I Am Watching You(47)
‘I bet you would, but so far we have had three versions of your story. And it’s wasting my time. Do you really need me to remind you that this is a serious investigation?’
‘How dare you.’ Henry stands up, his chair making a loud scraping noise against the tiled floor.
‘Sit down!’
Henry ignores this. ‘My daughter is still missing. It’s been a whole year, and you still haven’t got a clue what has happened to her. You let the two main suspects do a bunk right at the start, and you think you need to remind me that this is serious.’
Henry’s solicitor puts a hand on his arm gently, signalling with his other hand to sit down, but Henry is fuming. He has played along with all this incompetent bull long enough.
‘If you had told us the truth from the off, Mr Ballard, you could have avoided wasting a lot of our time. Now sit down, please.’
Finally, Henry obeys. ‘So – has April spoken to you? Given a statement?’ He finds it strange to say her name out loud in company. Does not like to think of the police round there, stirring it all up. Net curtains twitching.
‘Yes. She has confirmed your latest version of events. Though you seem to make a habit of asking the women in your life to lie for you. You asked your wife to lie first, of course.’
‘None of this is Barbara’s fault. I told her I didn’t want the police to know how drunk I was. That I had planned to drive and had to sleep in the car.’
‘And she really believed that?’
Henry looks down at his bare feet, wondering if he should have changed his mind about the socks. He had assumed they would just let him go now. Why more questions? According to the rules, they had just one more hour to either charge him with something or let him go.
‘I shouldn’t need to remind you, Mr Ballard, that I can charge you with breach of the peace or threatening behaviour.’
‘I only got so upset at the barn because I wanted to speak to Melanie Sanders. I told you that.’
‘And why Melanie Sanders?’ His tone says more than the words.
Henry tries to read the inspector’s face, and picks up some signal that he needs to tread carefully.
‘I found her straight to deal with, that’s all. She’s been good to my family, along with Cathy, the family liaison officer.’
‘Right. Well, she’s on leave, as I have told you. And I’m in charge of this case.’
There is a lot of shuffling of paperwork. Finally, it is Henry’s solicitor who speaks.
‘Well, if that’s all and you are now happy with Mr Ballard’s version of events, I must request that he is released. It’s been a very distressing time and he needs to be with his family.’
The inspector seems to be weighing this up when suddenly the door to the interview room opens.
‘What now? Nothing to do with socks I hope?’
The sergeant moves across to whisper into the inspector’s ear. The senior officer’s expression now changes completely, and Henry is frowning as the DI confirms for the tape that he is leaving the room and needs to pause the interview for a few moments.
‘What’s going on?’ Henry turns to his solicitor, who merely shrugs.
The inspector is gone for several minutes before returning to pick up his jacket from the back of his chair, and to announce that Henry is to be released without charge for now but the police reserve the right to make further inquiries and may need to speak to him again.
And then the inspector takes a deep breath, looking at Henry very intently. He announces next that there has been an ‘unexpected development’ in the police inquiry. His tone is different, guarded. He says that Henry will be driven home and more will be explained to him on the journey.
Henry is now completely confused. He had expected to phone Barbara, hoping that the April escapade would not have leaked and she would be prepared to pick him up. He wonders why the police are offering him a taxi service. He glances from face to face in the room; the atmosphere has definitely changed.
‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’
‘You will be told more on the journey, Mr Ballard.’
CHAPTER 30
THE FRIEND
Sarah sits on the sofa and leans forward to put her head in her hands. She needs to think, think, think.
She needs to conjure the right words to shake the real Lily out of this distant, unrecognisable stranger. But the words just won’t come, and instead she is thinking, as she does so often at night, of the last words she spoke to Anna. Of the horrible and angry exchange that she has not shared with the police and that she had planned to share here with Lily. The old Lily.
There are now three people sitting opposite, doing the funny touching-of-the-wrist-bead nonsense while Sarah wills them to get lost and let her speak to her sister. As well as Moon, there is a couple calling themselves Rainbow and Waterfall.
‘So, is this a cult?’ Sarah finally blurts out, staring at them and no longer caring if she causes offence. ‘I mean – what’s with all the wrist beads and the weird names?’
‘It’s nothing to be upset about, Sarah. It’s a good thing. It’s calming and healing.’ Lily is looking directly at her, and she seems so terribly fragile that Sarah feels suddenly close to tears with frustration.
‘OK. So if you don’t ask these people to leave, I am going to say it all in front of them. About Dad, Lily. And unless I have got this completely wrong, then I think you know very well this is not a conversation you want them to hear.’