Blood Evidence Page 15

  “We’re clear,” I tell him.

  “Alright. Tomorrow. I’ll get someone to send you the details.”

  I put the phone down, satisfied. At least I’ve managed to achieve one good thing today.

  The last two shops take almost no time at all, and then the last building before we return to residential properties is another pub. A chain name, known for its cheap drinks.

  Well, it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it? Especially after the great victory I’ve just had.

  I ask the staff my usual questions, and as with everywhere else, not a single person amongst them recognises Ray Riley.

  So, we’re firmly back at square one.

  I drink a cheap pint, savouring the mild buzz and watching people around the rest of the pub. There are the older men, retired and with nothing better to do than to drink their afternoons away. Some of them red-nosed and wobbly, obviously habitual drinkers for many years. A few younger, spotty types, looking like they dropped out of school to go on Jobseekers. Two or three young mothers with children in prams or being kept quiet with colouring books, eating cheap meals and talking loudly.

  I love watching people. It fascinates me to watch people like these. Here they all are, stuck in their little lives with no excitement, no variation, no ambition. No desire to go out of this little town. I wonder how nice it must be to live inside their tiny little minds.

  I’m not like them. I won’t end up that way. I’ll stop the drinking at some point, I will. It’s not even as if I have a problem. I’ll do it to make Will happy. That way at least I’ll be able to keep an eye on him, make sure he eats properly. I can stop drinking any time I want. It’s just nice, isn’t it, to be able to have a pint when you want one? So, I’ll stop. Just not today.

  Nothing’s happening here. I drain my glass and leave, remembering what I promised. I head back to the Inn to let him know of my strike-out here – and my success in getting us that last interview we needed.

  Twenty-four – Will

  I wouldn’t say I was excited to talk to Cameron. That felt like the wrong kind of word. But I definitely felt like this could be our chance to make a break – to crack the case wide open. We needed proof that Cameron wasn’t our killer, something to re-motivate Ram and reinforce my belief.

  And he was the only one left who could possibly tell us something that didn’t incriminate him.

  Sitting down with him was both more and less intimidating than I imagined. We weren’t in some gritty, high-security prison room with our guest handcuffed to the table and dressed in stripes or orange, like you might have pictured from television. But neither were we talking to a free man. That much was clear.

  “For the tape, this is DCI Fairlight,” the man said. “Present are civilian consultants, Julius Rakktersen and William Wallace. Identify yourselves, please.”

  “Julius,” Ram said.

  “William,” I added.

  “It is 14:32 on the fifteenth of September,” Fairlight continued. “Cameron Winters is with us to discuss the murder of Isabelle Rupert, along with his legal counsel, James Dresson.”

  “Cameron,” Ram says. “We’ve spoken to all of the guests that were staying at the Highgate Inn, and the members of staff. We’d now like to talk to you about what happened, in your own words.”

  Cameron was visibly pale, and sweating. He toyed with the sleeve of his jumper, his expression barely changing as he nodded.

  “We’d like to start by asking you to go through what happened from the morning before Isabelle’s murder, as you remember it,” Ram said. “Please, just as you remember it. Nothing that you may have assumed or guessed since.”

  Cameron swallowed, then spoke in a tight, quiet voice. He was nothing like the man we had seen the morning of the murder, even though he had appeared nervous then. There was no comparison between the two. He was a shell, only.

  “I got up in time to go to breakfast,” he said. “Then I went back and stayed in my room and practiced.”

  “Practiced for what?” I asked.

  Cameron glanced up at me quickly, as if he had forgotten I was there. “My questions,” he said. “I came down to Sevenoaks for a job interview.”

  “Where do you live at the moment, Cameron?” Ram asked thoughtfully.

  Cameron glanced around him. He must have thought the question was a stupid one. He didn’t live anywhere except at Her Majesty’s pleasure at the present time.

  “Essex,” he supplied, eventually.

