Snow Kills (32 page)

‘Who says she’s dead Norris?’ he said cocking his head in Regan’s direction. ‘From the settee in your lounge and in the toilet area of your home, we have found traces of white fur, similar to the jacket Kayleigh was wearing. There is also a footmark of a small boot at the back of the toilet door. We have lifted fingerprints from under the handrail in the hallway, too. All these are being checked by experts as we sit here talking to you. Are they going to prove you’re lying to us again Norris?’

Norris Regan looked stunned.

‘Were you in the house on your own the night of White Wednesday?’

‘Yes, who else would’ve been there?’

‘Just asking. Just giving you the opportunity to tell us what really happened that night. Because the evidence will only continue to build.’

Norris Regan got to his feet. He tried to push the table. It was screwed to the floor. ‘I didn’t do it,’ he shouted.

‘Sit down,’ Dylan barked at him. Yvonne and Vicky jumped in their seats.

Regan immediately sat. The atmosphere in the small room was electric. A loud knock at the door bounced off the grey gloss painted walls.

Dylan got up and walked slowly to the door. Opening it, without speaking, he accepted a folded piece of paper from the Custody Sergeant. Vicky, for the benefit of the tape, spoke out loud as to what was taking place.

All eyes were on Dylan who looked at the content. His face didn’t give away what he had read and, folding the paper to hide the information, he placed it on the table in front of him.

‘Calmed down a bit now, have we Norris?’ Dylan said. Regan sat perfectly still. His solicitor and Vicky looked at Dylan in expectation, but they were disappointed if they thought he was going to share what the note said.

‘We’ve already proved you’ve lied to us. Now why not make this easier for us all, save us time, tell us the whole truth – because I know, and you know, you’re lying through your back teeth,’ Dylan said.

‘I’d like to go home now,’ said Norris.

‘I bet you would,’ said Dylan with a throaty laugh. ‘So would I, DC Hardacre and Mrs Best, but you see that piece of paper I’ve just been handed,’ he said, lifting it from the table. ‘They,’ he said, looking at the two women, ‘and you might wonder what it’s all about? Let me tell you,’ Dylan said, passing the paper to Vicky who discreetly opened it and read it, in silence. Furtively she looked across at Yvonne Best. All eyes were now on Dylan.

‘That piece of paper confirms to me that you have done nothing but lie to us since being arrested. It tells me that Kayleigh Harwood was most definitively in your house.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Oh yes. We found her fingerprints on the handrail in your hallway.’

Regan’s expression didn’t change.

‘There can be only one explanation for that, can’t there Norris? But then you already know that, don’t you?’

Regan stared with emotionless eyes at his interviewers and remained silent.

‘Could we terminate the interview after this recent disclosure please? I think I need a private consultation with my client,’ said Yvonne Best, breaking the silence.

The second interview was terminated.

Vicky and Dylan sat either side of the desk in the CID office checking their mobile phones for messages. There was one from Jen for Dylan to say Dawn was calling to see her. Dylan smiled, he knew he could count on his old friend.

‘Why would Norris keep Barrowclough’s number written on the wallpaper by the phone?’ Vicky said, thoughtfully.

Dylan put his phone down.

‘Do you think that Regan and Barrowclough could be in this together?’ she said, biting the inside of her lip.

‘Don’t know. Keep doing that and your lip will look like Regan’s.’

‘Him and Barrowclough together?’ she said, screwing up her face. ‘But they’re like chalk and cheese, what would those two have in common?’

‘Sex?’ said Dylan.

Soft lines crinkled around her blue eyes and the corners of her mouth turned slowly upwards into a broad smile. ‘Boss,’ she said, shaking her main of messy long blonde hair. ‘Not the right time or place,’ she whispered, looking over her shoulder.

‘You know perfectly well what I meant,’ he said chuckling at his young colleague as he picked up his ringing phone and spun it around in his hand to answer it. Vicky sat back in her chair giggling like a schoolgirl.

‘Ned?’ said Dylan.

‘The number on Regan’s wall, it’s Barrowclough’s.’

‘Have we received any billing information for the number yet? I’m desperate to see if those two have had contact lately.’

‘No, I can’t confirm anything yet. It is possible the paperwork is in the incident room on my desk, though.’

