Left You Dead

61

As they walked along the corridor, Branson asked, ‘So, what news on Bruno? How’s he doing?’

Grace was silent for a moment, then said quietly, ‘Not great, Glenn, not great at all.’

A young DC walking past the other way greeted them with a ‘Good morning, sir, good morning, boss’.

They both acknowledged her politely. Then Grace said, still quietly, ‘He’s brain dead, there’s nothing they can do. It absolutely breaks me.’

Branson stopped. Grace stopped too. ‘What?’

Grace nodded.

‘That’s terrible.’ Branson shook his head and looked at him balefully. ‘What... what’s the prognosis — what do the medics say?’

‘They’re asking Cleo and me if we would consider organ donation.’

Branson’s eyes widened. ‘Isn’t there a chance he could recover?’

‘No. I mean — from what they say — there’s no way he will.’

‘You don’t have to make any decisions immediately, do you, boss? People can stay in that state for a long time. Wasn’t there a case in the papers recently of a teenage girl who’d been in a coma for three years after a car accident and then recovered completely?’

‘It’s different with Bruno. We’ve had it all explained to us — about how his brain is swelling — coning, they call it — and crushing his brainstem. His chances of recovery are zero, and if we don’t make a decision quickly, his most valuable organs for transplant will atrophy.’

Glenn put his huge hand around Roy’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Just know I’m here for you any time you want to talk. If you’d rather go back to the hospital now, to be with him, please do that.’

‘I appreciate it, thanks, but I’m coming with you to see this interview. It’s helpful for me to be away from the hospital at the moment... we all cope differently.’

As they walked on, around a corner, they saw Norman Potting and Jon Exton standing, conferring, outside the interview room. The door was closed.

‘Sir, chief,’ Potting said, acknowledging them. Exton turned and saw them, too.

‘All set?’ Grace asked quietly.

Exton jerked his head towards the door. ‘Paternoster’s in there with his brief, boss,’ he replied, equally quietly.

Somehow mustering a smile, Grace said, ‘Remember, confirm the lie then hit with the truth.’

‘Absolutely, chief,’ Potting said. He gave a thin smile back.

Two minutes later, Grace and Branson sat next to each other in the windowless cubicle adjoining the interview room, watching the CCTV monitor on the wall.

Inside the room they saw Niall Paternoster and his solicitor on one side of the table, and Exton and Potting on the opposite side. Paternoster, with two days’ growth of stubble, looked pallid from lack of sleep.

‘The time is 8.17, Wednesday, September the fourth,’ Exton announced. ‘DS Exton and DS Potting interviewing Niall Paternoster in the presence of his solicitor, Joseph Rattigan. This interview is being recorded onto a secure digital network.’

They all introduced themselves. Exton recapped on the interview from the previous evening and then he sat back. The two detectives looked at Niall for a few seconds. ‘Is there anything you’d like to add to last night?’ Potting asked.

‘I’ve got no comment to make.’

‘According to your phone, on Sunday the first at 5.30 p.m. you met up with someone. Who was that person? Your girlfriend?’ Potting asked.

Niall: ‘No comment.’

‘Your phone and recent phone records have been examined by our investigation team,’ Potting continued. ‘At 3.23 p.m. on Sunday afternoon a text was sent from your phone, the hard copy of which I have here.’

Joseph Rattigan indicated he wanted to see it, and Potting passed it across to him. Immediately an increasingly agitated Niall, his face flushed, leaned over to look at it. Then he whispered to his solicitor, who nodded back.

‘On the advice of my solicitor I have no comment to make.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat; his face was pale and he was looking extremely anxious.

‘Niall, could the reason you did not see your wife perhaps be because you were preoccupied with your mobile phone, sending a text?’ Potting quizzed.

Paternoster jerked as if he’d had a small electric shock.

The solicitor frowned. This was clearly news to him. ‘Does this have anything to do with Mrs Paternoster’s disappearance?’ He looked at each detective in turn.

