Waters said, ‘And this was Sylvie Favreau?’

  Leadsom seemed to sense the importance of that question, that moment. He hesitated and then said that yes, it was, the French girl. So there they were, he went on, the old eternal triangle but in those weird times. Ronnie said Saul just kept turning up and getting in the way, and he and this girl would be hiding so they could have some time on their own.

  He paused and then said, ‘He did really like her. She had a guitar and used to sing. He said she had a great voice. No doubt Ronnie happened to mention he was ‘in the music business’, which would have moved things along nicely. But they were just kids partying, really.’

  ‘Talking of which,’ said Freeman, ‘did Ronnie ever say whether they were using drugs?’

  You could say it was lucky, to ask that question at that moment – others would tell you it’s a gift. It took Leadsom by surprise. He said, ‘Yeah, of course. The new age wasn’t going to be that different to the old one.’

  Freeman said, ‘And on the night in question, if you’ll pardon the expression. Were they high?’

  It was as if she had already seen in her imagination what he was about to tell them, and Waters might have been impressed by that – but he discovered then that he had already seen it himself. You’re watching a film for the first time but you could pause it and write down exactly what happens next. He already knew who had killed Sylvie, and he probably knew why – only the details remained unclear.

  Leadsom was pausing again, as if for breath – in another minute or two, if he continued with this, he would have said the words; it was Waters’ suspicion now that they were the first people to be told this since the night the young woman died. Freeman had sensed it too – he saw that she was looking at her nails again. Perhaps it was a nervous habit.

  ‘Ronnie told me they had all dropped some acid.’

  Freeman said, ‘You mean LSD?’

  A nod followed by a shake of the head. ‘Yeah. I did that once, and it was enough. Horrible stuff. Give me a single malt any day.’

  He was finding reasons to delay and defer. Smith might have entered into a discussion about those really peaty island whiskies at this point; Freeman chose to wait and watch.

  Leadsom said, ‘This is what Ronnie told me happened – and for what it’s worth I’ve never doubted him on this. Saul brought the acid and they all took some. Ronnie said it was powerful stuff and they were tripping for hours. Saul started talking about the summer solstice, how they should celebrate it the old way, like the Druids…’

  Waters glanced at Freeman and she acknowledged it – he was certain that behind the video camera’s lens, Murray and Sterling had just looked at each other, too.

  ‘… Saul said they were going to re-enact it, the human sacrifice just before the dawn. Ronnie remembered Saul saying that Sylvie would make the perfect offering because she was a Christian – she’d told them she’d been brought up a Catholic. He said they went along with it for a laugh. He said Ronnie seemed to know where he was going – he took them to a place in the woods.’

  Spring Covert, thought Waters, where this all began, for me at least. He recalled Jim Goodrum telling him he’d met some of these long-haired hippies wandering about – they’d threatened to release his pheasants.

  ‘Ronnie said Saul had brought things with him. He saw the rope first. There was already a noose tied in it. It was dark but there was enough light for him to see what was happening. Ronnie was saying some weird things – like spells or something, you know, incantations? Facing to the four points of the compass and all the mumbo jumbo they get up to…’

  This was costing James Leadsom now. He had lost a little colour and most of his composure – when he swallowed, there was a soft sort of rattle in his throat.

  ‘Saul was running this show. He told the girl she had to kneel facing east, and she did. Ronnie blames himself – he says she was going along with it to please him, showing she was up for anything. Saul put the noose around her neck, still saying all the words, the ritual stuff. The way Ronnie told it, this was going on for an age but then he noticed she was coughing and trying to say something. He thought she was acting, then he realised she wasn’t. He shouted at Saul to pack it in but he was pulling it tighter. Ronnie stepped in and then this nutcase pulls out a knife…’

  Leadsom was pale and Waters thought he was going to be sick – it happens in interview rooms more often than we might imagine.

