Julien Ruiz was not remotely taken aback to find the police on his doorstep.
‘I’m surprised it’s taken you this long. I understand you’ve been in Saros since Friday evening.’ He gave a shrug and aimed a smile in Maggie’s direction. ‘Not much gets missed in this place.’ He stood aside to let them pass. ‘Please, come in.’
Ruiz’s circumstances had obviously moved on since 2009 and a smartly furnished one-bedroom apartment in a newly built block had replaced the hostel he’d bunked in back then. All that spoiled it was the pungent odour of cigarette smoke permeating every corner.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have long to chat,’ he said. ‘I have a plane to catch.’
‘Where are you going, Mr Ruiz?’ asked Maggie, eyeing the passport he’d left out on the table in the front room. Beside it was a leather weekend bag packed with clothes. Ruiz leaned over and zipped it up in one smooth action.
‘Somewhere to escape the circus,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I know how people’s minds work in this town and even though I was cleared of any involvement, fingers will still point.’ He smiled again. ‘I presume that is why you are here?’
Ruiz was one of those men that age adored. The past decade had honed his looks, vanquishing the plumpness of youth and giving him an even more alluring edge. His hair was darker and slicked back off his face with product, but Ruiz looked far more attractive now, at thirty-three, than he did in the photo of him and the mother and daughter he holiday-romanced.
‘Why would we want to do that if, as you say, you’ve already been cleared?’ asked Paulson without a trace of friendliness.
‘Officer, we both know that mud sticks,’ said Ruiz, his Spanish accent sliding off his tongue like liquid honey. ‘Why else would British officers be at my door?’
‘I’m Australian actually, mate,’ said Paulson, like it mattered.
Irritated, Maggie shot him a look as she asked Ruiz again where he was going.
‘London. I’m going to stay with some friends.’
‘Heather and Bernice Cooper?’ said Paulson with a chuckle. Maggie realized he was referring to the mother and daughter in the tabloid story and grew even more annoyed. If he carried on antagonizing Ruiz they might not get anything out of him.
Luckily for them, Ruiz had a sense of humour.
‘Ah, the lovely Cooper ladies,’ he grinned. ‘I hope they got their money’s worth selling their story.’
‘We understand your parents weren’t happy about it,’ said Maggie. ‘That must’ve been difficult.’
Ruiz fixed her with a look she couldn’t quite decipher, then shrugged.
‘My parents are hard people to please, so I gave up trying a long time ago. I see no reason in conforming to a life of domesticity just to make them happy. Why should I apologize for the company I keep? It’s also why I stayed in Saros. People expected me to leave, but I liked it here and my friends were here. It was my home.’
Paulson gave him what Maggie took to be a sympathetic nod. Suddenly Ruiz the playboy was meeting his approval.
‘How long will you be in London for?’ asked Maggie.
‘I don’t know for sure. A few days at least,’ said Ruiz.
‘You haven’t booked a return ticket?’ asked Paulson.
Ruiz waved his hand airily. ‘Next Saturday, I think that’s when I’m back.’
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. ‘You do have a return ticket, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ he said, flashing her another smile, one that didn’t quite meet his eyes. He reached into the side pocket of his holdall and pulled out a printed boarding pass that showed his return flight.
‘It’s a good thing we caught you before you left,’ she said, handing it back.
Ruiz let out a long, strangled sigh.
‘There is nothing new I can tell you. We met, we talked, that was it.’
‘You’re sticking to your statement that you never slept with her?’
Ruiz eyed Maggie suspiciously. ‘I am. She was a nice girl, but I didn’t take advantage of her.’
Maggie glanced at Paulson and gave him the briefest of nods. They had already agreed their interview strategy before arriving at Ruiz’s apartment and she knew what was coming next now Ruiz had spouted his first denial.
‘Here’s the thing, Mr Ruiz. If you’re so keen to escape the circus as you call it, you need to start telling us the truth,’ said Paulson. ‘Otherwise we might just have to haul you back to London ourselves on charges of perverting the course of justice. Don’t mistake us for the idiots who investigated Katy’s death the first time round and ballsed it up – we know what we’re doing and we know when a witness is lying. Ten years is a long time to keep up the pretence, mate.’
Ruiz faltered. ‘I haven’t been pretending.’
