It was after twelve when he got there, and the Uber driver made a joke about hoping that the other fella looked worse. Jack laughed, feeling strangely upbeat. He knew he was about to get a lot more ribbing from his colleagues, but he couldn’t give a toss. He went straight to the canteen to get a coffee and then into the incident room. Laura had obviously relayed the story of his accident, and there were some sympathetic glances as he stood looking at the incident board.

  Amanda Dunn was on her way in, and her brief was already in the viewing room waiting for her. Anik was with DCI Clarke in his office, and when they walked out together Jack turned towards them.

  ‘Good God! What on earth happened to you?’ Clarke exclaimed.

  ‘He fell over his daughter’s toy on the stairs,’ Anik replied, before Jack could answer.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘Fine, sir.

  ‘If you don’t mind, could I give you and Anik a heads-up about Amanda? After watching the interview yesterday, I have one or two thoughts.’

  Anik was clearly irritated, but Clarke glanced at his watch and nodded.

  ‘We’re up against the clock today, so whatever you have to impart, make it quick.’

  Sara approached with a pink bottle of Bisodol. She apologised for interrupting and handed the bottle to Anik.

  ‘You said you needed this so I went out to the pharmacy for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Sara. If you don’t mind, guv, I’ll just go to the gents and take it. I’ve got a bit of a dickie stomach.’

  Clarke nodded and turned back to Jack. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Well, sir, Amanda has obviously been told to go the “no comment” route, so I would advise a more indirect method of questioning. She’s not the brightest, and I doubt she’s really aware of what it would mean if she was charged with being an accessory to murder, or of committing perjury, in terms of actually going to prison. Also, I was going to mention the bed sock.’

  Clarke nodded and took another look at his watch, and Jack knew he had to quickly get to the point.

  ‘Amanda admitted to me that the bed socks she was wearing had belonged to Trudie. When they were tested there was matching DNA from blood on the soles, which obviously suggests she was present when Trudie was dismembered. She had insisted that she was always locked in the back bedroom, but no blood samples were discovered in that room apart from those on the bed socks. Basically, sir, you have to put a lot more pressure on her because she’s a very adept liar.’

  Clarke turned to move away as Anik appeared and signalled that they needed to leave.

  ‘Thank you for that, Jack, and I believe we do have the evidence bag with the offending socks ready to be shown to her.’

  ‘Sir, if I’m in the viewing room and feel I could help with the direction of the questioning, is there any way that I can relay that to you?’

  ‘If you feel it’s important, then yes. But we can’t delay things. We have to charge her or release her by this evening.’

  Jack watched Clarke stride off with Anik as Laura approached. She looked at his face.

  ‘My God! That was some fall. Are you sure you’re alright?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Well, Anik isn’t. He’s got a bad stomach and was very sick earlier. Sara went out for something to settle it, but if you ask me, it’s nerves. Little Miss “no comment” kept the car waiting this morning, because she was blow-drying her hair. I tell you, she’s something else. I honestly doubt she has any idea how serious her situation is. It’s like a game to her, and she’s just loving all the attention.’

  Jack nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. Is the appropriate adult in again?’

  ‘I believe so. Glenda is hoping the CCTV footage is going to be shown today because they didn’t get to it last night. Are you going in there? If so, I’ll come with you.’

  Laura and Jack entered the viewing room to find that Glenda had done her culinary work again. There were bacon sandwiches and flasks of tea and coffee. Glenda was sitting with her feet up on a chair reading the Daily Mail. Jack and Laura helped themselves as she put the newspaper aside.

  ‘Did either of you have the Chinese or the curry from yesterday? I have had a complaint from DS Joshi that it has given him food poisoning, which is rubbish as I had some and I’m fine. Did you have any, Jack?’

  ‘Yes, I had the curry and the sausage rolls, but not the Chinese. Mine was delicious,’ he added with a smile.

