“But he didn’t.”
“No. No, he didn’t. It was awful. . . .” He faltered.
“I imagine it was,” Elise said. “Did Kevin have the weapon when you visited the Perrys’ house the first time that day?”
“I got there after him. I can’t remember seeing it,” Toby stuttered.
“Try,” Elise said. “I would have thought the events of that day are etched on your brain. You saw your first dead body. You saw Charlie’s head being bashed in.”
Toby’s mouth trembled.
“Inspector,” Mr. Grimes chirped his warning.
“Okay, let’s try again. Why did you go to Tall Trees on Sunday afternoon?”
“Because Kevin rang and told me to come. When I got there I realized he’d found Charlie. I wanted to ask him for my money. I just wanted it all to be over.”
“Where had he found him?”
“At the house. Kevin told me that someone had seen Charlie’s passport in the caravan that morning, so we were taking it in turns to watch the place in case he came back for it. Kevin caught him trying to leave and took him in the basement—in a little kitchen. He had him in there when I got there.”
“What state was Charlie in when you saw him?”
“He was a worried man,” Toby said quietly.
“Worried or terrified?”
“Ummm . . . he was upset. He kept saying all the money was gone. That he’d been let down like us. But Kevin didn’t believe him. He said we should leave him there for a few hours to think about the trouble he was in.”
“But why didn’t Charlie escape when you left?”
There was a beat before Toby whispered, “We tied him to his chair.”
“What with?”
“Well, we used cling film. It was all I had in the boot of the car—one of those catering rolls. We just wound it round him.”
That’s why there were no marks on his body. Elise couldn’t wait to tell Aoife.
“Did you gag him?”
“Kevin put an old towel in his mouth. And when we came back, he was dead,” Toby carried on. “He was still sitting in the chair but it had toppled over. We couldn’t believe it. We just couldn’t believe it. . . .”
* * *
—
Kevin Scott-Pennington told his own version when he arrived in Southfold, handcuffed and huddled in a thin T-shirt and jogger bottoms.
“It was Toby’s show,” he said immediately after the recorder was switched on. “He was driving the whole thing and he brought the wrench to frighten Charlie, and then hit him with it. I was shocked.”
“That’s interesting,” Caro said, “because we know from your phone records that you rang Toby Greene on Sunday afternoon while your car was parked near the Perry property. You summoned him, didn’t you? And a wrench was bought on your wife’s credit card between your two visits to the Perry house. That’s some coincidence.”
Kevin’s solicitor, a severe-looking young woman imported from a big Brighton firm, scribbled something on her yellow pad and whispered in her client’s ear.
Kevin’s chin sank and he went to “No comment” as the questions continued to pile up in front of him.
But when they got to the attack on Charlie, he blurted, “I didn’t hurt him—he was already dead. There’s no specific offense of assaulting a dead body.”
He’s been googling, then, Elise thought.
“What about kidnapping and imprisoning him in the basement?” Elise said. “Those are specific offenses.”
“He had stolen our money,” Kevin muttered, and his solicitor tutted.
“We’re also looking at charges of manslaughter, based on your actions that night.”
That shut him up.
“Why did you put Charlie’s bag in the skip?”
The question clearly knocked him off guard because he forgot the instruction to stick to “No comment.”
“I didn’t. Which skip? He had it with him when I took him into the house—he was about to go on the run. But we couldn’t find it later and I didn’t want to spend time looking.”
“And then you rang his widow on Charlie’s phone, pretending to be him? To hide what you’d done. To give yourselves time to leave.”
“No comment.”
“Where is the phone now?”
“No comment.”
“I see. I think we are finished here for the time being. Take him back to the cells, please,” Elise said.