Martin let her mind wander around the kids she had met so far, the university staff. The place was a study in hierarchy. Mason hovering at the top – the college principals of Durham were emperors of this particular universe. And then the pecking order of the students themselves. Rush as college president lording it over the new blood. Was that why the first years were called Freshers, Martin wondered? Fresh meat for the rest of the student body? She shuddered. Something dark lurked here. She couldn’t put a name to it, but she felt it. The absence of something, or the … what was it? She’d noticed whatever it was in the interchange between Rush and Principal Mason. Something had jerked in her brain, made her skin prickle. What was it? Something that would show that Rush was a murderer?
Martin looked again at her watch and then at the old postcard of an Emily Brontë poem propped up on her desk, given to her many years ago, the only piece of personal paraphernalia she had brought into this new office. She bit her lip, Jim’s face coming unasked into her thoughts. She batted it away; she would call him later, after the interview. She reached down to get her handbag to pull a brush through her hair as Jones hustled in to the room.
‘Anything?’ Martin asked.
‘Might be something. That note on Emily’s door? Where you saw the impression of some writing?’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, all the witness statements are correlating with Emily leaving the boathouse at 7.30 p.m. or thereabouts. And the impression left on the pad seems to say something along the lines of Meet you at the bridge later – D.’
Martin’s head whipped up. ‘D?’
Jones nodded. ‘Seems to be. Not S or N, that’s for sure, anyway.’
‘So, who’s D?’
‘Dunno, boss. And nothing’s come up on Rush’s computer or social media. Just the usual. He was friends with Emily on Facebook, but that’s it. A fan of Beethoven though, apparently.’ Jones looked baffled by this. ‘And liked Seamus Heaney, whoever he is.’
‘Irish poet,’ Martin muttered, tossing her brush back in the bag.
Jones gave one of her cheery grins. ‘Anyway, just wanted to wish you good luck. I’ll walk you out.’
Martin nodded, more touched by that than she could say. The women stopped at a vending machine in the lobby, where the lifts would take Martin down to the cells. ‘Want anything?’ Martin asked as she put in the coins required for a Crunchie.
‘On a diet,’ Jones said, pressing the button for a lift.
‘Yeah, me too,’ Martin answered, unwrapping the chocolate bar which had popped out with a clunk. ‘We shall see what we shall see, Jones,’ she said as she went into the lift. As the doors closed behind her, the word she had been scrabbling for came to her – the way to sum up the atmosphere of the university, which had eluded her since early that morning. It wasn’t insouciance, she thought, it was carelessness. None of the people she had met so far had shown any care for their surroundings, their peers or even themselves.
Mervyn Rush stood outside the interview room where his son had been brought from his cell. He was an imposing man, and had a few inches with which to try to intimidate Martin. He wore a black suit with thick white pinstripes over a pink shirt. His hair was akin to a clown’s – two bushels of black curls sticking out either side of his head. His face was not that of a clown, although his nose was red. Martin attributed that to the revelries of the Bar. Networking, she suspected Mervyn Rush would’ve called it. She disliked him on sight.
‘You’ve got nothing.’ Rush spoke with a low voice, a conspiratorial cloth draped over a Samurai’s sword.
‘Why did you want to see me, Mr Rush?’ Martin parried. She leaned against the corridor wall, on the face of it relaxed but with the feeling in the stomach she used to have as a kid when someone made a dare. She would always take it. She could play this game as well as him.
Rush looked at her as if appraising an artefact. He seemed to decide something before speaking. ‘Are you aware of Simon’s history?’ He released a smile from his cheeks as if making a stab with a knife, before sucking his mouth back into its usual purse. He was a cold fish, Martin thought. Red cheeks, cold heart. She didn’t answer but waited for Rush to continue.
‘He saw his mother drown when he was ten years old,’ Rush whispered, his lips moist. ‘She walked into the sea at Brighton in front of him. He’s been seeing the university counsellor about it. Tell me, Inspector, what effect will the knowledge of that have on this so-called confession do you think?’
