‘Interview suspended,’ the DCI said reluctantly. He stood up, as did his sidekick. ‘In here all right?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘In the previous room.’
He gave me a look but I glanced up at the camera above his head. I wasn’t totally confident that the video recording switched off at the same time as the audio.
Declan and I went back into the legal consultation room. I closed the door.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ I said. ‘You told me that the police had no evidence against you and then I find out that you collected Zoe from Cambridge Station on the very day she died. And whose phone is that?’
‘Zoe’s,’ he said. ‘She left it in my car.’
‘So you did collect her on Sunday?’
He sat down heavily on a chair next to the table, while I remained standing.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did.’ He leaned forward and rested his head on his arms and sighed deeply.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’m here to help you but you have to tell me the truth.’
‘I collected her and spent a few hours with her. But I didn’t kill her. That is the truth.’
‘So tell me everything that happened.’
‘She called me on Saturday afternoon in a real state. She was shouting down the phone at me. Claimed she needed to talk but not on the phone. She initially wanted me to come to London but I refused. In fact I refused to speak to her anywhere. Then on Sunday morning she called me again when I was in the yard office. Said that she was already on the train from King’s Cross and she was coming to see me whether I liked it or not. She sounded completely deranged.’
‘What was it that was so important?’
‘Family matters,’ he said, clearly not wanting to elaborate. ‘But the last thing I needed was for her to turn up in that condition at my front door upsetting Bella, so I finally agreed to pick her up from Cambridge.’
‘Did Arabella know that?’ I asked.
‘No way,’ he said decisively, glancing up at me.
‘Why not?’
‘I decided it was best to keep them apart. Zoe had upset Bella enough already.’
‘Over what?’
‘Money, mostly. Zoe was always in need of money. Used to say that her need was greater than ours as she had her brats to feed. And that didn’t go down too well either.’
I remembered back to Arabella’s brusque reaction when I’d asked her whether she and Declan had any kids of their own.
‘So you and Arabella can’t have children?’
He looked up at me again. ‘No.’
‘Your fault or hers?’ I asked, hopeful that I wasn’t prying too deeply.
‘Hers,’ he said. ‘She has something called PCOS. I can’t remember what it stands for, but it stops her producing eggs. We’ve tried every drug there is. IVF too. All bloody hopeless.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Shit happens, or rather it doesn’t. Not in our case.’
‘Was it money that Zoe wanted to talk to you about on Sunday?’ I asked, trying to bring the conversation back to the matter in hand.
‘Yeah. Mostly.’
‘What happened after you picked her up from the station?’
‘I drove around for a bit.’
‘Where to?’
‘I don’t know. Around Cambridge somewhere. We parked for a while outside one of the colleges to talk. Then I drove her to Newmarket.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she asked me to. She wanted to see if anything had changed since she left. We stopped at a McDonald’s for a late lunch on the way.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘Drove around the town a bit. Then I dropped her at Newmarket Station to get the train back.’
‘At what time was that?’
‘About three-thirty.’
‘Did you actually see her get on the train?’
‘No. It wasn’t due for another half an hour. I couldn’t wait. I had to get back for evening stables.’
‘How was she when you dropped her?’ I asked.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Was she still in a state? Or had she calmed down, back to normal?’
‘Normal?’ Declan said with a laugh. ‘Zoe was never normal. But she was fine, I think.’
‘You think?’
‘Yeah. She was still angry, but she was always angry.’
‘Angry with whom?’ I asked.
‘Everyone. Me, Ryan, our father, everyone. Psychosis is a very angry disease.’
‘Psychosis?’
‘She had no grasp of reality. How they ever let her out of a mental hospital I’ll never know. She lived in her own little bubble.’
Yes, as may be, I thought, but who burst it?
‘My client would like to read a prepared statement,’ I said. ‘But he does not intend to answer any questions after it.’
It was half an hour later and we were back in the official police interview room with DCI Eastwood and Sergeant Venables.
And the recorders were running again.
Declan and I had been over everything two more times and, on the second occasion, he had written it all down in chronological order.
‘You have to give them something,’ I’d explained to him. ‘You have to say that you agree with the facts as they have stated them so far – there’s no point in denying them when they have the CCTV and Zoe’s phone – and then you give your version of what happened last Sunday.’
‘My version?’ he’d said. ‘But I’m telling you the truth.’
‘Good. Then the police will be able to verify everything you say. Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’
‘Nothing,’ he confirmed.
I was certain, however, that he hadn’t told me the whole truth. There were things that he obviously still didn’t want to divulge, in particular about why Zoe had wanted to see him in the first place. But this would have to do for now.
Declan read out his statement describing how Zoe had called him from the train and why he had gone to Cambridge to collect her. He then went through the full period between her getting into his car and him dropping her at Newmarket Station at three-thirty, before going home for evening stables.
He finished by saying that he’d found the mobile phone down the side of the passenger seat of his car on Monday afternoon where Zoe must have dropped it. He had panicked and hidden it in his wardrobe so his wife wouldn’t find it, but he now realised that he should have handed it straight to the police.
