The Bell Ringers (25 page)

But the first priority was to get herself released. Nothing would be solved inside High Castle police station. She needed time, fresh air and a bit of quiet to think everything through and decide a course of action which it seemed to her must now completely detach itself from David Eyam – either the memory of him or the reality of his continued existence.

At seven thirty a.m. they brought her tea and something that resembled a toasted sandwich, which was glued by melted cheese to the biodegradable box. She was allowed a shower, but no toothbrush or paste was available. At nine she was taken up from the cell and shown to a new interview room, which was slightly larger and equipped with two cameras. Wreston was there and she asked if there had been any word from her own lawyers. They replied no. After the formalities concerning the two interview tapes – one of which was sealed for the record – and a caution delivered by Newsome, he started the interview. He went back over everything exhaustively, picking holes in her story, finding significance in the slightest hesitation or inconsistency.

Shap sat saying little. It was an hour before he asked, ‘When you were in the cottage after Mr Russell left, where was Mr Nock?'

She groaned. ‘I've no idea. He went off for some kind of meeting – I don't remember what he said. Next time I saw him was running down the drive after he discovered the car. He had a couple of dogs with him, which later disappeared.'

‘You say you had never met before that day?'

‘Yes.'

‘Or had contact with him?'

‘I had no knowledge of Mr Nock's existence before I came to High Castle.'

‘But he was at Mr Eyam's funeral.'

‘So were a lot of other people. I didn't notice him.'

‘So what were you doing all that time?'

‘I told you last night.'

Shap looked at some notes. ‘Using your phone and the computer in the house. Mr Eyam's computer, right?'

‘Some of the time, yes.'

‘That's odd because we've examined the computer and found no hard drive. How could you have been using it?'

She looked at him coolly. ‘That's because I removed the hard drive and destroyed it.'

‘Removed the hard drive?'

There was no point lying. She was sure they would already have checked with the internet provider or looked at Eyam's search engine records and learned that there was some traffic from Eyam's account that afternoon. ‘By chance I found some things on that computer which I did not think worthy of David Eyam. I knew he could not have been responsible for them and I decided to destroy the evidence.'

‘What sort of things?'

‘Pornography – illegal pornography.'

‘You're talking about child porn?'

She nodded.

‘You know that your action amounts to an offence. You were destroying evidence of criminality. What do you say to that?'

‘It is my computer now and David Eyam is dead. You can hardly prosecute him.'

‘Mr Eyam's death does not excuse the destruction of the drive. Those images may have contained valuable evidence about victims and perpetrators of crimes who are still alive. Did that not occur to you?'

She shook her head. ‘Are you questioning me over a computer hard drive, or a murder?'

‘For all we know the two may be related,' said Shap.

‘Don't be stupid,' she said. ‘You know perfectly well they aren't.
Those images were planted on Eyam's computer as part of a campaign of persecution, which he suffered after leaving his job in government. They were going to be used to prosecute a man who had become an embarrassment, or even a threat to the present government. He had no alternative but to leave the country.'

‘What proof do you have of any of this?' asked Newsome.

‘Of course I don't have proof.'

‘Then how are we meant to believe these allegations that you make so freely?'

Just then there was a commotion at the door and a very large man in his late-fifties came in and stood looking at the three officers, his huge bulbous features registering civilised horror. ‘I am John Turvey and Miss Lockhart is my client,' he said. He looked at Wreston. ‘Thank you, sir, for holding the fort. Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like a consultation with my client in private.'

‘I mind very much,' said Shap getting up. ‘I mind very much that you walked in on this interview.'

Turvey looked at him from under his brow, then produced four or five newspapers, which he let fall onto the table. ‘And while we have that consultation perhaps you would care to look at these. My assistant has already highlighted the parts of the coverage that are designed to blacken my client's name.' Kate caught a glimpse of a couple of headlines – TOP US LAWYER IS MURDER SUPECT; TWO HELD AFTER ‘HIT' IN RURAL PARADISE. The second was accompanied by a photograph of her taken as she was driven into the police station. ‘A letter has already been dispatched to your chief constable,' growled Turvey.

‘We are not responsible for the media's coverage,' said Newsome.

‘But you are for the statements issued by a Superintendent Shap, which I assume is you.' He looked thunderously at Shap. ‘These statements all but say my client is guilty. If she is guilty why has she not been charged?'

‘We are conducting an investigation into a very serious matter – the murder of Hugh Russell. You have no right to barge in here and start making accusations.'

‘Accusations?' said Turvey. ‘This prejudicial coverage is a fact, just as
the incomplete custody record for my client is a fact. Now please oblige me, superintendent.'

At length they were shown into a room for their consultation and Turvey went over everything she had been asked about by the two officers. At the mention of the CCTV stills he left the room to make a phone call to instruct the members of what he called his team, which included a former Scotland Yard officer who had arrived in High Castle in the early hours.

An hour later they went back to the interview room where Turvey sat with his hands folded across his stomach contemplating the two officers with a gaze of professional dismay. There was hardly a moment when he did not fill the room with disdain for the proceedings, and he amused himself by treating Halliday, whom he'd told her was an observer from Special Branch, as some kind of office junior who was there to open the window on request or fetch a jug of water. Turvey intervened only a few times, when Newsome made remarks about Kate's character, but mostly he seemed to be content for the pair to exhaust themselves. The hard drive of the computer obsessed them because it was the only evidence of Kate's criminality. Turvey had instructed her to play a straight bat, to hit every ball back to the bowler, as he put it, without flourish or feeling. She was certainly capable of looking after herself, but she was encouraged by the monumental steadfastness sitting beside her. They got nowhere on the computer or the child porn. At four they took a break and Kate was returned to the cells.

