His hands were waving in the air and he was very animated. Ben liked to think that he was pretty good at reading people and Stan’s body language seemed to be telling the truth. He had kept a consistent rhythm of blinking the whole time. When people were lying they often kept their eyes wide and didn’t blink; they also kept very still. Stan had been moving around all over the place.
Ben glanced at Abigail, who nodded once and stood up. She excused herself, leaving them alone.
‘Right, Stan, you’re free to go for now. We won’t be pressing charges or setting any bail conditions.’
‘Good, I should think so.’ Stan stood up. He looked less agitated than when he’d been brought in.
‘There’s just one more thing. I work with your daughter, Morgan, and I happened to call at her flat last night on my way home from work. Do you know what I found?’
He shook his head; what little colour was in his cheeks left his face.
‘I think you do; you ransacked your own daughter’s flat after she took pity on you and let you stop there. That’s a pretty bloody lowlife thing to do. Where’s her necklace?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, what necklace?’
Ben stood up; he towered over him. ‘The necklace you stole from her. She doesn’t want to press charges, despite my advising her to do so. But unless you get that necklace back to me, I will, so you’d better go to whoever you sold it to and get it back. I’ll give you twenty-four hours, and then I’ll bring you in for burglary, and I can promise you this: I will give you a list of bail conditions to make your life a misery.’
He opened the door for Stan to walk out.
‘Have a good evening and don’t you dare go back to Morgan’s.’
Stan rushed out as fast as he could.
Ben would have liked to give him a shake, but he was much older than him and he didn’t want to risk him having a heart attack. He had no idea if he’d be able to get the necklace back; it might be better for him to check the second-hand shops himself than rely on Stan’s good nature, which was seriously lacking in morals.
As he passed the room he’d relocated Morgan to, he pushed open the door to update her. It was in darkness and her handbag had gone. He looked at his watch: it was almost seven. He wasn’t ready to call it a day yet but was glad to see she’d gone. When he went into the office Amy was mid-conversation, her phone stuck to her ear. She passed him a yellow Post-it note with a name scribbled across it: ‘Gary or Greg Barker or Ryder possible business partner, and the wife had a lover – no name as yet.’ She whispered, ‘Ring Morgan, she said you’d want to know about it. I sent her home, she looked knackered.’
He was taken aback by this kind gesture. Amy normally didn’t give a shit about anyone.
‘Oh, and you don’t look too hot either, you should call it a day as well.’
He waved his hand. Going into his office, he began to search for a combination of names on the intelligence system, to see if he was known to them. The business partner would be a good person to speak to.
A page loaded with a record of a person called Greg Barker with no photograph and a few lines about some dodgy dealings back in 2009. They also needed to find out the name of Olivia’s lover. He wondered if the two were connected. It was a bad idea to mix sex and business.
He realised he didn’t have Morgan’s phone number to ask; it would have to wait until tomorrow.
He looked at the calendar on his desk and felt his heart sink. It was three years to the day that Cindy had died, and he had been too busy all day to even think about it, he realised. Deflated, he grabbed his overcoat, stuffed his phone into his pocket and left.
Too many memories began rushing back into his mind. He’d worked later than he should have that day as well, and he hadn’t even needed to. When he’d gone home, she was dead, had been for some time. If he’d finished at the right time, he could have made the difference; he could have saved her life. Instead