They watched Shawn until he got in the lift at the end of the corridor.
‘He’s such a greasy little rat, and he got two good-looking women to have a threesome with him,’ said Peterson, shaking his head.
‘Trust you to think of that. More importantly, do you think he’s a murderer?’
‘What would be his motive?’
‘Drugs? Rage? Jealousy. Do you think he looked a bit wired during the interview?’ asked Erika.
Peterson shrugged.
‘He looked more scared than anything else. Are we taking a risk letting him go?’
‘Yes, but if we bring him in and charge him, I need stronger evidence, and I want to do it properly,’ said Erika.
When they got back to the incident room, McGorry was waiting for Erika, holding a piece of paper.
‘I’m really working my magic today.’ He grinned. ‘Cilla Stone, or Priscilla Stone, lives in Whithorn in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. She’s the only “Cilla” registered in the area.’
Crane looked up from his computer.
‘The only Cilla registered in the area!’ he said. ‘Just be thankful that Vicky didn’t call a Liverpool number from that payphone. McGorry would be sending a squad car round to Cilla Black’s house to bring her in for questioning!’
Erika and Peterson laughed.
‘Only kidding, buddy,’ added Crane to McGorry. ‘Good work.’
‘I’ve found the house on Google Maps,’ said McGorry. He had the image on his screen with a satellite view of a vast peninsula by the sea. ‘She owns a house on the coast with six acres of land.’
‘A good place to hide,’ said Erika, rubbing her tired eyes. This whole case was getting so complicated. She looked at her watch. It was coming up to 1pm, and she was hungry again for another sandwich. ‘Okay, let’s ask for the local police to drop by Cilla’s house ASAP, and see what’s going on.’
26
Time seemed to jump forward. One moment Vicky was standing on the beach, and staring out to sea, and the next, she was looking down at plastic bottles littered on the sand along a tall fence with razor wire spooled on top.
The wind was whistling through the wire, and her hands and face were numb with cold. On the other side of the fence was a block of sand and a long low building in the far distance, and there were signs with MINISTRY OF DEFENCE PROPERTY – NO ACCESS printed on them.
She heard Nutmeg bark, and she turned to see him running in the other direction. He twisted his head back to look at her and barked again. How long had they been walking? She’d gone quite a few miles up the beach, and she couldn’t see Cilla’s house anymore. There was just a line of mist where they’d come from.
Nutmeg barked again. Vicky looked at her hands. Her fingernails were blue. She thrust her hands into her pockets and headed back with Nutmeg.
It took an hour to get back, and it seemed such a slow trudge now that she was cold and hungry. Slowly, Cilla’s house appeared again through the fog.
The silence was haunting Vicky. It should have been an oasis here on the coast surrounded by the breathtaking beauty of the landscape, but the silence only amplified her fears and the voices in her head. It allowed the nightmares and terrible images to encroach on her brain.
She knew now that she was in a perilous place, fleeing a crime. She was afraid to do anything, but the longer she hid, the worse things were getting for her. She’d started to have crazy thoughts. She could implicate herself. If she was accused of killing Sophia, she’d be arrested and placed on remand. He couldn’t get to her in prison. She’d be safe in a prison cell.
She was grateful that Cilla hadn’t asked many questions of her, beyond the fact she knew Vicky was in some kind of trouble, but what would her reaction be when she heard there was a dead girl?
Cilla didn’t have a TV, but she had a laptop. Vicky purposefully hadn’t checked the news.
The house appeared on the horizon, and Nutmeg had run far ahead. He was probably hungry and tired. The walk back seemed to take an age and by the time she was at the base of the steps leading up to the house, she was exhausted. At the top of the stone steps, and next to the house, there was a small patch of gravel where a smart black BMW was parked.
Vicky took a deep breath, and went in through the back door into the kitchen.
Colin and Ray were sitting at the long wooden kitchen table, and Cilla was opening what looked like a second bottle of wine.
‘Vicky! Darling! I was about to send out the search party for you,’ she said. ‘You remember Colin and Ray.’