“We’ll complete the formalities first, Carl,” said Alex. “Then we have a few questions.”
Carl nodded. He stared at the table in front of him as Alex went through his spiel.
“When did you arrive here in Malaga?” asked Gus.
“At the end of the first week in May, six years ago. You know that. I flew here the afternoon after it happened.”
“Where were you on the sixth of May that year?” asked Alex.
“A place between Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon. I went to Gerry Hogan’s house.”
“How did you learn that Gerry Hogan lived at Trowle Common?” asked Gus.
“I found adverts with Rachel’s business address online.”
“What led you to believe that Gerry Hogan and Rachel Cummins lived together?”
“My Dad told me Rachel had a sugar-daddy. He didn’t know him, though. My Dad had lived with Rachel’s mother and was bitter about them splitting up a year earlier. There was a history between him and Rachel. Dad didn’t explain what it was, but I can guess. He’s a lecherous old sod. He knew I needed money fast after coming out of prison. Dad gave me information that he thought would convince Hogan he should cough up. It was one way of getting back at Kate through Rachel.”
“Kate?” asked Alex.
“Rachel’s Mum, of course. She was always Kate when they were kids, and nobody called her Katherine.”
That was interesting, thought Gus. Where’s this going?
“So, you went to Trowle Common to blackmail Gerry Hogan?” asked Alex.
“With a Beretta Tomcat to make sure Gerry saw things your way,” said Gus.
“What was this information that your Dad passed you?” asked Alex.
“Kate got engaged to Jeff Cummins in the summer of ’81,” said Carl. “They planned to get married in ’82. Kate had relatives in Sydney who couldn’t get over for the wedding. Jeff was off on a stag week to Cyprus with his mates, so Kate flew out to see her folks and took internal flights to all the tourist spots before flying home from Darwin ten days after she arrived. If Jeff could have a stag week, she could put the free time to good use. Kate got home on the tenth of April. The wedding went ahead in the third week in April. Rachel was born on the second of January.”
“A honeymoon baby,” said Alex, “nothing unusual.”
“Possibly,” said Carl, “but I checked. Kate could have conceived that baby before flying home. Dad and Jeff Cummins got talking one night in a pub eighteen months before Kate threw Dad out. Jeff stole Kate from Dad all those years ago, and Dad was bragging about how he’d got the girl in the end. Jeff laughed in his face.”
“Why would he do that?” asked Alex.
“The first thing Kate did when she got home from Australia was to get Jeff into her bed.”
“Were they sleeping together before she went on holiday?” asked Gus.
“Yeah, but Jeff said it didn’t make sense until he had lived with Kate and Rachel for eighteen months.”
“He suspected Rachel wasn’t his baby?” asked Gus. “That’s why they split. Kate slept with Jeff as soon as possible after sleeping with Gerry Hogan.”
“Give the man a gold star. Dad went home from the pub and asked Kate what happened in Australia. I mean, how dumb was that? It was the beginning of the end. They argued. Kate said the guy wore a Batman t-shirt on the day they met. She woke up the next morning, and Batman had gone. Kate had no idea who he was or where he lived. They were drunk and didn’t use protection. Her first thought was to find the tour guide who had driven the bus. It took all day, but she found the guide in a bar later that evening. The girl could remember the two blokes. She’d brought them into town from the airport earlier in the week. She found Kate their details the next morning. Gerry Hogan and Nick Barrett. Kate flew out of Darwin the next day.”
“So, your Dad put two and two together and worked out that Gerry Hogan was Rachel’s father,” said Alex.
“That had to be worth something, didn’t it?” said Carl.
“Why didn’t your father act upon the information?” asked Gus.
“He wanted me to screw as much as I could out of Hogan, and we’d split it fifty-fifty.”
“So, you bought a gun?” asked Alex.
“In Bristol, yeah, no problem.”
“How did you get to Trowle Common?”
“On the bus,” said Carl.
“You walked up to the front door, rang the bell, and Rachel answered.”
“Eventually,” said Carl. “I asked for Gerry Hogan. She called out for him. He stepped outside and asked what I wanted. I told him what I knew. I had the gun in front of me, like this, with my back to the road. So the neighbours didn’t see.”
Carl held his arms out. An amateur, just as Gus thought.
“What did he do, tell you to take a hike? Then you shot him?” asked Gus.
“No, you’ve got it all wrong. I went through Dad’s story, and when I told him he’d been sleeping with his daughter for the past five years, he went as white as a sheet. I’d never pointed a gun at anyone before. He grabbed my hand and twisted it around until the barrel pointed at his temple. The gun fired. I didn’t intend to shoot him; you’ve got to believe me. He kept squeezing my fingers.”
“What did you do next?” asked Gus.
“He wore these stupid white cotton gloves. There was blood and brain matter on both of us. I knew that if I stuck around and tried to explain it was suicide, nobody would believe me. My fingers were on the trigger. It was my gun. So, I took the gloves off, stripped off my shirt,
