A Taste for Malice (37 page)

‘That’s just a coincidence, surely,’ he asks looking completely puzzled. I can see him processing the possibility. That would mean Maxwell and Shearer knew each other. He shook his head.

‘In my view,’ I answer, ‘when it comes to crime there is no such thing as coincidence. Another name for a coincidence is a pattern. We are just too close to it at the moment to see it properly.

‘You’ve told me about your suspicions of Moira Shearer. How certain are you of this?’

His face lightens with a thought, ‘Erskine. Erskine’s dad Rob. You should speak to him. Erskine lost an eye …’ My heart beats a little faster. ‘…Rob says it must have been an accident, but I think he’s fooling himself. The alternative would be just too painful.’ I nod in understanding. That your son would lose an eye is horrible enough to bear, but to consider that your actions might have set the event in motion would be too much.

‘Then there’s the whole condom thing and the police,’ he swallows and looks at me, then tells me the rest of the story.

‘There’s a definite pattern here that we have been aware of for some time,’ I say, then I sit back in my chair and cross my arms. ‘Tell me about Hepburn or Kirsty, or whatever the fuck her name is.’

He screws his face to the side in consideration. ‘It’s kinda …well ….’

‘Go on,’ I say thinking, how typical. Hepburn’s been clever enough to leave nothing more than suspicions all the way along her trail. There’s got to be something concrete, something we can touch, see or hear, something that’s going to get the witch locked up for a very long time.

‘This is nuts, man.’ He runs a hand through his hair. Shakes his head again. ‘Angela and I got together years ago. Kirsty was our friend. Angela and I broke up. Kirsty chased me. We had a …fling,’ he makes a face at the memory. ‘But it wasn’t much fun. We weren’t happy,’ he pauses, searching for the right words. ‘Sex for one thing was weird. She wouldn’t let me touch her, but she would …and the only word for it is lavish …she would lavish attention on my ...’ he grimaced as if in apology for the frankness of his words, ‘…my cock. Don’t get me wrong, what guy wouldn’t love that kind of interest. But …it was too much, you know? Too weird. Like she had no …’ he shook his head. Then he looks at me with a look of shame and full of awareness that even the best portrayal of his past will be one that will never reassure him or anyone else involved.

‘Angela and I had sex while I was seeing Kirsty.’ From the way he casts his eyes to the floor I can tell there is more to that episode than he is going to detail. ‘Angela became pregnant.’

He pauses. ‘I’m not proud of myself, DI McBain, and I’ve spent the rest of my life making up for it.’ He is quiet again, lost in the memory. His jaw muscle twitches. ‘And I never slipped again until …’

‘Jim,’ I lean forward and grip his arm. ‘I’m not here to be your judge.’ I release him. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t give a fuck if you screwed your Aunt Jessie from behind while she was cooking a meal for her twenty starving weans. Just tell me the facts.’

He coughs out a laugh and tells me about his mother’s cat and a knife slash on his leather jacket.

‘Could be just a coincidence,’ he offers with a shrug.

‘There’s that word again,’ I say.

Alessandra appears with a tray of cups and offers each of us a share of her bounty. Jim and I take a drink and we are all lost in a moment of caffeine appreciation.

Watching Jim as he drinks I can’t help but notice that the man is on his last legs. His eyes are heavily lidded, his skin is grey and his lips dry and split. He looks like he’s crammed ten years of hard living into one weekend.

‘Jim, I want you to go home after you’ve drunk your coffee and rest for a few hours. We’re going to need your brain again later on and you’re no good to me if you’re on the point of collapse.’

Jim Hilton has gone home and it’s just me and Alessandra and a certain Audrey/Lucy/Kirsty. She’s in for a wee surprise. When Jim approached us in the street it was too good an offer to miss. He was desperate to speak to the police about his family; we simply took him up on it and snared Hepburn while we were at it. She thinks she’s here to tell us everything she knows about the Hiltons.

As I said, she’s in for a wee surprise.

Alessandra received a text message from Mrs Browning an hour before we enter the interview room where Hepburn/ Maxwell is hopefully quietly simmering. The message had one word.

“Yes!”

As yet there is no answer from Mrs Craig.

The extra hour was added as an extra frustration.

Hepburn is up on her feet the second I enter the room.

