The Lost

Chapter 25

‘I didn’t kill her.’

It wasn’t the same interview room as before, but it might as well have been. Same utilitarian chic, same scuffed walls, same bolted-down table. And, sitting at the opposite side of the table from Fletcher, Jonah had been repeating the same thing for hours.

The DI gave a sigh. It wasn’t for effect: the detective looked gaunt and tired, the taut skin on his face the colour of putty.

‘Then what was her body doing in your garage?’

‘I keep telling you, I don’t know. But I didn’t put it there.’

Jonah was all too aware of how weak that sounded. Technically, this was only a voluntary interview, but he had no illusions about what that meant. If he’d been arrested, the police could only hold him for twenty-four hours, although that could be extended to four days if there was need. As it was, because he was there ‘voluntarily’, the questioning could drag on indefinitely. The clock would only start ticking once he was arrested.

When he’d first been brought in, he’d felt confident that wouldn’t happen. Confident enough not to demand a lawyer, in fact. Despite everything, he was reluctant to accept that he might actually need one, trusting to the fact he’d done nothing wrong.

Now it was starting to look like a bad move.

‘So, you admit Daly came to your flat two nights ago,’ Fletcher continued. ‘To “apologise”, I think you said.’

‘That’s right. She said she felt bad about how she’d treated me.’

‘And you believed her? After she’d tricked you in the hospital and ambushed you at McKinney’s memorial service?’

‘I know how it sounds, but yes. She told me she was having doubts about her job.’

‘So you offered her a shoulder to cry on, is that it?’

‘No, we just talked,’ Jonah said. He was more thankful than ever now that Marie’s phone call had come when it did. Maybe nothing would have happened between him and Daly anyway, but if it had, he might have found himself with even more to explain.

‘What time was this?’ Fletcher asked.

‘She got there about half-nine. You can check because I ordered a pizza. She arrived at the same time and brought it up.’

‘She delivered your pizza?’

‘It was sort of a joke. I think she was worried I wouldn’t let her in.’

‘So, she arrived around nine-thirty. What then?’

‘She said she wanted to apologise. We got talking and ended up sharing the pizza and having a drink.’

‘Very forgiving of you.’ Fletcher took out a carefully folded tissue and dabbed his watering eye. ‘What did she have to drink?’

‘Beer.’

‘How many?’

‘A couple, I think. Small cans.’

‘And you?’

‘The same. I’d started one before she arrived so... one more than her.’

‘That would be three, then.’ It was hard not to think that Fletcher was enjoying this. ‘You say you got talking. What about?’

‘General stuff. She told me about her daughter. And she said one of the victims had been identified.’ He glanced at Bennet, who stared back without a flicker of emotion. ‘She told me he was a Kenyan student called Daniel Kimani.’

From Fletcher’s lack of surprise it was evident he already knew. ‘Anything else?’

‘She knew about Gavin’s suspension, but wouldn’t say who’d told her.’

‘And what about you? What did you tell her?’

‘Nothing about Gavin or the case, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘Oh, I’m not the one who should be worried. But, just to be clear, you had beer and pizza and civilised conversation with a journalist who’d made you look stupid. And then she said goodnight and left. Is that it?’

‘Pretty much, yes.’

‘And what time was that?’

‘About eleven. Maybe half past.’

‘She was there for two hours? My, you did have a lot to talk about. Did I mention we’d found her car? Parked not far from your flat. So we know she didn’t make it back there. She didn’t turn up for work the next day either. Or call her parents like she was supposed to. In fact, nobody saw or heard anything from her after she came to see you.’

‘She was fine when she left my flat. Check the CCTV cameras, if you don’t believe me.’

‘Oh, we are doing. But all the ones nearby seem to have been smashed. Funny that, eh?’

Jonah felt too wretched to care about the jibe. ‘Do you know yet how was she killed?’

Fletcher looked at him for a moment. ‘You’re priceless, Colley, you know that? You seriously think I’m here to discuss it with you?’

‘She’d been wrapped in polythene like the warehouse victims,’ Jonah pressed on. He wanted this on the record. ‘From what I saw she was fully clothed and I didn’t see any blood, so I’m guessing she was knocked unconscious and then left to suffocate. Again, the same as the three victims at the quayside. The plastic bag was new, but I expect he’d learned from what happened before with the girl. Nadine. He wasn’t taking chances on Corinne Daly surviving.’

‘And by “he” you mean...?’

‘You know who I mean. It had to be Owen Stokes. He must have been waiting outside the flats and jumped her when she came out.’

