‘Are you hearing yourself right now? Are you hearing the words coming out of your mouth? You genuinely think I killed my daughter, and the only reason you’re pinning it on me is because I can use a fucking paintbrush? Are you inept?’
Tomek said nothing. Felt himself going into free fall.
Roy continued: ‘Furthermore, I have never shaved my body; my armpits, my arms, legs, thighs. Only ever my face, and even then I’ve never been able to grow much. I have never used the date rape drug or whatever it was you found in her system. And I have never raped anyone in my life. How dare you try to pin this on me even though you know full well that you’ve not got any evidence to substantiate any of these bullshit and outlandish claims.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Tomek had let the man leave, though he hadn’t gone without a fight. As Tomek had escorted him out of the interview room and out of the building, Roy Whitaker had whispered empty threats and insults into his ear: that he was a terrible detective, that he was going to end up in a ditch somewhere someday for pissing off the wrong person, that he didn’t deserve to be a detective, and that he was going straight to his lawyer. Tomek took the insults on the chin; he’d heard them all before, and then some. But that didn’t stop them cutting deep down, far below the surface. He could feel them, slicing away at his identity, his ego, his belief in himself. But the pain was so stunted, so muted after all these years that he’d learnt to ignore it, disregard it until it was no longer a problem. Until, perhaps one day, it might just come up to the surface like a dead body floating on the water.
Closing the door behind him, Tomek breathed a heavy sigh, releasing the tension and pressure in his shoulders, back, and neck. The past few hours, hearing Sylvie’s accusations, investigating them with the team, and speaking with Roy Whitaker, had taken it out of him, mentally, emotionally, and physically. And the pounding headache hadn’t helped, either.
He counted down from ten before heading back upstairs to the incident room, back to the madness. The journey was slow and laboured as he meandered through the corridors, taking his time, thinking about what he could have done differently, what he could have done better. But, in the end, he decided there was nothing. His hunch about Roy Whitaker having had some involvement in Angelica’s death was wrong. The evidence against his son, Johnny, was irrefutable – the DNA found at the crime scene, and the last-minute alibi that had turned out to be a lie – and Tomek had tried to convince himself otherwise.
When he finally made it back to the incident room, some two minutes later, he called Oscar over and asked him to retrieve Johnny Whitaker from the holding cell. They still had a few hours left on the custody clock, but Tomek saw no reason to keep him there any longer. While Oscar hurried downstairs, Tomek knocked on Victoria’s door and entered without waiting for a reply. He found her in the middle of a phone call. She apologised to the person on the phone, then hung up.
‘This’d better be important,’ she said. ‘Any luck with Roy?’
Tomek shook his head.
‘And the clothes?’
‘Still nothing.’ After the DNA discovery and Johnny’s arrest, Tomek had ordered the team to inspect the Whitaker home, searching for Angelica’s missing clothes and mobile. The search had been unsuccessful. ‘My guess is that he disposed of them somewhere.’
‘Okay. What did you come here for?’
‘To tell you, I’d like to charge Johnny Whitaker with Angelica’s murder.’
Victoria considered for a moment. ‘You’ve completed all the paperwork?’
Tomek nodded.
‘And called the CPS?’
‘I’m about to.’
‘All right. And the evidence?’
‘Watertight. Unless he has any more imaginary one-night stands.’
‘Then he’s all yours.’
Tomek felt bereft. There was no enjoyment in him, no enthusiasm. It seemed to have been drained out of him the same way Johnny Whitaker had drained the life out of his sister’s body. They had their man. They had their killer. So why was he feeling like this? Was it because he’d messed up so badly with Roy that he was still feeling guilty, or was this the mother of all hangovers giving him a monumental case of hangxiety, filling him with an unending sense of dread and doubt? He didn’t know. But at least he wasn’t feeling as bad as Johnny Whitaker. After explaining to the man that he was being charged with his sister’s murder, and that he would be sent on remand somewhere, the man had broken down in an uncontrollable fit of tears, begging, pleading for Tomek to reconsider. There was no chance, Tomek had told him. It was too late, the damage done. There was no hiding from it; he would have to live with his actions for the rest of his life. At first, Tomek had expected the man to break into a fit of rage, to lunge at him, to assault him and convince him to change his mind with the end of his fist, but Johnny Whitaker’s reaction had been different. One of remorse. At that moment, his opinion of the man changed.
