‘Did you confront him about it?’
She shook her head.
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘Only some former work colleagues, many, many years later.’
‘Had any of those people worked with Roy? Any of them experience something similar to you?’
Sylvie nodded weakly.
‘Six of them said he’d raped them too. I’m not alone. I don’t know what happened to that poor woman, and I feel so sorry for her family, but not that man. That man is evil and dangerous. And you must look into him because I fear he has done something so much worse than anything he’s ever done before.’
CHAPTER SIXTY
Roy Whitaker had come in without a fuss. He hadn’t argued. He hadn’t kicked off or tried to escape. He had behaved himself, all the way from his front door to the interview room where he was now.
‘I will keep this short,’ Tomek began. But he had no intention of keeping it short at all. He wanted the man to sit and grow increasingly agitated the longer he was kept there. ‘Does the name Sylvie Weiss mean anything to you?’
‘Sylvie…? Weiss?’
‘You may know her by her maiden name: Greene.’
‘Sylvie Greene? Yeah. It rings a bell…’ The reticence in his voice was tangible.
‘Can you tell me where you know her from?’
Roy hesitated, brushed his hair backwards, then patted it repeatedly, so it sat firmly in place. ‘We used to work together. She was one of the air stewards. We did a lot of long-haul flights together, to the other side of the world.’
‘Did the two of you ever stay in hotels when you were on the other side of the world?’
‘We all did. It was a stipulation from the airline. We’d just flown ten, eleven, twelve hours. They weren’t going to make us fly straight back. We needed a rest, so we stayed a couple of nights, then returned.’
‘Do you remember much about the time you first met Sylvie?’
‘Why?’
Roy’s tone rose steadily, as did the level of concern in his voice.
Tomek ignored the counter question and continued. ‘Had you met Daphne by this point, or did Sylvie come before you met your wife?’
‘I don’t see what this has got to do with anything.’
‘Do you remember staying in the Hilton in Barbados?’
‘What?’
‘The summer of eighty-eight.’
Roy shook his head in disbelief, as if trying to piece together his thoughts.
‘I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about!’
‘So you don’t remember being at the bar with Sylvie at the Hilton in Barbados during the summer of eighty-eight?’
A long, empty breath left Roy’s lips. ‘I thought you’d brought me here to discuss Angelica.’
‘That’s correct, but first I want to discover what happened between you and Sylvie on the night of the fifteenth of July 1988.’
And then the act stopped. The confused and disbelieving expression fell from his face and was replaced with a sinister glare.
‘She been to see you then, has she?’ he asked.
‘That’s not relevant. Answer the question: what happened between the two of you on the night of the fifteenth of July?’
Roy chortled and folded his arms across his chest. ‘I bet she has, hasn’t she? She’s probably got some things to say, I imagine. Probably told you them already, otherwise why else would you be asking me about this?’ He shook his head, chuckling slightly. ‘I never did anything she’s accusing me of. I don’t know what it is she thinks I’ve done, but I didn’t do it.’
‘What about what six other women are saying you’ve done?’
‘What’s that?’
Tomek moved the conversation along.
‘I understand you like to disappear and leave the house at random for a couple of hours on end, is that right?’
‘You been talking to my wife as well?’
Tomek pulled a face. ‘There’s no problem with that, is there? Unless you’re worried there’s something she might tell us.’