‘I’ll get Vicky to check now,’ he said, waving his hand at her to go. She waved back, absorbed in typing a message on her phone. Dylan pointed to Ned’s desk and scowled. Vicky looked up and pulled a face. He leaned forward to stand up and she got up and ran out of the office. He needed to give some serious thought to the strategy for the next interview – and Barrowclough – but Barrowclough would have to wait for now. The door opened.

‘They’re ready to resume, boss,’ said the custody officer.

Dylan got to his feet. ‘Vicky!’

‘Nothing there yet,’ she Vicky, running to keep up with him.

‘Think we’ve made him sweat enough,’ he said. ‘It’s time to sort this motherfucker out once and for all.’

 ‘Yes, not quite politically correct, but you could say that,’ she said as they arrived at the interview room door.

The formalities over, Dylan was ready to start nipping at Norris Regan’s heels. At only forty five minutes’ long, the tapes didn’t give the interviewers much time to get stuck in the prisoner’s ribs and it was getting late. ‘Now you’ve had time to think about what evidence we’ve found and now you’ve consulted with your solicitor, is there anything else you want to tell us?’

‘She did come to the house. But to use the toilet, nothing else.’

‘Ah, so she used your toilet and then she went back to her car?’

Regan nodded his head. He really did have a revolting looking, bulbous mouth.

‘You have been lying to us throughout, but is this now finally the truth?’ Dylan said.

‘Yes. She followed me back to the house, used the toilet and then went back to her car,’ he said.

‘So let’s be absolutely clear about this. You’re saying Kayleigh Harwood followed you back to your house, she walked through the front door and down the hallway, which is when she might have held onto the rail you think?’

Regan nodded.

‘Norris Regan is nodding his head in the affirmative. Please, for the sake of the tape, could you confirm your actions please Norris,’ said Vicky.

‘That’s right,’ he said.

‘She used the toilet, which is when, of course, she might have put her foot up against the door so that no one came in. I see,’ said Dylan.

Regan nodded again. ‘Yes.’

‘I get it. Then she walked back to her car? She never went anywhere else in the house?’

‘No, that’s right, that’s just what happened.’

‘If this is as innocent as you’re making out Norris, I just can’t understand why you haven’t come forward before with this information. You have had plenty of opportunity. You knew we were looking for her...’

‘Because no one would’ve believed me. Would you?’ Norris Regan looked hurt.

‘But why wouldn’t we, if it is the truth?’ Dylan frowned.

Regan sat very still and quiet but the look of smug self-satisfaction was almost immediately wiped off his face.

‘Did she go back to her car alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you walk her back to her car Norris? Anything could have happened to her, and maybe did,’ said Vicky.

‘I told her she could stay.’ Norris fussed. ‘But she didn’t want to. She said her boyfriend and her mother would be worried about her and she wanted to ring them. Like I told you, my phone wasn’t working.’

‘Did she say that, or is that something you’ve just made up?’

‘No it’s true, it is,’ he said nodding his head vigorously.

‘So let me get this straight. The weather conditions were horrendous. She was dressed inappropriately for the weather. You went out to take her some refreshments. She came back to your house to use the toilet and then she went back to her car, alone?’

Regan nodded his head.

‘For the purpose of the tape, Mr Regan is nodding his head in the affirmative,’ said Vicky.

‘Weren’t you a bit concerned for the young girl?’

‘How was I going to stop her? She was not my problem,’ he said, looking down at his callipers.

‘But you have been portraying to us all along that you are the Good Samaritan who took beverages out to a young damsel in distress. Now you’re saying she was not your problem?’ Dylan said. Vicky took a sideways look at Dylan, she knew he was building up to a tongue lashing.

‘That was before.’

‘Before what, she rejected you? Wouldn’t play your sordid little games? The truth, Mr Regan, is that you were outside that night as a predator weren’t you? Just looking for that helpless victim, and when you heard the drunken young men banging on the car of what appeared to be a female’s car. You thought your luck was in, didn’t you? You frightened them off, or at least you thought you had, but one of them saw you go to her car with your honey trap. Kayleigh Harwood was young, pretty, dressed inappropriately for the weather and even better for you appeared stranded and vulnerable. You really must have thought all your birthdays had come at once. Did you ever stop to think she would feel like an animal in a trap?’

