Twisted

Chapter 27

Marcus had calmed down considerably. He had been given a mug of tea and a spare blanket as he felt cold, but he still could not stop shivering. He was forced to wait for the arrival of his solicitor, Angus McFarland, a man he had never met, who had called the station to verify that he would be present within an hour.

Harry Dunn had requested the duty solicitor, who was young and inexperienced, but listened attentively as he took notes and spent considerable time questioning Harry, going over his reason for having the Cartier watch in his flat. Harry explained the Fulfords had gone to Richmond Police Station and Agnes had told him to valet the Mini, where he found the watch almost hidden, as if it had fallen between the driver’s and the passenger seat. It had been dirty, as if it had been dropped in mud; he had put it in his pocket with the intention of cleaning it and handing it to Mr Fulford when he next saw him. He maintained that due to the press and the uproar around the missing girl he had forgotten he had it, and then he had left it in the pocket of his jacket and was very concerned he would be accused of stealing it, so chose to say nothing.

By the time he was interviewed by DCI Jackson, Harry was a nervous wreck. Jackson had listened to Harry’s explanation, which was being video-recorded, and then looked to his solicitor and shook his head in disbelief.

‘Bullshit, Mr Dunn. You find Amy’s Cartier watch, you know it’s vital to the investigation, but you hold onto it and say nothing. You think you got lucky, but with the missing girl’s name engraved on the back it’s hard to sell on to anyone, right? You have knowingly held onto evidence with the intention of what – chucking it out? Admit it, you had a hot potato on your hands, didn’t you?’

Dunn gave a long sigh. ‘Agnes had asked me to wash and valet Mr Fulford’s Mini as it was filthy. I don’t deny I found the watch, but at the time I never saw Amy’s name on it. I put it in my pocket to give to Mr Fulford, but with all the stuff about her going missing I totally forgot about it.’

‘So why didn’t you give it to him later?’

‘Because with my record I was worried I’d be accused of stealing it, and under the circumstances I was just going to throw it away.’

‘Ah, but you didn’t, did you! Besides, how could you possibly miss Amy’s name on it?’ Jackson asked and placed the watch, which was in a plastic evidence bag, on the table. He slowly turned it over, revealing the engraved letters.

On seeing it, Harry began to shake. ‘It was dirty and covered with bits of dry mud on it. I wiped it clean at home and saw Amy’s name and in a panic I hid it in a drawer.’

‘What type of mud was on it?’

Harry frowned and then shrugged, saying he didn’t know.

‘Was it reddish, clay, garden mud or-’

‘It was just dirty.’

Jackson stopped the recording, left the interview room and spoke with Styles in the corridor. ‘Dunn’s a lying little bastard, but he’s not a murderer. He thought he’d make a few grand selling the watch. Hold him until I interview Marcus Fulford. After that, Dunn can be released and bailed to return here in two weeks. If there’s no evidence against him regarding Amy’s disappearance, charge him with theft of the watch.’

Jackson made his way upstairs to the incident room, asking if DI Reid had returned, and when told he hadn’t he snapped that he wanted him contacted and told to get his arse back to the station pronto. He had begun to prepare for his interview with Marcus Fulford when Styles returned to say that Reid’s mobile went straight to voicemail so he had left a message for him, word for word as Jackson had instructed.

‘Right, what do we know about this brief, Angus McFarland?’

‘He’s got quite a formidable reputation – he’s Scottish.’

‘Yeah, I fathomed that out by his fucking name. I doubt Fulford will put his hands up if he was abusing or killed his daughter, but we have to put it to him as he’s been arrested. If she’s dead we need to find her body to have any real chance of nailing him.’

In the interview room Marcus Fulford was going over his arrest with Angus McFarland, who was a neat sandy-haired man in his late forties but who looked much younger, with a pinkish complexion and wet lips. He wore a grey suit with a pink shirt and a striped matching silk tie. He had a large briefcase for his files and notebook. He placed his notebook down on the small table and took out a Parker pen, then cleared his throat and checked his wristwatch.

‘They like to keep you waiting, all par for the course. Just stay calm, don’t let them rattle you, and if I touch your arm, you let me do the talking.’

Marcus nodded; he felt unbelievably tired, his body seemed heavy and his head throbbed. He held his hands tightly together, his palms wet as he was sweating with nerves, and he wanted to cry he was so numb from the shock of being arrested. He physically jumped when Jackson barged into the room. He introduced himself to McFarland and then gestured towards his DS.