‘What the hell is going on here? I demand you let me go. Wait till the press hear about this. Do you treat all your witnesses like this or is it just the women?’ Her nostrils are flared, a fleck of saliva is poised at the corner of her mouth.

I sit down and unwind the plastic wrapper from a cassette tape and slide it into the recorder.

‘Is that what you think you are, Audrey?’ I ask. ‘A witness?’ She remains standing, feet planted wide and arms crossed.

‘Tell me about your time with the Brownings and the Craigs.’

‘What?’ Her posture slackens, some of her aggression bleeding from her form as she wonders where I am going with this. Then she smiles, the skin at the side of her eyes crinkles with pleasure.

‘You haven’t a clue, do you?’

‘Pete and Dan are nice wee boys, aren’t they? Must be difficult to have a mum who is suffering from MS. Must have been nice to have someone who could do stuff with them. Like throw them downstairs.’

‘That,’ she sits down, ‘was an accident.’

I fire all sorts of questions at her. Her answer is a solid silence.

I press the pause button on the recorder. ‘Anybody fancy a coffee?’

‘Can I go now?’ asks Hepburn.

‘You can go anytime you like, Miss Hepburn. Or is it Maxwell?’

‘What is it you think I’ve done, DI McBain?’ She leans forward in her chair.

‘Why don’t you tell me?’

‘Can I go now?’

‘How well do you know Moira Shearer?’ Alessandra asks while stretching beyond me to switch the recorder back on.

Hepburn studies her as if for the first time.

‘Fucked him yet?’ she asks Alessandra and flicks her head at me.

‘How does it work, Audrey?’ Alessandra asks. ‘Do you pick a family for her and then she picks one for you?’ Yet again, Alessandra’s composure impresses me. In no way does she give Hepburn a reaction to the question.

‘Bet he has a tiny cock.’

Hepburn is wearing a grin of satisfaction. She thinks by attacking us like this that we will be uncomfortable and thereby lose our edge. Sex is society’s greatest sin, right? People rarely talk about it in mixed company. In single sex groups and in the dark with a lover is fine. Or even over the phone, or on the internet.

Her words have given me an insight. Her weapon has become our attack. I arrange my features into a look of sympathy.

‘Who hurt you, Audrey?’

‘Oh, give me a break. Pathetic.’ She pushes her chair back from the table with her feet in order to cross her legs more easily. ‘Nothing worse than an amateur psychologist. You think because I hurt these boys that I’m a victim of abuse.

‘Do you have to use a little bit of lube, darling? Things a bit dry are they?’ Again, Hepburn has a go at Alessandra.

‘So you did hurt these boys, Audrey?’ I ask.

‘Aha, think you got me there? That’s not what I said,’ she tilts her head to the side. ‘Does he give it to you up the arse, love?’

Again, from Alessandra’s expression Hepburn might only have asked her about the weather. Why is she not more adamant about getting out of here? Why the attacks on Alessandra?

Hepburn will see me as the real threat, the trophy to be won, but first she has to weaken Alessandra. If she gets a reaction she wins and Alessandra is out of the game, much less effective. However, Alessandra will give no more thought to her words that she would to removing a hangnail. Still, as the higher ranking officer I have to protect my colleague.

‘Miss Hepburn,’ I say. ‘We now have on tape several instances of personal abuse you have aimed at my colleague DC Alessandra Rossi. One more and you will be charged with Breach of the Peace. A couple of weeks with a bull dyke up at the women’s prison might just soften you up for the next bout of questions. What do you think?’

She sits back in her chair, the light in her eyes lessened but still defiant.

‘Everyone happy to carry on?’ I ask and look at both women.

‘Absolutely, DI McBain,’ says Alessandra.

‘For the record,’ I say for the recorder’s benefit. ‘Miss Hepburn has nodded her head.’

I consider the behavioural patterns that we are aware of. She physically damages the boys, tries to seduce the father and in doing so undermines the mother.

Then there’s her relationship with Jim Hilton and the
bukkake
with Mrs Hogg.

How can I use all of this to my advantage? We don’t have any physical evidence so I need to get her to break.

I put all of the questions to the back of my mind and trust that my subconscious will throw forward an answer.

‘When can I go?’ she asks.

‘You are free to leave anytime, Miss Hepburn, but it may be more beneficial if you answer my questions honestly.’ Time for another change of direction.