  ‘Well, no one else has complained, but if he came in after they had finished late last night, it could have been out for quite a few hours, I suppose, and there were prawns in the Chinese.’

  Laura looked through the viewing room window and could see that they were already interviewing Amanda, but there was no sound. She looked to the others and asked for the microphone to be switched on.

  Glenda shrugged. ‘Sorry, I turned it off; they were supposed to start at noon and the CPS chap hasn’t shown up yet.’

  She swung her feet off the chair and folded the newspaper as Laura turned on the intercom microphone so they could hear the interrogation. Jack picked up the newspaper. There was a report on the front page about an arrest of Soviet agents at Heathrow Airport.

  ‘Do you mind if I just nip out for a second . . .’ Jack didn’t wait for anyone to reply as he walked out carrying the newspaper. He stood in the corridor reading the article, which said very little other than that National Crime Agency officers had boarded the plane to make the arrests. He went up the stairs to the incident room to look on his computer to see if there were any other articles with more information. He was scrolling through an article in The Times, when Hendricks hurried from the back of the room, banging through the double doors. Leon looked over to Jack.

  ‘He’s got a severe case of the runs . . . I think he should go home.’

  ‘Did he eat anything from the viewing room yesterday? Glenda Bagshot had a feast delivered and apparently Anik isn’t feeling too good today either,’ Jack said.

  Leon shrugged.

  ‘I think Hendricks brought a load back in for the night duty guys.’

  Jack returned to scrolling through the newspaper articles. He found three more articles, one in the Daily Telegraph and another in the Sun. Neither gave too many details, but the Telegraph suggested the arrests were connected to an international fraud involving Russian oligarchs and the Soviet government. Jack leant back in his chair. There was no mention of Lorna Elliot, or Ridley, or even the murder of Mrs Foster. He sighed. The duplicity of governments never ceased to amaze him. That the brutal murder of Lorna Elliot could simply be made to disappear made him wonder just how much more never surfaced, and whether he would ever fully understand what Ridley’s – and his own – role in it all had been.

  Leon approached his desk and asked if he was feeling alright. ‘I heard you had an accident?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine, but thanks for asking. Just have to keep the cotton wool plugs up my nose to stop the bleeding.’

  ‘You should put some salt in a glass of warm water and snort it up your nostrils; makes your eyes water but it does the trick because the dried blood can get clogged and then you can get an infection in your sinuses.’

  Jack stood up. ‘Thanks for the advice. How come you know so much about it?’

  ‘First aid sessions. We still have regular refreshers.’

  ‘Right, yes, I remember . . . thanks anyway. Better get back to the viewing room.’

  ‘I was an amateur boxer, so I’ve had my nose flattened a couple of times,’ Leon smiled.

  ‘Really?’ Jack said, moving away from his desk. But Leon seemed desperate to have a conversation and trailed after him.

  ‘You know, if you ever want a workout let me know; I’ve got spare gloves and pads.’

  ‘Thanks, Leon, I appreciate that. I’ll let you know.’

  Jack went into the gents before heading down to the viewing room. He took out the cotton wool and his nose promptly started dripping blood onto his clean shirt. He swore, then ducked his head under the cold taps. He eventually stemmed the bleeding with wads of twisted toilet paper.

  A few more people had been allowed into the viewing room by the time Jack returned. He sat beside Laura who burst out laughing when she saw him.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Jack grimaced.

  ‘Have you got a headache?’

  ‘Excuse me, you two, if you want a private conversation, please leave the room. We’re here to monitor what’s going on,’ Glenda snapped.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jack said sheepishly.

  ‘Not that you’ve missed very much. She’s still stonewalling. They showed her the bed socks, she just shrugged.’

  Jack looked through the viewing window, noting that Amanda was looking tired and was fiddling nervously with her fake nails. She rarely looked up. A small monitor had been placed in front of her, showing the CCTV footage.

  ‘About bloody time . . .’ Glenda said.