  “So you got this job offer down here – it must have been a pretty enticing one?” Ram pressed.

  “Double my salary,” Cameron said wistfully. “My dream job, with a company called Sennockian Prime. They said I would need to see them early in the morning for a full-day session, so I decided to come down two days early and stay in a hotel.”

  “Two days? Not just the night before?” I asked. It seemed odd, even to me, to take that much time to prepare.

  “I didn’t want to be tired,” Cameron explained. “I find it hard sleeping in a strange place. I thought by the second night I could get better rested. The first night was pretty horrible, as it was.”

  “Why was that?” I asked.

  “Well, I went down to the bar,” Cameron said, shaking his head as he looked at the table rather than at anyone else. His eyes moved back and forth, as if he was trying to watch back the scene in his mind. “I talked to this woman for a minute or two, nothing more. I was just being polite. Then I sat on my own, and maybe thirty minutes later, the security guard came over to me and said he’d had a complaint about me harassing female guests.”

  “You didn’t say anything inappropriate to her?” I said, raising an eyebrow. This sounded very odd.

  “No, honestly,” Cameron said. “I mean, I didn’t think I said anything. The only thing I could think of was maybe she misheard me, or something came across the wrong way. I would never… I’m not that kind of guy.”

  “Alright,” Ram said, gently. I could feel him trying to be Cameron’s friend, to get on his level. To deal with him softly. “So, let’s go back to the day of. What happened after you were done practicing your questions?”

  “I went down for lunch,” Cameron said, his face growing a shade paler. “I bet Johnny already told you about all of that.”

  “Let’s hear it in your words, all the same,” Ram said. “I don’t know if Johnny had it all the right way around. It’s important to hear your side as well.”

  Cameron took a deep breath, staring at his hands on the tabletop. “I stole his gold chain,” he said.

  Both Ram and I looked at him, then at each other, nonplussed. If we were expecting anything, it wasn’t that frank of an admission. Though, given the circumstances, maybe it shouldn’t have been so shocking.

  “Can you walk me through that in more detail?” Ram asked. “Start right from the beginning.”

  Cameron nodded. “Johnny was being so loud, opening his presents and bragging to the waitress about everything. It was getting on my nerves. I left early to go up to my room so I could get away from him, even though I wasn’t really done. I just wanted to focus on my interview.”

  “And when you left, Johnny was still there?”

  “Still holding court,” Cameron said, with a wry twist of his lips. “About ten minutes later, or maybe less, I get a call in my room. The waitress said they needed to see me downstairs about something, and I went, even though it felt really weird.”

  “Did you feel that you were being accused of something?” I asked.

  “Of course, they said it right to my face,” Cameron said. “Johnny’s chain had gone missing, and I’d been the only one in the room, so it must have been me.”

  “It must have been you?” Ram repeated. “That’s what they said?”

  “No, well, it’s what they inferred,” Cameron said, shrugging. “I had been the only one to leave the room, and it was probably obvious that Johnny annoyed me.”

  “And then what happened?” Ram asked.


  “I told them it wasn’t me and I went upstairs. I was back in my room for just a few seconds when I saw it.”

  “It?”

  “The chain,” Cameron said. He rubbed a hand back over his eyes and forehead. “It was in my room, just sitting there on the desk. I had to have taken it earlier.”

  His phrasing was odd. Really odd. “You don’t remember taking it?” I guessed.

  Cameron stared down at the table again, his expression blank. It was as if he had gone over it all so many times, he was numb. “I’ve been having these memory lapses,” he said. “I didn’t even remember about the interview until I got an email from the recruiter reminding me of what I needed to bring with me. I had to book everything last-minute. That’s why I ended up in the Highgate Inn. I wanted to be closer to the town centre, but everything else was booked.”

  “What you’re saying is that you don’t remember taking the gold chain, but you found it in your room after you were accused of taking it?” Ram said. “I just want to be sure.”