‘How well do you know Violet Hogg?’

She looks up sharply. ‘You leave Violet out of this. She’s the one person who’s been kind to me.’

‘And you betray that kindness by blackmailing her.’

‘What are you on about?’ she asks, her eyebrows are knotted together.

‘When did you last speak to Mrs Hogg?’ I ask. It occurs to me that she won’t know Hogg nearly died.

‘Saw her yesterday. How do you know about Mrs Hogg?’

‘How much did she give you? One thousand, two thousand pounds?’

‘Dunno what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about this.’ I bring out a piece of paper with an image on it and speak with exaggerated clarity of tone for the recorder. ‘I am showing Miss Hepburn a photograph of Mrs Hogg which depicts Mrs Hogg with a face covered in semen.’

Hepburn looks from me to the image and back again, her face wreathed in thoughts and conjecture. We know a lot more than she suspected and she is beginning to worry.

She has already rushed to Mrs Hogg’s defence; perhaps this is something I can capitalise on.

‘Does Violet know you have this?’ she asks. I nod.

Her eyes shift from mine. She works to keep her face free of expression, but I see movement in her throat as if she is trying to swallow a small piece of stale bread. Her fingers move as she picks at a small loose thread in the thigh of her denims. The moment passes and her expression goes back to stone. The face is much easier to control than the rest of your body, however. There are flashes of colour on Hepburn’s neck and this gives me a better view into her state of mind.

She is worried.

Really worried.

A tone sounds out from in someone’s mobile. Alessandra pulls hers from her pocket. Reads it and shows it to me. I can see that it is from Mrs Craig. Her answer reads. ‘I don’t know this woman. Any more suspects?’

‘Tell me about your time with Mrs Hogg,’ I ask, setting this information to one side.

She makes a face as if to say not again. ‘She gave me a place to stay. And yes, some cash when I was broke.’

‘Except you had to blackmail her to get the money, didn’t you Audrey? The cash wasn’t freely handed over.’

‘What …what did she say when she saw …? How did you find the picture?’ Her voice is small, she pulls the sleeves of her jumper lower as if she’s trying to heat her hands. This has the effect of making her look years younger. Then she realises that I’ve noticed and she crosses her arms, as if hiding any evidence of weakness.

‘Did you know that Violet suffered from asthma?’

She looks up quickly. ‘You what?’ Her face is agitated with thoughts. She’s trying to work out where I am going with this. I can see concern for Hogg. There was some feeling for the woman after all. It was a form of collateral damage that she had to extort money from her.

I need to tighten the screws.

‘Do you know that stress can bring on an asthma attack?’

‘What happened? Is she all right?’ She pauses, her eyes huge with alarm. ‘You said suffered with asthma. Not suffers. You said it in the past tense. What happened?’

‘She tried to get the laptop back from your old landlord. He wouldn’t part with it until he got his overdue rent, but he let me have a look.’

‘Oh no,’ she holds a hand to her face.

‘It was too much for her. She had an asthma attack. Alessandra gave her mouth to mouth.’ I don’t have to try and form an expression of sympathy for Hepburn. The shape my face is wearing is real. I can see her anguish and guilt scored over every shadow on her face.

‘She almost died.’

‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. Don’t you fucking dare,’ Hepburn shouts, her eyes full of the knowledge that her actions could have led to this woman’s death. Her eyes are wet, her skin pale and stretched like thin grey plastic that has been shrink-wrapped over bone.

‘Is there anyone there?’ Jim shouted up the stairs of his home. The silence felt like the moment before a storm breaks. His heart thundered in his chest. Angela? Ben? Where is everyone?

After he left the police station he had gone straight home. How he managed to negotiate the traffic safely he would never know, but he made it and ignored the questions of his mother and the open-mouthed stare of his father. He climbed the stairs to his room, like a man who’d just lost the block of concrete he’d been dragging behind him for a month. In his room he didn’t pull the curtains shut or take off any clothes, he simply fell forward on to the bed.

He slept for three hours.

When he woke it was with the abruptness of a slap. One second he was in the black hole of a dreamless sleep and the next he was awake, his mind alert to his situation.

The police were involved. That’s a result. Although what they wanted with Kirsty was a mystery. Soon, he hoped very soon, they would turn their attention to Moira and then he could get his family back.