Potting replied, ‘Of course it does, we are trying to establish what your client was doing on Sunday afternoon when he alleges his wife went missing.’ He turned to address Niall. ‘It appears to me that you were communicating by text on at least two occasions on Sunday afternoon and chose, when you gave your account, not to tell us. Who is that person you were communicating with?’

‘No comment.’

Exton continued to press Paternoster. ‘Niall, the sent text message at 3.23 p.m. that you have a copy of reads, “See you 5.30 XXXX”. It was sent to an unregistered pay-as-you-go phone, approximately five minutes after you claim your wife left the car to go into the Tesco store. Can you tell us who the intended recipient was?’

Niall Paternoster turned to his solicitor, who shook his head.

‘No comment,’ Paternoster said.

Exton held up another sheet of printout, which he passed across the table. ‘This contains triangulation plots obtained from the two phone companies to which your phone and the anonymous phone were registered. When you sent that text, the location of the anonymous phone was in one of a number of houses in Barrowfield Drive, Hove. At 5.30 p.m. your phone and the anonymous phone had both moved to a point where they came together at a location three miles to the west of Brighton. This location has been identified as the vicinity of the car park of the Devil’s Dyke beauty spot. It indicates you had a rendezvous with the owner of the anonymous phone at this location. Can you tell us anything about this?’

Paternoster, looking very concerned now, again turned to his solicitor, who shook his head once more.

‘No, look, I’ve told you I loved Eden. That’s all I’m saying.’

Potting interjected. ‘Niall, I’d like to remind you that you are under caution. That means, as I’m sure your solicitor has explained to you, that anything you say may be admissible in court. “No comment” does not go down well with juries and we are inviting you to provide information to confirm what you are telling us about your wife’s disappearance.’

In the observation cubicle, Grace glanced at Branson. Clearly, the surprise phone evidence had rattled the solicitor.

Whispering, although he didn’t need to, Branson said, ‘Did you pick up on that, boss? I loved Eden.’

Grace nodded tersely. ‘Freudian slip?’

‘Quite a slip, wouldn’t you say?’ Branson added, then was silent for a moment. ‘But people get het up in interviews — they can be pretty intimidating. Can’t always take everything at face value. Yet there’s something else he said in a previous interview that’s significant and which maybe backs up this slip. He said, Do you people seriously think I would have killed the gravy train when I was down on my luck? Gravy train. That’s a pretty strange remark, don’t you think?’

‘Very,’ said Grace. ‘Like implying, I love my wife because she brings in the money. Not because she’s anything else. Not because he loves her to bits. She’s just his cash cow — for want of a better expression. And now we see he had a get-together up on Devil’s Dyke later that Sunday. What kind of person are you going to meet at a local beauty spot late afternoon? Your accountant?’

Branson grinned.

‘There’s definitely something going on here. Speak to Chris Gee and get his team to search through all the paperwork in the house and see if he can find Eden Paternoster’s will — Niall said they’d both made one. That might be revealing. I’ve already given Emily Denyer the action of getting us a full report on their finances. I’d like to know what he might have to gain by Eden’s death.’

In the interview room, Exton said, ‘Last night we told you about the evidence we have discovered that suggests you may have harmed your wife. A central part of your explanation was your visit to Tesco for cat litter, but we now know you didn’t need any cat litter. Further, and perhaps more significantly, nobody in Tesco saw your wife there to corroborate your story. We have now made you aware that we know about your contact that same afternoon with an unknown person. Why don’t you tell us the truth?’

‘No comment,’ Niall said flatly. ‘I’m not answering any more of your questions.’

Rattigan said to the detectives, ‘Gentlemen, it is now 8.40 a.m. You have until 9.45 a.m. to either charge or release my client.’

‘Thank you,’ Norman Potting replied politely. ‘We have until 9.47 a.m., actually, but let’s not split hairs. Interview terminated at 8.40 a.m.’ He reached forward.

The monitor went blank and silent.