‘Do you know what speed you can reach kite-surfing on a windy day?’
Cara shook his head, swallowing the facetious comment that was sitting right in his voice box. ‘No, sir.’
‘Fifty, sixty kilometres an hour. And you’re a hundred, two hundred metres out to sea. No way I could tell if it was her.’
‘So what did you see, sir?’
‘Blonde.’
‘The child?’
‘The woman. Blonde hair, shoulder-length or longer. Long enough to swish.’ He smiled. ‘Could be an advert right?’
As far as Cara could remember, it was already an advert. ‘Long enough to swish?’
‘To stream out.’ Moore flapped his hands around his head. ‘Behind her in the wind.’
Cara made a note. ‘And the child?’ he asked, looking back up.
‘Probably not blonde.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I didn’t notice her hair. I noticed the woman’s hair because it stood out against their clothes.’
‘What were they wearing?’
‘Dark. Grey, navy blue, black, those kinds of colours, both of them.’
Jodie Trigg’s school uniform was a navy-blue trouser suit.
‘Trousers? Skirts?’ Workman cut in.
Moore shrugged. ‘Too much detail.’ He paused. ‘Only the woman’s hair was flapping though, so maybe they were both wearing trousers.’
‘Who was closest to you?’ Workman asked.
‘The woman.’
‘What time did you see them?’
‘I went out just after three fifteen and I was out for an hour or so. I saw them about halfway through my session, give or take.’
‘So around three forty-five?’
‘I don’t wear a watch out there, so it’s a rough estimate.’
‘How did they seem?’ Workman asked.
Moore raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘What do you mean by “seem”?’
‘Did the girl seem as if she was being coerced? Forced?’
‘No. As I said, I was two hundred metres offshore and going like the clappers, but nothing stood out to me. If she’d been being dragged or been screaming, I would have noticed that and I would have contacted you guys after I heard about the dead girl. I remember thinking that they were mother and daughter, out for a walk.’
Workman nodded. ‘Which direction were they walking in?’
‘Towards the mouth of the harbour, the peninsula.’
‘And where did you first see them?’
‘Walking along the beach outside my house. That’s why I noticed them. I was looking at my house from the water and I saw them walking past it. Then I saw them a few more times, while I was steaming back and forth, before they disappeared around the corner.’
‘On to the peninsula?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see anyone else?’
‘No, just them. It was a shitty afternoon. It was just me and them out there. No one else, not that I saw, anyway.’
52
Trying to suppress the look of smug satisfaction that had taken possession of his face the moment Workman had called to tell him that a credible witness had seen a girl walking along West Wittering beach on Thursday afternoon with a blonde woman, the smugness intensifying when Jessie called about the splodgy cat and the black-and-white tiles, Marilyn held up the hastily obtained search warrant. He felt as if he had been shown a chink of light in an otherwise pitch-black tunnel – not before time. And he was going to sprint for it like a lunatic, even if sport wasn’t his strong point.
Taking the search warrant from Marilyn, Roger Reynolds scanned it briefly. Screwing it up, he dropped it at Marilyn’s feet and drew back, pulling the front door wide open. Bending at the waist, he swept his arm in a broad arc, a mockingly regal gesture.
‘Welcome to my humble abode, Detective Inspector Simmons. We had nothing to hide two years ago and we have nothing to hide now.’
‘We?’ Marilyn hitched an eyebrow. He couldn’t help himself. ‘Where is your wife, Mr Reynolds? Still running?’
Without answering, Reynolds turned his back and disappeared into the kitchen. Marilyn heard the vacuum suck of a fridge door opening and then an equally familiar sound as Reynolds pulled the ring on a can of beer. A Carling Black Label in his hand, Reynolds crossed the hallway to the sitting room without glancing at Marilyn, Jessie, Tony Burrows and his CSI team who were trooping up the front path, all clad in forensic overalls and overshoes. Slumping down on to the sofa, he turned on the television.
‘Please stay where you are and don’t touch anything, Mr Reynolds,’ Marilyn said, raising his voice to be heard over the football commentary.
Marilyn’s Z3, a marked police car and the van of the forensic investigation team, parked nose to tail along the sea wall outside, had already drawn gawkers. Seeing the swelling crowd, Jessie felt intensely sad for the Reynolds. Those rubberneckers were the first tear that would make ripped shreds of their new life. Ushering the last of Burrows’ team into the house, she closed the front door, shutting out their inquisitive gazes. The action felt akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Reynolds was sitting on a beige corduroy sofa facing the television and the window beyond. He didn’t seem to have noticed the people lining the sea wall, but Jessie knew that he must have done, was feigning indifference, just as he was now feigning indifference to the sound of feet creaking on boards above his head, of drawers being pulled out and rummaged through, cupboards being opened and searched, the creak of what Jessie assumed was the loft ladder being lowered, Burrows’ team locust-like in their speed and thoroughness.
‘Can I join you?’ Jessie asked.
Reynolds glanced over. ‘My permission is irrelevant, given the circumstances, isn’t it?’ His gaze flicked back to the football match.
Jessie sat down on to the sofa perpendicular to his, taking the end closest to him and crossing her legs, right over left, mirroring his sitting position. Settling back against the cushions, she tried to adopt a posture as relaxed as his. Playacting – both of them. The only thing she didn’t try to mirror was the disdainful curve of his lip.
‘Do you know why we’re here, Mr Reynolds?’
Without shifting his gaze from the match, he rolled his eyes and muttered, ‘Because you have