  ‘Ronnie said he put his hands up when he saw the knife but he still went towards them, telling Saul to let go. When he was close enough, Saul smacked him in the face hard. Ronnie wasn’t a fighter, you know – love and peace, and all that. It knocked him down, he says he was out for a few seconds. When he came to, he could see Saul pulling on the rope with one hand while he slashed at the girl with the knife. He said he knew Saul was trying to kill her for real, then.

  ‘Ronnie got up and just sort of threw himself onto them. It knocked Saul over and he dropped the knife. Ronnie says he got the rope or cord or whatever it was off her neck, and that’s when he noticed there was blood. This lunatic had stabbed her as well as strangled her. Ronnie tried feeling for a pulse but he couldn’t find anything. He tried giving her mouth-to-mouth but he didn’t really know how. From what he told me, he spent a long time trying to revive her before he admitted she was dead.’

  In the quiet after that, Leadsom looked at both of them – it was Waters’ guess that having told them this dreadful story, he needed to know it had been believed.

  Freeman said, ‘What was Saul doing afterwards? Did Ronnie tell you?’

  ‘Yeah. Ronnie said he just sat there staring. They were still tripping, remember. Ronnie said it was like waking up from the worst nightmare of your life and realising it had all happened. There’s a dead girl. What are you going to do?’

  After a pause of some seconds, Freeman said, ‘Call the police?’

  Leadsom said with some eagerness, ‘That was in Ronnie’s mind, he told me that. But then…’

  Waters was remembering Spring Covert again – the police at the time would have been over the area with a fingertip search. He said to Leadsom, ‘What happened to the knife?’

  ‘Ronnie had picked it up. He said after what he’d seen he wasn’t having it back in Saul’s hands – he was half-scared Saul might do him in for being a witness.’ And then to Freeman, Leadsom said, ‘See, this is what I was going to explain. On the way back to the festival site, Ronnie’s thinking he’ll turn him in. Then he looks down and sees he’s got the knife in his hands. He knows his prints are on it, as well as Saul’s. Are the police going to believe a word of it?’

  He looked at them again, as if he were asking those very police officers just a mere twenty years after the event. Did they believe a word of it now?

  Freeman said, ‘According to Ronnie, what happened next?’

  Leadsom sat up, his expression a little harder and more business-like, as if the senior investigating officer had answered the question. He said, ‘They stood around a long time, scared to meet anyone. Ronnie admitted he was in total shock at it – he didn’t know what to do. But Saul’s coming down off his high now. He said to Ronnie something like we’re in this together, we just keep our mouths shut.

  ‘Ronnie remembered holding out the knife to Saul. Saul laughed at him, and walked away.’

  Waters said, ‘What did he do with it?’

  There was a chance, even after twenty years, that the thing could be examined and analysed. But Leadsom shook his head. He said, ‘He hid it in a skip at the back of the hall. It was carted away before she was found.’

  Freeman pointed out in a matter-of-fact manner, that concealing or disposing of evidence was perverting the course of justice; the more serious the crime involved, the heaver the sentence. Even if Ronnie’s story were true, she said, he would serve several years if convicted of that. Leadsom’s defences were back in place now and he didn’t respond to her.

  Waters said, ‘Why was there a skip at the back of Wissingham Hall?’

  Leadsom regarded him with a puzzled stare but Waters didn’t explain further.

  ‘We never stopped having renovations done, even when it was up for sale. These old piles are money pits.’

  Waters said, ‘What sort of renovations were going on at the time?’

  Leadsom said, ‘Christ… It was twenty years ago. It might be in my accounts. I claimed back tax on everything. Why?’

  Waters was aware that Freeman was watching him. He said, ‘I wondered whether you were replacing any windows.’

  Leadsom’s puzzlement was replaced by surprise. He said, ‘Yeah, we were. Tens of thousands it cost me. The place was a listed building – you couldn’t just whack in a load of plastic double-glazing. We had consultants in, had to replace like for like. Why?’

