Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(50)

‘I saw it on the news that Millie had become a street prostitute and prostitutes die. Am I supposed to feel something? You are talking about people from my past who I barely remember.’

‘You must be sad about Nicola; you were in a relationship for a long time. You were a big part of each other’s lives.’

‘Only seven years. I’ve been inside here over twice as long. I have a bigger relationship with the food I cook than to any human. If the police didn’t leak the information then she must have blabbed. She must have kept in touch with someone she shouldn’t have.’

‘That’s what you think happened?’

‘I don’t have a crystal ball, Detective. I’m just trying to help you out. You’re supposed to be the clever detective.’

‘Have you ever kept in touch with anyone that appeared at your trial? Any of your disciples?’

‘I’m sure you’d know if I had.’

‘Things get into prison that aren’t monitored, plus you have been allowed out, unaccompanied, for some time now.’ He didn’t answer. ‘They all stuck by you at the trial. Your disciples are almost all still around.’

‘Of course they did because I was not guilty and they knew it.’ He smiled, but he leaned across the table, exasperated. ‘I was merely one of many who knew Heather. Ask her uncle, he had his grubby little hands on everyone at that farm, all the stable girls had been groped by him at one point. He and Nicola were always at it behind my back. Ask her father, he was a bully of biblical proportions. It was all punishment and penance with him. Ask him what happened to his daughter. Or Saul, the weird farrier who spied on us all. We used to act out little charades for him on the patio at the back of the bungalow because we knew he was always watching from his first-floor windows. Ask all of those people what happened to Heather. Davidson tried to get me for Heather because he wanted it so badly. He couldn’t see anyone else in the equation. He gambled and he absolutely lost. You want to find out what happened to Heather, be my guest. You will never get me for that.’

‘We are in the process of searching more than one gravesite at Lambs Farm in Buckinghamshire. Do you know it?’ asked Willis.

‘Never heard of it.’

‘You used to deliver there.’

‘I delivered all over the UK.’ Douglas was distracted; out, he was running through his memory.

‘We have found a grave. In fact we were led there by Nicola’s killer. He left her phone on a grave. Since then we have uncovered more in that field. It’s a field with trees at the top, secluded, a high hedge, no houses in sight.’ Douglas stared at her as if he heard something from the past. ‘We will continue searching. If we find something that links to you we will push for a prosecution. If you co-operate with us at this point it will go better for you.’

Slowly his eyes cleared, the clouds lifted, the mist over the green rock pool lifted and he smiled.

‘Sergeant, search as much as you like, you will find nothing of mine in there. I have done my time, paid my price; I deserve to come out now. My past is behind me.’

‘The past is never really gone.’

He smiled. ‘Maybe you’re right. You know who I think murdered Nicola and Millie? This is Heather herself, saying: “Look at me, everyone, I’m alive!”?’ He laughed. His laughter trickled on until it ended as a sigh. He kept his eyes on Willis; they were bright and angry now. He was trying to see beneath her skin. The room was beginning to feel very stuffy. ‘I tell you, I take my hat off to boring little Heather and the way she’s managed to ruin my life all by her unimportant little self.’ He shifted in his seat, agitated. ‘I won’t answer questions about Heather. I’m done with that, not guilty, remember? I am sorry someone killed Nicola, but it was pretty inevitable.’

‘In what way?’

‘People hated her more than me.’ He smiled, shook his head. ‘They could see she was lying about the McKinney case.’

‘Was she?’

‘Yes. I will give you this little bit of information now that she has departed from this world. She was in the van with me when I picked up McKinney. She was with me the whole time. There, that’s my present to you, now don’t forget, you owe me.’

‘I owe you nothing. Why did you feel an obligation to her at the time? Why didn’t you speak out about her involvement?’

‘It didn’t make a difference in the end, did it?’

‘If you have information that can help us catch this person it will look good on your record.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘This person may be willing to go to great lengths to keep you in here.’

‘I’m not putting a nail in my own coffin just to solve your murder cases.’

‘You still have influence on the outside. Yvonne Coombes thought so. I have to presume that you are receiving contraband items such as access to a phone and that you are abusing your privileged time spent on work parties by communicating with criminal individuals. Why does Yvonne Coombes feel threatened by you?’

He lifted his eyebrows, staring back at her, but interest flickered in his eyes – the shifting oceans of sea and sky were colliding and regrouping and he had become very still, very intent on what she was saying. He leaned forward slightly to get closer to her.