Trust Me - T.M. Logan Page 0,39

smoke from his partner’s cigarette.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You mean, kind of like a distraction burglary?’

‘Sort of. It’s the same with an interview. You’re more likely to get the full story if they invite you in. Less effort, less mess, less grief all around. Sometimes you’re more likely to get to the truth by being nice than by trying to smash the doors down with a battering ram.’

‘Right,’ Holt said, taking another sip of his coffee. ‘I get what you’re saying.’

Do you though? Do you, really?

‘Feels to me like there are other factors in play that we might not be aware of. It’ll be interesting to see what forensics come up with from the stuff we recovered from the fire. Any joy with the CCTV from outside the café?’

Holt shook his head.

‘Not yet. There’s a council camera at the junction but it’s too far down to pick up activity outside the Caffè Nero. The place opens in a few hours so I’ll head down then. Got the trace set up on Devlin’s mobile as well, just in case it turns up or she miraculously starts using it again when she gets home later.’

‘Did you track down the taxi driver yet?’

‘Working on it.’

‘Good. I’ll cover off the station staff at Marylebone.’

‘What about her?’ Holt nodded back towards the interview room down the corridor. ‘Our little navy wren?’

Gilbourne flipped the cigarette away into the darkness, the glowing tip spinning end over end until it disappeared into the street below.

‘We let her think about things for a few more hours,’ Gilbourne said, blowing smoke. ‘Then we go again.’

‘Nicely?’

Gilbourne gave him a half-smile.

‘You’re catching on, Nathan.’

20

There’s another hour in the interview room going back and forth over my story, a short conversation with the duty solicitor after both detectives have left, then I’m led into a frigid cell that’s bare apart from a thin blanket and a dull metal toilet in the corner. Finally, I’m woken by the clank of the door unlocking, the desk sergeant informing me that I’m being released for the time being.

Betteridge, the duty solicitor, gave me a card for his firm when he left. He was evasive when I asked what would happen next: that was down to the police and any other evidence they might find. If they could corroborate my story with any of the other parties involved, then the threat of criminal charges would recede. If not . . . they would probably bring me in again and go from there. I should be prepared for any eventuality, he had said. Until then, I have to remain in London, keep the officers informed as to where I was staying, make myself available for further questioning as and when required; and I’m prohibited from contacting any of the other people involved in my case. Which shouldn’t be difficult as I have no idea who any of them actually were.

There are more forms to sign. The clock above the desk tells me it’s nearly five in the morning by the time a taxi is called to take me home. I need to find somewhere else to stay for a few days, but my exhaustion is blanketing everything and all I want to do is lie down in my own bed. It’s only as I’m walking up the short path to my front door that it occurs to me I have no keys to get into the house. I’m grateful, for once, for Richard’s old habit of leaving a spare back door key in the rockery by the side gate. It’s still there, tucked under the third rock from the left. I blow the dirt off it, breath steaming in the cold pre-dawn air.

I let myself in, turn on the lights and stand in my little kitchen. The house is still, silent and cold, and it feels different somehow, as if it belongs to someone else. Maybe to my old life. That life was Richard and marriage and IVF, waiting and heartbreak, month after desperate month, year after year. But that world doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone. History.

This is a new world, a new day. A world with Mia in it.

And not just her: a man who wanted to take her away, to harm her. A man who has my phone, who might know where I live. Am I safe here, with the pre-dawn darkness still pressing in around my kitchen windows? I fetch the landline and begin to dial, then stop, my thumb hovering over the keypad, my brain