  Anik leaned forward.

  ‘As you can clearly see, Miss Dunn, you are placing clothes into the charity collection bin, shoes in the top level and clothes in the wider slot beneath. Could you please explain why you’re doing this?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We have a photograph of Jamail wearing a blue and white striped t-shirt, and you can very clearly be seen placing it in the bin, along with a pair of shoes.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Please continue to look at the monitor; on two further occasions you are seen placing items of clothing into the charity bin. It is quite obvious that you’re getting rid of items of clothing that belonged to other girls, specifically Trudie, Nadine and Jamail.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Miss Dunn, you are consistently refusing to answer every question put to you. This leads me to believe that you are deliberately concealing the truth. You were disposing of the victims’ clothing so they would not be found in Rodney Middleton’s flat, which means you were aware of what had happened to these girls. You have had every opportunity to assist this investigation, but by refusing to cooperate . . .’

  Everyone leaned forwards. Suddenly Anik started to heave, un-able to control it. He gasped for breath as if to stop the retching, then leant sideways over the arm of his chair and began to vomit.

  DCI Clarke immediately halted the interview, while an officer went to assist Anik.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Glenda exclaimed. Led by DCI Clarke the room was cleared and Anik was taken to the sick room. Amanda and her brief were taken into another interview room with a uniformed officer while a maintenance team cleaned and disinfected everything.

  Laura turned to ask Jack what was going to happen, but he just shrugged. They were already up against the clock and couldn’t keep Amanda in custody for much longer before they had to formally charge her. But they had never had an incident of this kind before so, nobody knew exactly what the next move would be.

  Glenda was certain they would have to reconvene the following day. She was unsure about the legalities, but as it was an emergency, perhaps they would be able to extend Amanda’s stay in custody. DCI Clarke walked in and gave a signal to Jack that he wished to speak to him.

  Jack followed him into his office.

  Clarke took a deep breath.

  ‘I have two options, Jack: I take over, or I let you take Anik’s place. I can give you some time to get up to speed if you need it.’

  Jack didn’t need to think about it. ‘I can do it, sir. And I’m as familiar with the case files as anyone.’

  An hour later the interview room had been fully cleaned and disinfected, then sprayed with air freshener, so it smelt like a bowl of fresh flowers.

  Amanda and Raj Bukhari were brought back in and Clarke explained that due to DS Joshi’s indisposition, Detective Sergeant Jack Warr would be taking his place. Amanda was read her rights again and to everyone’s surprise burst out laughing in Jack’s face. She pointed at him, then covered her mouth with her hands, giggling uncontrollably.

  Jack just smiled. ‘Perhaps you don’t recognise me, Amanda. I’m the officer you met at Euston Station. Do you remember that time?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, then quickly looked at her brief, as if she’d done something wrong.

  ‘Good. We had a long chat then, and, as I recall, you persuaded me to cough up £70 for your train ticket to Liverpool. But you actually had no intention of catching a train. Perhaps you were feeling a little bit guilty, and that’s why you gave me a bracelet with a broken clasp, which had at one time belonged to your friend Trudie. Do you remember?’

  She looked at Bukhari again, then swallowed. ‘No comment.’

  Jack maintained his friendly expression. ‘You know, Amanda, I understand sometimes why people say “no comment” in interviews because they think it will help them avoid getting into trouble. But another way of thinking of an interview like this is as an opportunity to tell us their side of the story. Because if you don’t tell us now, and then you find yourself in court, it could harm your defence. Do you understand?’

  She nodded, and this time she didn’t look at Bukhari. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. You also described a gold and ruby ring which you had given to Trudie in exchange for the bracelet, but you were a bit peeved because you said the clasp was broken and it wasn’t a fair deal.’

  ‘It wasn’t . . .’

  ‘I agree. We found the ruby ring and it was gold, not cheap silver like the bracelet.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We found it in the coal hole, did you know that?’

