time. She was wearing no make-up, which was a shock, and her cheeks were swollen. I suspected that the dark glasses were to hide black eyes. Nigel's wisdom teeth had been removed, and he said it gave your face quite a hammering. Jade Slade was with her, wearing an embroidered shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, like he was expecting line dancing. The duty solicitor looked a treat, as always, in his blue suit and regimental tie.
'Are you fit enough to answer questions?' I asked, because I was concerned about the quality of her answers, not her health.
'Let's get on with it,' she said.
'Okey-do key I set the tape running and did the spiel and asked everyone to introduce themselves. Dave and I were at one side of the table, Melissa and the solicitor at the other, with Slade rocked back against the wall near the video player I'd asked for. He was holding one of our polystyrene beakers, and at first I thought he'd bought a coffee from the machine. When I saw him lift it towards his mouth and spit into it I thought: It's not that bad. When he did it again, a few moments later, I realised he was chewing tobacco.
'Mrs. Slade,' I began, 'did you attend Essex University in 1969?'
'Yes.'
'And after that did you attend Paris, Edinburgh, Manchester, Los Angeles, Durham and Leeds universities?'
'If you say so.'
'What do you say?'
'I say this has fuck-all to do with why I'm here.'
'Did you meet a lecturer called Nick Kingston at Essex?'
'I might have done.'
'Did you?'
'I don't remember. I met him somewhere.'
'But you already knew him when you moved to Leeds?'
'Yes.'
'What was the nature of your relationship?'
'Were we fucking, you mean? Of course we were.'
Dave shuffled. When he was settled again I said: 'Have you contacted Kingston during this visit?'
She looked uneasy and turned to the solicitor. He shrugged, not knowing if this was relevant to anything. Slade said: 'Is this part of the deal?'
'What deal?' I asked.
'You know, the fuckin' deal.'
I turned to Melissa. 'Mrs. Slade, to have it on the record, could you tell us what you are expecting from this meeting.'
'I'll tell you what she's expecting,' Slade shouted. 'She puts the finger on this Kingston, and you give her immunity from prosecution.
That's the fuckin' deal, ain't it?'
I told Slade that we'd make better progress if he let his wife answer the questions. We weren't interested in his comments or opinions. She smiled at him and he spat into the cup and let his chair plop down on to all four legs.
'What are you expecting, Mrs. Slade?' I asked again.
'What he said,' she replied. 'I tell you about Kingston and you let me go.'
'I have no power to grant you immunity from prosecution,' I explained.
'Nobody has. However, I can assure you that this force and two others involved with the Kingston case will not actively pursue any charges against you or follow up any evidence relating to these of fences that may implicate you. Is that clear?'
'Yes.'
'Would you like your solicitor to discuss it with you?'
'No.'
'Very well, what can you tell us about Nick Kingston?'
'I've got a statement,' Melissa said, bringing a page of Station Hotel notepaper from the inside pocket of her jacket. She unfolded it and we sat back, listening.
'In June or July 1975,' she began, 'I was having a sexual relationship with a university lecturer called Nick Kingston. I was infatuated with him and completely under his spell. He was a very charismatic man. He told me that he was renting a house in Chapeltown, Leeds, to use as a postal address for a mail order business he was just starting. The number on the house had worn off, so he asked me to write it on again, in chalk, so the postman would find it when the orders started coming in. He said he couldn't do neat numbers. He took me there one evening and I wrote the number thirty-two on the wall. A few days later he asked me to show a boy where it was. He was going to work for Nick, pick up the orders, or something. About a week after that the house was burnt down and some people lost their lives.' She refolded the paper and slid it across the table towards me.
I placed my pen on it and pushed it back, saying: 'Could you sign it, please.'
She unfolded the statement, took the pen in her left hand and scrawled her signature across the bottom. I didn't look but I just knew that Dave's eyes had flickered my way.
We sat in silence for a while, then I said: 'What colour was your hair then?'
She looked flustered, and turned to her solicitor. He decided it must be a leading question and came out with the usual is-it-relevant response.
'I'd like to know,' I replied.
'I can't remember,' she said.
'Was it purple?'
'I don't know.'
'Was the boy you took to the house Duncan Roberts?'
'I'm not sure. Duncan rings a bell, but I never heard his surname.'
'Are you sure he wasn't your boyfriend?'
'Positive.'
'You didn't have an affair with him?'
'Not that one, but I had lots of boyfriends. It was never a problem for me.'
I wanted to grill her about her relationship with Duncan, but managed to hold off. She'd already been threatened with the little we knew, when Piers and Graham saw her in America. That's why she was here, and I didn't want to reveal how fragile our case against her was. I asked Dave to start the video and explained to the tape recorder what we were doing.
The first image appeared, a still taken by a CCTV camera, with the number 1 in the corner. 'If you recognise Kingston please say the number,' I told her.
'That's him,' she said, after a while.
'Number?'
'Eight.'
There were sixty-five pictures, and seven of them were Kingston. She got all seven.
'Thanks,' I said. 'I think that's everything. We'll try to get you on a flight on Wednesday, if that suits you.'
'The sooner the fuckin' better,' Slade said, and flung his cup of spit into the waste bin.
Annette was waiting upstairs. Dave went to put the kettle on and I told her that Bonnie and Clyde were finding their own way back to the hotel. She was relieved of baby-sitting duties. 'Thank God for that,' she sighed. 'They're the most thoroughly disagreeable couple I've ever met. Give me the Sylvan Fields lot any day.'
'What did you find out about the telephone?' I asked. We were paying their bill, so the hotel had no qualms about feeding us the information.
'Ah! You're not going to like this. They've spent every waking hour on the phone. Several calls to Directory Enquiries, but we can't tell who they asked for; more to various parts of England, as if she's been renewing acquaintances; and several long calls to the USA. I've asked for a printout. It's as if they've deliberately run up the bill, because we're paying.'
'They're anarchists, Annette,' I said. 'That's what anarchists do.
