‘How old are you, Peter?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘And you’ve been sleeping with a sixteen-year-old?’
The young man’s bottom lip stuck out. ‘It’s not illegal.’
‘Were you sleeping with her before she was sixteen?’
‘No.’ Evans sat forward in his chair and glared at Sharp. ‘I loved her. Those people – they used her.’
‘Which people?’
‘Her parents – and Josh’s.’
‘In what way?’
Evans sank back into his chair, his face a picture of misery. ‘It’s all about the money, isn’t it? It’s like, Blake Hamilton’s lived here for seven years and he’s obsessed with being part of that whole scene.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, if Josh marries – sorry,’ Evans sniffed, and wiped his nose on his sleeve, ‘married Sophie when she hit eighteen, then Blake’d be linked to the English aristocracy.’
‘So, what happened – you found out Sophie was going ahead with the ceremony and decided to take matters into your own hands?’
‘No!’
‘How do you explain the bloodstain found on the sheets at your bedsit?’ said Kay.
Evans swallowed. ‘We had sex.’
Sharp frowned. ‘A moment ago, you said you met her a quarter of a mile from her house.’
‘I had my van. We went back to my place.’
‘Did you rape her?’
‘No!’ Evans’s face turned white. ‘No. Of course not. I loved her. She loved me.’
‘Then explain the blood.’
Evans’s face flashed to crimson in a heartbeat. ‘It was only her second time. I didn’t hurt her, I swear.’
‘Why did you have her passport, Peter?’ said Kay.
The nineteen-year-old’s shoulders sagged. ‘We were going to run away,’ he said. ‘That’s why she had a suitcase full of clothes there. I bought the suitcase, and every time I met up with her for the five weeks prior to the ceremony, she gave me a bit more to pack in it.’
‘Where were you going to go?’
‘France,’ he said. ‘I speak some French, and so does Sophie – better than me, in fact.’ He sighed. ‘Put it down to a private education when she was younger. We were going to find work teaching English as a foreign language. Travel a bit. Oh, God.’ He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table and buried his head in his hands. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’
Sharp gave the young man a few moments, then flipped open the folder on the table in front of him and resumed his questioning.
‘You’ve stated no next of kin on your charge sheet,’ he said. ‘Where are your parents?’
Evans raised his head from his hands. ‘They died when I was six. So did my twin brother. Car accident. I got fostered until I hit eighteen last January.’
‘What was foster care like?’
Evans looked confused. ‘What has that got to do with anything?’
‘Just answer the question, please.’
‘It was fine, I suppose. I got placed with a middle-aged couple that couldn’t have kids of their own, so they fostered me.’
‘We’ll need their details.’
‘Brendan and Marjorie Chambers.’
‘And how can we contact them?’
Evans’s jaw set, and then he took a deep breath. ‘Good luck with that. They’re buried at Maidstone Cemetery. They died six months ago in a road accident outside Sittingbourne.’
‘What did you do with the murder weapon, Peter?’
‘What?’
Sharp’s sudden turn of questioning threw the young suspect, and Kay waited for his response with interest.
‘The murder weapon you used to kill Sophie. Where is it?’
Evans shoved his chair back and stood, his hands on the table as he leaned forward. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he spat. He pointed at Sharp. ‘And while you’re sat here interviewing me, trying to get me to confess, her murderer is out there walking around!’
The duty solicitor placed a hand on Evans’s arm and coaxed him back to his seat, his eyebrows raised in Sharp’s direction.
Sharp ignored him, and instead rose from his seat. ‘Interview terminated at twelve twenty-seven a.m.’
Five
Kay cruised the car to a standstill in the driveway of her house and quickly switched off the engine.
The pub up the road had closed three hours ago, and the lane was silent.
She climbed from the vehicle and shut the door, catching a fleeting glimpse of a fox as it darted across the potholed asphalt. Slinging her handbag over her arm, she used the light from a waxing moon to find her house key and unlocked the front door.
After a burglary a few months before, a new lock had been fitted and Kay was grateful that it didn’t squeak like the old one had. She turned and closed it behind her, careful not to let it swing shut and wake her other half, Adam.
He had left the kitchen light on – its glow pooled down the hallway so she could see what she was doing.
It made a change for her not to come home and discover an animal of some sort. As a partner in one of the town’s busier veterinary practices, Adam often brought home his work – in the literal sense. However, his time had been taken up the past few weeks looking after mares who were foaling. Although the births had gone well, it meant at the moment they hardly saw each other as he was often out the door in the early hours of the morning or working late into the night.
Thirsty, she dumped her handbag on the kitchen worktop and filled a glass from the water filter next to the sink. She drained it in four large gulps, rinsed the glass out and tipped it upside down on the draining board. Although exhausted, she knew it would take her half an hour or so for the adrenalin to subside enough for her to sleep, so she kicked off her shoes and padded through to the living room. She flicked the switch on a reading lamp and pulled the previous day’s newspaper across the coffee table and began to turn the pages.
Unable to concentrate on the words before her, her mind returned to the scene of Sophie Whittaker’s murder. She hadn’t seen the girl’s body in situ as there were already crime scene investigators processing the