  “Yes,” Cameron sighed. “I know it sounds like a cop-out. I hold my hands up to it, honestly. I locked my room when I left it. I was the one who put it in there. And then I… I just panicked when I realised what I had done.”

  “You went and found the security guard, didn’t you?” I asked, consulting my notes from Jude’s interview.

  “Yeah. I told him I found it on the stairs, and that I couldn’t take it back in because Johnny wouldn’t believe me. The guard, he just smirked at me. I could tell he knew what I’d done. He didn’t say anything at first, just looked at me. ‘Blue Monday’ was just finishing playing. I remember hearing the music and just sweating, thinking he was going to turn me in. The drumbeats felt like my heartbeat, so fast while I was just stood there waiting for him to drop me in it or save me. Then he takes the chain, pats my arm, and says ‘Sure thing, mate’.”

  That song – hadn’t we heard about it before? I was flipping furiously back through my notebook when Ram spoke up.

  “Did you notice that ‘Blue Monday’ played again later?”

  “Yeah, when we all found – when we saw -” Cameron swallowed, clearly unable to bring himself to talk about Isabelle’s body. “The speakers came on. I thought about how odd it was, and how the drums were so fast – it felt like my heartbeat changed, sped up, just listening to them. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack.”

  Ram took that in, thinking. I didn’t want to interrupt. He was the one that got these interviews down to an art – knew the right buttons to press and emotions to trigger. If he thought he was onto something, I wouldn’t get in his way.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet,” Ram said finally. “Let’s go back to the day before. After the incident with the chain, what did you do?”

  “I went and hid, to tell the truth,” Cameron said. “I shut myself inside my room. I didn’t want to face anyone. I felt awful. Really awful. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “Never stolen anything? Not even as a kid?” Ram asked.

  “Not… well, once,” Cameron said, his eyes moving away as he recalled a distant memory. “When I was really little. I didn’t know it was wrong to take things. I just picked up this chocolate bar. My mum made me take it back and apologise. I felt so bad then. I would never normally do something like that.”

  Ram’s eyes narrowed for a moment before he continued. “What did you do for the rest of the afternoon?”

  “I alternated between thinking about what a terrible person I was and panicking about the interview,” Cameron said. “I got another email from the recruiter, asking if I’d remembered to fill in some forms, and I hadn’t. I had to do them online and there were loads of pages – it just went on and on. Background checks, personal details, that sort of thing. I was worried that not having them printed off was going to count against me.”

  “Did you go down for dinner?” Ram asked.

  “I ordered it to my room,” Cameron said. “I was still feeling… well, ashamed. When the waitress knocked on my door, I could hardly look her in the eye.”

  I watched him, resisting the urge to shake my head and tell him this was ridiculous. Something was wrong. The man who felt awful about stealing a gold chain, and didn’t even remember doing it, perhaps because the guilt had left a blackout in his memory, didn’t seem like the same man that could murder someone. That could even be capable of such a thing. The people we most commonly categorised as serial killers – psychopaths, sociopaths, the whole psychiatric nine yards – didn’t usually feel bad about petty theft.

  “I went down to the bar a little later,” Cameron continued. “I was feeling like I needed a drink to get my nerves back under control. That was around nine. I walked in, realised it was Johnny’s birthday party, and then walked right back out. I didn’t want to start anything.”

  “Did you see him with Isabelle?” I asked, remembering seeing him there myself.

  “Yes,” Cameron admitted. “They were dancing together. His hand was – well – pretty high up her thigh.”

  “And what did you think about that?” Ram asked.

  “I thought it was a bit… sort of common, really,” Cameron said. “It wasn’t offensive or anything, but the kind of people I spend time with don’t act like that. It’s only kids who do that kind of thing. Adults who haven’t grown up yet.”

  “After you left, what happened then?” I asked. I didn’t want to get stuck on any sort of cod psychology. It didn’t necessarily matter how Isabelle made Cameron feel. The motive had already been given to us, as unbelievable as it was. What mattered was whether he killed her or not.

