jessica’s body was wrapped in bin-bags,’ Carson said.

‘So?’

‘It was a Marlboro Light.’ Cornish steepled his fingers. ‘We’ll have the DNA results on that later today. By this afternoon with a bit of luck. And I know it’s going to have your old man’s DNA on it.’

‘No way,’ Linda said, without missing a beat. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘You don’t have to do this,’ Carson said.

‘Do what?’

‘Say the things you think you should say to cover up for him.’

‘I’m not.’

‘He’s not the one you should be worrying about, all right?’

Linda looked at Carson. The officer had leaned a little closer to her, but her expression was blank.

‘Me, you mean? You think I know something?’

‘If you know anything at all that might help us, now’s the time to speak up. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘I’ve told you what I know and what I don’t know. How could you think I’m trying to hide anything? Why the hell would I?’ She shook her head at Carson, raised her hands. ‘Come on, Sophie, you’ve spent time with me, with my kids.’

The officer said nothing, showed nothing. ‘Sophie’ when she was making tea, laying a supportive hand on Linda’s shoulder. ‘DC Carson’ in the interview room.

Cornish opened a file and studied it. ‘You’re aware that we took your husband’s computer from your house.’

‘I’m aware that you took all sorts of things.’

‘We found certain material on his hard drive which we believe to be significant.’

Linda stared. She did not need to be told what the copper was talking about. Once or twice, she had walked into the room and seen her husband scrabble to close a screen. She shrugged. ‘Blokes look at that stuff, so what? I bet you look at it, don’t you?’ She waited for a response but did not get one. ‘What you’re talking about, what you found on the computer. You mean like porn, right?’

‘Like porn.’ Cornish emphasised the first word.

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t really think you want me to go into details, Linda. Let’s just say it was specialised.’

Linda shifted in her seat. Those prickles were creeping along her arms again. Her belly was starting to cramp.

‘Take a minute,’ Carson said.

Linda closed her eyes for a few seconds, unable to focus on anything but those details they were so thoughtfully sparing her. The vile images she could not help but imagine. ‘I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say.’

Cornish nodded. ‘OK, let’s talk about the night Poppy Johnston went missing.’ There was a tone Linda recognised in the copper’s voice, suddenly; something like concern, like sympathy. It reminded her of the doctor who had told her that her dad was dying. ‘Last Thursday.’

‘Right.’

‘Steve told you he was in the pub.’

‘Because he was in the pub.’

‘Well, let’s not argue about that. Why would he go to a pub all the way out in Atherstone, sit there drinking on his own?’

‘Because that’s where the job was. He’d gone over to take a look at a house.’

‘Easy enough to drive back, get a pint here. Magpie’s Nest, that’s his local, isn’t it?’

‘He drinks in a few places.’

‘So, why not go to one of them?’

‘You’ll have to ask him.’

‘I did ask him.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Same thing you just did.’ Cornish pulled a face, as though pained slightly by whatever he was about to say. ‘Only problem is, Linda, it’s a pack of lies, because I don’t think he was in the pub at all. I don’t think he went to look at any job in Atherstone or anywhere else and there’s no record on your home phone or on his mobile of any call from anyone asking him to come and quote for a job. I think that, whatever he told you, he picked up Poppy Johnston that night and took her somewhere in his car.’ He left a second or two. ‘You’re bright enough to know exactly what we think he did after that.’

Carson let out a long breath. Said, ‘Had you got any reason to suspect he might be lying to you last Thursday?’

Linda shook her head.

‘Any occasion in the past when you thought he’d lied to you?’

‘What? Are you married?’

‘You know what I’m talking about.’

Linda shook her head again. Carson nodded towards the recorder. Linda said, ‘No,’ but it sounded as though there was something stuck in her throat.

‘Like I said, Linda, I know you’re bright.’ Cornish was leaning forward now. As he spoke, he began removing photographs from the folder in front of him, though Linda could not quite see what they were of. ‘Whatever happens, there’s still you, and there’s still Charli and Danny, and you’ve still got a life together to think about.’ He removed the last picture, began to arrange them. ‘That’s what you need to concentrate on, and I know you would never do anything . . . I know you would never not tell us anything . . . that might endanger that.’

‘You and your family are victims too,’ Carson said. ‘You need to remember that.’

Suddenly, all Linda could remember was the face of that lovely Indian doctor. Bright eyes and so many lines on her cheeks, around her mouth. A small woman with thick glasses and grey hair tied back and that small red dot on her forehead, whatever it was called. A whisper of a voice when she spoke, and Linda’s arsehole of a father being horribly rude to her, right up until the end.