Stiffly, I retreat fully into the chair. The air coming out of my lungs is rough, scratching the walls of my chest. This man is dangerous; I mustn’t forget that.
I attempt to reign in my temper. ‘You murdered not just my mother but Amina and Sheryl as well. Thank God Ronnie had the good sense to run.’
He looks mournful. How does he do that? Make his emotions appear so genuine? ‘I haven’t murdered anyone. As a trustee of the Suzi Lake Centre I did those women a good turn assisting them in finding work. What subsequently happened at those jobs was nothing to do with me.’
‘Is that what you tell yourself?’ I sneer. ‘You’re the patron saint of unemployed females?’
His face darkens. ‘You need to stop talking to me like that.’
But I keep pressing. ‘Pretty Lanes gave you an opportunity to get your hand in the till at the company. They make you a trustee and all you had to do was supply them with women from the centre who the police weren’t likely to come looking for, with families the cops wouldn’t probably give the time of day to.’
That wipes some of the smugness from his lying face.
‘You know what the problem is with you, Daddy dearest? You’re too busy worrying what the world will think about you. Any normal person would have kept documents showing they were the trustee of a company in a drawer somewhere. Not you. You have to have it on display to brag to the world what a success you’ve made of your life—’
‘You haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.’
I spit and hiss, ‘Who was it that made you feel small as a child? Made you feel you had to keep proving yourself to the world no matter if that includes murder? Was it a teacher? A lover? Maybe the father who left Suzi all those years ago.’ I respond to his raised brows. ‘I know that Suzi Lake was your mother.’
He scoffs and smokes at the same time. Clouds of white fumes stream out of his murderous mouth. ‘It wasn’t my fault that some of those women came from bad backgrounds.’
I inch closer to the edge of my seat. ‘It had nothing to do with so-called bad backgrounds. You deliberately targeted those women. One of them wasn’t a woman, she was a child. A vulnerable child. Being a patron of the centre gave you access to all types of information. You soon learned that it was likely that if black women vanished off the face of the earth the cops would do sod all about it.’
He mulishly remains silent, giving me the answer I already know. ‘That’s what you are, Danny, a manipulator. Using your inside knowledge about situations and people to your advantage. That’s what you tried to do with me. On the one hand, you’re trying to get me to be your agent, looking in Sugar’s room to see what new evidence he’s got on the case. And on the other, trying to convince me Sugar is rotten to the core.’
It’s my turn to rub his face in it. ‘Hope was clever. Much more intelligent than you. She knew what you were doing, so you silenced her. You do know that she hid a clue at the centre about what was going on that I found. You should’ve burned the centre down before.’ If this wasn’t so deadly I’d be laughing in his face. ‘You got scared after you silenced Hope and somehow managed to convince the board members to close the Suzi Lake Centre at the end of 1994.’
He barks with laughter. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve been listening to Miriam? If you have, heaven help you. That girl’s a big disappointment. One hundred per cent pure gormless.’
I won’t let up. My voice is hoarse. ‘How could you have sent my mother to her death like that?’
‘Your mother—’
‘Say her name.’
It occurs to me that he refers to his victims as ‘those women’ and Hope as ‘your mother’。
‘Go on, say her name.’
He stubs out his cigar with considerable force. ‘Never mind your mother’s name, let’s get real here. It’s a pretty little story but you’re forgetting one very important thing. It’s all circumstantial.’ He folds his legs like he’s in some gentlemen’s members club regaling everyone with a story. ‘Little people go to jail as a result of circumstantial stories. Big people like me don’t. Do you know what my lawyer would do with your allegations? Do you know what he would do to you personally? He’ll do to you what he did to that crank Patrick Walsh; put you straight back in your box with the lid slammed shut.’ He laughs again. ‘Oh, what pleasure I had sending the same firm of lawyers after Patrick Walsh again.’