‘Who arranged the date?’ asks Hoyle.
‘We both did. We were texting each other and we talked on the phone.’
‘About what?’
‘Usual stuff. Likes. Dislikes. Family. Work. Music. I thought she was very chill and down to earth.’
‘Did Maya tell you where she lived?’
‘No.’
‘Apart from messaging on the app, did you communicate any other way?’
‘Texts, but I deleted them.’
‘Why?’
‘I liked Maya, but the chemistry wasn’t there, you know? You can tell, can’t you – if there’s a spark – but I just didn’t feel it with Maya.’
‘When did you decide that?’ asks Edgar.
‘Almost immediately. We had a few drinks. We didn’t click. We said goodbye.’
‘Maya left by herself?’
He nods resolutely.
‘And that was the last time you saw her?’
‘Yeah.’
Hoyle signals to Edgar, who produces a laptop and turns the screen to face Foley. ‘This is CCTV footage taken by a security camera on Sunday evening.’
Lenny points me to a nearby desktop computer and calls up the same footage. Although grainy and poorly lit, it clearly shows Maya standing on a footpath, struggling to get her arms through the sleeves of her coat. Foley helps her. She stumbles. He holds her up.
Hoyle continues, ‘We also have CCTV footage taken of you and Maya crossing St Peter’s Square shortly before ten o’clock.’
Foley grows agitated. His relaxed, eager persona has been replaced by a prickly defensiveness.
‘Yeah, OK, I was hoping we might kick on. I offered to buy Maya dinner and said we could go see a mate’s band. They play covers – Dire Straits, Oasis, Blur, that sort of stuff. Maya wasn’t interested.’
‘Earlier, you said there was no chemistry. No spark.’
‘We could still have a fun night.’
‘Hook up, you mean?’
Foley doesn’t answer.
‘Why is she stumbling?’
‘She’d had a few drinks.’
‘Are we going to find her fingerprints in your car?’ asks Hoyle.
Foley hesitates and comes to a decision. ‘I offered to drive her home. It was the least I could do in the circumstances.’
‘What circumstances?’ asks Edgar.
‘She was drunk. I was concerned.’
‘Maya was in your car?’
‘Only for a minute. She vomited. I kicked her out.’
‘Charming,’ says Edgar.
‘Hey! I was trying to do the right thing.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘She was walking towards the taxi rank on Wheeler Gate.’
‘And then what?’
‘I went home.’
‘What about your mate’s band?’
‘They’re pretty shite.’
Edgar smiles, but Hoyle doesn’t find it funny. Lenny has scrawled something on a piece of paper, which she hands to a female constable. Moments later, the same constable knocks on the door of the interview suite and passes the note to Hoyle. He glances at it quickly and crushes it in his fist. Instead, he opens a green manila folder and reads from a single page.
‘Tell us about Alice Shelley.’
Foley frowns and looks at his solicitor. ‘Who?’
‘August two years ago, you took Alice for a drive to Sherwood Forest. You pulled up at a secluded spot and unzipped your trousers. Alice said she wasn’t interested. You didn’t listen. You began masturbating. When she tried to phone for help you threw her handset out the window.’
Foley’s face reddens and his shoulders grow rounded. He looks to his solicitor, expecting her to intervene.
‘My client has come here voluntarily to talk about Maya Kirk,’ she says. ‘Any other material is irrelevant unless you’d like to charge him.’
Hoyle ignores her. ‘Alice was held against her will and sexually assaulted.’
‘That was consensual,’ says Foley.
‘You locked the car doors. You soiled her clothes and afterwards gave her a tissue to clean herself up.’
‘It was a misunderstanding.’
‘You kept her prisoner.’
Camilleri gets to her feet. ‘I think that’s enough. We’re leaving.’
‘Did Maya Kirk say no to you? Did that make you angry?’
‘My client will not be answering any more questions,’ says Camilleri. ‘Come on, Anders.’
Foley gets to his feet.
‘We’re going to find more CCTV footage,’ say Hoyle. ‘And we’re going to pick apart your life. If we discover that you’ve been lying to us, I will personally kick down your door and put you in handcuffs.’
Solicitor and suspect have gone. Hoyle looks at his reflection in the mirror and shrugs, aware he has an audience.
‘Any thoughts?’ asks Lenny.
‘He doesn’t like women very much,’ I reply.
‘Are you talking about Foley?’
‘No.’
16
Evie
I don’t own any dresses. They belong to my past life, when men and women would bring me clothes and dress me up, making me pretend to be a daughter, or an orphan, or a waif, or a schoolgirl, or some other character from their sick fantasies.
Before that, my dresses were mainly hand-me-downs from Agnesa, which were always too big because I was small for my age. The runt of the litter, according to Papa, who said it in a nice way. Agnesa had the curves and the cheekbones. I got the funny elbows and llama eyelashes.
For the past hour I’ve been looking in dress-shop windows, and wandering between department stores in the Victoria Centre, trying to summon the courage to actually try something on. Posh shops intimidate me. I don’t know what it is exactly. The peacock-like assistants. The choice of clothes. The featureless mannequins. The perfumed air. Some of the boutiques are so classy that I feel like I’m trespassing.
Normally, I love shopping malls – the escalators and the fountains and the food court, the unlimited things to buy. I once saw a film about a man who got trapped in an airport, unable to return to his home country, so he lived in the terminal building. He had everything he needed – shops, cafés, arcade games, friends. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to leave. I would have stayed there forever.
My mobile sends me an alert. It’s a message from my dating app. A Constable Lowry wants me to contact him urgently. He’s given me a number. It’s probably spam. I delete his message.
I continue walking past the same boutique, but this time I turn left and enter the hallowed ground. The clothes are displayed like works of art. Colour-coordinated and accessorised. The two assistants look emaciated and bored shitless.
‘Are you lost?’ asks the older one.
‘No,’ I reply, spying myself in the mirror. I see what they see – my torn jeans and hooded sweatshirt, my botched attempt to put highlights in my hair. They’ll think I’m a shoplifter, or a timewaster.
‘I’m just looking,’ I mumble.
Her colleague is younger, wearing sling-back heels that make her butt stick out in a tight black dress. I couldn’t wear something like that. I wouldn’t want to.
‘I’m Riviera,’ she says. ‘I’m your fashion advisor. If you need any help with sizing I can—’