Not Dark Yet

by Peter Robinson

  “We could have the local force pick her up and bring her in,” Gerry suggested. “Use an interview room. Give her the full treatment. Be more intimidating.”

  Annie thought for a moment. “Good idea. We’ve got Tamara’s statement that Charlotte met with the girl in her office. That gives us something to confront her with, more ammunition.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Gerry said, sliding off the desk. “I’d better get back to work on Blaydon’s empty properties for the super first, see if we can find a suitable property Tadić could be using to keep Zelda prisoner.”

  “It’s as good an idea as any.”

  THE DOOR opened and the bright light of a heavy-duty work lamp flooded in. Zelda blinked at the onslaught. When her eyes adjusted, she noticed Petar Tadić standing there with a scruffy, thuggish man she didn’t know. She retreated to her corner and pulled up her knees. She could tell from the way Tadić looked at her that he still had no idea who she was, that they had met before, that he had raped her. The light elongated and distorted their shadows on the walls, so they resembled deformed creatures from a horror film. Freaks. Dracula in his cape. Nosferatu.

  “Sit up straight against that wall by the radiator,” Tadić said.

  Zelda didn’t move.

  Tadić stepped forward and kicked her on the hip. She cried out.

  “Against the wall.”

  Zelda shuffled herself into position.

  Tadić turned the light full on her, and his sidekick took a digital camera from his pocket and squatted in front of her.

  “Hold your head up. Don’t smile for the camera,” Tadić said and grinned.

  That was easy to do. The sidekick took several photos of her head and shoulders. “Done, boss,” he said.

  “Give the camera to Foley. He’ll know what to do.”

  He picked up the light and they left without another word. Zelda breathed a sigh of relief as she was once again consigned to darkness.

  THE INTERVIEW room wasn’t especially designed to scare the shit out of anyone questioned there, nor was it created to inspire a sense of calm and well-being. The walls were either institutional green or dishwater grey, depending on the light, which came in through a tiny high window covered by a grille. The furniture consisted of a metal table bolted to the floor, along with two hard-backed chairs on each side. Against one wall stood another table laden with tape-recording equipment, and high in one corner, the CCTV camera looked down on the proceedings and recorded every twitch and tic. The room’s starkness was symbolic of its purpose: to get down to the bare bones.

  The day Charlotte Westlake was led inside, the walls were decidedly pale grey in contrast to the bright sunshine outside, and to Charlotte’s yellow blouse and green skirt. There was no air-conditioning, and the heat rose steadily throughout the interview. At the end, everyone was sweating, not only Charlotte Westlake.

  When she was brought in, she first leaned, palms down, on the table and addressed Annie and Gerry: “I want it on record that I very much resent this intrusion into my life for no apparent reason.”

  “Sit down, Mrs. Westlake,” said Annie. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be finished.”

  Charlotte sat slowly, the anger still etched into the hard lines of her face. She wore her hair pulled back, fastened in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and the tightness of her hairline accentuated her high cheekbones and narrow jaw. Her sapphire eyes were blazing with rage. “Should I be sending for my solicitor?”

  “Up to you,” said Annie. “As far as we’re concerned, this is what we call an ‘intelligence interview’ and you’re here simply to answer a few questions about a crime. You haven’t been arrested or charged with anything.”

  “I know you lot,” she said. “You’re sneaky. You’ll get me to admit things.”

  “Admit to what things?”

  “You know what I mean. You’re at it already.”

  Annie leaned forward and tapped her pen on the table. “This could be very simple,” she said. “You answer a few questions, tell the truth, and it’s all over. Call your solicitor and, well, things can get very long and drawn-out from that point. We could fix you up with a duty solicitor, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you want. You complained to the officers who brought you here that you have tickets for Opera North tonight. If you simply let us do our jobs, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be there to enjoy the show. Believe me, we’re not trying to trap you into admitting anything criminal. This entire conversation is being recorded for your sake as well as ours, and you haven’t been cautioned. We can go through all the motions if you want, and perhaps we can charge you with wasting police time, or impeding an investigation, but believe me, it’ll be far more binding on you should anything more serious come of our little chat. And it’ll take time. So what’s it to be?”

  “I’m not being held on any charges?”

  “No.”

  “So I’m free to go?”

  “Yes.”

  She stood up. “Then what’s to stop me?”

  “Nothing,” said Annie. “Go ahead, if you like. All you need to know is that we think you have information we would like to have in our possession, too, and we don’t give up that easily. You either lied to us or you were mistaken the last time we talked to you. This is your chance to put things right. Maybe your last chance. So walk, if you wish. We can’t stop you. But we’re not going away.” She paused. “And you would be obstructing us in our investigation.”

  Annie held eye contact with Charlotte for what felt like a long time before the latter slowly subsided back into her chair and said, “Fine. Let’s get on with it, then, get it over with. What do you want to know?”

  Gerry, who had been sitting quietly taking notes of anything that might not be obvious from a sound or video recording, slid over the photograph of Marnie. “Last time we talked to you,” she said, “you told us you didn’t know this girl.”

