Nigel shook his head, the picture of innocence. “I wouldn’t do that. And it’s just messed up that you would even think that I would.”
“Nigel,” Drew said, sliding a photograph of Sian across the desk toward the other man. “I know you loved her, it’s perfectly understandable.”
Nigel shook his head. “Not like that, I didn’t. I never crossed the line with her, never.”
“But you wanted to?” Maz interjected.
“That’s not what I—"
“I mean, come on, how could you not. She’s gorgeous,” Maz continued on as though the other man hadn’t spoken at all.
“I bet she was a bit of a flirt too?”
“Mate, you’ve crossed the line there,” Drew said, addressing the DS.
“Yeah, that’s not on. That’s my step-daughter you’re talking about.” Nigel’s voice went up several octaves.
“Have I?” Maz picked up the picture. “I mean, come on. Look at her. Anyone who looks at her and doesn’t think she’s a stunner needs a reality check.”
Drew shook his head. “DS Arya, do you think maybe you could step out and grab us a cup of coffee?” He turned to Nigel. “Do you want anything, Mr Thompson?”
Nigel looked between the two detectives as though he couldn’t quite decide if he should trust either of them. “A coffee would be great,” he said uncertainly.
“And a coffee for, Mr Thompson. Sugar? Milk?”
“Two sugars, please,” Nigel said, straightening up a little in his chair.
Drew waited until Maz had left the room before he turned to Nigel again. “I’m sorry about my colleague there. He can be a little overzealous sometimes.”
Nigel nodded. “Yeah, he was coming off a little creepy. Sian was a good girl.”
Drew dropped his gaze to the file in front of him. “You met Sian’s mother four years ago, is that correct?”
Nigel settled himself a little more comfortably in the chair. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“How did you two meet?”
“Through a grief group,” Nigel said. “My mother passed away and I was attending the meetings when I met Janet. I was on the verge of giving up and then one day in she walks.” He smiled fondly. “I mean, you’ve seen her. I’m a very lucky man.”
Drew smiled. “Were you ever married before?”
A cloud passed over Nigel’s face and he shook his head. “Never married, no.”
“But you were in a long-term relationship before you met Janet?”
Nigel shrugged. “So? What of it?”
“I’m just trying to get some background information here, Mr Thompson, that’s all.”
“I don’t see what my background has to do with Sian’s death.”
Drew leaned back in his chair. “To be honest, Nigel, can I call you Nigel by the way?”
The other man nodded. “Why not?”
“To be perfectly frank with you, Nigel, your background has nothing to do with Sian’s murder. But when such a serious allegation has been made, we’ve got to follow up. You understand, right?”
Drew studied the other man as he spoke, watching as his emotions flooded across his face. No wonder Harriet had found it so easy to read him, he was practically an open book.
“That crazy bitch made that shit up about me. I never touched Sian and if she were here she’d tell you I never did nothing to her.”
“But that’s the unfortunate part in all of this,” Drew said. “Sian isn’t here to tell us. We only have your side of the story.”
“You’ve got to believe me. I wouldn’t hurt her.” Spittle formed at the corner of Nigel’s mouth as he spoke.
“And I do believe you,” Drew said with as much sincerity as he could muster. “You cared deeply for Sian, that much has been plain to me from the beginning.”
“Yeah, I did. I loved her like she was my own.”
“All you ever wanted to do was protect Sian, isn’t that right?”
Nigel nodded vehemently. “That’s right. When she met that Aidan boy and he was trying to get in her knickers I told her that. I said, don’t you go throwing yourself at him. You’re worth more than that.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Drew said. “It can be so hard with kids these days. They grow up so fast, girls especially, with all that make-up and doing their hair, and the clothes they wear. I’ve seen some sights let me tell you.”
“You’re telling me?” Nigel snorted. “The amount of times I had to tell Sian to get back upstairs and put something more decent on. I didn’t want her to give the blokes in the area the wrong idea. She was my princess and I wanted to keep her that way.”
“And what did Sian think of all this? I don’t suppose she took it too well?”
Nigel started to laugh and took the empty polystyrene cup he’d been drinking from and began to tear the sides of it. “She didn’t like being told what to do. She could be a bossy mare when she wanted.”
“But you were the man of the house,” Drew said softly.
“And she knew it.” Nigel’s lips curled up at the corner into an unpleasant smirk. “I think sometimes she’d do it deliberately, you know?”
Drew shook his head.
“You know what I mean; dress a bit provocative to get a rise from me. She liked being the centre of attention, craved it and I didn’t mind giving it to her. It was like she wanted me to be firm with her, testing boundaries and whatnot.”
“And that changed when she met Aidan, did it?” Drew asked, keeping his tone nonchalant despite the discomfort churning in his stomach. Harriet was right to be uncomfortable around him.
“Yeah, it was like she didn’t need me no more.”
“In what way?”
“We used to spend Saturday mornings together,” Nigel said. “Janet used to take Paul and Clare swimming and I’d stay home with Sian.”