When he was finished, Declan laid the paper down on the table.
I could see in the chief inspector’s face that he didn’t believe a word of it and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure I did either.
‘Can I go home now?’ Declan asked.
15
Needless to say, the police did not allow Declan to go home, not on that evening, nor at any time on the next day.
‘Who’ll look after the horses?’ Declan asked me when I saw him just before he was taken off to spend his first night in a cell.
‘I’m sure Chrissie will have it all in hand,’ I said.
‘But she’s only the yard secretary.’
‘No matter. She seemed very capable to me. And Arabella will surely help too.’
He stared at me in disbelief. ‘Arabella is completely useless with the horses. Too bloody busy with her effing make-up.’
I didn’t know whether he was joking or not. Probably not, if his tone was anything to go by.
‘I’ll give her a call anyway. Let her know what’s happening.’
He didn’t look very happy at the prospect.
‘Tell her I’m sorry,’ Declan said.
What for? I wondered.
‘How about you?’ he said. ‘You can go and sort out what’s happening with the horses in the morning.’
‘Me?’ It was now my turn to stare at him in disbelief. ‘I know nothing about training horses. Don’t you have an assistant?’
‘He’s
away in Scotland. His grandmother died. Funeral tomorrow.’
‘But I’ll be needed here,’ I explained. ‘To be with you.’
‘Not before nine-thirty,’ he said. ‘You told that detective yourself that I was entitled to proper rest and that I couldn’t be questioned again until nine-thirty. You need to be at the yard by six. You can then be here at nine-thirty.’
I looked at my watch. It was already almost midnight. I sighed.
‘Isn’t there anyone else you could ask?’
‘No,’ he said decisively. ‘Chrissie is good but she needs direction. Tell her to send the whole lot out for a canter. That can’t do any harm for one day. Other than tomorrow’s runners, of course. And tell Joe to get my two off to York by quarter past seven at the latest otherwise they’ll be late, and then I have two more tomorrow evening at Newmarket. But they can be walked over.’
‘Who’s Joe?’
‘My travelling head lad.’
‘Right,’ I said, resignedly.
‘And tell Chrissie to make Saturday’s declarations by ten o’clock. I’ll have to do the entries later in the day.’
‘Declan,’ I said. ‘You may not be in a position to do anything tomorrow.’
He stared again. ‘But they’ll have to let me go when they find out I’m telling the truth.’ I didn’t answer. ‘Won’t they?’
‘They can hold you for twenty-four hours, thirty-six if the superintendent authorises it.’ Which he probably would, I thought. ‘Then they can apply to a magistrate for extensions to that too. Ninety-six hours altogether. That’s four days.’
‘Four days?’ He suddenly looked despondent, and very vulnerable. ‘My whole training business may have gone down the tubes in four days.’
My forty-pound investment on Orion’s Glory for the Derby was beginning to look rather too speculative.
I called Arabella from the taxi on my way back to the Bedford Lodge, and to say that she was in a state of severe agitation would have been an understatement.
Drunk too, I thought.
She’d obviously been hitting the bottle fairly hard in the three hours since the police had departed with her arrested husband. Declan might have been right about her being useless when it came to helping with the horses, but it wasn’t so much the horses’ future, or even Declan’s, that she was concerned about, it was her own.
‘What am I going to do now that Declan’s in jail?’ she wailed.
‘He’s not in jail,’ I pointed out.
‘As good as,’ she said. ‘How can I face anyone?’
Her earlier cast-iron confidence that Declan was innocent had clearly evaporated.
‘The police took away his Audi,’ she said. ‘Wrapped it all up in white plastic and put it on the back of a lorry.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’s normal procedure. They want to do forensic tests, that’s all.’
‘Forensic tests? For what? A body in the boot?’ Now she was openly crying, no doubt aided by the steady intake of alcohol.
‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions,’ I said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘He’s only being questioned at the moment.’
‘About what exactly? What are they saying?’
Discussions between a client and his lawyer are privileged and highly confidential; even the court couldn’t force me to disclose what Declan had said to me in the privacy of the legal consultation room. So how much should I tell his wife?
I decided that I could tell her whatever Declan had already told the police. That would be in the public domain sooner or later, especially if used as evidence in a trial.
But first, I had some important questions of my own, and for her.
‘Why do you call Peter Robertson “Pete”?’
There was a short but distinct pause from the other end. Perhaps she wasn’t as drunk as I’d assumed and she clearly retained some degree of control.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she said. ‘Zoe always called him Pete.’
‘But how do you know that? When did you last speak to her?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Some time ago.’
‘How long ago exactly?’ I asked. ‘This is important. Were you in regular contact?’
‘Why is it so bloody important?’
‘Because Declan collected her off a train at Cambridge Station last Sunday morning.’
‘What? Zoe? This Sunday just gone?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The day she died.’
This time there was a much longer pause from her end.
