‘Please, have a seat,’ Hawkins gestured her into a chair, taking his own. There was an open box on the floor beside him, a pile of files inside, and a tape recorder waiting on the metal table.
Pip sat on the edge of her seat and nodded, waiting for him to begin.
He didn’t though, he just watched her and the darting of her eyes.
‘So,’ Pip said, clearing her throat. ‘What did you want to ask me about?’
Hawkins leaned forward in his chair, reaching for the tape recorder, the bones in his neck clicking. ‘You understand that even though this is voluntary, and we just want you to help us with our inquiries, I still need to interview you under caution and record our conversation?’ His eyes searched her face.
Yes, she understood that. If they seriously considered she had something to do with it, she would have been arrested. This was standard practise, but there was a strange look in his eyes, like he wanted her to be afraid. She wasn’t, she was in charge here. She nodded.
Hawkins pressed a button. ‘This is Detective Inspector Hawkins interviewing Pippa Fitz-Amobi, the time is 11:31 a.m. on Tuesday the 25th of September. This is a voluntary interview in relation to our inquiry into the death of Jason Bell and you can leave any time, do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ Pip said, directing her voice towards the recording device.
‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ Hawkins sat back, his chair creaking. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I heard the trailer for the new season of your podcast, as did hundreds of thousands of other people.’
Pip shrugged. ‘I thought you could use some help on this case. Considering you needed me to solve two of your previous cases for you. Is that why you asked for a chat today? Need my help? Want to give me an exclusive for the podcast?’
‘No, Pip.’ The air whistled through his teeth. ‘I don’t need your help. This is an active investigation, a homicide. You know you cannot be interfering and posting important information online. That’s not how justice works. The journalistic standards apply to you too. One might even see this as contempt.’
‘I haven’t posted any “important information”， it was just a trailer,’ she said. ‘I don’t know any details of the case yet, other than what you said in the press conference.’
‘You released an interview with a…’ Hawkins glanced down at his notes, ‘Jackie Miller, speculating about who might have killed Jason Bell,’ he said, widening his eyes as though he’d scored a point against her.
‘Not the whole interview,’ Pip said, ‘just the most interesting clips. And I didn’t name the person we spoke about. I know that might prejudice any potential future trial. I do know what I’m doing.’
‘I’d say the context made it quite obvious who you were talking about,’ Hawkins said, reaching down for the box of files beside him. He re-righted himself, a small pile of papers clutched in one hand. ‘After I heard your trailer, I spoke to Jackie myself, as part of our inquiries.’ He shook the pages at her, and Pip recognized an interview transcript. He placed the transcript down on the metal table, flicked through it. ‘I think there was a certain amount of bad blood between Max Hastings and Jason Bell,’ he read aloud. ‘You hear these things around town, especially when you own a café on the high street… Jason must have hated Max for what he did to Becca, and how it was connected to Andie dying… certainly seemed like Max didn’t like Jason either… A lot of anger there. It was pretty violent. I’ve never had a situation like that between two customers. And, as Pip said, isn’t it concerning that that was just two weeks before Jason was murdered?’ Hawkins finished reading, closed the transcript and looked up at Pip.
‘I would say it’s a fairly standard first step in an investigation,’ Pip said, not dropping his eyes, she wouldn’t be the first to look away. ‘Finding out if anything unusual happened recently in the victim’s life, identifying anyone who had any ill will towards him, potential persons of interest. A violent incident leading up to his murder, interviewing a witness. Sorry if I beat you to it.’
‘Max Hastings,’ Hawkins said, his tongue hissing three times as it tripped over the name.
‘Seems like he’s not very popular in town,’ Pip said. ‘Has a lot of enemies. And apparently Jason Bell was one of them.’