‘Is there anyone you’d like to call?’ Tomek asked him at the custody desk. ‘Last chance.’
Johnny Whitaker stood in the police-issued tracksuit, red-eyed and broken. He stared blankly at the wall, his mind completely devoid of thought.
‘Would you like to call your parents?’
Nothing.
‘Rose?’
Johnny slowly turned his head to Tomek. ‘Absolutely fucking not.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Tomek didn’t blame the man. He wouldn’t have been in a very chatty mood either. But he’d charged enough people to know they’d later come to regret it, that they would do anything to have the opportunity to make one last phone call as a free person again.
Shortly after Johnny had been booked in, Tomek had left to give Rose the news. First, he’d tried Rose and Johnny’s house, but nobody had been home. And then he’d remembered that she would be in the flat, conducting more gruelling and never-ending renovation work. Following the incident involving Rose and her husband, the place had been examined for evidence, but it had been quickly cleared. The numerous police witness statements had negated the need for them to hang around any longer than was required. Tomek hadn’t spoken to her since that night, but he wanted to be the one to tell her in person what was happening with her husband.
Mercifully, as though the gods were looking down on him kindly, he found a parking space along the Broadway, directly outside Whitaker’s Jewellers, on the first attempt. He hopped onto the kerb and made his way to the rear of the shop, entering through the back door, which to his surprise, was unlocked, and he came to a stop in the hallway. Immediately in front of him was the entrance to the back of the jeweller’s. Tomek remembered it from the other night. Through the gap, he saw the small office space and the cloakroom. Angelica Whitaker’s coats and belongings were still in there, hanging from a couple of pegs on the wall. Tomek poked his head through tentatively, in case he set off any motion detectors or alarms like something from a Mission: Impossible movie. The inside of the jeweller’s was empty, still. Eerily still, like walking into a museum in the dead of night. And then he heard it: the soft rumbles of music playing through a speaker, drowned out by the sound of banging and drilling.
Tomek turned on the spot and headed up the stairs.
‘Rose?’ he called out from the bottom step, announcing his presence. ‘Rose?’
No answer.
Chey wanted nothing more than to go home. He hadn’t felt this hungover since the weekend in Zante with his schoolmates. There, he’d had the sun, copious amounts of greasy food, sugary drinks to hydrate him, and the glorious beach to make him forget about the hangover. Instead, here, he was surrounded by people he considered much older than him, a stuffy office that circulated stale dirty air, and a coffee machine that, despite all the plaudits the rest of the team gave it, spouted out weak coffee. All he wanted was to go home and have a long, overdue sleep. But Castle Point County Council had put paid to that. They had just sent through several reams of CCTV footage from Hadleigh library’s car park. It had taken an age for some poor civil servant to find the footage, and even then, they’d only been able to go as far back as two weeks, right around the time of the last comment on Angelica’s Little Corner of the Internet. Yes, he wanted to go home, but he also wanted to get this done, off his list so that he had one less thing to worry about the following morning as there was bound to be something new by the time he arrived. Or two, or three.
With what he told himself was his last cup of coffee of the day, Chey returned to his seat and unlocked the machine. On the screen was a still image of Hadleigh library car park. Behind it was the busy London Road, and beyond was Morrisons supermarket. The time on the screen was 13:18, approximately five minutes before the comment had been posted from within the library.
Chey pressed play and watched as dozens, hundreds of cars, sped along the road, racing to make the nearest set of lights. Until a car that looked remarkably similar to the grainy footage from outside Angelica Whitaker’s house pulled in off the road and swung into an empty space.
‘Fuck me,’ he muttered as he saw the driver climbing out of the vehicle. ‘Tomek!?’
Chey peered round his monitor, searching for Tomek, but the sergeant wasn’t there.
‘Anyone know where Bowen is?’ he called to the half-empty office, standing out of his seat.
‘He’s gone out, I think,’ Rachel replied.
‘Think he’s gone to give Rose Whitaker the news about her husband,’ Martin added.
‘Shitting Nora.’
Tomek held his breath as he reached the final step. Cautiously, he poked his head through the open door and knocked loudly, but it was drowned out by the sound of banging. Rose, dressed in white overalls covered in paint, had her back to him, and was in the middle of demolishing a bookshelf unit with a hammer.
‘Rose!’ Tomek called.
Still no answer.
