your agenda is, what’s going on here. Mia’s OK, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’
Gilbourne gives a sympathetic smile. ‘Just a few more questions then we’ll be done.’
‘This Dominic individual,’ Holt resumes. ‘What’s his surname?’
I rub at my eyes, gritty and sore under the harsh strip lighting of the interview room. It feels like I’ve been in here for a dozen hours already.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I told you that already.’
‘Any other identifying information at all? Did he ever actually say he was the baby’s father? Did he ever say it himself, refer to her as his daughter?’
I think back to the snatches of conversation we had shared.
‘I don’t remember for sure.’
‘It’s very important, Ellen.’
I’ve been replaying Dominic’s actions in my mind. Being in the car with him, in the room with him, I felt so sure about his motives. There was clearly violence in him, but had any of it been directed towards Mia? The unloaded gun, the empty threats, opportunities to hurt us both – to kill us, even – not taken? And both he and Kathryn had made the same paranoid assertion, in their own ways: that the police were not to be trusted. Any police? Someone in particular?
‘So you’re basically the original good Samaritan,’ Holt says, clicking his pen again. ‘Travelling around and doing good deeds?’
‘I was just in the right place at the right time, that’s all.’
‘Tell me more about the gun,’ Gilbourne asks, his voice soft. ‘You’re familiar with firearms, correct?’
‘I wouldn’t say familiar, no.’
‘What would you say?’
‘I know the basics. Not much more than that.’
‘But you’ve handled them before, been trained with them.’ He picks up a sheet of paper from his folder. ‘Ellen Anne Devlin,’ he pauses, glancing at me over the top of his glasses, ‘County Tyrone is that? Devlin?’
‘My grandfather.’
‘Ah, interesting. Omagh?’
‘Dungannon.’
‘My grandma was an O’Neill, from that part of the world.’ He makes a little grunt of satisfaction and resumes reading from the sheet. ‘Graduated 2001, twelve years in the navy, currently employed at Global Aerospace as a Project Manager. Married to Richard Sloane, 2013.’
‘Yes.’ The cut in my forehead starts to throb again.
‘Did you want to call him, by the way? Your husband? The desk sergeant said you’ve not called anyone yet.’
‘We’re separated,’ I say.
‘Ah,’ he says after a pause. ‘I see.’
Holt sits forward in his chair. ‘What made you join the navy, Ellen?’
‘My dad served on destroyers. HMS Sheffield.’
‘Right, a family tradition. Encourage you to follow in his footsteps, did he?’
I stare at him, this arrogant young detective, imagining what it would feel like to throw the rest of my tea in his face.
‘He was killed in the Falklands when I was two years old.’
Holt blinks once, twice. But he recovers quickly. ‘Sorry to hear that. So, what did you do in the navy?’
‘I was on HMS Richmond and then on the Dauntless. Some other roles onshore. I was a principal warfare officer.’
‘So you do know your way around guns.’
‘I had some small arms instruction as part of my initial training, same as everyone else. But that wasn’t my primary role, I barely even carried a weapon outside the practice range.’
‘But you’re pretty familiar with . . .’
Betteridge, the duty solicitor, holds up a small hand. ‘Can I ask what the relevance of this is?’
‘Your client was arrested with an unlicensed, unregistered firearm in her possession.’
‘And she’s explained to you that she only had it to facilitate her escape, from a place where she was being held against her will.’
‘So she claims.’
‘If I’d left it behind,’ I cut in, ‘he could have used it on me. Or on Mia.’
‘Why didn’t you use it on him?’
‘I tried, but it was unloaded.’
‘You tried to shoot him? To kill him?’
‘I was going to put one in his leg, just to slow him down.’ The sound is seared into my memory, the empty, impotent click of the trigger on an empty chamber. ‘I couldn’t outrun him while I was carrying Mia, but I didn’t realise the gun was empty. I ended up hitting him with it instead.’
‘Hard?’
‘As hard as I could.’
Gilbourne turns to his partner. ‘Have we done a hospital check yet?’
Holt shakes his head, scribbling a note on his pad, and Gilbourne turns back to me.
‘Can I get you another tea?’ He smiles. ‘It might even be hot this time.’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘OK then. Let’s get back to last night, shall we?’
His voice is calm, measured. Friendly. And his smile is almost paternal. But he leaves another long pause