Trust Me - T.M. Logan Page 0,126

maybe both of you together.’

‘The top brass had started to have suspicions. They’d ordered my own partner to keep tabs on me, can you believe that? So Nathan had his own agenda.’

I shake my head. ‘That was the reason why Holt wanted to get a DNA swab from her right at the start, wasn’t it? In case you tried to mess with the results. Maybe switch the sample, replace it with someone else’s so the DNA didn’t connect to you. He wanted to get an untainted sample, independent of anything you might do. But you still managed to intercept it.’

Gilbourne shrugs. ‘I’m his boss.’

‘Why did you kill those women, Stuart?’

‘First things first,’ he says, raising the gun to point at me. ‘Put the baby on the floor. Now.’

‘Not until you tell me.’ I don’t move. ‘Sienna Parker, the first victim. Why did you kill her?’

‘Why do you think I’m going to tell you that?’

‘Because you’re proud of getting away with it. Because it shows you’re smarter than all your colleagues, your forensics people, the boss who thinks you’re past it.’

He studies me for a moment, as if weighing up what to tell me. He lowers the gun a fraction, a smile flickering at the edges of his mouth.

‘Sienna was a greedy whore. And I mean that literally. All I ever wanted to do was keep working, keep on top of things. Stay sharp, like I used to, put in the long hours and the all-nighters. But as you get older it gets harder, you find you need a little bit of extra help to keep your energy levels up. A little bit of a pick-me-up now and again.’

‘It wasn’t Holt who worked on that task force, was it? Human exploitation?’ My mind is spinning, tumbling. ‘It was you.’

‘You’re a smart cookie, Ellen. I knew Sienna from back in the day, knew she could sort me out with some Dex when I needed it.’ Seeing my confusion, he adds, ‘Dexamphetamine. Drug of choice for pilots, soldiers, people who have to keep going no matter what. Sienna sold to me for a while but then she got greedy, decided to try blackmailing me. Unfortunately she’d also told her best mate Louise, who’d dropped a few hints to the pretty little outreach worker who was trying to get them both off the streets.’

‘Zoe Clifton.’

‘The other two were lowlifes, scum. But it was a shame about Zoe.’

‘A shame you didn’t finish her off, you mean.’

‘Wouldn’t have been necessary if Sienna had kept her mouth shut in the first place – it was her fault, really. I knew I had to close it off, nip it in the bud.’

‘So the whole thing was a cover-up?’

‘You don’t understand.’ His voice rises as if he’s struggling to stay in control. ‘If it had got out, I would have lost everything. Career, pension, reputation, freedom. Scumbags I’ve put in prison making new appeals, my convictions quashed, a lot of nasty bastards back on the streets.’ He opens his left hand like a flower. ‘Everything gone, just like that. All those years of service, and for what? Because I was trying to do the best job I could? It was unfortunate, but necessary – Sienna didn’t really give me any choice.’

‘All this, because you’re an addict?’

‘Because I’ve given my life to this job!’ he shouts. ‘I’m a good cop who’s done a few bad things, that’s all. But for the right reasons.’

The studio lights are hot on my skin but I feel frozen, chilled to the bone. ‘You killed them and made it look like some serial predator attacking vulnerable women, only you knew how to avoid leaving DNA evidence behind. You’ve got decades of experience with evidence. And once you’d dealt with them, you had to find out whether Zoe was a threat as well.’

‘I had to find out what she knew.’

‘So you got close to her. Just like you got close to me.’

‘I didn’t plan to get involved with her, certainly didn’t plan to sleep with her. But one thing led to another, you know how it goes. Apparently some women can’t resist my charms.’ He gives me a crooked smile. ‘Isn’t that right, Ellen?’

‘You were the man Zoe was seeing, but she found out what you’d done, didn’t she?’

‘One mistake, that’s all it was.’

‘How did she find out?’

‘I was planning to track down Sienna’s dealer, get some pills off him when things had calmed down. So I kept her phone. Stupid.’ He shakes his head ruefully.