‘Would you please leave us to deliberate?’ Harrington asked.
Ansari got to her feet. ‘No. This is an interview room. You can use one of the consulting booths down by the custody desk. If none are available, you can consult in your client’s cell.’
‘Is that absolutely necessary?’
‘Of course. I wouldn’t say so otherwise. You get the booth or the cell. Take it or leave it.’
Harrington took it, though when she stood she wore the look of a woman receiving a colonoscopy from Edward Scissorhands.
‘I have one more question before you go,’ Bliss said. He waited for Savchuk to look at him. ‘Yeva, why did you help us? You lied, of course, and there’s no denying your complicity. But you also helped prior to your arrest, which suggests you’re not an entirely lost cause. I’m guessing you got caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. What I mean by that is, you eventually realised from everything we discussed that your site on the dark web had in some way led to a few of its users splintering off – that somebody had set up an enterprise of their own. One that had led to murder on several occasions. You then helped us as much as you could without giving away your part in it. You gave up some, you held some back. Would that be fair to say, Yeva?’
Savchuk did not waver this time. ‘You are disappointed in me, I know. I am disappointed in myself. This is not what you expect of me. It make me sad. Even so, I will not tell you all that I do. But I will tell you what I do not do. I do not know about murder until you and Penny tell me. I do not know about how it connect to website until I am told. I do not wish for these girls to die. This break my heart. You understand?’
Bliss thought he did. Savchuk retained enough compassion and felt enough culpability to have decided to help the police provided she did not give away her own guilty secret. Yet still something bothered him.
‘You say you didn’t know until we came to you. But it must have been you who cleared out Majidah Rassooli’s flat. How did you know to do that if you didn’t know she was dead, Yeva?’
‘I do not know this at the time. Majidah… she stop answering phone. She not available when client want her. She lose me money. I think she work for others, so I make sure she no longer have flat to work from. I tell owner to keep deposit, and we will soon bring him another girl to rent flat.’
The landlord had not been straight with them. Tim Beaumont moved immediately to Bliss’s mental list of people who owed him. ‘Will you answer one more question, Yeva?’
There was no holding back her solicitor on this occasion. ‘Detective Sergeant Bliss, I really must protest. My client has already said far more than I have advised her to. You suspended the interview; this is my time. You must back off!’
Bliss continued to look only at Savchuk. He needed an answer to the question circling his mind. ‘Yeva?’ he said. ‘You don’t have to answer me, but I have to ask…’
Savchuk nodded, snatching her arm back as Harrington attempted to pull her away. ‘If I can, I will.’
‘Thank you. You have a good idea what kind of life you might have had if you’d never been abandoned inside that container. You mix with these young women, so you know how some of them have to live. I want to believe that when you decided to run your own website, it wasn’t out of pure exploitation or greed. I want to believe you simply took girls who were selling themselves anyway and gave them an easier ride, a better cut – perhaps for some, even a way out. But I need you to tell me I’m not wrong.’
She put her chin down, gave it some thought. Without so much as a glance at her solicitor she said, ‘I want a better life. This is true. What I do… is wrong. But you are not wrong about me.’
Bliss closed his eyes and gave a nod of thanks. He heard no deceit in her voice, saw none in her eyes. It wasn’t much, but it gave him something to cling to. ‘You once told me about your struggle to breathe in that shipping container. How you kept muttering your name over and over. I remember you saying that you’d always cherish the simple, natural act of being able to take that next breath like anybody else.’ He offered a sad, reflective smile. ‘I suppose you couldn’t help but move on to something more rarefied.’
Forty-Nine
Bliss and Ansari headed back to the incident room. By the doors leading to the stairway, he paused and took the DC to one side.
‘You were superb back there, Gul. The right tone at the right time. You provided enough information for them to have to think and react, but not so much that you made it easy for them to respond. With their lies established and on record, you had them where you wanted them. Great stuff. I mean it… hugely impressive.’
‘Thank you, boss,’ she replied, beaming at him. ‘I’ve been taught by the best. I owe everything to you and the rest of the team.’
Bliss shook his head. ‘No. You owe it to your own determination, intelligence and desire to do the right thing. You’re a credit to us all. Tell me if I’m overstepping the mark, but have your family come around to what you do?’
‘Mum has warmed to it. Not sure my dad ever will. As