  “I went straight back to my room, feeling trapped,” Cameron said. Curiously, a slight flush came to his cheeks then. “And then room service came.”

  “You ordered a drink?” Ram guessed. I told myself I was imagining his eyes growing brighter at that thought, his expression keener.

  “Well, no,” Cameron said. “I didn’t order it. That was the thing.”

  Ram made a gesture for him to continue.

  Cameron sighed. “It was for Johnny,” he said, clearly having some difficulty admitting it. “A bottle of champagne, two glasses, and a happy birthday message.”

  “What did you do?” Ram asked, leaning back in his chair. He supported his chin with one hand, an elbow balanced on the edge of the table.

  “I kept it,” Cameron confessed. “I saw the card and knew it was a mistake, and I kept it anyway. And I drank the champagne. All of it.”

  “Are you a habitual drinker, Cameron?” I asked.

  “Not really,” he said. “Couple of pints with the lads on the weekend.”

  I made a note. He must have been pretty drunk after finishing off the whole bottle.

  “What do you remember next?” Ram asked.

  “Waking up,” Cameron said. “Those screams. Seeing the… the blood on my hands. On my own hands.”

  His voice is shaking, and his eyes are wet. He is staring down at his hands like he can still see it.

  Lady Macbeth comes to mind. But is he the one who did the deed, or was he asleep and drugged in the other room, while blood was painted onto his hands?

  “What did you do then?” Ram asked.

  “I got up, washed my hands in the bathroom as quickly as I could, and grabbed some clothes. Then I ran downstairs just as that song started playing, and I saw – what everyone was looking at.”

  “What did you think at that moment?”

  “I was – shocked. Confused. I was thinking, here’s this person dead on the floor, and here’s me waking up with blood on my hands. And I couldn’t see how that could be the case, how they could be linked. I couldn’t remember getting into bed and falling asleep. My head was pounding. And when they said – people said they’d seen me with her, the night before. I couldn’t remember that at all.”

  “Is that when you started to think you might have done it?” Ram guessed.

  “Y
eah,” Cameron said, his hands shaking as he wiped an arm across his eyes. “Everyone kept getting questioned and then released, and there were fewer and fewer of us left, and I kept thinking about the blood on my hands and how it got there. And how much I hated Johnny, how angry at him I was before, that I took his champagne just to spite him. And – and I’d seen them together.”

  “How much of the attack do you remember now?” I asked, seeing a possible chink of light through this wall of seeming evidence.

  “None,” Cameron said, breaking into slow, wheezing sobs. The tears of an emotionally exhausted man. “I wish I could. I keep trying to piece it together. But I don’t remember what I did.”

  “Alright,” Ram nodded, clearly deciding that we had put him through enough. “Thank you, Cameron. You’ve been very helpful, telling us everything today.”

  We both stood at the same time as Cameron did, ready to be escorted from the room by his guard.

  “There’s something I do think you need to remember,” Ram said, suddenly, just as Cameron was about to be led from the room. He waited until their eyes met before speaking. “You aren’t a murderer, Cameron Winter. You did not do this. You were drunk, and asleep in your bed.”

  Cameron’s wide-eyed stare lingered for a moment, silent, before he was dragged away to wherever they were keeping him.

  25 – Ram

  “I have to admit it,” I say. “You were absolutely right.” I’m not ashamed; call a spade, a spade.

  Will smirks. “It’s not often I get to hear that.”

  “Well, don’t get used to it,” I say, throwing an arm around his shoulder and shaking him. “I’m back, Will, baby! Normal service has resumed. Let’s crack this thing.”

  He laughs, a happy and light sound that makes something in my chest ache when I realise how uncommon it is from him. I wish he would laugh like that more. I wish he had a reason to.

  “I need to finish going over the footage,” he says. “There’s only a little bit left.”

  “Alright,” I tell him. “Let’s head back to the Inn and get through it. I’ll help.”