Tomek decided to indulge him. ‘No, but I’m looking to. Do you have a private room we could sit in? I have business that I’d like to speak to you about.’
Face beaming, flashing a set of naturally straight teeth, Cole grabbed his laptop from his desk, led him into a small, equally chilly room, and pulled out a seat for Tomek.
‘You won’t be needing that,’ Tomek said, pointing to the computer.
‘No?’
Tomek tapped on the table patronisingly. ‘Why don’t you take a seat and let me tell you about the business I wanted to discuss with you. My name is Tomek Bowen, and I’m a detective sergeant from Essex Police. I didn’t want to say too much out there in case your colleagues got curious.’ Cole opened his mouth to speak, but Tomek shut him down. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble, yet, but there’s something you need to know. Yesterday, Angelica Whitaker’s body was found in a church in Westcliff. It’s come to our attention that you were once in a relationship with her for roughly six months. Though when I just spoke to your dad, he said that she’d come round the other week. Would you mind telling me about your relationship with Angelica?’
Cole’s mouth remained open, strings of saliva dangling from the top of his mouth to the bottom. For a long while, he didn’t say anything, just stared at Tomek, taking it all in, processing it.
‘Take your time,’ Tomek said. ‘I imagine this is a shock.’
The man nodded, but his expression was vacant, thousands of miles away, hidden behind a barrier in his mind.
‘She’s… she’s…’
Tomek said nothing. Waited for him to get the words out of his mouth properly.
‘She’s… she’s dead. Angelica? And you’re… you’re sure it’s her?’
Tomek nodded.
‘And… you want to speak with me… but you’ve already spoken to my dad. And you want to speak with me…’
‘We already are talking,’ Tomek replied then added, ‘Sort of.’
‘Right. Yes… yes, we are. But, what… what…?’
Tomek sensed the man was going to have trouble with the final question, so decided to help him out. ‘What do I want to speak to you about? Easy. I want to know everything about your relationship. When was the last time you saw her? How frequently you saw her. Where you were Friday night. That sort of thing.’
Cole’s face remained expressionless, his mouth still open. However, the strand of saliva had now snapped and disappeared back into his mouth. ‘Could I have a drink, please?’ the man asked.
‘A drink?’
‘Water. I need water.’
Tomek swivelled in the chair and looked through the windows in the room, searching for a water fountain. When he couldn’t see one, he climbed out of the chair, exited the room and asked the nearest colleague.
‘Water?’ the man asked, confused, as though he’d never heard of it before.
‘Yeah. The liquid. We need some in there.’
The man tilted forward in his seat to look at Cole. ‘I thought he would get it for you.’
Tomek turned to look at the man still sitting there, staring into nothing. ‘He’s just doing some really deep thinking in there at the moment. I offered to help while he processed some things.’
A moment later, he had two cups of water in hand and returned to the room. He set one down in front of Cole and returned to his seat. The man picked it up and slowly held it to his lips.
‘You good?’
‘Yeah,’ Cole whispered. The intonation in his voice belied his choice of words.
‘Excellent. Let’s start with your relationship with Angelica, shall we? When did the two of you start dating?’
‘Two years ago, roughly.’
‘And how long were you going out for?’
‘About six months.’
‘Who ended it?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
‘It… I, I, I wasn’t interested in anything long term.’
‘And she was all right with that?’
Finally, Cole closed his mouth and swallowed. As he spoke, he was unable to meet Tomek’s gaze, and he continued to stare into the wall behind him, as though he were a sleeper agent who’d just been activated by a key phrase.
‘She felt the same way,’ he explained.
‘So what happened after that? Why was she round yours the other week? Have the two of you tried to rekindle your relationship?’
‘Sex.’