  Charlotte glanced at the photo, then quickly turned away. “That’s right,” she said, her voice hesitant and shaky.

  “Her name is Marnie. Does that help at all?”

  “Marnie . . . I . . . I . . .”

  Annie took over and tried to set her at ease. “Easy to be mistaken. We admit it’s not a very good image. But take another look. Go on. Take your time.”

  Charlotte studied the picture, then said, “Well, it could be her . . . I suppose. She does seem sort of familiar on closer inspection.”

  “So you do know a Marnie?”

  “I . . . er . . . yes.”

  “Is this her?”

  “It could be. Who told you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The point is that we found out. What’s her surname?”

  “Sedgwick. Marnie Sedgwick. If that’s who she is. Is this the one . . . ? I mean, God, I’m so sorry about what happened to her.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Old enough. Nineteen.”

  “Old enough for what?” Gerry asked.

  “To do the job I employed her for, of course, which might have included serving alcohol at some events.”

  “Did it?”

  “No. She turned out to be better suited to behind-the-scenes work.”

  Annie picked up the questioning again. “How did you become acquainted with her?”

  “If it is the person I’m thinking of, then she’s an employee. An occasional employee, I should say.”

  “Gig economy?”

  “Has to be, in my business. I can’t guarantee her full-time or even part-time employment. It’s on an event-by-event basis. I used her as and when she was available and when I needed someone.”

  “For Blaydon’s parties?”

  “Yes. And his other events—sales conventions, retirement parties, and so on. The usual sort of events most businesses have to cope with.”

  “Did you first meet her when she applied for a job?”

  “Yes. I don’t advertise. At least, only by word of mouth. It would be o
ne of the other girls who suggested her.”

  “Which one?”

  “I have no idea. As I said, I don’t know her well. All I know is she came to me looking for a job, I interviewed her, and she seemed satisfactory, worth taking a chance on.”

  “Perhaps you can furnish us with a list of all your employees, however casual they may be? I do believe we asked you for this last time we talked. We haven’t got it yet.”

  “I know . . . It’s just . . . I don’t know. What about privacy?”

  “Theirs or yours?” said Gerry. “We’re not interested in tax avoidance, if that’s what you’re worried about. We don’t care how many jobs they’re doing on the side, or whether they’re claiming benefits at the same time. Nor do we care whether your business is registered in Jersey or the Isle of Man. Not our department.”

  Charlotte gave her a sour smile. “Yes, of course.”

  “So Marnie’s one of your regular helpers now?” said Annie.

  “Yes. She was.”

  “Is she not still with you?”

  “No. That was when I was working for Connor.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m afraid I have no idea where she is.”

  “You let her go?”

  “She could have come with me, but she chose not to.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I have no idea. She didn’t confide in me.”

  “Any idea why she left?”

  “I assumed she’d found something else. Something better paying, better hours, or steadier work, perhaps.”

  “Did she say what?”

  “No.”

  “How was she as an employee?”

  “She was a bit reticent, shy, when it came to the hostess work, and she made it clear that she didn’t like doing it. That’s why she didn’t work out on the service end. She’d worked as a waitress in a family restaurant, but this was different. There was a lot of alcohol involved, and the men . . . Well, I’m sure you know what I mean. Her attitude might have made her seem stand-offish. But she was good at the practical aspects of the job, the backroom stuff. She was no slouch. And she was reliable. Always turned up on time. You’d be surprised how rare that is these days.”

  “Just not so good at chatting up the men at front of house?”

  “That wasn’t part of her job. And it’s a strictly hands-off policy with my serving girls. Connor knew that. It’s not as if there weren’t enough of the other kind of women around recently. Marnie’s an attractive girl, it’s true, but she isn’t the type to display her cleavage and a bit of thigh. She’s a very serious girl, a thinker rather than a talker. She’s also good at being invisible when she needed to be. I liked that about her. And mostly she was stuck in the kitchen. You have no idea how much cleaning up, restocking, and ongoing maintenance there is to be done at events like those parties. They don’t run as smoothly without a lot of skilled help, you know.”

  “Maybe all of Blaydon’s guests didn’t know about your hands-off policy,” Gerry cut in. “She certainly wasn’t invisible to one particular person on the night this image was captured. Sometimes people want what they can’t have, more than what’s on offer. Perhaps someone thought she was too stuck-up and wanted to bring her down a notch or two?”

  “I wasn’t there. I told you. I’m sorry about what happened. It’s terrible. You can’t believe how sorry. Maybe if I’d been there . . . ? But it wasn’t my fault. I was in Costa Rica.”

  “Yes, we know,” Annie said. “But the point remains that you do know Marnie Sedgwick. You employed her to work at that party on 13 April, as you had done before, even though you weren’t present yourself.”

  “Yes, but I don’t see how you could possibly hold me responsible for anything that occurred at that party.”

  “Who said anything about holding you responsible? We’re after information, that’s all, not to apportion blame. Do you feel responsible?”

  “No. I’m just upset. You’re twisting my words. I knew this was the sort of thing you’d do.”

  “Why did you lie to us about knowing Marnie?”

