‘Who wants to know?’ He swung round on his office chair.
‘Police, Sir,’ replied Dixon, warrant card at the ready. ‘Is there anyone else who could watch the showroom while we talk?’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Patrick.’
Dixon let that hang in the air for a moment, watching the blood drain from Hudson’s face. He stood up, slowly, breathing heavily through his nose.
‘I’ll close up,’ said Hudson, walking towards the door. ‘There’s no one else here and January isn’t exactly our busiest time.’ The clack of his heels on the tiled floor echoed around the showroom. ‘I saw you on the television – on the news – didn’t I?’ he asked, his question punctuated by the click of the lock. ‘You’re investigating those three murders; elderly people in their own homes. What’s that got to do with Patrick?’
‘It’s four now, actually, Sir, and all of them were members of the Somerset bridge team that competed at the Regional Qualifier at the Palace Hotel, Torquay.’
‘They were there the night of the fire?’
Dixon nodded, slowly.
‘They were the bridge team Sean Rodwell talked about in his interview?’
‘We’re working on that assumption.’
Hudson dropped back down on to his office chair. ‘So, what Rodwell said was true all the time. It has to be. Why else would someone want to kill the bridge team?’ He slammed his fist down on the desk. ‘I knew it. All the time I knew Patrick was alive. Do you know where he is?’
‘No, Sir.’ Dixon swallowed hard. ‘But, if he’s out there, we’ll find him.’
‘I’ll get on to Copeland again. He was our private investigator, perhaps he can help you.’
Time to grasp the nettle. ‘We have to look at possible motives for the murders of the bridge team, and one motive that we need to explore is revenge.’
Hudson stifled a laugh. ‘Me, you mean?’
‘We’ll need you to account for your whereabouts at the relevant times. We’ll also need a DNA sample.’
‘Fill your boots.’ Hands raised in mock surrender. ‘Treat me as a suspect if you must, but I’ve got nothing to hide. I just want to know where my son is. I think I’m owed that, after all this time.’
Dixon gestured to Louise and left them to it – she had come prepared, the dates in her notebook and a DNA kit in her pocket. He pretended to watch the rain pouring down the windows, when actually he was watching what was going on in the reflection. And listening.
‘If I was going to do that, I’d have done it long before now,’ said Hudson, an air of resignation in his voice. ‘There was a time, perhaps, before Sally and the girls came along.’
Swab under the tongue and around the inside of his cheek.
‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Louise.
‘I suppose you’ll need to talk to Sally?’
‘We will, Sir.’
‘She’ll verify everything I’ve said. And you’re welcome to speak to anyone at the Rotary Club do that night.’
‘And you’ve heard nothing from Patrick?’ asked Dixon.
‘Of course not.’ Hudson’s face darkened, lines digging deep into his forehead. ‘You’re not suggesting Patrick might be killing . . .’ His voice tailed off, the thought too horrible to contemplate.
‘He would be twenty-one now.’
‘Yes, but he’d make himself known to me, to his sister, before doing something like that, surely?’ Hudson was leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘What were your wife and son doing at the hotel that night?’
‘They’d gone to see Miriam’s father. Her parents lived on Scilly and he was over for the bridge thing, so she took Patrick to meet his grandfather and stayed a couple of nights in a room just along the corridor. I should have gone, but I took our daughter to see my parents in Llandudno. Freya was two and I could cope with her on my own, just about.’ Hudson stood up and started pacing up and down. ‘Miriam would have seen to it Patrick was safe, handed him to someone on their way out – on the fire escape even – and then gone back to get her father. Their bodies were found together, in the corner of what was left of his hotel room. Everything I know about Miriam fits with what Rodwell said in his interview. I said that time and time again to Campbell and his cronies.’ Hudson spun round. ‘Have you met him?’
‘We spoke to him this morning, Sir.’
‘The bloke’s a stubborn fool.’
‘From what I can see the question was put to all of the witnesses.’
‘Only to refute what Rodwell was saying. There was no real attempt made to find my son. All they were interested in was pinning three murders on him instead of two. Our private investigator spoke to the witnesses and it’d been a throwaway question: “You didn’t see a baby, did you?” and then it becomes a whole paragraph in their statements.’
‘Did Mr Copeland find anyone who’d seen Patrick on the veranda when he reinterviewed the witnesses?’
Hudson was visibly deflated by the question. ‘No,’ he said, reluctantly.
‘What did Miriam take with her for the weekend?’ asked Dixon.
‘You got children?’
‘On the way,’ replied Dixon. ‘Three months to go.’
