Cry for Help (12 page)

Swann nodded. 'We're pursuing a number of leads. We're not prepared to discuss details of particular individuals.'

The reporter stared blankly, then made a note on his pad.

Scribble, scribble, Currie thought. The police know nothing.

On one level, he didn't care about media animosity. It had been inevitable that, eventually, the press would turn on them and start demanding results. He wanted those results himself. But in other ways, it angered him intensely. He and Swann - all the team, in fact - had exhausted themselves on this case, and each of them cared deeply, both about the murdered girls and about finding their killer. All these people cared about was selling newspapers.

Another hand. 'Who found the body?'

'The body was found by a friend of the victim after they became concerned for her wellbeing.'

'Have any of her other friends received messages, as was the case in the previous murders?'

'Four individuals received mobile phone messages earlier this morning.' Swann nodded, then looked around the audience. 'We will not be disclosing the content of those, nor will we be discussing these in any further detail whatsoever.'

'Was this woman left to die of thirst?'

'The cause of death has yet to be established.'

The more the questions went on, Currie realised, the more oppressive the room was becoming. It was tiredness as much as anything, he knew, but the back of the room seemed to be receding one second and moving closer the next. Julie Sadler's indignant, unanswerable questions seemed to be hanging in the air.

Why did nobody come? Why--

'How many more girls are going to be allowed to die?'

Currie's gaze flicked to the reporter who'd spoken. Swann simply stared at him for a moment, but the man went on undaunted, shrugging the question out as though it was obvious and natural.

'You've been involved in this investigation for over a year now, detectives. How many more girls are going to be allowed to die?'

Swann stared for a second longer, then answered him as politely as ever. Currie looked down at the table in front of him and waited for this to end.

Half an hour later, the atmosphere from the press conference still trailing behind him, Currie walked into Interview Room Five.

It was deliberately designed to unnerve. Empty, it would have just about accommodated a double bed, but with the table, chairs and recording equipment in here, there was barely space to move. A single bulb illuminated the room, not quite reaching the edges, and the interviews were often punctuated by a judgemental clank of pipes from above. The air smelled damp. It was like coming down into a grave.

Dave Lewis was slouched in the moulded plastic chair on the other side, his face unreadable. Even with his stomach pressed up to the table, there was no room; if he leaned his head back it would touch the wall behind. Lewis was staring down at his hands beneath the table, and there was an intermittent click as he picked at his nails. His downcast face was frozen in place. In fact, he looked a lot like Currie imagined he'd done on camera just now.

He put a styrofoam cup of coffee down on the table, then offered his hand.

'Hello again, Dave. Sorry to keep you waiting.'

Lewis looked at him blankly for a second, then shook his hand. Currie nodded and sat down, putting the file on the table beside the coffee. He was quietly hopeful about this interview.

Julie Sadler's friends and family had been interviewed quickly, and Dave Lewis's name had come up over the course of them. He was only a short-term boyfriend of Julie's, and an old one at that, but Currie had recognised the name. He'd checked the files, and it wasn't on the system, but still . . . it was familiar, even if he wasn't sure from where. And when they'd arrived at his house, Lewis had come to the station without asking for an explanation. In fact, he didn't seem at all surprised to find the police on his doorstep. Currie wanted to know why.

'Okay, Dave.' He rested his elbows on the desk. 'I'd like to talk to you about Julie Sadler.'

For a second, the man looked confused.

'Okay,' he said. 'Why?'

'Julie was killed a couple of days ago.'

Lewis couldn't have looked more shocked if he'd reached across and slapped him. Currie, who liked to think he knew a liar when he saw one, was slightly disappointed: if the man was acting, he was doing it well.

'What? Why?'

'I won't be discussing those details with you just yet. And you'll be the one answering questions when I do. Okay?'

Lewis rubbed his forehead and stared at the table.

Currie took a casual sip of the hot coffee and then extracted a photograph from the file, slid it across the table to Lewis. It had been taken from the student notice board at the university.