  “I didn’t lie. I just wasn’t sure. It’s a bad photo. Maybe I didn’t look closely enough. I don’t know. I just didn’t want to get involved.”

  “Involved in what? Did you already know what had happened to Marnie? Did you lie about that, too?”

  “Know? About the rape? Good Lord, no. But when the police come calling, you don’t think it’s about your TV licence being overdue, do you?”

  “Is it?”

  Charlotte just stared at Annie.

  “Joke,” Annie said.

  “Does it surprise you, what happened to Marnie at the party?” Gerry asked.

  “Of course it does. It appalls me. I organised parties for Connor, not orgies. The guests were thoroughly vetted. I know they could get a bit wild sometimes, but every one of them was a trusted—”

  “Oh, come off it!” said Annie. “He invited people he wanted to be seen with, people he wanted to impress, and people who might do him some good in business, make him more money. Do you really believe he wouldn’t bend over backwards to give one of them what he wanted if it was important to him? They were no more vetted for their morality than the American president. For crying out loud, you had Petar Tadić supplying trafficked girls, and Leka Gashi brought bowls of cocaine. So who saw Marnie Sedgwick and thought she was part of the package, too?”

  Charlotte sat forward and placed her palms flat on the table again. “I’ve told you, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I didn’t even know there’d been an incident until you came along.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Gerry asked.

  Charlotte glanced sideways at her. “Yes.”

  “Blaydon never told you?”

  “I don’t even know if he knew. And if he did, he didn’t tell me. Why would he? Isn’t it the kind of thing you cover up? He’s hardly likely to tell me that something so terrible happened in his house to one of my staff, at an event I organized, even if he didn’t do it. People were always slipping off to bedrooms, as I told you. I was getting tired of it, the atmosphere was becoming poisonous.”

  “But you said you only rarely attended the parties,” said Annie.

  “One hears things. And I popped in from time to time. Some of these things are hard to miss, even on brief acquaintance. I’m not that bloody naive.”

  “You also told us that you thought these girls were wives and girlfriends, not professionals brought in for the purposes of sex.”

  “That was certainly true in the earlier days.”

  “When did it start to change?”

  “Around the end of last year.”

  “Any ideas why then?”

  “Connor got involved in a major new development. A shopping centre and housing estate.”

  “The Elmet Centre?”

  “Yes. And that’s when he brought in Tadić and Gashi, along with a whole host of new business colleagues and hangers-on. That’s when his behaviour started to worry me, and the parties started to change in character.”

  “So you’re not too surprised that something like this might happen? The rape,” Annie said persistently.

  “Perhaps not. Seeing as you put it like that. But I’m still shocked.”

  “Well, surely it would fall on someone to keep the girl quiet, slip her an extra bob or two, tell her it was an unfortunate incident best put behind her? Who better than you?”

  “Well, I didn’t. I knew nothing about it.”

  “Perhaps she came crying to you, and you comforted her? She told you Blaydon had raped her. One of your girls. You saw red. Maybe you killed him?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? Where were you on the afternoon of 22 May?”

  Charlotte seemed knocked sideways by the question. “Is this a trick question? I’ve already told you. I’m not sure. We were working on a book award dinner in Bradford, but I was back and forth. Where were you?”

  “We’re
asking you.”

  “Bet you don’t remember where you were.”

  “We may ask you to come up with a bit more detail at some point. Something solid we can check.”

  Charlotte said nothing.

  “Where does Marnie Sedgwick live?” Gerry asked. “We’d like to talk to her, get her side of the story. Maybe find out why she didn’t report the rape.”

  “Lots of women don’t report rapes because of the way they get treated by the authorities.”

  “What way?”

  “As if they’re the guilty ones.”

  “OK. Point taken,” said Annie. “But we’d still like to hear it from her.”

  “I don’t know her address.”

  “Come on, Charlotte. Don’t be coy with us now we’re getting along so well. She was on your books. An employee. You must have an address and phone number for her.”

  “No. I mean it. I did know. I mean, yes, I had an address for her before, along with her other details, but I heard she’d moved on after that party. Left the area. I don’t know where, honestly. And I don’t know why, though I suppose I can guess now.”

  “Where are your old employment records?”

  “With Connor’s stuff, I should imagine. I assume you’ve got it somewhere.”

  “You could save us a lot of time. I’m sure you probably kept a note of it in case you wanted her to work for you again.”

  “I could probably dig it up,” Charlotte said.

  Annie clapped her hands together. “Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. Soon as you get home, please. Along with that list of employees. Didn’t you ever wonder why Marnie moved on after the party?”

  “Not especially. Girls come and go.”

  “Like buses, there’ll be another one along in a minute?”

  “If you must put it so crudely. I’m a businesswoman. Marnie was one of my employees. That’s all there was to it. Now can I go?”

  Annie leaned back in her chair. “You know,” she said, “it took us a while to get this much out of you, and I’m still not convinced you’re telling us the whole story, or the whole truth. But we’ll leave it at that for the time being. You probably do remember a lot more than you’ve admitted to, including names. In which case, if I were you, I’d be very careful from now on.”