‘He says you knew all about it,’ Minderedes said. ‘That makes you an accessory to murder. You’re going inside for years, Chantal, unless you tell us what you know.’
Chantal Blomet stared at him bleary eyed, her hair sticking to her wet cheeks. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re lying.’ Her voice cracked, but the look of shock on her face seemed genuine. ‘Why would he say that, when it’s not true?’
They were nearly there, Tartaglia thought, her resistance gradually ebbing. They had shown her photographs, first of Finnigan and then Smart, taken when they were still alive, and explained their connection with Dave Simpson. Given that she’d known Richard English and clearly hated him, they hadn’t bothered to show her any of him. They talked about Smart’s background and family in particular, and how he had disappeared without a trace just before his birthday. They had then given her the details of the Sainsbury’s car park fire in south London and the Guy Fawkes fire in Aldford, mentioning the other two unknown victims – one assumed to be Jane Waterman – and shown her photographs from the postmortems. Again, they left the fire in Peckham to one side for the moment. Tartaglia didn’t want Blomet’s feelings about English to cloud the situation. At first she refused to listen, saying they were making it all up, that it was just fiction. But gradually the full horror of what they described sank in.
They had deliberately not allowed her a break, except once to visit the ladies’. She returned having washed her face, but rather than looking refreshed she appeared even more deflated, as though she had perhaps caught sight of herself in the mirror and reflected on what the future might hold; that the reality of her predicament had finally dawned on her. It was often the way with people who were not used to being questioned, particularly when the possible charges were so serious. Would she have stuck with a man like Simpson if she had known about the murders? From the little he’d seen of her, it didn’t stack up. Also, if she had been involved, why would Simpson have taken the risk of using Tatyana to get to Finnigan? It seemed that, after all, Chantal really had no inkling as to what he was doing. Yet instinct told him she was still holding something back.
Minderedes leaned forwards across the table. ‘Why did you lie to Detective Inspector Tartaglia and tell him you thought Dave Simpson was dead, unless you knew what he’d done and you were trying to protect him?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’
‘But it was just this morning,’ Wightman said. ‘How can you forget? You told him you hadn’t seen Dave Simpson since he went to jail. You also said that you didn’t have a relationship with him. Yet we find you living with him under the same roof, sharing his bed. Basically, everything you’ve told us is a lie and there’s only one way to interpret that. It’s not looking good for you.’
She bowed her head and was silent for some moments. Then, ‘I shouldn’t have lied. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t want Dave getting into any trouble.’
‘What trouble would that be? You said he hasn’t done anything wrong.’
‘Dave Simpson’s as guilty as hell and you knew all about what he did,’ Minderedes said. ‘You helped him.’
She shook her head wearily. ‘No . . .’
‘What did you say?’
She sighed. ‘It’s not true. Whatever he’s done, I knew nothing about it.’
‘You ditched him when he went to jail, then picked up with him again when he came out. You were the one in control.’
‘I didn’t ditch him, I wanted to see him. I wanted to help him, but he said he didn’t want to see me. He told me not to come. He didn’t want me.’
Wightman shook his head in disbelief. ‘If you want to save yourself, you’re going the wrong way about it. Do you think a jury will buy your story? Do you think they’ll believe that you knew nothing about what Dave Simpson was doing?’
Minderedes leaned forwards to catch her eye. ‘Well? You’re a clever girl, Chantal. He was your lover and you stole him away from his wife and child. Think about it. Man like that, he’d tell you everything, wouldn’t he? He’d have no secrets from you. Maybe you were the one pulling his strings.’
She made no reply, just stared down at her hands as though her thoughts were far away.
Wightman then described what they thought had happened to Richard English, how he was drugged and left senseless in the basement while Simpson set the house on fire, knowing that the still in the back room would explode. He read out the paragraph from the post-mortem that detailed the evidence of smoke inhalation. ‘He burned alive, Chantal. Think of that. You knew Richard English and you hated him. Did you lure him to the house in Peckham so Simpson could kill him?’
‘Even if you didn’t light the match, you’re as guilty as he is,’ Minderedes said.
She had begun to shake at the mention of English and the fire, and hid her face in her hands, mumbling something that Tartaglia couldn’t hear. Her reaction spoke volumes. This was what she had been hiding all along. She knew something about what had happened to Richard English. Just how much, was the question.
‘Speak up,’ Minderedes said. ‘You helped Simpson kill Richard English, didn’t you?’
‘What are you saying?’ Wightman asked.
She looked up. ‘It wasn’t like that . . .’ She turned imploringly towards her lawyer, Keith Whitely.
‘Well, what was it like? Tell us.’
