At Your Door

by J. P. Carter

  The arrogance in his tone angered Anna, but she didn’t allow it to rise to the surface. Instead, she said, ‘I suggest you sit back down, Mr Wolf, because what I’m about to tell you will come as a shock.’

  Or perhaps not, if you’re the person who killed her, she thought.

  His eyes shifted between Anna and Walker before he slowly lowered himself back onto the sofa.

  ‘Thank you,’ Anna said, and then focused on his body language for any signs of guilt.

  As he locked his gaze on her she was reminded of what Rebecca Blake had said about him.

  … don’t underestimate Nathan Wolf. He’s a ruthlessly ambitious bastard and he’ll do whatever it takes to save himself.

  From the look in his eyes, Anna got the impression that Rebecca was spot on. The man projected an almost palpable air of conceit and brutishness, qualities that had probably helped steer him towards a career in politics.

  ‘A young woman’s naked body has been found on Barnes Common in South West London,’ she said. ‘A formal identification has yet to take place but we’re certain it’s that of Holly Blake. She’d been brutally murdered before being dumped in undergrowth. Her parents have been informed and it was her mother who suggested that we come and speak to you. The question that she and others will soon be asking is whether you killed Holly because it was the only way to stop her revealing the secrets of your affair.’

  Wolf’s eyes bulged and the tendons stood out on his neck. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again without speaking.

  Anna couldn’t tell if he was genuinely shocked or putting on an act. After all, he’d had plenty of time to prepare for this moment. He might even have practised in front of a mirror if he was indeed guilty of Holly’s murder.

  ‘So the reason that Holly has not responded to your calls is because she’s been lying dead in a wood across the river,’ Anna said.

  Wolf started shaking his head, and his voice, when it came out, was weak and strained.

  ‘My Lord, that’s terrible. Surely it can’t be true. Not Holly. She’s so … so …’

  The words appeared to get stuck in his throat and his face creased up.

  ‘Would you like us to get you something?’ Anna asked him. ‘A glass of water perhaps?’

  He sucked in a loud breath and leaned forward, clutching his hands together against his stomach.

  ‘Just tell me how she died and when,’ he said.

  ‘She was last seen by her parents and her landlord on Tuesday evening. And so far the evidence points to her being killed on that same night. But we don’t know the precise time as yet.’

  ‘And how …?’

  ‘I can’t reveal details about that,’ Anna said. ‘The pathologist still needs to ascertain the cause of death.’

  ‘Was she raped?’

  ‘We will hopefully know that after the post-mortem.’

  Wolf closed his eyes and it looked to Anna as though he was going to break down in tears. But after a moment he opened them again and took another deep breath that made his body tremble.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ he said, his voice even but weak. ‘And I resent the fact that you’re insinuating that I did. I was furious with Holly because of what she intended to do to me. But I am not a violent man and there is no way I could physically hurt anyone, let alone a person I’m fond of.’

  ‘Did you love Holly?’ Walker asked him, and the question seemed to throw Wolf. It was several seconds before he responded.

  ‘In my own way I suppose I did,’ he said. ‘We had a great deal of fun together. I know what I did was morally questionable, but many men have had secret affairs with much younger women.’

  ‘So do you admit to being Holly’s sugar daddy for over a year?’ Walker asked him.

  Wolf screwed his face up in disgust. ‘That’s a horrible phrase and it’s not how either of us saw the relationship. When we met she was about to leave her boyfriend and was very unhappy. She was also struggling to make an impact in the modelling world. I have a friend in the business. He runs an agency and I said I would help out by putting her in touch with him. They took her on and she was grateful. One thing led to another and we started going out.’

  ‘And who initiated the S and M stuff?’ Walker said. ‘Was it you or her?’

  ‘Are you fucking serious?’

  Walker nodded. ‘Of course I am. We’ve just come from Holly’s flat. We saw the torture chamber and it made us wonder if you might have got carried away during a punishment session and she died as a result.’

  He stared daggers at Walker. ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t believe I’m actually a suspect.’

  ‘Well, can you account for your movements last Tuesday evening?’ Anna said.

  Wolf leaped to his feet for the second time, anger contorting his features. He pointed over their heads towards the door.

  ‘I want you to leave my home,’ he yelled. ‘I’m not prepared to say another word without my lawyer being present. And you can be assured that I will be taking this up with your superiors. How dare you accuse me of murder just because I had a heated exchange with Holly?’

  ‘There’s no need to lose your temper, Mr Wolf,’ Anna said. ‘We haven’t accused you of killing Holly. But given the circumstances we have to regard you as a suspect.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. I know of at least two people you should be questioning rather than wasting your time with me.’

  ‘So who are they?’ Anna asked him.

  ‘The ex-boyfriend is one of them,’ he said. ‘He started stalking Holly again recently. She showed me some of the texts he’d sent her. It’s no wonder she was scared of him.’

  ‘We know about the ex, Mr Wolf, and we’ll be talking to him shortly. So who is the other person?’

  ‘Her stepfather, Theo Blake. Holly hated him. That’s one of the reasons she moved out of their house three years ago. She claimed he tried it on with her behind her mother’s back.’