‘This is Detective Sergeant David Styles, known to everyone as DS because of his initials and his rank obviously.’ If it was an attempt at a joke it fell flat. Drawing out a chair, he sat down, opening a thick file.

Jackson told Marcus the interview would be video-recorded and cautioned him. He was just about to begin when there was a knock at the door; he pushed his chair back and without even an excuse me left the room and saw DI Reid in the corridor.

‘Where the hell have you been, Reid?’

‘I have been with a Professor Elliot Cornwall and he has agreed to assist the investigation. There’s been a development and I-’

Jackson jabbed him in the chest with his stubby finger.

‘Whoever he is, you better have a bloody good reason for not informing me where you were going. You wait until I’m through in there and then see me in my office.’

‘Maybe, sir, you should speak to Professor Cornwall straight away or at least let me tell you what he said.’

‘I have Marcus Fulford in there with his solicitor; when I’m finished he will either be charged with murder or out of here, pending further enquiries. If it’s the latter you’re to blame for a piss-poor initial investigation.’

‘I did inform Chief Superintendent Douglas about taking the journal to an expert and-’

‘He may be senior to me but he’s not running this investigation, I AM! You are hanging onto your career by a thread because of insubordination; you have the journal of Amy Fulford, right? RIGHT?’

‘I did, sir, it’s at the lab for examination, but I have a photocopy for you.’

‘You should have told me earlier about the journal. Now get out of my sight and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Banging the door closed behind him, Jackson strode back into the interview room.

Two hours later, Marcus was released without charge and returned to Lena’s. He had fixed himself a tumbler of scotch and settled himself at the dining table, which was still set for dinner. By now he was totally drained and had not even turned the lights on, preferring to sit in the semi-darkness, the dining room lit only by the hall lights. He had been sitting there for some time before Lena came down from her bedroom, wearing a nightdress and matching robe.

‘I didn’t hear you come home.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘Agnes got some chicken in white wine sauce out for dinner – are you hungry?’

‘No, I couldn’t eat anything.’

‘Me neither. I expected you hours ago – you could at least have called me.’

She drew a chair closer to sit beside him.

‘Have they found something? Is that why you have been so long?’

‘No, they only interviewed me, and thank God for McFarland,’ Marcus said, meeting her eyes. ‘I really appreciate you arranging for him to be with me; he calmed me down and guided me through the interview – well, if you can call it that; it was more like a bloody Gestapo interrogation by DCI Jackson. I was finding it really hard to control myself.’

‘I’ve been so worried, but I don’t really understand why they took you in.’

He sighed and sipped his scotch. He told her that Harry Dunn had found Amy’s watch in his Mini, and hidden it, and he had been arrested and questioned about it. He hesitated.

‘I maybe should have told you, because I think Amy might have left it in the car when we went over to Henley one weekend,’ he went on quietly. ‘You know how she liked to ride there. It was raining hard so she never actually rode out, but I had spare keys for Simon’s place so we had a look round – well, Amy more than myself, while I made us a black coffee to warm up.’

‘Did they think because of the watch you had something to do with her disappearance?’

‘Jackson seemed convinced Harry and I were involved, but he admitted to finding the watch between the seats in the Mini and taking it.’

‘Well he’s out of a job, the nasty little thief. When I think what I have done for him,’ she spat.

‘I never asked him to clean the Mini – that was bloody Agnes. Jackson thought I’d asked Harry to valet the car and innocently get rid of any evidence. If I’d known Amy’s watch was there I’d have told the police right away.’

‘She loves that watch.’

‘I know, also that it’s a Cartier and you got it for her birthday; anyway, they then went on to question me about…’ He paused, not sure how he should tell her.

‘Go on, question you about what?’

Marcus explained that there was video footage from the vice squad, and that Amy had been caught on CCTV footage and appeared to be soliciting a passing motorist for sex.

‘She was wearing her school uniform, Lena.’ He was close to tears.

‘Well I don’t believe it, it’s preposterous. This Detective Jackson is a disgusting loathsome man; he came here and I refused to even continue talking to him. I think they are trying in some ways to implicate the both of us in her disappearance. I am going to make an official complaint against him; it’s outrageous that they are treating us like this, scrabbling around in a pitiful attempt to blame us because they are incompetent. As from now I will only talk to Detective Reid.’