‘Is that why he was arrested?’
‘Almost certainly,’ I said. ‘The last person known to have seen the victim alive invariably becomes the chief suspect.’
‘Oh God!’ she cried. I could clearly hear her sobbing. ‘The police also took away our computers and Declan’s phone. I thought they were going to take his clothes as well but they simply padlocked shut his dressing room door.’
‘Dressing room?’
‘We use spare bedrooms as dressing rooms. One each.’
No children, I thought.
‘They also found another phone in Declan’s room. A pink one. They asked if it was mine.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told them I’d never seen it before.’ She paused as if not wanting to know the answer to her next question. ‘Was it Zoe’s?’
‘Yes, it was,’ I said. ‘Declan claims he dropped her off at Newmarket Station on Sunday afternoon, but she left her phone in his car. Didn’t he tell you about meeting her?’
‘Not a word.’
‘Where did you think he’d been all day?’
‘He told me he was going to see a yearling. He does it often on Sundays during the summer in the run-up to the autumn sales.’
‘What time was he back?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t here. I went to a hotel for the night.’
‘On your own?’
I must have sounded surprised.
‘Yes. On my own. I went to see a show at Potters Resort near Great Yarmouth. I know the owners. I stay with them. Four or five times a year they have top TV and West End stars performing on Sunday nights. I often go but Declan doesn’t want to. He doesn’t like live music much.’
‘But you were at Oliver’s with Declan on Monday when I arrived.’
‘Declan called me early to tell me about the fire so I came straight back.’
But not before you’d put on your make-up, I thought.
At this point the taxi arrived at the Bedford Lodge.
‘I’d better go now,’ I said. ‘Declan asked me to tell you he was sorry.’
‘For what?’ she asked acidly. ‘For killing his sister or for getting caught?’
I’d only thought it. Arabella had said it.
‘You mustn’t jump to conclusions,’ I said again. ‘Declan is totally adamant that he hasn’t done anything wrong. There’s probably a completely innocent explanation.’
‘There is nothing innocent about lying to me about meeting Zoe.’
She was crying again.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to find someone to come and be with you?’ Although goodness knows who I would get at this hour. Maybe Susan or Maria? But surely neither would be popular with Arabella.
Or did I dare call Kate? Would she even answer my call?
‘No,’ Arabella said. ‘Thank you. I really couldn’t face anyone. It would be too humiliating. I’ll be fine on my own.’
‘Try and get some sleep. We’ll speak more in the morning.’
I disconnected the call and went into the hotel.
Only when I was getting into bed did I realise she hadn’t answered my question of why she called Zoe’s husband Pete not Peter.
I made a mental note to ask her again when I next saw her.
When my alarm went off just after five, I was convinced that I’d been asleep for only a few minutes. But the clock said otherwise and it was already light outside, the first rays of morning sunshine streaming through a
crack in the curtains.
I dragged myself reluctantly out of bed.
I was exhausted.
Was it really only twenty-four hours since I’d got up to go and see Ryan’s horses work? It felt more like a week than a day.
Why aren’t I still dead to the world, I asked myself as I stood under the shower trying to wash the sleep from my eyes. I couldn’t comprehend for one second why I’d agreed to go to Declan’s yard to see Chrissie. I must be mad.
I flicked on the BBC News Channel, more to keep me awake than anything else, and was greatly surprised to see footage of myself walking out of the police investigation centre the previous night and climbing into a taxi.
I hadn’t noticed the TV crew at the time, nor the presenter with them who was next seen speaking directly into the camera.
‘Police say that a forty-one-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the human remains found in Monday’s stable fire in Newmarket. The man is being questioned here at Bury St Edmunds.’ The shot again showed the building behind the reporter, with POLICE INVESTIGATION CENTRE written in large silver letters on its red-brick exterior wall. ‘No details have been officially released concerning the identity of the suspect but the BBC understands that he is being named locally as Declan Chadwick, brother of Ryan Chadwick, the trainer of the dead horses.’
I knew that it wouldn’t have taken long for the media to establish who had been arrested but even they had excelled themselves this time.
Maybe my waiting taxi driver of last evening hadn’t been asleep after all. One quick phone call, a tweet, or even a post on his Facebook page would have been enough.
And to think I’d put any future relationship with Kate at serious risk by not saying why I’d so abruptly abandoned her, for fear of being the source.
My driver and his Mercedes had been reinstated and they were waiting for me outside the hotel at quarter to six on Thursday morning.
There was a copy of a national newspaper lying on the passenger seat with ‘FIRE VICTIM’S BROTHER ARRESTED’ as its main headline in two-inch-high bold capitals.
I scanned through the front-page story. So much for the presumption of innocence, I thought, as paragraph after paragraph implied Declan’s guilt. No doubt the lawyers had been through everything with a fine-tooth comb to ensure it wasn’t libellous, but it must have been a close-run thing. And, in my view, the reporters had clearly breached Declan’s right to privacy – but they were only interested in selling newspapers.
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