Whitely intervened. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said. ‘Before we go any further, I need to speak to my client. In private.’
As he spoke, Tartaglia’s phone started ringing. It was Chang. He answered, to be told that Chang was calling from the hospital. Simpson had regained consciousness.
Shouldering his small rucksack, Adam walked down the street towards Sam Donovan’s house. He had been back to Bedford Gardens first, showered quickly and changed, then packed up his few belongings and locked them in the boot of Kit’s car, along with Hannah Bird’s body. He had parked only a block away from where Sam lived. When it was over, his plan was to drive to Dover and get on a catamaran to Ostend first thing the next day. He had looked at the times and been through it all very carefully. The sea journey took only forty-five minutes, but he reckoned there was little rush. It was unlikely that Sam would be found until the next day at the very earliest, and Hannah even later, by which time he would be safely on a long-haul flight out of Europe to somewhere hot. He missed the warmth of the sun, the scented breeze from the sea at night. He had enough cash to last him a good while, particularly in some cheap backpacker destination. There would be another Kit somewhere along the way, female or male, it didn’t matter. Maybe he would never return to the UK again. But first, he had some unfinished business to attend to.
He stopped by a hedge opposite Sam’s house and looked across the road. There were no lights on and the curtains were pulled tightly across the windows on both the ground and first floors. She had been there most of the day, only going out for a while mid-morning, and he wondered what she’d been doing all that time on her own. Probably sorting through her sister’s things. He looked forward to telling her how pointless it all was. He was about to cross the road when he heard the thud of muffled footsteps coming up fast behind him. A jogger, wearing a dark tracksuit with a hood pulled low over his face, emerged from the shadows and ran, head bowed, in Adam’s direction. Adam ducked into the garden behind, pressing himself against the hedge, listening to the rhythmic pace of the man’s feet as they passed by in front of him. Cautiously, he stepped out of the shadows, watching until the jogger disappeared around the bend at the end of the road. He waited a moment, then felt for the keys in his pocket and crossed over to the Donovan house.
He tried all three of Claire’s keys but none of them worked. Sam Donovan had fucking well changed the locks. He threw the useless keys on the ground and kicked them under a bush. As he wondered what to do next, he noticed that one of the windows in the bay to the right of the front door was open a fraction. Maybe he wouldn’t have to break the glass after all. He tried pushing it up from the glass, then levering it up with his fingertips, but it wouldn’t budge. It was either too stiff or she had locked it from the inside. He took a heavy-duty screwdriver out of his bag and, after several attempts, managed to prise it open a couple of centimetres. The stupid bitch had forgotten to lock it. She wasn’t so clever after all. Careful not to make any sound, he pushed it up bit-by-bit with his fingers and climbed in. The window was screened from the road by a tall hedge and he decided to leave it open, in case he needed a quick escape route later. He drew back the curtains and glanced around the small sitting room, which was illuminated by the orange glare from the street. He had never been there before but it was just as dull as he had pictured it.
He switched on a small torch and went out into the hall. Her bedroom was at the front, directly above the sitting room, he remembered her once telling him. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, attempting to calm his beating heart. As he tried to visualise her lying upstairs in her bed, asleep, other faces started bubbling up in his mind, voices from the past whispering like sirens in his ear. Adam . . . Adam . . . He shook his head and blinked over and over again, until all he could see was Sam Donovan’s pale face. Had she changed? Or was she the same stupid woman he remembered sitting beside him on his grandmother’s best sofa, drinking iced vodka and wanting him to kiss her. He was so close he could smell her perfume, feel the warmth of her body and her breath on his check as he leaned towards her. She had wanted him so much . . .
This time there was no thug of a detective to save her. This time it was just the two of them. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach like dying things, and he smiled as he put his foot on the first stair.
He took his time, fearful of making any noise that might wake her. Halfway up the flight of stairs he felt one of the old boards give beneath his foot and there was a horrible creak. He froze, not daring to move for well over a minute, but there was no sound from above. She was fast asleep, no doubt dreaming of Prince Charming. The door at the top of the stairs was open and he stopped on the threshold, dipped the torch beam low and gazed inside. The bed stood in the middle of the room, headboard up against the chimneybreast. He could just make out her shape in the centre, huddled beneath the duvet. He closed his eyes for a moment. He was so close he could almost hear her breathing. He had waited for this for so long, rehearsing it over and over in his mind. Finally he was there. This time, he wanted her fully awake. He wanted to look into her eyes as he told her what he had done to Claire and what he was going to do to her. He wanted her to know everything.
He tiptoed over to the bed and slowly and carefully climbed onto it. Ready to grab her if she moved, he bent down and whispered:
‘Sam. Wake up. It’s Adam.’