'You remember her?'

Lewis nodded. 'Yeah, that's her.'

'I know it's her. I asked if you remembered her.'

'Of course I remember her.'

'When was the last time you saw her?'

Lewis thought about it. He looked to be still reeling - as though he'd been expecting a punch from the left and got one from the other side instead.

'I don't know. It's been over a year.'

'When she broke up with you, you mean?'

'No. We met for coffee a couple of times after that. I don't know when. A while ago.'

'Texts? Emails?'

'No.'

'No contact at all, then.' Currie folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. 'How long were you an item?'

'A month, maybe.'

'So you went out for about a month and you've not heard from her in about a year.' Currie smiled at him. 'You look pretty devastated to me, Dave. Why is that?'

'What?'

It had been an unfair question, but he didn't care. He was interested to see how Lewis would react to being prodded a little.

'Like I said, you barely knew her. What are you so upset about?'

Lewis seemed to wrestle with what to say.

'Because she's dead.'

A fair answer to an unfair question. Even so, Currie stared him out, and after a second the man looked down, shook his head once. Currie slid the photograph back and put it away again.

'Okay. Let's work through this a little. How did you meet her?'

'On a dating site.'

'Excuse me?'

'A dating website.'

Currie made a note to himself to follow that up. 'Why?'

'Lots of people meet online.'

'So you meet lots of people that way?'

'No. I just meant that lots of people do it these days.'

Currie frowned. Maybe he'd been baiting him a little with that question, but the truth was, Lewis did seem strangely upset. He wasn't even looking at him now. Currie had already grudgingly acknowledged to himself that Sadler's death was news to Dave Lewis - but he still had the feeling that something was wrong.

He settled back.

'What about Julie? Did she meet lots of people online? Guys?'

'I wouldn't know.'

'What about last year, then?'

'A few, I think. She was just out for fun, really.'

Currie smiled. 'Were you not fun enough for her, then?'

Lewis raised his head and looked at him.

'No,' he said. 'I guess not.'

'Is that why she broke up with you?'

'It wasn't like that. It was a mutual thing.'

'That's not what her friends told us.' Currie leaned forward and opened the file. 'They told us there was an incident. Is that right? You bumped into her while she was on a date with someone else?'

'It wasn't an incident.'

Some of the shock had gone: Lewis seemed distracted now. He was looking around the room curiously, as though suddenly it interested him far more than Currie did.

'What was it, then?'

'She met someone else from the web. We just had different attitudes to things. I thought we were in a proper relationship and she didn't.'

He wanted to click his fingers: get Lewis's attention back.

'That made you angry? You caused a scene?'

'When I saw them?' He shook his head, glanced over to the other side of the room. What's he looking at? 'I didn't even go over. But we talked about it the next day, and decided to break up.'

'Her friends said you pestered her afterwards.'

'No. It was fine.'

'She was bothered enough to mention it to them.'

Currie picked up the report and read over the notes inside. Julie Sadler had mentioned it to two of her friends, laughing a little, making light of the situation: Oh God, you won't believe what happened . . . They probably wouldn't have remembered it at all if they hadn't been searching for something. After a second, he turned the page to make the accusations within seem lengthier than they were. In reality, he had about half a paragraph to spin out.

'Apparently, there were emails and texts. You wouldn't leave her alone.'

'That's not true.'

'You even sent flowers to her lab. Is that right?'

Finally, Dave Lewis looked back at him, much calmer now than at the beginning of the interview. Currie felt this had slipped from him somehow, but he wasn't sure how.

'I did try to persuade her to give it another go, but we were just emailing, talking stuff over. The flowers were to let her know everything was okay. That there were no hard feelings. I even said that on the card.'

'So why do her friends see it differently?'

'I don't know.' Lewis leaned back and folded his arms. 'She was probably joking around. Maybe she made fun of me all the time.'

'Yeah,' Currie said. 'Maybe.'

'I like this room, by the way.'

