West hesitated, long enough that Black spoke up. “In that case you can tell us at the station. We’ve got a ton of evidence says you did.” He tried to get Billy to move, but Wheatley resisted, and in the small cabin was able to do so against the much stronger man.
“Please Jess, I need to show you here. It’s vital.”
She hesitated again, fearing a trick. But she looked at the pair of them. The girl looked terrified, and both were handcuffed.
“Check them for weapons. Both of them.” She ordered, and she watched and waited while Black did so, keeping her gun ready in case either of them tried anything. They didn’t, and neither were armed.
“OK. What do you want to show me?”
Slowly, keeping his eyes on West, but her face rather than the gun, Billy sat down behind the computer. He was able to type, even with the cuffs on, and a few seconds later he pointed to the screen. A video file was ready to play. It showed a still of a young man – she didn’t recognize who – sitting in what looked like an interview room in a police station. There was another man opposite him, you could tell he was older, even though only the back of this head was visible. A tape deck sat on the table.
“What is this?” Black asked, then added. “What the hell?”
“Can I?” Billy asked, his hand hovering over the play button.
“Yeah.”
He pressed play, and the recording began. The camera must have been fixed somewhere high up on the wall. It didn’t move as the older man asked the name of the younger man. He gave it as James Richards.
“You know why you’re here?” the older man asked.
“Yes. I want to confess to the murder of Keith Waterhouse, and to all the bombings of the Fonchem Chemical company.” The younger man, James Richards, spoke clearly and calmly. Then he scratched his head.
“How did it happen?” There was something familiar to West about the older man’s voice, but she couldn’t focus on it right now.
“I set up my friend, Billy Wheatley. I made it look like he did it. I set up the whole thing to make him look guilty. But now I want to confess. Billy didn’t do anything. I killed that man. I set the bomb.”
Up to that point the video tape had looked completely real, but at that moment something odd happened. It seemed to freeze – but only part of it. The part of the screen showing the older man, asking the questions, continued to run as normal. And then he turned slightly, so his face was visible for the first time. And then suddenly he spoke again. And the whole thing went totally weird.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
“What the fuck?” Black said. “Is that Tom Hanks?”
Chapter Sixty
“Yeah. I didn’t have time to finish that part.”
There was silence in the little cabin, so Billy tried explaining again.
“I borrowed the clip from that movie. Apollo 13. I’ve always liked that movie.”
It was clear that no one was following him, though Amber seemed to be the closest to understanding.
“You got him saying that?” She cut in now, apparently forgetting she was under arrest, and moving to Billy’s side. “You got him confessing? But where is he? It looks like he’s in a police cell.”
“More like an interview room,” West interrupted now. “What is this Billy? What are you showing us?” Everyone turned to Billy, and he waited a few seconds before trying to explain again.
“It’s a confession by James Richards. He and a man called Oscar Magnuson planted the bomb that killed the security guard. They made it look like I did it, to frame me.”
“But how did you get this confession?” West went on. “And where is it? And what the hell’s that at the end?”
“I didn’t get it. I made it.”
“I don’t understand.” West said.
“Nor do I,” Black added, in case anyone was in doubt.
“That’s why I need to explain. Here. Before you take me away, so I can show you?”
The two agents looked at each other, both assessing the risk. Any interview done with a suspect was far better carried out in a controlled environment, but at the same time, it wasn’t uncommon for suspects to clam right up once they got to an interview room. Furthermore, this one had just shown them a tape of another guy confessing to the crime they’d just arrested him for. This didn’t fit easily into the scenarios they’d been trained on. West nodded.
“OK.” Black said. “But the cuffs stay on. And you make one move out of turn – either of you – and this stops. Whatever the hell it is. We take you away and do this by the book. You got it?”
“Yes.” Billy replied. Amber said nothing, her round eyes indicating to West that she was just as confused by this as she was.
Billy began by telling them the whole story. How he’d met James Richards and Oscar Magnuson along with Lily Bellafonte – whose family founded and still held a controlling share in the Fonchem chemical company. And how Richards had approached him regarding the site’s planned extension, and Billy’s opposition to it.
“You probably saw I was running a campaign against Fonchem,” Billy said. “A poster campaign, mostly, about the sea-dragons.”
“Yeah. We saw. Go on.” Black told him.
He told them about the photographs of the dead sea-dragons that he’d been sent, and the plan to fly the drone over the site to search for the telltale heat signatures of chemical leaks. How they had come to the island, Billy renting a car and booking the ferry under an assumed name. He explained how the drone had not worked properly in the snow, and how he’d discovered James and Oscar had cut a hole in the fence, and how he’d felt pressured to go inside and attempt to find the leak on foot. And then how the next thing he