‘It wasn’t like that! It’s not true.’

‘Which bit isn’t true Norris? She wasn’t pretty, because she was, wasn’t she?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You don’t remember if she was young and pretty but you remember that she had a short skirt on. Okay.’ Dylan’s voice was getting louder and louder.

‘You took her to your house, didn’t you? She thought she had found a safe haven, didn’t she? But the truth is you’re a sex fiend, aren’t you? You couldn’t keep your hands off her, could you, and she rejected you, didn’t she? That’s why you...?’

‘I didn’t kill her,’ Norris screamed.

‘I was going to say abducted her,’ Dylan said softly. ‘Where is she now Norris?’

‘I don’t know where she is now and that’s the truth.’

‘Lies just roll off your tongue don’t they? If you had one ounce of decency about you, you’d at least tell us where she is.’

Norris Regan looked up to the ceiling in exasperation.

‘Kayleigh’s mum is out of her mind with worry. Just think how your mum would have felt if you had gone missing when you were a lad?’ said Vicky.

Dylan nodded to Vicky, who took over the interview.

‘How could you do this to her, Norris?’ Vicky pleaded with him.

‘I wouldn’t have got myself into that sort of situation, would I?’ he said matter of factly.

‘Come on Norris. She’s a young girl. Kayleigh is her mum’s best friend, like you were your mum’s friend. You know what it was like to lose your mother, so just think how hard it is for Mrs Harwood to lose her young daughter. Because Kayleigh is missing, Mrs Harwood doesn’t know if she’s alive or dead and that’s a thousand times worse for her.’

Norris didn’t look at Vicky but at the hands clasped on his knee. She could see he was seething inside. The muscles in his neck were taut, his breathing heavy. ‘Is what you’ve told us now the absolute truth?’ she said.

‘Yes, how many times do I have to tell you? That is my final word,’ he said shuffling to the edge of his seat.

Vicky continued to put questions to him but he remained silent. The officers collected their paperwork from the desk.

‘Just one last thing before we end the interview, Mr Regan. Do you know a Mr Paul Barrowclough?’ Dylan said.

Regans jaw dropped open, revealing a lower lip that looked like some red fungus growth. He didn’t reply but looked from Dylan’s face to Vicky’s.

‘Well, do you know him or not? It’s a simple question.’

‘No, no,’ he stuttered nodding his head in little jerky movements for a second or two.

‘Mr Regan is nodding in the affirmative,’ Dylan said for the purpose of the tape. Was his body language giving him away?

‘Okay. What you haven’t explained is the white fibres on your furniture in the lounge to us.’

Regan was silent.

‘Okay, well I’ll leave you to think about that for now. Interview over,’ he said.

Dylan walked slowly back to the CID office, he opened up his shoulders, stood tall and breathed in deeply.

‘You okay?’ asked Vicky.

‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ he said, opening the door for her to enter the incident room ahead of him.

‘When you mentioned Barrowclough’s name you would have thought you’d touched the back of his hand with a hot spoon. He was quaking in his frigging boots... well, his leg irons,’ Vicky said.

‘The mention of his name certainly came as a bit of a shock to him, didn’t it? I don’t think he expected that. But he can’t stop himself lying, can he? I’m convinced Kayleigh is dead and he knows something about it – but where the hell is she?’

Vicky shook her head. ‘God only knows.’

‘By the way, look in Ned’s tray again to see if the billing enquiry results have turned up. We could do with knowing if there has been any contact between them before the next interview. If there is, as well as that little nugget of information about Barrowclough’s phone number written on his wall, we can also drop on his toes any contact that they had.’

‘We’re close... I just know it.’

‘The bastard is hanging on for dear life, I can tell,’ said Dylan.

‘Humans do that don’t we? We hang on for dear life when we think we’re losing something precious?’ Vicky said thoughtfully.

Dylan looked at her. ‘For someone so scatty, you talk a lot of sense sometimes,’ he cocked his head sideways and half-smiled at her.

‘Cheers boss. That’s a compliment, right?’ Vicky said sticking out her tongue. Her mouth wide, she yawned like a lion.

‘Lisa will you get this one a strong coffee please,’ Dylan said. ‘She’s obviously lost the plot.’