'What?'

'The room.' Lewis nodded at the corner. 'The walls aren't at right angles, are they? Just slightly off. And the light, too. It's very clever.'

Currie stared at him.

'Dave--'

'I didn't kill her. You're wasting time with me when you should be out there finding the man who did it.'

'Calm down,' he said. 'We have to follow--'

'Okay. Why did we go out for coffee those times?'

'What? You're asking me?'

'If she was so scared of me. If I'd been harassing her. Why would she suggest meeting for lunch to catch up on things?'

There was no obvious answer to that. Currie knew he should end the interview now, because he was riled, but instead he shot back at random.

'So why didn't you keep in contact with her?'

And for some reason, that hit. He watched as the anger slipped from Dave Lewis's face and was replaced by something closer to the guilt he was feeling himself. But instead of triumph, it felt more like an own goal. He was stressed and annoyed with himself, and he knew he shouldn't be taking that out on someone else. It wasn't the way to do things.

Currie stood up, the chair squeaking, glanced up at the camera in the corner and then reached across to the digital recorder.

'One ten,' he said. 'Interview terminated.'

'That's it?'

'Yeah,' Currie said. 'That's it. A duty officer will be through in a moment to get you to sign some documents. After that, you're free to go. We'll be in touch.'

Currie closed the door behind him, then paced away down the corridor.

Swann was sipping coffee when Currie walked back in.

'That went well,' he said.

'Didn't it just.'

'Next time, can I do it? I hate it when you get the fun ones.'

'I messed up.' Currie sat down, leaned his head back and closed his eyes, trying to massage some life - and sense - back into his face.

'We happy?' Swann asked.

'I don't buy him for Julie Sadler.'

'I don't think he's for sale on that one.'

'But I buy him for something.'

'Yeah.' Swann drank some coffee. 'Maybe he's got a bag of dope in his flat. It doesn't really matter, Sam. We've got to keep our priorities straight here.'

That word again. Currie rubbed his hand over the side of his jaw. He needed to shave as well as sleep.

'Okay,' he said. 'You're right. I'm happy. So what have we got next?'

'Keith Dalton. A more recent ex.'

'Great, let's get him in there. Your turn to waste time while we ''should be out there catching the killer''.'

Swann smiled grimly and left the room; Currie settled down at the table and watched on the small television monitor as Lewis signed off the forms.

Priorities. His partner was right, of course. Even so, he filed Dave Lewis's name down in his head. The man had been expecting them. It might not have been to do with Julie Sadler, but there was definitely something going on with him. And not just a bag of dope, either.

Perhaps eventually, Currie thought, he'd find out what.

Chapter Eleven

Wednesday 31st August

'You know,' Sarah told me, 'this isn't quite the second date I had in mind.'

'Yeah, sorry about that.'

'Seriously, is this the way it's going to go? One nice meal out, and from then on you chain me to the sink?'

I smiled over at her. We were in my parents' old kitchen, where Sarah was sporting rubber gloves and working at a sink full of foamy water, leaning down hard as she scrubbed at the porcelain. I was on the other side of the room, a cardboard box at my feet, clearing out the pantry. Various items had become stuck to the shelves over time - old jars and bottles, a half-burnt candle, rusted keys - and I was busy peeling them off the tacky Formica.

'Hey,' I reminded her, 'you volunteered.'

'That's true. I'm only messing.'

I was still slightly bemused that she was here with me at all - bemused, but also about as happy as I'd managed to be in the last few days. With everything that had happened afterwards, my date with Sarah had slipped to the back of my mind. When she'd called last night, suggesting we could do something today, it had been a little like waking from a bad dream and remembering you had a winning lottery ticket on the nightstand. I said yes immediately - then realised I'd arranged to come here with Rob to make a start on the place. I'd called her back to apologise, but she'd taken it in her stride, surprising me.

'Plus,' I said, 'I'll cook for you later to say thank you.'

'That's just a cheap excuse to get me back to yours.'