There are still holes in Susan Wright’s story and Ellie can only hold her for another few hours before charging her. That’s not the end of the world: she can pick and choose from a list of charges, but she would rather get the facts out of her with as little duress as possible. The sun fires a single glass square: it is just after lunchtime.
‘So this is what I’m struggling with.’ Her words cover the growling of her stomach. ‘I know those cliffs. If you’re walking your dog, you can’t see straight down unless you’re right on the edge, you can’t have seen Danny’s body. The angle’s wrong. What you’re telling us, it doesn’t ring true. Now have another think, otherwise I’m going to charge you with obstructing a murder inquiry.’
Susan is blank. ‘I didn’t see anything.’
‘Like you didn’t see what your husband was up to?’ The low blow hits home. Susan turns her head slowly away. Ellie cranes across the desk to catch her eye. She’s not letting her get away with it this time. ‘You were out walking at the time Danny’s body was left on the beach. What did you see?’
Susan raises her eyes to the ceiling as if in prayer, although her lips don’t move. She seems to find an answer, though, because when she brings her face back down, the defiance has drained from it.
‘I wasn’t on the cliff, I was on the beach.’ The downward inflection gives away Susan’s relief. Finally, there’s the sense of confession that has been missing so far. ‘I saw a boat come in. Little. Like a rowing boat but with a motor on the back.’
Ellie’s heart thuds painfully against her ribcage. ‘How many people on board?’
‘One. One man. Black woolly hat.’
‘What did he do?’ Ellie’s mind is whirring: why, why, what’s going on? She’s so busy trying to read the subtext of Susan’s words that she’s in danger of losing the thread.
‘He took the boy’s body out the boat. Laid it on the beach. Then he got back in the boat and went off west.’
‘Did you recognise the person who left Danny’s body on the beach?’
Susan starts to nod again. For a long time, it is the only movement in the room. ‘Yes, I did,’ she says at last. ‘He calls himself Nigel. Works with the boy’s dad.’
He calls himself Nigel. It’s a strange turn of phrase, but Ellie doesn’t have time to analyse it. She rewinds the summer, trying to remember ever seeing Susan and Nigel in the same place, let alone in conversation.
‘You know Nigel well, then, to recognise him at night, from that distance. When did you last see him?’
‘Few weeks ago.’ Her voice is thick. ‘He came to my caravan. He had a crossbow. He threatened to kill me.’
Ellie wonders what her face looks like because she wasn’t expecting that. She would know if Nige had a crossbow. She wonders now if Susan has picked on Nige to distract them from something else. It’s no secret that he was close to Danny, and that he’s been questioned in the nick before. ‘OK. Why did he do that?’
‘He didn’t like what I was saying.’
‘And what were you saying?’
‘Don’t remember.’
She’s lost her again. It takes everything Ellie’s got not to scream. If Susan realises the extent of her desperation, they might as well give up. ‘You don’t remember what you said to make a man threaten you with a crossbow?’
‘Not really.’
‘So Nigel threatens you, for some unknown reason, and you frame him as the killer.’
Susan looks Ellie hard in the eye and speaks with rock-solid conviction. ‘It was him carrying that body.’
Ellie checks the clock again. If they can bring Nige in straight away, they’ll have just over two hours with both of them under interrogation. Maybe he can shed some light on all this. When you think about what she is, what she is alleged to have done, what is Susan Wright’s word worth? Ellie leaves her suspect in the indifferent care of the duty solicitor and slams the interview room door behind her. The hairline crack in Nige’s alibi – the quick trip to the pub – now seems to her a potential chasm. He wasn’t out of the house long enough to kill Danny, clean his body, steal a boat and dump it on the beach, but he was away for long enough to commit the murder, then go out again once Faye was asleep and cover his tracks. They should have gone after him harder. Ellie rubs the space between her eyebrows where the tension collects. Her skin feels loose around her skull.
She is wondering who to tell first now the boss has gone when she rounds the corner into CID and collides with a wraithlike DI Hardy. He is thinner than ever, and appears to be wearing pale green make-up.
‘Sir, what are you —’
He bats away her concern with the back of a scabbed hand. ‘I’m seeing the doctor in the morning, Miller.’ She doesn’t have to ask him what that means. It’s over. What does that mean for her? Keep him involved, or get on with it without him? The words are out before she’s aware of making the decision. ‘There’s been a development. Got an eyewitness account. Nige Carter carrying Danny’s body out of the boat and laying it on the beach. I don’t know how reliable she is, but…’ The news has brought a pink glow to Hardy’s complexion. He puts in the call for the uniforms to bring Nige Carter in and there’s a corresponding heat in his voice.
‘Remind me what we know about Nige Carter,’ he asks Ellie as they wait.
‘He moved back in with his mum when his dad died, five, six years ago,’ she says. ‘He’s part of the furniture at the Latimers’, always in and out the house… But I don’t believe he’s capable of Danny’s murder.’
