Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(57)
‘How, why?’ asked Willis.
‘Look at me in the photo, I am innocence on a stick. I mean, I don’t think I had enough wits about me to crawl out of there. I was just a mixed-up, drugged-up kid at a crossroads and I happened to take the wrong turn. I was there for six months on and off, that’s all.’
‘Things have been straightforward for you since then?’
‘I’ve had a few hurdles along the way.’
‘You were arrested for domestic violence?’
‘My wife, Vanessa, was having mental problems, but she admitted making it all up, self-harming. It was all ridiculous. We are still together. We weathered the storm; fourth time lucky for me.’ He smiled.
‘Seven years ago you were involved in a scam that saw a lot of people cheated out of their money,’ Willis stated.
‘I was unlucky in a business venture. It was never my intention to rip anyone off.’
‘But you’ve had more luck with recent ones, what about GET?’
‘Yes, that’s mine and Cathy’s. What is this all about? What has my business got to do with the murders of these women?’
‘The murder of two of your fellow disciples, you mean?’
‘If you like, yes.’
‘We also know that one of the other disciples, Gavin Heathcote, far from being a virtual stranger to you, worked for your company Global Escape Travel, when he did security for some of the villas you let out to holidaymakers amongst other things.’
‘Possibly you’re right. Cathy would have handled that, she does all the foreign stuff. I prefer to stay here. Why don’t you ask her? Can we wrap this up now, I need to get on with my work?’ he said.
‘Of course, we will be talking to everyone in detail. This is a major inquiry that seems to be getting bigger by the day. It isn’t going to go away in a hurry and I’m sure we’ll be back to talk again. For now we will need a detailed account of your movements between the seventeenth and the twentieth of last month.’
‘I can give you those straight away. I’ve been working from home in that time. I’ve walked the dog, gone to the supermarket and that’s it. My wife can confirm that.’ He called her and once Carter had heard her confirmation of her husband’s account of things he continued with his questioning.
‘Where do you walk your dog?’
‘Anywhere I feel.’
‘Do you ever drive up to Lee Valley Park?’
‘No, why would I? It’s the other side of London.’
Chapter 30
Outside Carter glanced across at Willis once they’d started driving.
‘What did you think?’ he asked. ‘Interesting, wasn’t it?’
‘Very,’ answered Willis, looking at her notes.
‘He’d obviously had a skinful last night and he looks like a bully, hard-faced. He has the madness of a megalomaniac about him.’
‘I agree, his take on life, on justice, is warped. I don’t think he lives in the kind of reality most of us understand. Maybe, all his life he’s been used to lying and covering up the truth.’
‘His wife sounded like she was used to saying what he wants her to. She didn’t have to try too hard to give us an account of his whereabouts for every minute of the day, did she? She looked as if she doesn’t stand up to him, or doesn’t give a shit any more. She may be worth talking to on her own.’
They were waiting at traffic lights. Carter leaned on the steering wheel, something he did in thinking mode. ‘You know what I can’t get my head around, Eb? Why do the disciples keep in touch with one another? You’d think they’d want to forget everything that went on in that bungalow. But, they still stick together. The chain still binds them.’
‘I’m starving, can we talk and eat?’ said Willis.
Carter immediately changed direction and took a detour towards the East End. They went to the Madras Palace on Brick Lane and settled into sharing poppadums and competing for the pots of pickles and chutneys as they rotated on a stand.
‘I’ve been working on a timeline for both their careers and personal lives, let me run it through with you,’ said Willis, waiting whilst Carter loaded up his plate. ‘Ready?’
‘Shoot.’ Carter had prepared himself by ordering more beer. They were alone in the restaurant. It was between the people who came to dinner at normal time and the people who came out of the pubs hungry. Willis took out a plastic sleeve from a file in her backpack.
Willis began reading: ‘Heather missing in July, come early 2001 they are still in the bungalow until police arrive investigating a young lad from another farm, Darren Slater. He disappeared at the beginning of the foot and mouth crisis, and it threw up a possible link to Douglas, he knew the lad and Darren was seen getting into Douglas’s van. In February, Douglas’s van was seized, with plenty of links to Heather and to Rachel McKinney. So that’s it for Douglas, he is on trial for Heather first, which collapses, and then for Rachel McKinney which is successful. Stephen stays with Gavin and carries on with the slaughtering, as we know, while Cathy leaves for home and then for Tenerife as a holiday rep where she starts selling timeshare and in October that year, 2001, sets up her own company.’
‘That’s pretty smart.’ Carter was piling up curry on his plate. ‘The timeshare industry has never had the best of reps.’