Кара Хантер - In the Dark

I see Lynda Pearson glance at him and I think I know why. The swearing – it’s like a warning light. A sign he’s slipping. That we’re losing him.

I open my cardboard folder quickly and take out a picture of the girl. It’s the first time I’ve looked at her face since I read what Challow found.

‘Is this the woman you’re talking about?’

He looks at me blankly. Blinks.

‘This young woman is called Vicky. She was found in the cellar of your house. With a little boy.’

I pass across a second picture. He pushes it away. ‘Priscilla always was an evil cow.’

‘This isn’t your wife, Dr Harper. This is a young woman called Hannah Gardiner. Her body was found in your shed. She’d been missing for two years.’

I pull the photos together side by side, facing him. ‘What can you tell me about these women?’

‘I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong. I am not a bad man. She probably told you I was. She probably said I was a pervert.’ There is spit dribbling from his mouth now. ‘One of those paedophiles the press get so uptight about. That’s what she said. That I was a nasty twisted peedo and I ought to be locked up.’

‘Who said that?’ says Baxter. ‘It was Vicky, wasn’t it – when you were doing whatever sick things you were doing to her –’

Harper shrinks back. ‘What’s he talking about?’ He turns to Pearson, louder now. ‘ What’s he talking about? ’

I point to Vicky’s picture. ‘Dr Harper, we have evidence that you raped this girl –’

He starts to rock backwards and forwards, snivelling quietly. ‘It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.’

‘– raped her and kept her locked up in your cellar for nigh on three years –’

He covers his ears. ‘I don’t go down there – not any more – there’s something down there – I hear it – in the night – wailing and scratching –’

I lean forward, forcing him to look at me. ‘What did you hear down there, Dr Harper? What did you hear? ’

But Pearson turns to me and shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, I don’t think we can carry on with this.’

Outside, in the corridor, Pearson catches up with me.

‘I think there’s something you should know. I’d have said something before, but it’s the first time I’ve seen that picture – there’s been nothing in the press.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m not with you.’ If I’m a bit short with her, well, that’s not going to come as any great surprise.

‘That girl,’ she says. ‘Vicky. She’s the image of Priscilla. The hair, the eyes, everything. I’m not sure what it means – or if it means anything – but it’s something you need to know.’

‘Was Mrs Harper your patient too?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. She went private. But I met her a few times. Let’s just say that she wasn’t a very easy person.’

‘According to our records, the police were called out twice to disturbances at the house. On both occasions it appears she was the aggressor. That she attacked her husband.’

She nods. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. By all accounts she led him a dog’s life. I remember Bill telling me he’d been to infertility testing because they were trying to get pregnant. It was only much later that he found out she’d had a coil fitted privately years before. He was furious. As much for the lie as for the fact that he’d missed his chance to be a father. He and Nancy had wanted kids but it never happened.’

I nod slowly. ‘Anyone would be angry. That sort of deception.’

She sighs. ‘I think he hated her, even before that. Because of what their affair did to Nancy. I tried to tell him the breast cancer would have happened anyway, but he kept blaming himself – saying that between them, he and Priscilla had killed her. Apparently, when he told Priscilla he would never leave Nancy, she went round to the house and told her what was going on. Nancy had no idea – she was very trusting. The thought of Bill being unfaithful would never even have occurred to her. She was diagnosed less than a year later and she only lasted six months after that. That’s where a lot of the animosity is coming from now. All that fury he had to suppress while Priscilla was alive – the Alzheimer’s is letting it all out. And then when you show him a picture of someone who looks so like her – well, it’s small wonder he reacts how he does.’

‘So how would he have reacted if he’d actually met her? If he’d seen Vicky outside his house?’

The doctor goes pale. ‘Oh Lord – is that what you think happened? Is that what he meant about a moment of madness?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

She shakes her head sadly. ‘That poor, poor girl. And that poor child. Do you know how he’s doing?’

I could say something, but I don’t. ‘He’s in good hands. At least for now.’

***

In the incident room, Somer is on one of the computers, scrolling down through batch after batch of images. One of the DCs wanders past behind her and bends to have a look. ‘If it’s furniture you’re after you could try Wayfair. My girlfriend swears by it. I should know – I have to pay for all the bloody stuff.’

Somer is still staring at the screen. ‘It’s not for me. There’s a particular type of cupboard I’m trying to track down.’

The DC shrugs. ‘Suit yourself. I was just trying to help. We’re not all after a shag, whatever you might think.’

She watches him walk away, her cheeks burning, wondering what she did wrong. Or if she did anything wrong at all. Then she sighs, knowing exactly what her sister would have said if she could see her now. But Kath was the most beautiful girl in the school from the first day she arrived: she got used to the cost of her looks very early on. Somer, by contrast, spent her childhood being told she was merely ‘nice-looking’, and the change, when it came, forced her into attention she had no idea how to handle. There are times, like now, when it feels as if she’s hardly made any progress at all.

She turns back to the computer, and a few minutes later she sits back, gazing at the screen. Then she logs on to the shared CID server and pulls up the photos taken in Frampton Road.

‘Gotcha,’ she says, under her breath.

***

Donald Walsh is sitting in exactly the same chair William Harper was sitting in half an hour ago, if he did but know it. In the room next door, Everett is watching on the screen. It’s clear that Walsh is in full performance mode. He’s making a great show of checking his watch every thirty seconds and looking around with an increasingly irritated expression. The door opens and Gislingham comes to join her. His face says it all.

‘So you got something?’

‘Yup. Walsh’s prints are an exact match to the unidentified sets in both the cellar and the kitchen. They are also – and this is where it gets interesting – a match for some of those we found in the shed. But only on the paint tins and the garden stuff.’

‘So you’re going to interview him?’

Gislingham nods. ‘He’s deffo got some explaining to do.’

On the screen, the door opens to reveal Quinn, who looks around, clearly expecting Gislingham to be there already.

‘Oops,’ says Gislingham, ‘I’d better go.’

Everett watches as he joins Quinn, taking his seat and pushing his chair back.

‘Mr Walsh,’ begins Quinn, ‘I am Detective Sergeant Gareth Quinn. DC Gislingham you already know. For the purposes of the tape, I can confirm that you have already been cautioned –’

‘Which is a preposterous bureaucratic overreaction, if you don’t mind me saying so – I had absolutely nothing to do with any aspect of this ludicrous shambles.’