  He didn’t wait for her to reply. It was clear that he had already unnerved her as he opened his file and took out Trudie’s photograph.

  ‘She was very pretty, wasn’t she?’

  He laid out two more photographs of Trudie, given to them by her parents.

  ‘She was very young, but most importantly she was such a pretty girl. Don’t you agree?’

  Bukhari leaned forwards. ‘I don’t see the importance of whether my client found her pretty or not.’

  ‘Because you don’t like pretty girls, do you, Amanda?’ Jack continued. ‘You don’t like them sleeping in the bed that you sleep in with Rodney; that makes you very upset.’

  Before she could repeat her mantra of ‘no comment’ Jack ploughed on. He pulled out photographs of Jamail and Nadine.

  ‘Prettier than you, aren’t they, Amanda?’

  ‘No, they were not,’ she said angrily.

  Bukhari touched her arm, but she pulled it away.

  She scowled. ‘He’s saying things about me that aren’t true.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jack said gently. ‘It’s just that I know pretty little girls have always been a thorn in your side. I’m sorry to be talking to you looking like this; perhaps I should explain what happened. My daughter left a toy on the stairs. I was in a hurry because Sharon is only four and half, and I was worried because she was playing with the cord on her blinds in her bedroom.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more! Shut up!’

  ‘I’m just trying to explain that I was very concerned that she might get the cord round her tiny little neck . . . It has happened, you know, children accidentally hanging themselves on blind and curtain cords, and . . .’

  Amanda shoved the table hard with both of her hands. Her face was distorted with rage.

  ‘Fuckin’ shut up! It was not my fault!’

  Jack put both hands up in the air.

  ‘I don’t think you realise that you could be charged with being an accessory to murder. You could be sentenced to spend the rest of your life in prison . . .’

  Now it was Bukhari who interrupted Jack by slapping the table.

  ‘I refuse to allow my client to be subjected to this any longer. If you have any questions to ask Miss Dunn then please do so, but don’t introduce some story that has nothing to do with why we are here.’

  Jack kept his calm demeanour. ‘I’m just trying to explain to Miss Dunn that by refusing to assist in our enquiries she is placing herself in a very dangerous position. Amanda, you were wearing the dead girl Trudie’s bed socks, socks with her blood on them. Have you forgotten? You showed them to me; you told me they had belonged to her and that you liked them . . . so you didn’t get rid of them like the other girls’ clothes, did you?’

  Everyone in the viewing room was listening intently. Laura turned to Glenda and whispered, ‘His daughter’s called Hannah, and she’s not four and a half; what is he trying to do?’

  ‘Break her,’ Glenda said. ‘Look at her, she’s biting off her false nails. It’s about time someone put the wind up her, and I think Jack knows exactly how to do it. I don’t see the DCI interrupting, even though he looks a bit taken aback.’

  Jack was looking at his file in a relaxed way, then quietly said, ‘You love him, don’t you?’

  Bukhari looked as if he was about to interrupt but Amanda simply nodded.

  ‘I think you’re trying to help him by not answering any questions, but just repeating “no comment” is not going to help you, or him.’

  ‘My client is fully aware of what she’s doing,’ Bukhari said firmly.

  ‘Do you mean that your client is aware that if she assisted our enquiry, it would be in her best interests?’ Jack responded. ‘I do not believe that Amanda wants to spend the rest of her life in prison. Time is running out, so I would like to revisit some of the questions that were put to her earlier.’

  Jack placed her mobile phone on the table.

  ‘Is this your phone, Amanda?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Next Jack pulled out the mobile phone they had taken from Harold Miller.

  ‘What about this one? We know you’ve been using it, since we have records of your calls, as well as your Snapchat conversations with one of the victims. You were arranging for her to meet you at Euston Station. In addition, we also have a postcard from Nadine O’Reilly, sent to her parents. Please read what she says, Amanda.’