“And when she met Aidan, she didn’t want to spend her time with you anymore?”
“She threw a tantrum one morning when I said she couldn’t go out to meet her friends. She locked herself in her room and didn’t come out until Janet came home.”
“What happened after that?”
“I took the lock off her door. We didn’t know what she might do in there on her own.”
“When you said, Sian needed a firm hand, what did you mean?”
Nigel’s gaze became hooded and he glanced toward the door. “When is he coming back with that coffee, I’m parched here.”
As though on cue, Maz poked his head back in the door. “Guv, can I have a word?”
Drew pushed up onto his feet and followed Maz out into the corridor.
“Well?”
“We’ve done a little digging on him. He’s originally from Southampton that’s why it’s taken so long to track him down.”
“What did you get?”
“There was a complaint made by a Melody Curtis,” Maz said, handing Drew a file. “She dated Nigel briefly in 2012. She didn’t go ahead with charges but there was a whiff of inappropriate behaviour toward her ten-year-old daughter.”
“Why didn’t she press charges?” Drew asked, scanning the file quickly.
“It says there in the file that she couldn’t be sure. She says her daughter was prone to imagination and she didn’t want to ruin a man’s life on something that might not be true.”
Drew swore under his breath. “Do we know what kind of inappropriate behaviour?”
Maz shook his head. “I’ve been trying to get her on the phone but so far I’ve had no luck.”
Snapping the file shut, Drew nodded. “Fine. You keep on that and I’ll ask him about Melody.”
“Do you want me to get the coffee for you?”
Drew shook his head. “No. Let him wait a little longer for it, see if we can’t shake something loose.”
“Do you really think she was right then?”
“Don’t you?”
Maz shrugged. “Well that makes it more likely, but I don’t know.”
Drew tu
rned back to the door. “Well, it’s still our job to get to the bottom of it.”
Pushing open the door, he smiled at Nigel. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Thirty
“Janet, I know this isn’t easy,” Drew said, passing a box of tissues across the table to the quietly crying woman who sat opposite him.
“My daughter is dead,” she said between sobs. “And now you’ve arrested Nigel. What else are you going to take from me?”
Drew gave her what he hoped was a sympathetic smile. But sympathy had never been his strong suit and he glanced down at the table before he could terrify the woman any more than she already was.
“I have to ask you some questions now which you’re going to find uncomfortable.”
“Why?”
“Because certain things have come to light and I’m hoping we can get to the bottom of it.” He glanced up at her, but Janet stared at the wall, her expression blank. “If I’d just gone into her that night and talked to her.”
“Did you ever notice any tension between Nigel and your daughter Sian?”
Janet shook her head. “If I’d just gone and spoke to her then maybe—"
“Mrs Thompson, I’m asking for your help here.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she? This won’t bring her back, none of it will.”
“But it might help us understand who did this, and why.”
Janet turned her attention back to Drew. “Do you think Nigel had anything to do with it?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I need you to answer these questions as honestly as you can.”
“He loved her,” Janet said. “He wouldn’t hurt her.”
Drew sighed and pushed his hand back through his short hair. This was getting them nowhere and it wasn’t as though it would give them a suspect for Sian’s death even if they did manage to get the truth out of Janet Thompson. Harriet had pushed them down a rabbit hole and made his job a million times more difficult than it already was.
“Was Sian particularly unhappy in the run up to her death?”
Janet’s eyes brimmed with tears, that slowly tipped over the edges of her lashes and tracked down her hollow cheeks. “I didn’t see it,” she said. “I should have done; what kind of mother doesn’t see their child is so unhappy that they would...” She trailed off and knitted her fingers into the sleeves of her jumper before she raised her face to Drew. “But she didn’t though, did she?” There was a kind of hope in her voice that Drew recognised from his own guilty conscience. “Take her own life I mean. You said she was murdered.”
“We’re exploring that possibility, yes,” Drew said gently. “Which is why I need your help.”
She nodded. “Ask your questions.”
“Was she unhappy in the run up to her death?”
Janet swallowed hard and shook her head. “Not that I particularly noticed. She’d gotten a little moodier lately. Especially after Aidan’s death; that hit her hard.”
“And what about yours and Nigel’s relationship with her, how did that seem to you?”
Janet shrugged. “Normal, I guess. We fought like all parents do with their teenage children.”
“Did you notice Nigel’s relationship with Sian changing?”
“They fought more,” she said. “Stupid stuff. He’d tell her to do something and she’d refuse. She was so pig-headed sometimes. Nigel said we were like mother like daughter.”
“What else did Nigel say about the two of you?”
Janet glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Did he think you and Sian were alike in other ways, perhaps?”
“I don’t know. I guess...” She trailed off and started to chew her fingernails.
“Did he ever remark on how alike you looked?”
“What are you getting at here?” Janet blurted out suddenly. “Nigel’s a good man. He wouldn’t have hurt Sian.”
“We’re just trying to understand some things that Mr Thompson mentioned,” Drew said carefully.
“Some things like what?”
