‘Probably not. Protecting their lives outside of prostituting themselves would be more important.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You know so.’
‘I agreed to keep what they told me in confidence. Christy, level with me. Why are you so interested?’
‘Don’t you ever feel like throwing away people’s perception of respectability, just being yourself?’
‘Sometimes,’ he admitted. Often, he thought.
‘Sorry, I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I’m not doing a lot at the present moment, just working for a local rag, gossip column.’
‘How did you get into that?’
‘I’ve been doing it for some time. I mainly work from home, make up most of the “Dear Marigold’s”. It pays the bills.’
‘You don’t look like a Marigold.’
‘It’s my middle name. A great aunt that my mother was fond of was named Marigold. I think my mother was having a bad day when she gave it to me.’
Farhan realised he was enjoying his time with Christy Nichols, although it was still a murder investigation, and she still remained the closest person to Charles Sutherland. He had discounted the two escorts; he couldn’t call them prostitutes anymore. He didn’t want to think of Samantha aka Aisha selling herself on a street corner. An escort sounded more refined. He also realised that he needed to meet her again: firstly because there was a valid reason, and secondly because he wanted to.
‘Coming back to the night of the murder,’ Farhan refocussed. ‘The women said they left around midnight.’
‘I never saw them leave.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘No reason to. I showed them in, but I certainly did not want to see Sutherland flashing me again. I’ve led a sheltered life.’ She seemed to be joking.
‘Sheltered. What do you mean?’
‘It’s just a silly remark really. I had a very conservative childhood. My parents did all they could to shield me from the seedier side of life. There were no late-night parties or boys over. No alcohol in the house and certainly no bad language. I stayed there until I was in my early twenties, and then the company I worked for transferred me to London. It’s left me a little prudish, not sure how to handle some situations.’
‘Such as Charles Sutherland when he’s high on drugs and women.’
‘Yes, Charles Sutherland. I suppose another woman would have slapped his face, kicked him in the groin and screamed for help.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I think I froze.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘It’s too shocking.’
‘You need to elaborate, it’s important.’
‘I’m ashamed.’ She was shaking visibly. Her face was red, and tears were welling up in her eyes. Farhan beckoned the Italian waitress to bring another two coffees.
‘He made me do something.’
‘And the other women?’
‘They weren’t there. They had left by then. I should have gone out with them, but I was scared.’
She sipped her cappuccino. ‘He made me perform fellatio on him.’
‘Why did you agree?’
‘I was scared of what he would do.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘He laughed at me, told me I would have been a lousy screw anyway, and that I was only good for a blowjob.’
‘Did you report it?’
‘To who? Victoria Webster would not have been interested. Charles Sutherland was more important than me. I was only the hired help. She would have assumed I encouraged him.’
‘After you left?’
‘I went to my room, put my fingers down my throat ‒ he made me swallow it all ‒ until I vomited. I then stood in the shower for hours, so hot it almost burned, until it went cold. After that, I lay on my bed sobbing. I didn’t sleep that night.’
‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘It makes me a murder suspect, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s a strong enough motive. Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I was ashamed. I was concerned that it would be seen that I had encouraged him ‒ that I was a slut.’
‘You wished him dead after that?’
‘Of course, any woman would, but it does not make me a murderer, does it?’
He didn’t answer her question. ‘Why did you tell me today?’ he asked instead.
‘I trust you,’ she replied.
Chapter 20
Wendy Gladstone was pleased that her time in Isaac and Farhan’s office had been short. She had spent thirty years in the force, pounding the beat initially in uniform with a whistle and a baton; another five, maybe six years before she retired. The concept of retirement did not excite her, but she was getting older, and arthritis was starting to set in. No one knew, not even her husband.
He had retired five years earlier. He was ten years older than her, a strapping man when she had first met him, an embittered man now. He blamed it all on the migrants coming into the country, taking everyone’s job, turning the neighbourhoods into ghettoes. ‘Bloody Paki,’ he would say every time he saw someone Asian in the street. She had no problems with them; the family two doors down had come from India, and they were fine. She knew he would not have liked Detective Inspector Ahmed.
It was minor, and she would not make a scene about it. And the office no longer allowed smoking. In fact, she had to go out on the street, rain or shine.
She didn’t hold with these modern ideas where you couldn’t smoke, drink, discipline your child, or call a spade a spade in case it offended someone. Her father, a potato farmer, humble and poor, smoked all his life. He downed his five pints every night at the pub, was not averse to disciplining the children if they needed it, and he had been a good man. He had lived to his mid-eighties. Her mother, teetotal, gentle and a housewife, barely made it past sixty before she had a stroke.
Ambition had