  Anna’s brow shot up at what she saw as another bolt from the blue. Theo Blake had already aroused her suspicions because he hadn’t gone straight home after going to Holly’s flat following the row with her mother.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Anna managed to persuade Wolf to sit back down by threatening to arrest him if he refused to cooperate.

  ‘The first forty-eight hours are crucial to every murder investigation, Mr Wolf,’ she said. ‘We therefore need to gather as much information as we can as quickly as we can, even if it means causing some upset. So just bear with us and think of poor Holly. If you are innocent, as you say, then you have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘The fact that I had nothing to do with what happened to Holly won’t stop the media from crucifying me,’ he said. ‘She opened the floodgates to my private life when she approached the Sunday Mirror. I dread to think what she told them, and now there’s no way I can get her to take it back. My career is on the line and it will be a miracle if my girlfriend doesn’t end things.’

  The angry look on his face morphed into a blank, shell-shocked expression. There was no sign of grief there, only concern about how Holly’s death would impact on his own life.

  Anna had already taken an instant dislike to the man. He was clearly a cheating scumbag who was devoid of integrity. But the jury was still out on whether he was also a murderer.

  ‘The sooner you answer our questions the sooner we will be on our way, Mr Wolf,’ she said. ‘If you insist on having a lawyer present then it will have to be at the station. But this is not a formal interview. We’re just trying to establish the facts and find out as much as we can about Holly Blake.’

  He sat back and loosened his tie, then rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles.

  ‘It really is in your own interest to be open and honest with us,’ Anna said. ‘I need you to tell us about your relationship with Holly and explain where you were on Tuesday evening. I’m also keen to hear about the situation between Holly and her stepdad. Plus, I want you to tell me the name of the ne
w woman in your life.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘It’s Jennifer Rothwell. She’s an accountant and lives in Clapham.’

  ‘How long have you been a couple?’

  ‘Just six months. I told her that we shouldn’t go public with it because I felt it was too soon after my wife’s death.’

  ‘But I’m guessing you didn’t want it to get out that you were continuing to see Holly.’

  He nodded, his eyes downcast. ‘It wasn’t supposed to turn out the way it did. Holly appeared on the scene at a time when my wife and I were going through a bad patch, partly because our marriage was unfulfilling sexually.’

  He paused there and shifted position on the sofa. It appeared to Anna that he wasn’t going to elaborate so she said, ‘I’m afraid you need to be more explicit, Mr Wolf.’

  He nodded again, his expression grave. ‘Very well. I’ll be open with you because I don’t believe I have anything to be ashamed of.’ Another pause. ‘It had started going wrong a few years earlier when I developed an interest in unconventional sex. Shelley found it distasteful so it became an issue even though she did her best to indulge me. But then I met Holly at a fundraising event and we hit it off immediately. She was desperate to end things with her boyfriend so I suggested she move into a flat that I would pay the rent on. And before you ask, she did know about my sexual preferences. To my delight it didn’t put her off. In fact it was like a real-life Fifty Shades of Grey.

  ‘The whole S and M scene was new to her but she went along with it because it turned her on and made me happy. Most of the time I was the submissive and because of her being a model we had to be careful not to leave cuts and bruises on her body.’

  ‘Was it your idea to create the playroom in her flat?’

  ‘Yes, but she was up for it and I paid for everything.’

  ‘So your relationship consisted of you visiting the flat regularly and the pair of you got your kicks by laying into each other.’

  ‘You make it sound as though we were doing something illegal, Detective Tate,’ he said. ‘Millions of people are into S and M. And the arrangement we had worked well for both of us while it lasted. But then my wife died suddenly of a stroke. At the same time I realised that Holly had fallen in love with me. I did not feel the same way about her, but I didn’t want what we had to come to an end. So I let it continue.’

  ‘But then you met Jennifer.’

  ‘She was appointed as my personal accountant by the company that handles my affairs. Unlike Holly she’s only two years younger than I am and I was smitten with her from the start. We started going out, and on the third date I steered the conversation around to intimate matters and got a pleasant surprise when I discovered that she was also into rough sex. It convinced me that we were destined to be together. After that I decided it was time to end it with Holly.

  ‘So early last week I went to the flat and told her. I offered her money to go quietly and she got really upset. She couldn’t accept that I’d fallen in love with someone else and begged me to stay with her. When I left there she was in bits and all I could do was to tell her that I was sorry. Two days later, on the Thursday, she phoned me to say she was selling her story to a newspaper. I was gobsmacked because I hadn’t expected that reaction and I realise now that perhaps I should have.’

  ‘So tell us what happened next,’ Anna said.

  He shrugged. ‘I went to see her again on the Friday to try to talk her out of what she was going to do. But she insisted she wanted to hurt me. We had words and it ended when she shoved me out of the flat. That was when I told her she’d regret it if she didn’t take the money I’d offered. But it wasn’t a real threat. They were just words spoken in the heat of the moment.’

  ‘And after that what happened?’

  ‘Nothing much. I spent the weekend in my constituency because I had some business to attend to there. I kept trying to reach Holly but without success. She was obviously turning her mobile off and on.’