‘Ten years ago you shouted your conquests from the rooftops. The statements taken from the guys you shared a hostel room with confirmed it: you liked to brag about the many women you had sex with,’ said Maggie. ‘But Katy was different. Why? Was it non-consensual, is that it?’
It took Ruiz a moment to register what she was saying. Anger darkened his face, then his mouth twisted into a smile that made Maggie’s skin crawl. He might be attractive but he was still a sleaze.
‘I do not need to rape women to have sex with them.’ He let out another sigh, then folded his arms. ‘What is your real agenda here, officers? Why don’t you get to the point?’
‘The British couple who sold their story were adamant that you and Katy were flirting and that she’d asked them about the efficiency of Spanish condoms. Given your track record and reputation, we find it hard to believe you turned down sex with her,’ said Maggie.
‘Yeah, I’m not buying that age was a factor,’ said Paulson. ‘She was above the age of consent, you weren’t breaking any law.’
‘We think the only reason you lied about sleeping with her is because of how it looked after she was found murdered,’ Maggie added. ‘It would’ve put you right to the top of the list of prime suspects.’
‘You’re forgetting I had an alibi for the entire time she was missing,’ said Ruiz, more amused than angry now. ‘I swear to God I did not have sex with Katy Pope.’
Maggie regarded him for a moment as a thought suddenly crossed her mind. Why hadn’t any of them considered this before?
‘Sex doesn’t just mean intercourse though, does it?’
Ruiz looked first at her, then at Paulson.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Paulson. ‘She asked the question.’
Ruiz sank down onto the sofa and cupped his knees with his hands.
‘Well? Did anything else happen that wasn’t actual penetrative sex?’ Maggie asked him.
Another sigh. ‘Okay, we kissed.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Fine. We fooled around a bit, but then Katy said it was a bad idea and she wanted to leave. I promise you nothing else happened. I would never continue with a woman who had changed her mind.’
He sounded sincere.
‘Why not tell everyone that?’ asked Maggie.
‘I thought it would make everyone think I was guilty of doing more. It was ten minutes of foreplay that could’ve landed me in prison for something I didn’t do and frankly it wasn’t worth it. Nor did I want to blacken the poor girl’s name after her death by admitting she’d been unfaithful to her boyfriend.’
‘It would’ve given Declan a motive,’ Paulson said to Maggie, ‘if he had known what she did. He could’ve killed her in a jealous rage.’
Ruiz shook his head. ‘He never knew. He came to see me after that couple came forward and I told him what I told the police. The poor guy was grieving, why add to his misery?’
Maggie thought back to her earlier conversation with Johnnie.
‘That evening in the bar, did Katy talk about Declan at all?’
‘Yes, I was aware she had a boyfriend. She didn’t seem bothered about cheating on him. In fact, it was because of him that we got chatting in the first place.’
‘How’s that?’ asked Paulson.
‘Her mum had said something about the boyfriend that upset Katy, so she stormed up to the bar to get another drink.’
‘She had more than one drink?’
‘By the time she left she’d had three cocktails.’
That was two more than Patricia claimed she’d had.
‘Did she tell you what her mother had said?’ Paulson asked.
Ruiz nodded. ‘Her mum was talking about when he might propose. Katy thought it was ridiculous – she wasn’t yet eighteen and she had her whole life ahead of her.’ He stopped, abashed. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘There’s nothing about this row in your statement,’ said Paulson. ‘Why didn’t you tell the police this at the time?’
Ruiz shrugged again. ‘They didn’t ask. They were only concerned with whether we’d had sex, not what we spoke about.’
‘We’d like you to make a new statement, clarifying what you’ve just told us,’ said Maggie as Ruiz got to his feet.
‘Now? But I have a flight to catch in two hours. I don’t want to miss it.’
She looked to Paulson. ‘Well?’
‘We can arrange for you to give your statement to one of our colleagues at Belgravia police station while you’re in London. Give me a contact number and I’ll sort it out.’
Ruiz gave them his mobile number.
‘Katy was a nice girl. She didn’t deserve what happened to her,’ he said. ‘And I am sorry I wasn’t more truthful back then. I thought I was doing her parents a favour by not sullying her memory.’
‘You did yourself a favour too,’ said Maggie matter-of-factly.
Ruiz turned on the full beam again.
‘There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of self-preservation, officer. Why should I destroy my life for a girl who was meaningless to me?’