Juliet Doyle had gone to stay with Harriet Weaver, a friend and neighbor across Laburnum Way. Relations were so strained between mother and daughter that Erin would have to stay elsewhere. Patricia Yu, the Family Liaison officer, was looking into local accommodation, and she would later liaise between the Doyles and the police. Erin would almost certainly get police bail after the interview. They could hardly keep her in custody after what had just happened to her father. The media would go crazy, for a start, and Annie recognized that it would be callous in the extreme to keep the poor girl locked up in a cell overnight after the death of her father, even if they got real evidence against her during the forthcoming interview.
Both Detective Superintendent Gervaise and ACC McLaughlin had agreed that the interview should be conducted in the relative comfort of Gervaise’s office. Only a couple of hours ago, Erin had been told that her father was dead, and a grungy interview room hardly seemed appropriate.
There were only four people in the spacious office. Gervaise was stuck in meetings with McLaughlin and the Deputy Chief Constable at County HQ, so Annie sat in her chair opposite Erin, who was on the other side of the desk. Chairs had also been brought in for Erin’s solicitor, Irene Lightholm, and for Superintendent Chambers, who had been granted his request to be present. Annie just hoped the fat bastard wouldn’t keep interrupting. The same went for Irene Lightholm, who sat perched on the edge of her seat like a bird of prey, with a nose to match. Her pristine notepad rested on the pleated gray material of her skirt, which itself lay across her skinny thighs.
It had been agreed that Annie, as Gervaise’s deputy investigating officer, should do the questioning, and she was, as agreed, required to stick to the issue of the loaded gun, and avoid anything relating to the death of Erin Doyle’s father, or the actions of the AFOs. It was something of a balancing act, and she didn’t think it would be easy. As McLaughlin had said, the two issues were closely related. Annie felt she had everything working against her: the poor girl’s state of mind, the hypervigilant lawyer, piggy-eyed Chambers. Best just to ignore them all. Focus on Erin. Keep calm and carry on. She got the formalities out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible, then began.
“I’m sorry about your father, Erin,” she said.
Erin said nothing. She just stared down at the desk and chewed on a fingernail.
“Erin? I really need you to talk to me. I know you’re upset, and you want to be with your mother, but can you please just answer a few questions first? Then you can go.”
Erin muttered something. She was still chewing on her nail, so it was hard to tell what she said.
“What was that?” Annie asked her.
“I said I don’t want to be with my mother.”
“Well, I know I’d want to be with mine,” said Annie. If I had one, she thought.
“She turned me in,” Erin said, her hands clasped on her lap now, twisting. She still stared at the desk, and her voice was muffled, her words hard to make out. “How would you feel?”
“She did what she thought she had to do,” Annie said. Erin gave her a withering glance. “You would say that.”
“Erin, that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about, however much it hurts, however bad it feels. I want you to tell me about the gun.”
Erin shook her head. “Where did you get it from?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Why did you bring it home with you and hide it on top of your wardrobe?”
Erin shrugged and picked at her fingernail. “Who gave you the gun, Erin?”
“Nobody.”
“Somebody must have given it to you? Or did you buy it yourself?”
Erin didn’t answer.
“Are you hiding it for someone?”
“No. Why do you think that?”
Annie knew that she was getting nowhere, and she didn’t feel that things were likely to change in the next while. It was all too raw and confusing. She was tempted to call it a day and pack Erin off to whatever hotel or B- and-B Patricia Yu had found, but she was nothing if not persistent. “Was it someone in Leeds?” she asked.
No answer.
“Your boyfriend, perhaps?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Oh, come on,” cut in Chambers, trying to sound avuncular. “A pretty young girl like you? Surely you must have a boyfriend?” He ended up sounding like a dirty old man, Annie thought.
Erin treated the question with the silent contempt it deserved. Annie could tell from her general appearance and body language that her self-esteem was low right now, and that she certainly didn’t see herself as a “pretty young girl.”
Annie gave Chambers a disapproving look and carried on. “Of course you do. Geoff, isn’t it? Don’t you want him to know where you are?” Annie didn’t understand the look Erin gave her. She carried on. “Was it Geoff who gave you the gun? Is that why you don’t want to talk about him?”
Still Erin said nothing.
“Are you afraid of him? Is that it? I’d be afraid of someone who kept a loaded gun around the house.”
“You don’t understand anything.”
“Then help me. I want to understand.” Annie got no reaction.
“Oh, this is getting us precisely bloody nowhere,” Chambers burst out.
“I did it,” Erin said. Her voice was little more than a whisper, and she still wouldn’t look up at them.
“Did what, Erin? Brought the gun home?” Annie asked, leaning forward to hear her words. But she didn’t need to. Erin sat bolt upright and looked directly at her, speaking in a clear, though trembling, voice.
“Not that. But I killed him,” she said. “My father. It was my fault. I-”
“Now, wait a minute,” Chambers blustered, looking over at Irene Lightholm, who remained perched on the edge of her chair, enthralled, instead of telling her client to shut up.
Erin ignored Chambers and the solicitor. Annie could tell she was trying to get out what she had to say before she completely lost control. It didn’t matter whom she was talking to; she just had to have her say. “It was my fault. What happened to Dad.” She glanced at Chambers, then at her solicitor. “We heard the banging at the door, the calls for us to open up. Dad asked me to answer because his knee hurt, and he was starting to have chest pains from all the stress. Angina. I…I told him to fuck off. I said he could bloody well turn me in if he wanted to, I couldn’t stop him doing that, but I was fucked if I was going to answer the door to the Gestapo myself.” She put her hands to her face and started to cry. “I did it,” she said, between her fingers. “Oh, God forgive me. I killed him. I killed my dad. It was all my fault.”
Finally Irene Lightholm found her voice. “I think you can see,” she said, “that my client is upset over the death of her father. I take it that she hasn’t been charged with anything yet, and as far as I can tell, you don’t have enough evidence to charge her with anything. In that case, I think we should bring this interview to a close right now, and you should release my client on police bail.”
“I agree,” said Chambers. “This interview is terminated. Now.” Annie wondered if he realized he was agreeing with a defense solicitor. She ignored them both, walked around the desk, then bent over and put her arm around Erin’s shoulders. She expected resistance, a violent reaction, but she didn’t get it. Instead, Erin turned her face into Annie’s shoulder, grasped hold of her and sobbed her heart out.
3
JAFF HAD A ONE-BEDROOM FLAT WITH A BALCONY ON Granary Wharf, down by the river Aire and the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. Tracy had never been inside before, but Erin had pointed out the converted warehouse with the restaurant on the ground floor as they had passed by one night. Very chic. People sat at tables on the quayside outside the cafes under umbrellas advertising Campari or Stella Artois, sipping wine and chatting in the softening evening light. Tracy pressed the intercom button next to his name.
Jaff answered and sounded pleased to hear that it was she. He buzzed her in and she took the lift to the third floor. Jaff welcomed her at the door and led her into the modest but open space of the living, dining and kitchen
