“You need to leave, darling,” said Suzie. “It’s a quarter past eight. I’ve got time for a slice of toast before I leave for London Road.”
Gus kissed Suzie on the top of her head and collected his car keys from the hall table.
Forty-five minutes later, he was standing in Reception at Bourne Hill, waiting to suffer the usual nonsense of getting past the desk sergeant. He needn’t have worried.
“Mr Freeman, we were expecting you.”
The fresh-faced youth was far too young to have been here when Gus was a serving officer. Yet, somehow, he’d made a sergeant. Gus wasn’t sure that he’d started shaving.
“Am I first to arrive?” asked Gus.
“DS Sherman arrived five minutes ago, sir. He told me you were on your way.”
That explained a lot, thought Gus. He signed in, accepted the shiny Visitor’s badge, and listened intently to the directions provided by the desk sergeant. Gus didn’t tell the youngster he’d interviewed a hundred criminals in that interview room before he was born.
He found Luke Sherman stood in the corridor outside the room.
“We tossed a coin, guv,” said Luke. “There wasn’t much difference in distance to travel between Neil and me. I hope you don’t mind?”
“The more, the merrier, Luke. Neil hasn’t been out of the office on this case, but there’s still time. The advantage of those digital files is that everyone on the team is singing from the same hymn sheet. I’ll show you my list of questions while we wait for Preston to appear with his escort. Chip in if I’ve missed something.”
“Got it, guv,” said Luke. “I spoke to the custody sergeant soon after I arrived. Preston will be with us in the next two minutes.”
Gus and Luke entered the interview room, and Luke checked the recording equipment. Everything was set. A knock at the door heralded the arrival of the forty-six-year-old builder, Derek Preston. If he slept last night, it didn’t show. He wore a grey sweatshirt and jogging bottoms and trainers with no laces.
Luke went through the preliminaries while Derek Preston studied the table top.
“Good morning, Derek,” said Gus. “You know who I am. Gus Freeman, the man you agreed to meet for a chat yesterday afternoon at a house on Sarum Close. While I was indoors chatting to your friend and colleague, Stuart Milligan, you sat outside in the van eating your lunch. What possessed you to dash off to the Isle of Wight? Don’t answer that. We know about the photographs.”
Derek Preston lifted his head, and Gus knew they didn’t have to suffer a series of no comments. The dam was about to burst.
“My life has been a mess ever since my Dad died,” he said. “John Preston was the only father I knew. When I was growing up, it didn’t register that my Dad was so much older than my Mum. When I took Ellie, my girlfriend, home to meet my parents, she said she was surprised, but that was the last time she mentioned it. We’ve been married for eighteen years this year. Nine years ago, Dad passed away. John never had cancer or heart problems, he was eighty-eight, and everything just shut down. After the funeral, Mum told me a man called Graham Street was my father. She’d got pregnant soon after leaving school. Mum worked in a tobacconist’s shop, and John was the owner. His wife had recently died of a heart attack in her early forties. They had no kids. Mum and John married in 1972, three months before I was born.”
“How old was your mother?” asked Gus.
“They married on her seventeenth birthday,” said Preston.
“A marriage of convenience?” asked Gus.
“At the start, maybe,” said Preston. “As a child, I never doubted they cared for me. How they felt about one another, I couldn’t say. Mum missed John; I know that.”
“Did you know Graham Street?” asked Luke.
“Only by reputation,” said Preston. “Loads of money. He liked to flaunt his wealth. When Stuart and I were old enough to drink, we saw him in pubs and clubs in Salisbury on weekends. Street went nowhere alone, and there were always young women hanging on his every word and a gang of rich friends in tow. I knew he had once been married to Marion, and that made Martyn some relation to me.”
“Did Kathy tell you how they met?” asked Gus.
“After John died, she just told me she had been a foolish young girl, flattered Graham Street had noticed her among the many pretty girls in the city. I knew how good-looking my mother was when I was a teenager. All my mates, including Stuart, fancied her. Mum didn’t add to what she told me after John died, then the following summer, she fell ill. Typical of Mum, she’d suffered on and off for a couple of years without bothering the doctors. She died in January, just two months before Marion Reeves’s murder. The solicitor told us there were complications they found when they read her will. I never understood it, but they warned us it would take time to get probate agreed. We had a huge mortgage, three kids who never stopped growing, and we were desperate for that cash. Mum and John lived in a two-bedroomed bungalow that needed work. I kept promising to spend time on it but never did. I knew the money it raised would get us out of trouble, but we needed something right away.”
“You