When she was taken back an hour later Shap was holding a piece of paper and displaying some of his former swagger, but they had to wait for Turvey, who had used the break to have a sandwich with his team. He came back into the room hugging his briefcase to his chest. No sooner had he lowered himself to his chair – an action that was accompanied by a good deal of sighing – than Shap disclosed that he would show Kate an ID supplementary form filled in by her at the Bailey Hotel on the evening before Russell's murder. ‘The form contains misinformation and in certain parts has been defaced.'

Kate laughed. ‘You can't be serious.'

‘You do realise that this is a criminal matter,' said Shap. ‘For a lawyer you display remarkably little respect for the law.' He showed her the
form. ‘Were you requested by the hotel management to comply with the law by filling in this form?'

‘Before you answer that question, Miss Lockhart,' said Turvey, ‘I must ask these gentlemen the relevance of this to the inquiry into the murder of Hugh Russell.'

‘We suspect that Miss Lockhart was attempting to conceal information about herself because she knew that she would be involved in the matters we are investigating today – namely the murder of Hugh Russell.'

‘That's absurd,' she said quietly. ‘The hotel already had my passport and credit card details and mobile phone number. This form was superfluous and I treated it as such.'

‘You had shown your passport,' growled Turvey without looking at her. ‘Then there can be no question of relevance in the matter of Mr Russell's murder. She was not hiding anything, and as far as I can see she complied with the law. The hotel was being officious, superintendent.' He reached for his briefcase and fixed Shap with a look of dreadful black intensity. ‘Perhaps it is time for me to make my own disclosures. Your entire case against Miss Lockhart rests on some CCTV footage of the entrance to Mr Russell's offices in Mortimer Street. Is that right? This footage comes from the town's surveillance system, which is operated by the police. Is that also correct?'

Neither of the officers reacted, but Halliday shifted in his chair and leaned forward, suspecting that Turvey was about to show his hand.

‘Your images come from the police street surveillance system. But these days there are many such cameras operating and not all of them belong to the police. In that vicinity there is also a system run by a bank, which covers the front of the premises and looks out across the street, as it happens, onto the entrance of number six: there is a high-definition camera fixed inside the transom of the bank's front door. My associates have now been able to retrieve images from this camera that show two men entering Mr Russell's office about twenty minutes before my client and then leaving in some hurry. They went in carrying nothing, but, as you will see, one of them is leaving holding a file and the other is clutching his face. He is clearly injured, a fact that tallies with my client's account of what happened inside that building. We have
checked with Mr Russell's secretary and found no appointments for two men of their appearance. She does not recognise them as clients of the late Mr Russell. And his partner, Paul Spring, says that he has never seen these individuals before.'

He paused and swept off his glasses. ‘I suggest to you that these were Mr Russell's assailants – the men attacked him, broke into his safe and stole documents that were intended for my client.' He placed the photographs one by one on the table, ending with a shot of the two men leaving the offices. ‘The point that won't escape you, nor – if I may say so – the media, is that exactly the same footage, though perhaps not of similar quality, lies in the police system. Yet you did not think to view all the film available from that evening, an odd decision since it would have confirmed my client's story.' He raised a hand against Newsome's protest. ‘The second part of your allegation, that Miss Lockhart arranged to travel to Dove Cottage where Mr Nock killed Mr Russell, does not stand up to examination either. Mr Nock has an iron-clad alibi for the period of an hour either side of Mr Russell's death. As you very well know, he was in the local hospital seeing a specialist for torn ligaments in his shoulder. My associates have checked with the doctor and his receptionist, as have police officers from this station. He did not return home until four fifteen, by which time Mr Russell had been dead for nearly two hours. It was then that he took his dogs for a walk. Do I need to continue, chief inspector? No, because you know all this and yet you continue to deprive my client of her liberty and make these wild allegations against her when she herself could very easily have been shot too. Last night and through today you have leaked details about her life to the press, details that have come from this very room, superintendent. You have treated her to all the indignities of official suspicion, and at the same time shown scant regard for her safety or for the proper conduct of this case.'

His voice had risen steadily but now it fell to almost a whisper as he pushed a photograph under Shap's gaze. ‘For it must be clear that these men are the only suspects in your case; that they are still at large and in a position to harm my client, who was the intended recipient of the documents they stole.' His great hands pressed into the desk and he leaned forward so that his head was no more than a foot above the
photograph. Kate was struck by the magnificence of his profile, like the head of an emperor on an ancient coin.

‘They killed Mr Russell because, while they had taken the documents, they suspected that he had some acquaintance with their contents. That is the only conclusion to draw.' He looked at his watch. ‘Unless my client is released, these images will be issued to the media within the next half hour together with a press release drawn up by my office in London, explaining that instead of pursuing the obvious suspects you have hounded a potential victim. There will be a full discussion of the documents and what they may or may not contain. Given they once belonged to the late David Eyam, it seems likely that the media will show not inconsiderable interest in this angle, and I should imagine that this will also concern your masters at the Home Office.' He drew back with no hint of the anger leaving his expression. ‘Now perhaps you gentlemen would like to consider my client's position in the light of the evidence that I have laid before you. This country may have taken a lurch into the Dark Ages as far as due process is concerned, but some standards are still observed and there remain many remedies open to me.'

Shap had gone white with anger. ‘You think you can come in here and threaten me?' he said.

‘Oh, make no mistake about it. I
am
threatening you and Chief Inspector Newsome here with immediate exposure for incompetence and possibly even negligence. How else would you describe the failure – deliberate or otherwise – to look at the complete footage from Mortimer Street?'