Brian turned in surprise at seeing Anna.
‘Get onto the station in Cornwall,’ she rapped out. ‘Ask them to get their lab to forward Sammy Marsh’s DNA profile to Liz Hawley ASAP. I want it compared with the semen found at Tina Brooks’s flat.’
‘But he’s dead!’
‘He was alive until four weeks ago, so just get onto it. As soon as you get a result, interrupt the interview. Also, ask Liz if she has a result on the axe and get that to me as well.’
Anna turned on her heels and was hurrying down the stairs into the corridor when she caught the female officer returning.
‘She all right?’
‘Didn’t like the door being kept open. She sort of looked like she was going to be sick, leaning over the basin, but then she straightened out. She’s back in the interview room.’
‘Thank you,’ Anna said, hoping she didn’t have to confront Langton. However, he was not in the monitor room but up in the canteen getting himself a coffee. By the time he took up his position Anna was already questioning Tina so he propped up his leg again. He had to take painkillers with his coffee as the trip to the canteen and back had made his knee throb.
Anna had jotted down notes to Paul, who glanced at them. She had underlined Sammy Marsh, asking if they had asked Tina about him in previous interviews. Paul began to thumb through his notebook.
‘We have information that Alan Rawlins used recreational drugs. What can you tell me about that?’
‘He never did that in front of me, and I’ve never done anything more than a spliff years ago. I don’t do anything now, but I know he did sometimes.’
‘What do you know he used?’
Jonathan Hyde was nonplussed at the new direction Anna was taking, but Tina’s break had successfully calmed her down and she was more at ease answering the questions.
‘What about heroin?’
‘No, he’d never do that. Besides, I always knew when he’d done cocaine because it made him very hyper and he could get aggressive.’
‘About what?’
‘About me disapproving. Look, I’m gonna be honest with you. I know I have not been telling you some things, but it’s only because it might have got me in trouble. I know I made Alan out to be the perfect guy, but he wasn’t easy to live with.’
‘So you argued?’
‘No. I’ve told you he wouldn’t – he’d always walk away and that used to drive me nuts.’
‘Crazy enough to want to kill him?’
Tina raised her arms. ‘I didn’t, and you are trying to trip me up.’
‘Trip you up? Tina, I am through with your lies. You have said that you, and you alone, were in the flat – so if you didn’t kill Alan, someone else must have been there who did,’ Anna persisted.
‘I went out to work, you know. I was out of the flat every day when he was first missing; someone else might have come in.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘There was no forced entry, so who else would have a key to your flat?’
‘Well, you keep on telling me he had this boyfriend – maybe it was him.’
‘And you keep on telling me that you were unaware of Alan having homosexual relationships, unaware that he was planning to leave you, and yet now you say that there could have been someone else who was able to enter your flat, kill Alan, dismember the body and clean up to the extent of changing the bedlinen . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes? So who was the other person who subsequently had sex with you, or are you saying there were two other people in your flat?’
Tina became very agitated, slapping the table with the flat on her hand.
‘I am telling you that when I came home, Alan was not there.’
‘So why buy the bleach, the axe?’
‘I’ve told you. I used the bleach to clean up my salon.’
‘What about the axe?’
‘I am not gonna talk about that.’
‘Fine, then you will be held overnight in the cells until I have confirmation as to whether or not—’
‘You can’t do this.’ Tina turned to Hyde. ‘Tell me they can’t do that to me. I’ve done nothing wrong.’
Anna started to pack up her files and suddenly Tina erupted, gripping the edge of the table and trying to overturn it. The water bottles fell over and Hyde pushed his chair back to try and avoid the spillage as Paul grabbed the photographs.
‘Sit down, Miss Brooks. SIT DOWN!’ Anna shouted.
‘It’s Miss Brooks now, is it? I am telling you that whatever fucking evidence you’ve got doesn’t prove I killed Alan because I didn’t. I DIDN’T!’
‘Sit down. Mr Hyde, please control your client.’
Hyde went to grip Tina’s arm but she shoved him away. He rocked backwards and then she was on her feet, running for the door. Paul was out of his seat, and as Tina grasped the door handle he prevented her from leaving. She turned and threw a punch at him. The door opened and the uniformed officer stationed outside the room stepped in as Tina struggled, frantically kicking and punching out. She was totally out of control, and as she was dragged back to the table, she tried to kick again. Eventually, with Paul holding one arm and the officer holding the other, she caved in, her body sagging as she started sobbing.
‘I think we should take a fifteen-minute break,’ Hyde said, standing up.
As Tina slumped into her chair, weeping, Anna found some tissues to mop up the spilled water and threw the plastic bottles into the rubbish bin, then set her files back down again. But Tina got some kind of second wind as she reached over to grab the files, sending everything flying off the table again.
‘Cuff her,’ Anna said, and the uniformed officer drew one arm up behind her back until Tina was screaming. The policewoman pushed her face forwards onto the table. It was an ugly scene, and Tina was still fighting as her other arm was drawn back, but with Paul’s help they cuffed her with her hands behind her back. Her eye make-up was running and her face was red and blotchy, but even cuffed she was kicking, swearing and trying to bite Paul.
