Katerina Diamond – The Secret: The brand new thriller from the bestselling author of The Teacher (страница 14)
‘Well, it’s a classified operation. There must be things he can’t tell us.’
‘I worked with him, Miley, and I know when he’s lying. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him who deleted those files, whatever they are.’
‘Does he have those kinds of computer skills?’ Adrian asked her, surprised.
‘He could have had help.’
‘Well, Tunney is on the case.’
‘I’m just letting you know that you can’t believe a word that comes out of Sam’s mouth.’
‘Are you OK, Grey?’
‘Really?’ She looked as though he had just spat on her face.
‘I mean … you seem really upset. I don’t know this guy as well as you do, but look – he’s still working, he can’t be as bent as you’re thinking. Are you sure this isn’t paranoia getting the better of you?’
‘Fuck you!’ She pushed him hard and he slammed against the wall. It didn’t take a detective to realise she was upset.
Adrian knew that feeling and made a deal with himself not to be such a prick in the future. He remembered how people called him paranoid at times when he started spiralling out of control, and it did nothing but make him worse. He wouldn’t do that to Imogen. She had just got back to work; he should give her a break.
In Fraser’s office, the three of them gathered around the CCTV. They saw Bridget running terrified into the park and hiding inside a children’s adventure castle. They saw a man coming down to the river and looking for her, getting close and then going the wrong way.
‘Why doesn’t she go to one of the flats or something?’ Imogen asked, leaning in to look closer at the screen. Adrian had already tried that and it was no use, the faces were a blur. As they watched, a car pulled into the shot and the fuzzy figure of Bridget slipped into the water, clinging to the side of the river and moving along the bank.
‘She must be fucking freezing.’ Adrian felt cold just watching it.
‘Yeah but she’s alive, that’s something,’ Fraser offered.
‘What’s that?’ Imogen pointed to the screen.
‘What?’
‘Look, the boat, that one there, it’s moving.’
They watched as Bridget disappeared down the river, a few moments later the boat Imogen was pointing to started to follow her, moving in the same direction.
‘Can you read the name on that boat?’ Fraser asked hopefully. ‘It would be great if I can tell the press something.’
‘No, but it’s got those distinctive stripes on it. We’ll go down and have a look, see what’s what.’
‘What do you think they’re doing? Do you think this is an opportunistic attack?’
‘I don’t know, maybe it’s a coincidence that this boat is travelling in the same direction as she is.’
‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ Adrian said, moving towards the door.
‘Well, whatever’s going on here, there’s a good chance the guy in the boat saw something.’
‘I know how much you like the water, Grey. Let’s go,’ Adrian said, trying to crack the frosty atmosphere. He knew Imogen didn’t have any sea legs.
‘I’ll get on to the company that handles the boats down there, see if I can get a list of the owners,’ Fraser said.
The boat was surprisingly easy to find.
‘I think there’s someone in there,’ she said finally. ‘I think I hear a radio or something.’
Adrian stepped aboard and offered his hand to Imogen. He banged on the cabin door and heard shuffling coming from inside. The door opened and a man peered out. Adrian held his badge up.
‘I’m DS Miles and this is my partner, DS Grey of the Exeter Police Force. We’re making inquiries about something that may have happened here on Friday night. CCTV in the area saw that you were on your boat. A police officer went missing.’
‘Oh, do you mean the girl in the water?’ The man stepped out on to the deck.
‘You saw her?’ Imogen asked.
‘Yeah, I did, I dunno what she was doing. I thought she was hammered. I was going to call someone but I didn’t want to get involved, you know?’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Well, I followed her a bit in the boat, but it got too dark to see and I didn’t want to hit her. I called out a few times but no one answered. It’s not very well lit the further down you go.’
‘You still didn’t call the police?’
‘You see all kinds of crazy shit down here, kids mucking about, pissheads and stuff. I just figured she was fine.’
Imogen was shaking her head furiously. She pulled out her phone and started texting someone, her fingers flying over the keys.
‘What were you doing on your boat so late anyway?’ Adrian asked, resting a hand against the door of the cabin.
‘I just like it at night, it’s usually quiet and no one bothers me down here.’
‘Did you see anyone besides the girl?’
‘Not at first, no, but I did see a silver car come and look around.’
‘Did you see anyone in the car?’
‘There was only one bloke in it, I think.’
The detectives exchanged looks. If there was only one person in the car then it couldn’t have been the men from earlier, unless one of them had come back on his own. Or maybe it was Sam Brown. Imogen’s phone beeped.
‘Do you know what kind of car it was?’ she asked the man, her eyes on the phone screen.
‘A saloon, that’s about all I can tell you; like I say, it was really dark and I wasn’t exactly close.’
‘Anything else you remember about the car? Anything at all?’
‘No, I’m sorry. Nothing.’
A phone started to ring on the boat and Imogen looked past the man into the darkness of the cabin. The ringtone was coming from inside.
‘Hmm,’ Imogen said, holding up her mobile, ‘I just dialled DS Bridget Reid’s phone. That’s interesting. You want to tell me why you have it?’
Adrian immediately pushed past the man before he had a chance to react. He went into the cabin and found the vibrating phone resting on a little table to the left of the door. The man raised his hands up.
‘Look, look, OK, I found it in the park. I had no idea it belonged to the girl in the water. How could I?’
‘We’re going to need you to come in and make a statement.’
For a moment, the man looked as though he might be going to resist, but then he nodded. ‘No problem, anything to help the police.’
The detectives watched closely as he locked the cabin door, and followed Imogen and Adrian willingly off the boat.
Imogen watched the man from the boat through the glass window of the interrogation room. He seemed very calm, but there was something about him that made her skin crawl.
‘His name is Ben Vickers and he’s got previous.’ Miles burst in with a file.
‘What kind of previous?’
‘Well, he’s on the sex offenders’ register, for a start.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘I wish I was. No, he’s been cautioned three times for stalking and he lost his job after he sexually assaulted one of the women he worked with. It wasn’t a violent assault, but still. He was a security guard up at the shopping centre.’
‘Any connection to Bridget Reid?’
‘None that we can see. No connection to that house either. There’s a note here that says he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, but he got out of it.’