  ‘So where did you stay in Somerset?’

  ‘I have a house there.’

  ‘And were you alone?’

  ‘No. Jennifer came with me. But she returned by train on Tuesday morning while I spent the day in my constituency office.’

  ‘So what time did you return to London?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I left Bridgewater at nine. Traffic was heavy all the way back along the M4 and it took me over three hours.’

  ‘And you didn’t drive over to Holly’s flat before going home?’

  He shook his head. ‘I was tired and I didn’t see the point. So I decided to try to make contact with her on Wednesday morning. But she wouldn’t answer her phone. Then yesterday her mother rang me to ask if I knew where Holly was. Before hanging up she said that Holly had told her everything.’

  ‘Now tell us more about Holly’s relationship with her stepdad,’ Walker said.

  Wolf licked his dry lips. ‘It was strained from the moment she was introduced to him by her mother. That was because Holly held him responsible for her parents’ break-up. Rebecca had a short affair with him behind her husband’s back. It’s what led to the divorce.’

  ‘And she told you he came on to her,’ Walker said.

  ‘It happened just after her twentieth birthday. She said she felt uncomfortable around him, but then one night they were alone in the house and he put his arms around her and kissed her on the neck. She went berserk and gave him a piece of her mind. She told her mum but Rebecca believed him when he said she’d got it wrong and that it was merely an affectionate father-daughter gesture.’

  ‘And did it happen again?’ Walker asked.

  ‘I don’t think so, but after that she did her best to avoid him and it wasn’t long before she moved out.’

  ‘Is that when she moved in with Ross Moore, the ex-boyfriend?’ This from Anna.

  ‘No. She shared a flat with another girl for about a year before she met him.’

  ‘And how long were they together?’

  ‘Fourteen months or so.’

  Anna was satisfied that they’d got a significant amount of information out of Wolf, far more than she’d expected. But despite his denial he was, as far as she was concerned, still very much in the frame for Holly’s murder. His alibi was hardly watertight and they had irrefutable evidence that he’d made a threat against her.

  But Anna suspected that he would be less cooperative with what came next.

  And she was right.

  He wasn’t prepared to let them search the house without a warrant. He refused to provide a DNA swab, and he declined to let them examine his car and his phones.

  ‘I’ve said all I’m going to say,’ he told them. ‘I know my rights and I won’t be intimidated by threats to arrest me. From now on any contact with me will be through my lawyer.’

  The two detectives stood up and Anna dropped one of her cards on the coffee table.

  ‘Before we go, Mr Wolf, I need you to provide me with contact details for your lawyer and your girlfriend,’ she said. ‘And I have to advise you that we will be checking out your alibi and seeking a court order that will give us access to your phones and online history.’

  ‘And let me advise you, Detective Tate, that if you try to bolster your case by leaking sensitive information to the media about me then I will bring you down. The Home Secretary is a close personal friend and I won’t hesitate to call in a favour.’

  Anna stared down at him. ‘You’re quite the one for making threats, aren’t you, sir?’ she said.

  ‘It’s not a threat, detective. It’s a promise.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘So what did you make of the honourable Member of Parliament?’ Anna asked as they headed back to the car.

  ‘He’s a hard man to like, for sure,’ Walker said. ‘As well as being a sleazeball of the highest order.’

  ‘But do you think he killed his sugar lady before driving her to the common?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past him, guv. He had a lot to lose
. Or I should say he has a lot to lose because the genie’s out of the bottle with respect to his sordid personal life and he can’t put it back in.’

  ‘We need to let the SOCOs loose on both his homes and his car,’ Anna said. ‘And that means obtaining a warrant.’

  ‘Hopefully that will just be a formality.’

  ‘You can never bank on that in high-profile cases involving politicians. Strings get pulled and obstacles get put in the way of the investigation. I’ve seen it happen a number of times.’

  When they reached the car, Walker opened the door and slipped behind the wheel. But Anna paused to look around, her eyes seeking out CCTV cameras. It surprised her that there weren’t any obvious ones in the street, given how upmarket it was.

  ‘We’ll get uniform down here,’ she said as she climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I’m sure that some of the houses must have security cameras. We need to check the comings and goings of Wolf’s car.’

  She looked at her watch. It was one-thirty a.m. already, a difficult time of the night to make much progress.

  ‘I feel I need to freshen up,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a tough day ahead of us and we ought to recharge our batteries. So can you drop me at home, Max, so I can shower and change? I won’t bother going to bed because I know I won’t sleep. You can either pick me up after a couple of hours or I’ll make my own way to the office.’

  ‘I might as well pick you up,’ he said. ‘My place is only a mile or so from your house and like you I don’t see the point in trying to get any shuteye.’

  Anna then called headquarters and got through to DC Forbes, who was working the night shift. She told her to scan for CCTV cameras within a half-mile radius of Nathan Wolf’s home.

  ‘And we need a court order to get access to Wolf’s phones and a warrant to search his homes,’ she said. ‘Make it clear that he’s our prime suspect in the murder of Holly Blake, and the evidence against him includes a threat he made against her.’