Martin frowned a little. So he would be angling for diminished responsibility. She sighed. ‘Mr Rush, can we stop playing Perry Mason out in the hallway please? At the moment, we only have a statement from your son. I have been waiting, very patiently I might add, for you to arrive. I would now like the opportunity to interview Simon and see if we can work out what’s happened here. Would that be all right with you?’
Rush nodded briefly before turning his back and entering the room. After a beat, Martin followed him in.
As soon as Martin entered, she saw it had been a mistake to allow Mervyn Rush to represent his son. All the cockiness of Simon, so visible in Principal Mason’s office, had shrunk into a horrible emptiness. He seemed undone, unravelled, splayed in the plastic chair in the interview room like an unwanted toy. His body language reeked of fear, his shoulders twisted away from his father. Only his chin let him down, which tilted up in a sad sort of way, his mouth downturned: the chin of a small boy trying to make the best of it.
A high narrow window on the back wall let in the only natural light in a room which was otherwise blank with the glare of a fluorescent tube and claustrophobic in its dimensions. Martin studied Rush. He had a quality about him, although now his face was pale, blanched by the strip-lighting above. He had one of those faces that pulled you into its wake. Despite his current lacklustre stare at the greasy Formica table, he had something appealing; Martin could imagine people voting for him, wanting to be around him.
Martin sat opposite Simon at the tiny table, her legs tucked under her chair so as not to bump his. Mervyn Rush was next to his son, a pad of paper in front of him. He didn’t look at Simon once, merely unscrewed a gold fountain pen and sat still as stone, pen poised to strike. Martin bit her lip. She would need to be careful here; the dynamic teetered on a knife edge. Which way would Simon veer? To his father? Or to the truth? Martin flicked her eyes quickly to the CCTV camera in the corner, where she knew Butterworth and the team would be watching. She swallowed. It was time.
She leaned forwards, speaking in a gentle voice. ‘Simon, I’ve got the statement that you made to DS Jones when you arrived here and which you’ve signed …’
‘We’ll be arguing that that statement is wholly inadmissible, DI Martin,’ Mervyn Rush interjected. ‘Why you thought it wise to get it without a lawyer present is beyond me.’ He finished with a nasty smile.
‘Let’s not pretend we’re in court now, Mr Rush. As you well know, we needed something in writing after an oral statement was made of such significance, so that admissibility isn’t in fact an issue. Your client now has the opportunity to deal with the substance of the confession and my questions, with his lawyer in the room – who will undoubtedly provide the best advice.’ Martin smiled back and continued. ‘I’m going to turn on the tape so that this interview is recorded. It’s now 6.23 p.m. on the twenty-second of May and I’m going to re-caution you. You do not have to say anything during this interview. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ She tried to make eye contact. ‘Is that clear? Do you understand?’
Simon refused to look at her but nodded.
Martin smiled at him. ‘Mr Rush has nodded, for the benefit of the tape.’ She paused. ‘Quite a speech you gave this morning in Phillip Mason’s office. Quite a claim.’
Simon skimmed a quick look at his father, who remained silent, then moved his eyes back to the table.
There was another bout of silence. Mervyn Rush narrowed his eyes, the nib of his pen millimetres above his pad. He had, as yet, written nothing.
‘Maybe the best thing is to go through your statement, Simon. Might be easier to get things rolling that way. Let’s see …’ Martin picked up a sheaf of papers from the table, scanned their contents. ‘So it says here that you met Emily on the first day of this academic year. Is that right?’
Simon cleared his throat. He gave another sidelong look to his father, who nodded briefly. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘She’d got the train up from London I remember. She’d been staying with friends.’ His voice was hoarse, his throat dry. Martin poured him a glass of water from the jug on the table and passed it to him. Simon took the glass, looking for the first time at Martin as he did so. His eyes flashed wild for a second, and then the shutters came down again.
‘You’re a third year, though – that’s right, isn’t it? Emily must’ve been impressed to meet you.’ Martin smiled. ‘I know when I was a Fresher, third years were like gods.’