‘Ah, of course.’ Even Fletcher’s nod seemed sarcastic. ‘Seems like Owen Stokes is to blame for a lot of stuff that happens around you.’

He stopped as the interview room door opened and Bennet came in. She was carrying a small evidence box, which she set down on the table. Looking at it, Jonah felt a feathering of apprehension.

Fletcher continued. ‘You’re claiming that Owen Stokes killed Corinne Daly after she left your flat, and then broke into your garage to leave her body? Why? To frame you for her murder?’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘And this happened when? Tonight, when the break-in was reported? Or two nights ago when she actually disappeared?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve told you, tonight was the first time I’d been back to the garage since I took my car out. That was the morning before Corinne Daly came round. Stokes could have broken in there any time after that.’

Fletcher pursed his lips, rubbing the backs of his fingers under his chin as you would a cat. ‘Well, I suppose that would fit the pathologist’s preliminary findings. She says Daly probably died around forty-eight hours ago, and her body was in the locker for a similar length of time. That’d make it the same night she came to see you.’

‘Then that’s what happened,’ Jonah said. But he didn’t like the way this felt.

‘Good. So we can agree her body was in your garage for two days. The problem we’ve got then is that your landlord — who isn’t a fan of yours, I have to say — insists your garage was intact when he was there a few hours earlier this evening. And when he was there yesterday as well, come to that. Grew quite indignant when we queried it. Said he’d have noticed one of his garages being sledgehammered open, and I’m inclined to believe him. It would’ve been sort of hard to miss.’

Jonah opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. Fletcher nodded.

‘I know. Bit of a conundrum, isn’t it? We know Daly’s body was in there for two days, but the break-in only happened tonight. That sort of suggests whoever put it there must have had a key. Owen Stokes didn’t have a key, did he?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake—’

‘Did he have a key?’

‘No, but—’

‘Did anyone else have a key? Except you?’

Jonah searched for a way out. Couldn’t find one. ‘No.’

‘No,’ Fletcher echoed. ‘Then you see the problem. If Daly’s body was put there two days ago, but the garage was only broken into tonight and you’re the only person with a key, then that narrows the list of suspects down, doesn’t it? To... well, to you, actually.’

Jonah felt he was being boxed into a tighter and tighter corner. ‘OK, then someone else must have broken in tonight. I thought at first it might be some local teenagers I’ve been having trouble with. It could have been them.’

‘Teenagers? You should have said before! Little sods, you’re probably right. Except...’ Fletcher made a see-sawing gesture with his hand, ‘except that leaves us with two break-ins to explain. I’ll grant you, someone smashed their way in there tonight, no arguments there. But even if your landlord somehow didn’t notice the first break-in, if someone — let’s say Owen Stokes — had already bust in there two nights ago, these teenage rascals wouldn’t have needed to smash the padlock off tonight, would they?’

‘Look, I didn’t kill Corinne Daly,’ Jonah said, hearing the desperation in his own voice. ‘You can’t seriously believe I’d be stupid enough to hide her body in my own garage if I had?’

‘Here’s what I think. I think you lost your rag and killed her in your flat, waited till the middle of the night, then fetched your car and dragged her body down to the lift. You knew the CCTV cameras outside were broken — for all I know you could’ve smashed them yourself — so you didn’t have to worry about that. You were limited by your knee, so you put her body in your garage while you decided what to do with it. But then you had bad luck. The garage got broken into, either by these teenagers you’ve only just remembered or someone else. They ransacked it, then ran off when they saw what was in the locker. And then when your landlord called to tell you, you knew you’d no choice but to report it and try and brazen it out.’

Fletcher crossed his arms, resting his case. Jonah could see the man wasn’t playing devil’s advocate this time. He actually believed it.

‘For Christ’s sake, this is what Stokes wants!’

‘Here we go again,’ Fletcher snorted. ‘Give me one reason why Owen Stokes would go to all this trouble to kill a journalist he doesn’t even know? Why would he want to set you up?’

‘I don’t know!’ Jonah had to stop himself from yelling. ‘I’ve no idea what goes through that sick bastard’s mind! But he’s on the run because of me! Jesus, he’s even lost the money from the bedsit because of me! And why would I want to kill Corinne Daly anyway? Christ, I liked her!’

‘That’s very big of you. It probably made her job a lot easier.’

Jonah’s anger was snuffed out. He’d thought the trap had been sprung: now he realised everything so far had only been the preliminary.

‘She was writing another piece on you,’ Fletcher said.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Jonah said, but the denial was a reflex.