He reached out and held her hand.

‘It’s not looking good, Lena. I mean it’s obvious they think that she’s met with some nightmare – do you understand what I am saying?’

Lena held his hand tighter. ‘They think she’s been murdered, don’t they?’

He nodded, hardly able to accept it, and yet by Lena being so calm it somehow made it a reality.

‘They’ve a murder team handling the case now. But they still have no evidence of an abduction and…’ He couldn’t say it, but Lena knew what he meant, that they had found no trace of a body. She released her hand from his and leaned towards him, putting her arms around him.

‘We just have to deal with it, don’t we?’

‘How do you deal with it, Lena? It’s as if I have a gaping hole in my chest all the time and I can’t face it, because if God forbid it’s true, how do we go on?’

She cradled him and kissed him, closer now than they had been for years.

‘Listen, darling, I will make you a hot drink and you take a couple of my sleeping tablets; you’ll feel more able to cope in the morning. You go up and get into bed and I’ll bring in a tray.’

She got up and went to the kitchen, taking a pan and heating up some milk to make him a hot chocolate. She noticed the two cartons of food and the note from Agnes on the draining board. It made her laugh that the ever-efficient Agnes had forgotten to label something. Lena wrote on the note that both cartons were in the fridge and then buttered two slices of bread without the crusts and cut them into soldiers.

Lena carried the tray into her bedroom, but Marcus wasn’t there. She left the tray on the dressing table and looked in her en-suite bathroom but he wasn’t there either. She went into the guest bedroom and could see by the light from the bathroom that he was taking a shower.

‘Marcus, I’ve made you a hot chocolate. It’s in my bedroom.’

He came out wrapped in a big white bath towel, his hair dripping.

‘Can you bring it in here? I’m just going to see where Agnes has put my clothes.’

‘They’re in my room, so you can have it in there.’

‘No, Lena, let me just have a really good night’s sleep in here. Let’s not use what’s going on as anything we will regret later. I’m sorry if you got confused about my being here, but I had nowhere else to go.’

She walked out and returned a short moment later with the tray, the bottle of sleeping tablets and his pyjamas, bade him a curt goodnight and left him to it, closing the door. He sighed; at least she had appeared to take it calmly, but he really did not feel like sharing her bed, not this night or any other. Marcus intended to go through with the divorce and was concerned that Lena obviously thought otherwise. He took three sleeping tablets and drank the hot chocolate, but found the bread and butter soldiers unappetizing, as if she was treating him like a child. He threw back the bed cover and changed into his pyjamas before drawing the curtains, already feeling the effect of the tablets. He locked the bedroom door and snuggled down beneath the fresh pure cotton sheets and the featherweight duvet, with hardly time to even think about the events of the evening before falling into a deep much-needed sleep.

Lena was wide awake, and even though she had taken the same amount of tablets as Marcus, didn’t feel drowsy. She had hoped to lie in his arms, to be comforted by him, but instead she was restless and angry with herself. She wanted to go next door and slap him, because after all she had done for him she believed that they could be reunited. He obviously had no intention of them getting back together, and she felt not only foolish but infuriated that she had misunderstood his return. She now had to face the fact that he was only in the house because he had nowhere else to go, and her anger built. Throwing the bedclothes aside, she got up and started to pace around the room, resisting the urge to go into the bedroom next door and confront him. She began hurling his clothes from the wardrobe onto the carpet, kicking out at them, losing her control as she attempted to rip them apart. She got a pair of scissors and cut the sleeves off his freshly laundered shirts, and then she attacked the collars, working herself up into a frenzy until she rocked back on her heels, exhausted.

‘Stop it, stop it, stop it,’ she muttered to herself as she slowly crawled back to her bed and curled up like a child. As the pills at last began to take effect she was already reprimanding herself for her behaviour. If she wanted to get Marcus back this would not encourage him to stay, it would do the exact opposite. What she had to do was stay calm, be in control, and without any obvious persuasion make him want to be with her. This was the first night she had not been haunted by Amy, and in her own confused way she was actually coming to terms with the awful prospect that her daughter was never coming home. Life without Amy would be heart-wrenching, but without Marcus it would not be worth living. Tomorrow she would tidy up the cut clothes, and she would buy him a new wardrobe of designer shirts. With these thoughts she eventually fell into a deep exhausted sleep.