‘I want a break for my client,’ Hyde repeated and Tina turned on him.
‘Shut the fuck up. I done what you told me.’
‘Miss Brooks, please calm down,’ he said.
She snarled like an animal, her face twisting.
‘Miss Brooks, MISS BROOKS, what the fuck do you know? I want to go home, I want to go home.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ the lawyer told her.
She swivelled around and kicked out with her high heel, catching Hyde in the knee. He grimaced.
‘Take her shoes off her, please,’ Anna said.
‘You’re not taking my fucking shoes off me. Leave me alone.’
However, both her shoes were swiftly removed and she sat panting and gasping for breath.
‘All right,’ she growled.
Anna was still straightening out her files.
‘I give up. I fucking give up.’
Anna stared as Tina closed her eyes, sighing but no longer fighting.
‘If you’re waiting for a result on the axe, it’s a waste of time. They never used it, it wasn’t sharp enough.’ She looked up and glared at Anna.
‘Do you wish to continue this interview?’ Anna asked.
‘Too bloody right I do. I’ve had enough.’
Hyde was rubbing at his knee, and shrugged as if to say to Anna it was not going to be a problem for him.
‘I can’t have the cuffs removed, Tina, but you can have them on in front of you so it’s more comfortable. However, you have to behave.’
‘Great.’
Paul removed the cuffs from behind her and she held out her hands so he could place them back onto her wrists. Anna signalled that the uniformed officer could leave the room, but to remain outside the door.
Tina asked if there was any more water left and Paul passed her one of the half-filled plastic bottles. She took two gulps and then held it out for him to
take from her. She looked at her handcuffed wrists and gave a strange half-smile.
‘Broken a couple of fingernails.’ There was a pause as she remained silent, staring at her hands.
‘If you are ready to proceed then, Tina?’ Anna prompted.
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘Previously you used the word “they” when referring to the axe?’
‘Correct. He wanted it to split open the board.’
Tina glanced at Anna and then at Paul. She gave that strange smile again.
‘You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? The surfboard – Alan’s surfboard – that’s how he was moving the drugs around, shipping them in and shipping them out.’
‘Are you saying that Alan hid drugs in his surfboard?’
Tina gave a long resigned sigh. She then explained that along with Silas Douglas and Sammy Marsh, Alan had used the boards to hide drugs on trips back from Florida. Pure cocaine was made into a hard paste and then packed into the centre. They would then soak it, dry it out and mix it for distribution all over Cornwall.
‘But then Silas met some heavy-duty drug dealers in Miami and the next shipment was heroin.’
‘You are referring to Silas Douglas as being party to this?’
‘Party to it? He was running the show. First along with Sammy, but then Alan got himself involved and started sharing the finances. He was making money hand over fist, but Sammy tried to screw Sal. He got his hands on one of the boards, took out the heroin and started dealing, but he didn’t know what he was doing; the stuff was lethal. Alan got scared shitless. Kids had been overdosing on the stuff and so he wanted out. He was also scared of Sal, so he brought one of the boards back with him and hid it in our garage. He also had two hundred thousand in cash – Sammy’s money. He said that he would pack up and leave England. He was certain that they’d never come after him because he’d always used other names.’
Anna held up her hand. ‘Tina, I need to understand what exact part you played in this drug-dealing.’
Tina’s voice was quiet and drained as she explained that her relationship with Alan was, for the past year, more or less non-existent. She had found out about his homosexual partners and had first wanted to simply kick him out, but he had persuaded her that he would split his profits so that she would be financially secure. There was one condition, which was that she keep up the front of their so-called intended marriage. She knew about the property, she knew about his other bank balances, but because she also knew how he was making the money, she was certain that he couldn’t back out because if he did, she would tip off the police.
‘He got scared. He knew he didn’t have all that much time, and he was planning to leave England and go into hiding. He’d got Sammy’s cash and he’d also got a surfboard full of heroin.’
‘Did he intend dealing it?’
‘I dunno. He was so crazy around this time. To be honest I don’t think he really knew what he was going to do with it – he just didn’t want any more kids dying. He was snorting up coke so that made him even crazier.’
‘Take me back to the morning of the phone call to you when he said he had a migraine,’ Anna prompted.
‘Well, he rings me up and says that Sammy had somehow got onto him, that he was gonna have to do a runner. He was shaking, and when we got home he said that he would pack up his stuff and be gone. I had to take the suitcase with the money to a locker at the salon and I left him at the flat and went to work in the salon.’
Tina continued to explain that she had put two fake clients into the appointment books. Often her clients would enter the salon via the car park and back door entrance, going up the rear stairs to where she did her treatments. The girls knew she worked up there and that her clients liked privacy so she was never disturbed. She was therefore able put the money into a locker and leave the salon without any of the girls seeing her. She subsequently returned to her flat around midday, not as she had previously admitted, at six-thirty.