Simon’s lips twitched at that but he said nothing. Martin sighed and spread her hands on the table between them as a kind of entreaty. ‘Listen to me, Simon, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. You’ve admitted to doing a terrible thing. We need to sort it out, see if we can make things right. You want to do that, don’t you?’
Nothing. Martin tried another tack. ‘Did you like Emily? Did you fancy her? She was a pretty girl.’ She looked down again at the statement. ‘You said to Sergeant Jones, before your dad arrived,’ she looked up at Mervyn then, to see him smirking – the emphasis wasn’t lost on him. ‘You said that you had a good friendship with Emily. That she was different from your other friends. Tell me about that. What was different about her?’
Simon let out a long, soft breath and folded his arms across his chest. His sleeves were rolled up, and Martin could see the strength in his forearms. Seeing her glance, he widened his eyes and looked at her directly. ‘I loved her,’ he said with a small smile.
Mervyn at once scribbled something on his pad. Simon noticed and jerked back slightly, as if he had made a mistake. Martin threw another glance at the CCTV camera. This was like getting blood out of a stone. At this rate, they would have Simon’s statement made without legal representation and nothing else. She felt the pressure rising. It had become hot in the small room.
‘So let’s talk about the night of the Regatta. Sunday night. You were down at the boathouse. Who else was there?’
Mervyn seemed to nod again, and so Simon spoke. ‘Everyone from college. All the Freshers, Emily and her friends.’
‘You say in your statement that you followed Emily when she left the boathouse. Can you tell me why? Did you want to see her alone?’
Rush gave a lethargic blink and moved his tongue across his teeth. He spoke like an automaton. ‘I followed Emily from the Regatta. I walked behind her all along the riverbank. All the way down to the bridge.’
‘Which bridge was that?’
‘Prebends.’
‘And?’
‘We spoke for a while.’
‘What about?’
Simon gave a short laugh before putting his hand over his mouth as if to stuff it back in. ‘Things. How she’d ignored me down at the boathouse. She’d been drinking again.’ He pulled the lapels of his black coat up around his neck as if wanting to hunker down, to try to be invisible.
‘Did Emily know about your feelings for her?’ Martin asked, going for a punt. ‘Was she aware of how you felt?’
‘I don’t know. She should’ve been. I made it pretty plain,’ Simon mumbled, speaking into his chest. Mervyn shifted in his chair, put his pen carefully down on the desk. He flexed his fingers while staring, bug-eyed, at Martin.
‘I can’t hear you, Simon. You’ll have to speak up. Look at me, please.’
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Mervyn spoke up angrily, jabbing his finger at Martin. ‘You have the confession. Simon isn’t required to answer these questions. He’s clearly been coerced. This whole business is absolute bullshit.’
Martin remained silent.
‘Do you have a prima facie case to charge him or not?’ Mervyn continued in the same vein before stopping and taking a breath to control himself. Martin watched him unclench his fingers from the tight ball in which they had been curled, paste a disdainful look on to his face. He gave a nauseating smile before speaking, calmer now, quietly, with the poise of an arching, venomous snake. ‘If you need a motive then you should find one. You know,’ he sneered, ‘investigate.’
Martin smiled at him, unperturbed. Moving her eyes back to Simon, she continued to address him directly, ignoring his father. ‘Simon?’ She waited for a second. ‘I think you want to tell me. I think you want to tell me how it was. Let’s go back a bit. How often would you see Emily? Every day? Once a week?’
Simon closed his eyes. He sank even further down into his chair, his arms a barrier across his chest. ‘All the time,’ he said, shaking his head at the memory of it.
‘And would you always see her in person? Or did you email each other? Chat on Facebook, that sort of thing?’
Simon became very still.
‘We’ve seen the photographs, Simon.’ Martin continued, noticing his stillness. ‘We’ve seen what was happening to Emily. How she was being bullied. It was awful, what was happening to her, wasn’t it? Really terrible for Emily.’