‘Oh, it’s true. According to her editor she’d been putting it together for a while,’ Fletcher continued. ‘He said she was certain there was more to the story. And she was right, wasn’t she?’

‘She turned her phone off, I saw her...’

But he was already thinking how Daly had made such a show of it. How quick she’d been to reassure him. See? It’s off, it’s not recording. And all those leading questions about Gavin...

Oh, Christ...

‘And you’re supposed to be a police officer,’ Fletcher said, voice dripping contempt. ‘DC Bennet, if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘We found Daly’s bag shoved down the side of the locker,’ she said, taking a small evidence bag from the box she’d brought in. ‘Her phone wasn’t in it, so whoever killed her obviously didn’t want to risk it being traced. But there was this.’

Inside the evidence bag was a small, rectangular object. Jonah felt his stomach knot as he saw the digital recorder.

‘Daly might have switched her phone off, but she still made a recording of her visit,’ Fletcher said, taking over again. ‘The quality isn’t brilliant but it’s good enough. We can hear you inviting her in, chatting away. All very cosy. And then we get to this.’

He pressed the play button through the plastic. Jonah heard Corinne Daly’s voice followed by his own, tinny and remote but recognisable.

‘... I’ve heard rumours about your friend. That he was in trouble. And he shouldn’t even have been at that warehouse because he’d been suspended. Is that true?’

‘Where’d you hear that?’

‘It’s OK, I don’t expect you to confirm anything, but... Well, you can’t deny it, can you?’

‘Jesus Christ...’

‘OK, I’m sorry, forget I said anything... Please don’t—’

There was an inarticulate yell, then a confusion of noise. A loud thump and screech of furniture followed by a muffled clatter.

Then nothing.

Fletcher stopped the playback. In the accusing silence Jonah could feel his own heartbeat.

‘The recording carries on, but you can’t hear much after that except bumps and rustles,’ the DI said, putting the evidence bag down. ‘Still, I’d say there’s more than enough, wouldn’t you?’

Jonah felt in freefall, as though the ground had dropped away from under him. ‘It’s not how it sounds.’

‘No? Because it sounds like you losing your temper and assaulting Corinne Daly.’

‘No! Jesus, that’s not what happened!’ Jonah felt a clammy sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature in the interview room. ‘OK, I was angry, but at myself for letting my guard down! I stood up, my knee gave out and I knocked the coffee table over as I fell! That’s it, that’s all! Daly’s bag ended up on the floor, so the recorder must have got covered over.’

‘And then what?’ Fletcher asked.

‘Nothing! That’s it, that’s all that happened. Gavin’s wife called a few minutes later. You can check, it’ll be logged on my phone. Daly left not long afterwards, and that was the last I saw of her. But I swear she was fine!’

‘So you keep saying. Unfortunately, we’ve only your word for that.’

Jonah tried to think of something that could turn this around, make them realise he was innocent. He couldn’t think of a single thing.

Fletcher looked at him, drumming the fingers of one hand on the Formica tabletop. ‘Is the post-mortem going to find any of your DNA or semen on Corinne Daly?’

‘What?’ A shock ran through Jonah. ‘No! You think I raped her?’

‘We’ll see, won’t we?’

Fletcher rose to his feet and went out, leaving Bennet to pick up the evidence box and follow.

The interview room seemed to press in on Jonah after they’d left. He still had his watch, and each pass of the second hand seemed to take an age. Ten minutes crawled by, then twenty, then an hour. Then, as though time had restarted, the door opened and Fletcher and Bennet came back in.

Jonah tried to read their faces as they resumed their seats. The policewoman’s was coldly unreadable but there was a calm about the DI now. An unnerving quietude Jonah hadn’t seen in him before.

‘Strictly speaking, this isn’t my case so I shouldn’t really be the one to do this,’ Fletcher said. ‘But in view of the connection, the SIO agreed.’

‘I didn’t kill Corinne Daly,’ Jonah said. More to head off what was coming than with any hope it would do any good.

Fletcher regarded him.

‘You know what, Colley? I’m getting tired of hearing you say that. You didn’t kill Corinne Daly, you didn’t kill McKinney, you didn’t kill any of those poor bastards in the warehouse. And to start with I believed you. Not all of it — I knew something was off. But I honestly didn’t tab you for a murderer. I still can’t make up my mind if you’re responsible for the others or not. Something still doesn’t add up about that. But this...’

Suddenly there didn’t seem to be enough air in the room.

‘Jonah Colley,’ Fletcher intoned. ‘You are under arrest on suspicion of the murder of Corinne Daly.’