‘Everyone we’ve interviewed is capable,’ says Hardy. ‘Just takes the right circumstances.’
‘And there’s your view of the world. I don’t know how you sleep.’
‘Who says I sleep?’
The gates outside squeal open as a police van and a squad car roll into the car park. Ellie and Hardy watch the yard from the window. Nige leaves the van in cuffs. Even from this distance Ellie can see that he’s been crying. The first DC who gets out of the car holds an evidence bag up for them to see: Ellie gasps to see a crossbow inside, but is silenced completely when the second car door opens and a female PC is followed by Vince on a rope lead.
‘You take Susan, I’ll take Nigel,’ says Hardy. ‘I’ll see where he says he was that night. And why the hell he had her dog.’
She wonders if Hardy’s aware how much he’s sweating. His whole face is glazed with it.
‘You sure you’re up to questioning, sir? How are you feeling?’
‘Spectacular,’ he says. Ellie silently calls him all the names she can think of.
The detectives wait at the end of the corridor while Nige makes his allotted telephone call. He dials the number without having to look it up.
‘Mark, mate.’ The echo in the station further distorts his breaking voice. ‘I want you to hear it from me. Police have taken me in. They think I had something to do with Danny. It’s all wrong, this. You know that.’ It’s impossible to tell from Nige’s face whether Mark is raging at him or comforting him.
Hardy studies Nige Carter across the table. For the first time he really registers how young Nige is. The shaved head puts years on him but there’s something childish about him, with his eagerness to please and his gangly limbs. Hardy remembers the little armoury that uniform retrieved from Nige’s garage and wonders if the happy idiot thing is an act. He’s kicking himself for not excavating the fault lines in Nige’s original statement properly. Susan Wright’s testimony, together with the crossbow, has changed everything.
With the clock hard against him, there’s no time for preliminaries.
‘Run us through where you were the night Danny Latimer was killed.’
Nige gives a dopey, nervous smile. ‘We been through this, weeks back. When you had Mark in. I was at home, with Mum, watching telly.’
‘What were you watching?’
‘Something about baking. Mum loves all that.’
Hardy slides a photograph of Susan Wright across the desk. ‘D’you know this woman, Nigel?’
Nige barely looks at it. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘Do you own a dog?’
‘Not really.’ A muscle in Nige’s cheek jumps.
‘Not really?’ Hardy is scornful. ‘What, sometimes you do? There’s a dog comes round part-time?’
Nige smiles. ‘No.’
‘Is this amusing to you?’
The smile is switched off like a light. ‘I don’t own a dog.’
‘Why was there a dog in your back garden?’
Nige squirms. ‘Someone asked me to look after it for them.’
‘The owner. This woman. Susan Wright. Who you said you didn’t know.’ Nige is looking anywhere but at the photograph. Hardy sighs. ‘If you’re going to lie, you have to be consistent. Because then there’s the alibi for the night of Danny Latimer’s death. The one you told us about when we were interviewing Mark. It was good enough then. But not now. Your mum already told us you weren’t in all that night. You went out at half ten for last orders. So where were you, Nigel?’
Nige’s mouth hangs open but nothing comes out. Hardy decides to switch gears. He brings out the crossbow, sealed in its clear bag.
‘This yours?’
He looks shifty but he doesn’t deny it. ‘Yeah. I keep it in the garage.’
‘You played video games with Danny.’
The change of subject has confused him. ‘Call of Duty, yeah. Sometimes with him, sometimes with his mate Tom, too.’
‘How often were you alone together?’
Nige’s eyes widen. ‘Dunno. Never thought about it. He was just Mark and Beth’s lad. I saw him when I was around.’
Hardy pretends to consult the file in front of him.
‘How do you know Susan Wright?’ he asks.
‘I don’t want to talk about her!’ Nige’s rage must be very close to the surface to rise this quickly. ‘You should arrest her, have her in here for harassment. She’s been on at me since the moment she arrived. It must be five months of it now. I can’t take it no more! I’ve told her, leave me alone, but she won’t. Not interested about that, are you?’
‘What’s she harassing you about?’ Nigel, evidently spent by his outburst, says nothing. ‘Susan Wright has told us she believes you killed Danny Latimer. She says she saw you on the beach, with a boat, dragging Danny’s body on to the shore.’
‘She’s lying!’ A spit bubble forms between Nige’s lips. ‘He’s my best mate’s boy, why would I do that?’
‘Then why’s Susan Wright saying otherwise? What’s she got to harass you about?’
Nige shrugs almost imperceptibly, as though admitting defeat quietly to himself. His lips work in silent rehearsal. Hardy has seen this tell enough times to know that a confession is seconds away, but even he is stunned when Nige says, ‘She reckons she’s my mum.’