Simon had begun to visibly sweat. Come on, Martin thought, come to me, Simon. ‘Did you comment on Emily’s Facebook page, Simon? The names attached to the comments aren’t real, are they? They’re made-up identities, pseudonyms. What was yours?’
Simon sat up an inch and began to flick his index fingers with his thumbs on both hands in a rapid manner.
‘So awful for Emily, what was happening to her. Why would anyone want to treat another human being like that? Say those sorts of despicable things to her? I can’t understand it. I really can’t. Especially not to a friend. What kind of friend would do something like that?’
The breeze-blocked walls in the room seemed very close to Martin then, pushing in on the three of them, squeezing all of their thoughts and strategies up into a jumbled cloud near the ceiling. She could feel a trickle of sweat make its way down the centre of her back. Come to me, Simon. Come on.
‘I can’t say,’ Simon said after a pause, finally unfolding, extending his hands out over the desk between them. He slid his eyes back to his father. ‘I can’t say exactly why.’
‘What do you mean? Explain it to me.’
Simon reached about him with his fingers. ‘It’s a feeling, you know. An expression or a – a quality …’
Martin felt the hot air in the room pulse. She waited, she would get it. No coward soul is mine.
Simon looked at her then, his eyes bulging in earnest. ‘The quality Emily had. What I mean is …’ He swallowed, still searching for the words. ‘I’ve been under a lot of pressure.’
‘Is this part of your confession, Simon? Something to get you out of the mess you’re in?’ Martin banged her hand on to the table unexpectedly, and his head snapped up. ‘Tell me!’
Simon shut his eyes. ‘I was sending Emily messages. I admit it.’
‘What kind of messages?’
‘Nasty ones. Ones about the photos she put up.’
‘She put up?’
He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’ He shook his head. ‘She wanted it. Look at the photos. Anyone who acts like that. Poses like that. They want it.’
‘What do they want, Simon?’
He leaned forwards, over his splayed hands on the table, and said calmly. ‘They want to be fucked.’
A silence filled the room. Her cheeks hot, Martin swallowed to gain control of herself aft
er the violence of this remark. She looked down at her notes, her mind spinning, annoyed at herself for reacting. Feeling his eyes upon her, Martin looked up to meet Mervyn’s cool gaze. They faced each other, gunslingers over the table. A knock interrupted the tableau. Martin walked to the door to find Jones outside.
‘You’re wanted, boss,’ Jones said quietly. ‘It’s urgent.’
Martin stared at her, amazed. Jones nodded, flicked her head towards the corridor, and they stepped outside, closing the door behind them.
‘What the fuck, Jones?’
‘It’s Principal Mason,’ Jones said. ‘He’s downstairs with Tennant. He says he was with Simon the night Emily was murdered. That he can’t have killed her.’
Martin rubbed her hands over her face.
‘Shit,’ she looked at the metal of the door in disbelief. ‘He’s given him an alibi.’
Martin re-entered the interview room with Jones close behind.
‘What’s going on?’ Mervyn Rush said loudly. ‘Who’s she? Are you going to charge Simon or what?’ he asked, talking across his son.
‘Daddy?’ Simon whimpered.
‘I’m sorry about the interruption,’ Martin said calmly. ‘We need to take a short break. Won’t take long. Simon, you’ll be taken back to your cell.’
‘This is out of order,’ Mervyn protested.
‘I’m sorry,’ Martin replied, ‘but it can’t be avoided.’
Simon made a small moan. Martin looked at him. He seemed to be at the beginnings of a panic attack. He breathed heavily, gulping down air; his hands clawing at his knees as he began to rock his head from side to side.
‘Son, are you all right?’ Mervyn asked, finally deigning to look at his son, taking one of his hands. Simon pulled it away roughly. He began to move his upper body backwards and forwards in a rhythmic fashion, groaning at the same time.
‘Do you need a doctor, Simon?’ Jones asked.
‘Daddy,’ Simon moaned again, his hands now tearing at his hair, his mouth curled downwards, his eyes vacant. Without warning, he stopped still. His eyes were rheumy, unfocused; his mouth hung open.
Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller) Page 10