“He seemed to think that the men in the area were all after Sian. That she was becoming sexualised.” Janet stared at him in shock and not for the first time Drew wondered if perhaps he had crossed the line. After all, Janet wasn’t the suspect in all of this, it was her husband.
“He wouldn’t have said that,” she said softly.
“He told us that you both looked alike, that Sian was almost a carbon copy of you when you were younger.” Drew noted the way she swallowed and ducked her gaze and instinctively knew he’d hit a nerve. “Is that true, has he said that to you in the past?”
Janet shrugged. “So what? We do look alike... Did look alike.” She corrected herself.
“But that’s different for you to say it, isn’t it?” Drew said. “You’re Sian’s mother after all, it makes sense that you would be proud of the resemblance you shared with your daughter.” Drew sighed. “It just strikes me as odd that a man who isn’t related to Sian can make the comparison between the woman he’s married to--the woman he admittedly finds sexually attractive both now and when he’s seen pictures of you younger--and her daughter who bears a striking resemblance to her.”
“I never saw anything inappropriate between them,” Janet said. “Do you think I’d be with a man who would do that?”
Drew shook his head. “No, I think you’re the type of woman who if she knew would do anything in her power to protect her babies.”
She nodded. “I would.”
“Was Sian uncomfortable around Nigel?”
The blood seemed to drain from Janet’s face and Drew felt his stomach drop into his shoes.
“He used to take them all swimming,” she said quietly. “And then Sian said she was giving it up, that she felt weird in a bathing suit and didn’t want people to see her.” She swallowed hard, her attention laser-focused on her hands in her jumper. “I thought it was just her being a typical teen.” She raised her face then. “I thought she was just going through an awkward phase.”
“What happened, Janet?”
“She was happy enough the first week, Nigel took Clare and Paul with him and then...” She choked up, her eyes tearing at her memory. The moment passed and she coughed, clearing her throat as she scrubbed her hand over her face. When she spoke again, her voice was clearer, stronger.
“The following week, Nigel said he wasn’t feeling well and asked if I’d mind taking Clare and Paul swimming. I thought nothing of it, and I did it. After that it just seemed to become routine. And then Sian asked me when Nigel was going to go back to doing it.”
“And what happened?”
She shrugged. “Nigel said he was getting a lot of work done on a Saturday morning and I didn’t think much of it. Then a few weeks ago I came home with the kids and found Sian crying, she said, Nigel had broke her door and took the lock off it.”
Drew kept his expression deliberately blank, the least little thing he said could throw her off and that was something he didn’t want to happen.
“When I asked him, he said they’d had a fight and she’d threatened to kill herself before she locked the door and wouldn’t let him in. Nigel took the door off its hinges to get in there to her.” She sucked in a deep breath. “He was just looking out for her.”
“Are you sure?”
Janet opened her mouth before she closed it again with a snap. She shook her head, violently. “She’d have told me if there was something wrong. She’d have come to me...”
Drew pushed onto his feet as Janet started to rock back and forth in her seat. He made it to the door before she spoke again.
“If he hurt her, I’ll kill him,” she said, her voice low. Drew glanced back at her and what he saw in her face left him in no doubt as to the veracity of her claim.
“I hope for both our sakes it won’t come to that,” Drew said, before he left the room.
“Did you get anything from her?” Maz asked as he met him in the hall.
“We
ll, nothing concrete but there’s something here that’s just not right.”
“So how do we break him?”
Drew shook his head. “I don’t honestly know,” he said. “But if we can’t pull this off then we’re going to have to let him go.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Sitting on the edge of her couch, Harriet buried her face in her hands. How could she have been so stupid? All she’d done was give Jonathan ammunition with which to destroy her. Many would see her treatment of him as an overreaction, hysterical even. While others still would look at her with suspicion and wonder just what she had done to lead him on.
That was the problem with society. Without meaning to, people tended toward victim blaming. Harriet had seen her fair share of cases of sexual violence where the victim was asked what they were wearing at the time of the assault, or how much had they to drink? As though their clothes and or levels of intoxication somehow made them more deserving of the crime perpetrated against them.
Societies simplistic views on certain matters made things more difficult to navigate and made those who were victims of a serious crime less likely to come forward.
She, by extension, was lucky. Dr Connor had been deterred by a simple glass of wine to the crotch but his entitled behaviour was indicative of the world surrounding them. Despite hearing her say she wasn’t interested, in his mind that refusal was a green light for action.
There was a knock on the door and Harriet sighed as she pushed onto her feet. Her ankle throbbed painfully and for a moment she wobbled back and forth, a nasty combination of too much wine and an inability to balance on one leg.
Hobbling to the door, she paused as the shadow outside the frosted glass moved and her heart sank. If he had come back for round two, he was in for a rude awakening.
She tugged the door open and opened her mouth to speak but instead of Jonathan on the doorstep, she came face to face with DI Haskell.
“What do you want?” Her voice was curt and he blinked at her in surprise, reminding her of a deer caught in the headlights.
“Is this a bad time?”
The Hanging Time Page 19