Tina started to cry, pressing her hands to her eyes. She said that as soon as she had returned she knew something terrible had happened because Silas Douglas was there and so was Sammy.
‘They grabbed hold of me, really terrified me, and they wanted to know where the board was and where the money was, but all I kept asking was where Alan was. I kept on saying that I didn’t know what they were talking about and Sammy slapped me around. He really hurt me.’
Tina was shaking as she described them pushing her into the bathroom where Alan was in the bath, tied up, gagged and covered in blood with the bedsheet under him.
‘Was he alive?’
‘No, he was dead. He had this terrible gash over his face and head and they must have been beating him because there was blood everywhere.’
She went on to describe how she couldn’t stop crying, repeating over and over that she didn’t know what they were talking about, but did eventually tell them that the board was in the garage. They still didn’t leave and instead they began to clean up the mess, making her help them wipe down the walls in the bedroom. Sammy had cut out a section of living-room carpet to cover the bloodstain in the bedroom.
‘They said if I talked to anyone or told anyone, I would end up the same way as Alan. They got rid of the bloodstained sheet and pillowcases, and I made up the bed again so it looked as if nothing had happened. They were there all night, questioning me and mopping up, and the following morning they said I had to go and buy more bleach, which I did.’
‘Where was the body?’
‘I don’t know. I never saw what they did with him.’
‘Did you tell them about the money in the locker at your salon?’
‘No. They said I had to go to work as normal, that they would finish cleaning the flat. They were still there cleaning up when I got home, and then they told me to go and buy an axe in the morning so they could split open the surfboard which was still in the garage. They were worried about anyone seeing them take it out, so wanted to wait until it was dark.’
‘And they remained inside your flat all this time?’ Anna asked, incredulous.
Tina nodded. ‘I thought they were gonna kill me. I was terrified that someone would think I’d done it, so that was why I took the axe back.’
‘And you just continued to go to work at the salon during all this?’
‘Yes. It was unreal because the flat looked back to normal. It was all clean and neat, and it was as if it had never happened.’
She sniffed and Anna passed her a tissue.
‘Oh God, then Sammy left and it all kicked off.’
‘What happened?’
‘Silas. I came home from work and Sammy wasn’t there but Silas was still inside the flat and I thought he was going to kill me. He said the surfboard had been split open and it was empty.’
‘So Sammy took the surfboard from your garage?’
‘Yes, like I said. What I told this bastard Silas was that maybe Alan had picked up the wrong one. They were all decorated with customised stuff. Then he asked about the money again.’
She started to cry once more, sniffing and wiping her cheeks with the sodden tissue.
‘He said that he would teach me a lesson and that if I was lying he would keep on coming back. He dragged me into the bedroom. I wouldn’t even go in there because of what had happened and he raped me – the bastard raped me.’
‘Did you tell him about the money?’
She gritted her teeth and shook her head.
Anna took a few moments to digest everything they had just been told, but Tina continued.
‘Alan’s father kept on calling and asking about him and where he was, and in the end I said to him that I didn’t know and that I thought he’d left me. That’s when he contacted Missing Persons and then you came round. That’s the God’s honest truth about what happened.’
‘All right, Tina. You’ve really explained a lot, but one thing I can’t quite understand is the fact that two men stayed in your flat and, as you sai
d, removed a body and a surfboard from your garage, and yet nobody saw or heard anything.’
‘You come in there at night and there’s no one around. Most of the tenants go to bed at nine, they don’t ever go out even. There’s also a fire exit that leads into the back area and you could come and go that way. As I’m on the ground floor nobody would see you.’
‘But they must have had vehicles to move the body and drove in and out with a surfboard.’
Tina shrugged and said that however they came and went, she never saw what they drove or how they got the body out.
‘Did they dismember Alan’s body?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’ Her voice was shrill.
‘Have you taken the money out of this locker you say you used?’
‘No, I just left it locked up at the salon. It’s my money. Alan give it to me – it’s mine.’
Anna decided that they would continue to question Tina the following morning and that she would remain in custody overnight in the holding cell.
‘But I told you everything. I’VE TOLD YOU.’
‘We need to check out your statement, Tina. Mr Hyde, do you have anything to say, as it’s obvious your client has withheld vital evidence.’
‘Because I was scared they’d kill me. I was raped, for God’s sake! You can’t keep me here.’
Hyde stood up and said quietly that it was within the law to hold her. Tina looked as if she was going to create havoc again, but instead she crumpled and sobbed, repeating over and over that it wasn’t fair as she’d done nothing.
By the time Tina was taken back to the cell, Anna had already organised an arrest team for Silas Douglas. Langton had been waiting for her in her office.
‘Owe you an apology?’ he said quietly.
But she didn’t feel elated, only exhausted from the lengthy interrogation.
‘Maybe I owe you one. Bloody Silas Douglas was here and questioned at his car wash – he’s got long red hair tied in a ponytail; we all screwed up. I didn’t even notice what colour because he had this skull scarf around his head. Now to make matters worse, I think we might have lost Mr Douglas.’
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