  Waters said, ‘So these would have been the original sash windows – you were taking them out and replacing them?’

  Yes, said Leadsom. Freeman had got it now – she gave Waters a slight nod of acknowledgment. It was a small and some might say insignificant piece of the jigsaw but it was in place now. If you’re doing one of these puzzles, it has to be complete or there really is no point.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  James Leadsom went on to tell them about his brother’s life since the moments that altered it forever. There were no more efforts to get into the music business, and he had drifted this way and that, sometimes off on his own for a while but always depending on James when things became difficult – and that seemed to happen with increasing frequency. As far as James knew, Ronnie had never again used illegal drugs but drinking had taken their place – he had been an alcoholic for a long time. Wainfleet House was only the latest in a line of clinics and rehabilitation units.

  Freeman asked whether there had been any more contact with Saul, and once again she touched a nerve. Leadsom seemed to steady himself before he answered.

  ‘I’d got Ronnie past the immediate crisis, got him more or less stable, and then it all kicked off again. Saul had started calling him on the phone, saying they needed to meet up.’

  She said, ‘When was this?’

  ‘About six months later. It was around the first Christmas afterwards.’

  Freeman said, ‘And did they meet up?’

  Waters could see where she was going with this: even if Ronnie had been as innocent of Sylvie’s murder as James was claiming, agreeing to meet Saul would have destroyed any credibility he might have established in the witness box.

  Leadsom said, ‘No. I made sure of it.’

  The next question was an obvious one but Freeman did not ask it immediately. Waters wondered whether she would caution him now or in two minutes’ time – he could see no way around it now. Eventually she said, ‘How did you do that?’ and Leadsom answered.

  ‘I wasn’t having this creep anywhere near Ronnie ever again. I looked for him, couldn’t find him but I found his brother. I went to see him and told him the story.’

  Waters said, ‘This was the man called Seth?’

  Leadsom nodded – ‘And you know the funny thing? He just accepted it. He wasn’t surprised. He knew his brother was a psycho.’

  Freeman said, ‘How exactly did you make sure Saul stayed away from Ronnie? What did you say?’

  ‘I told Seth that if his brother ever came near Ronnie again, I’d kill him.’

  There is a remote possibility, thought Waters, that he did so, and that’s why he’s turned up here today in a good suit; Leadsom’s track record on the financial markets suggested that while he might not be Gordon Gekko he was certainly a member of the same pack.

  Freeman said, ‘I’m presuming it didn’t come to that, James…’

  ‘No. I never met Saul again, but I did meet up a couple of times with Seth. I made him an offer and he took it.’

  Waters could see Freeman was watching for the moment, the last possible moment before she felt obliged to step in and pause this; going too soon might mean they did not hear the conclusion to Leadsom’s story this afternoon, and they might not then hear it for months. Going too late might mean that whatever Leadsom was about to tell them would be deemed inadmissible by a judge. She said, ‘What sort of offer did you make?’

  Leadsom said, ‘They were living in a mobile home in Wolverhampton alongside a lot of similar sorts. It was a sort of ancient hippies’ rest home, even though a lot of them were only Ronnie’s age. There were young kids with no clothes, dogs running round. Like somewhere in the third world… I told Seth if he cleared out and took Saul with him, and if he made sure Saul never got in touch with Ronnie again, I’d fund it.’

  Freeman had raised a hand. She said, ‘To be clear, you offered Seth money in return for making sure that Saul – who you believed to be guilty of Sylvie Favreau’s murder – that Saul disappeared from your brother’s life?’

  For the first time since he arrived at Kings Lake Central yesterday, there was the merest hint of a smile on Leadsom’s face – he knew what Freeman was doing and he had expected it. He nodded at her, and she said, ‘James Leadsom. I am under no legal obligation to caution you at this point. I believe your actions twenty years ago, as described by you thus far, are incidental to the main focus of our inquiry at this time. However, I am pointing out to you that what you did with regard to offering money to Seth could be construed as conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. If you were charged with that offence and then convicted, you would be facing a substantial prison sentence.’

  Leadsom looked from her to Waters but he wasn’t blinking – he was waiting for her to say the rest of whatever it was she had to say.

  ‘I wanted you to be aware of the situation. Do you wish now, having heard of that risk, to stop here and return with representation for an interview which would then be conducted under caution?’

  Most of us would consider that with some care. Leadsom said almost immediately, no, carry on with it. As far as Waters could see, either he had already taken advice or he simply wasn’t concerned about his own fate.

  Freeman picked up her pen and began to write on her notepad – she nodded to Waters to continue.

  ‘James – you’ve just told us you never saw Saul again. From that, can we assume Seth took up your offer, and that they left the place in Wolverhampton?’

  Leadsom gave a single nod.

  ‘What was the deal you offered him? And where did they go?’

  Leadsom said, ‘I met him twice, as I said. The first time I told him, find a place and come back to me with a proposal. I said if it was acceptable, I’d fund it, on condition that this was a one-time deal and that he kept to it. A couple of weeks later, we met up again. He’d found somewhere they would all go, and he guaranteed we’d never hear from Saul again. I knew he couldn’t guarantee that but I reckoned it was worth a shot. I’d done some digging. The strange thing was it turned out they were a bit like me and Ronnie – he’d been responsible for his younger brother since he was a kid. Anyway, I set it all up.’

  Freeman had finished whatever she was writing down, but her look was telling Waters to continue. He said, ‘You gave Seth a sum of money?’

  Leadsom smiled at the naivete of the question.

  ‘No. That would have been stupid. A third party bought the property and offered Seth a long-term lease for a nominal sum. There were conditions attached. If he kept to them, all he was paying were the household bills. If he didn’t – if Saul ever showed up in my life or Ronnie’s again… Well, I’d already told him what plan B was. I think he could tell I was serious.’

  Waters thought, at the time this took place, James was about thirty years old. He had already built a financial empire; he had literally made a name for himself – one of the funds he managed had been called LRM, Leadsom Risk Management. He didn’t come from a privileged public school background like most of the opposition, and that implied he’d had certain other qualities in abundance. For Waters, the story had a ring of truth about it. He said, ‘My other question, James, was where did they go?’

  Leadsom leaned back and crossed his arms – it was plain they had reached the point of negotiation. Freeman was not inclined to do much beating about the bush in such situations. She said, ‘What do you want? Immunity?’

  He said, ‘For me? No… I’ve got a library full of fancy books at home I’ve never got around to. I could do with some time inside to catch up on my reading. Or I could study A Level Maths. I always fancied that.’

  Freeman said, ‘Then you want something for Ronnie. What is it?’

  He sat forward again. ‘Listen, love. You look as if you mean business, and I respect that. Everything I’ve told you today is the gospel truth but I know you’ve got to check it all out – that’s your job. Mine, now, is to do what I can for Ronnie. I’m just asking you to meet me somewhere in the middle.’

  Once again, Waters was surprised at the leeway Freeman seemed to be giving James Leadsom – perhaps it was political or perhaps she just liked him. She said, ‘Where do you see as the middle?’

  Leadsom said to her, ‘Ronnie’s in a bad way. You’ll see that for yourself when you go and take a look at him, as I know you will. He needs a liver transplant. There’s a chance he can get one but his mental health… It’s an issue when they’re scoring things like that. The last thing I need is someone going in and trying to drag it all up again. The psychiatrists have been trying to get it sorted for fifteen years and none of them ever knew the whole story, so why would a copper expect to get it out of him? If you start grilling him in an interview, he’ll just disappear inside, maybe for months. Unless you’ve seen it, you’ve no idea.’

  Freeman had a stare that could be disconcerting, to put it mildly. Waters saw her looking back at Leadsom now but there was something different in it – this was a look of mutual recognition. And Leadsom could see it too – Waters saw the surprise in his face.