Blood Line (50 page)

‘Let’s see then if we can get through this as quickly as possible. It will be entirely up to you, Tina.’

She shrugged and sat back in her chair. Paul, seated beside Anna, had all the files beside him in order and ready to take out for Anna when required. He was looking very smart and, unusual for him, was wearing a dark-grey suit with a white shirt and navy tie.

‘Now this may sound repetitive, Tina, but I need for clarity’s sake to know exactly the timeframe, going from the moment you received a call from Alan at his place of work which would have been the fifteenth of March of this year.’

‘I was getting ready for work when he rang and said I had to collect him. He sounded in a right state. I asked if he was feeling okay and he said – well, he snapped at me – to get over to Metcalf Auto and pick him up, so I did.’

Anna nodded and Tina looked at her.

‘You want me to go on? He was very anxious all the way home, said he would have to get out as some people were threatening him. He told me to take a suitcase and put it in a locker at the salon, that he couldn’t stay at the flat and that he might go to his parents’ and make arrangements from there.’

She rubbed her face tiredly.

‘He was scared stiff, and I was worried about him, but he insisted I go to work. Anyway, I didn’t get back home until, as I’ve told you before, around six-thirty or a bit later. I knew something bad had happened as soon as I walked in. The sofa was overturned, I remember that, and then this guy came at me from out of the bathroom. He grabbed me and pushed me back into the lounge. Next this other man, huge bloke with a ponytail, came out and he said the name Sammy and told him to leave me alone. He said that Alan had taken something that belonged to him and I thought he was talking about the money I’d put in the locker. I heard Sammy call the other man Silas and I realised from what Alan had told me who they both were. I got frightened and said I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Sammy was screeching and swearing, and the big guy Silas had to hold him back. He kept asking me about a surfboard, where was Alan’s surfboard. It was all so crazy and I said it was in the garage. Then Sammy left and Silas told me that if I wasn’t telling the truth I’d get what Alan . . .’

She swallowed and down came the tears as she described being pushed towards the bathroom, how she had seen Alan in the bath with his head caved in and blood everywhere.

‘I started screaming and he hit me across the face hard which knocked me over and he said to shut up so I went back into the lounge and just sat there.’

Tina continued to describe Sammy returning to say he wasn’t going to carry the board in as he was worried about someone seeing him, so they said they’d wait until it was dark. They had asked her about money and she had pretended that she didn’t know anything about it, and she’d remained sitting in the lounge. She saw them taking blood-soaked sheets out of the bedroom, rolling them up, and then they told her she had to help them.

‘All the time I knew he was dead in the bathroom and I was terrified. They started cleaning the carpets, then they cut some out and they were in and out of the bedroom.’

‘What time did they leave?’

‘They didn’t. They sat around until it was dark and then Sammy went and got the surfboard from the garage and brought it in. He started using a hammer, but it was just making dents and then they sent me out in the morning to get carpet cleaner and bleach for washing down the walls and the bathroom.’

‘That was on March the sixteenth and you say you were kept in the flat that night as well?’

‘Yes, they made themselves something to eat.’

‘The body was still in the bathroom?’

‘Yes, and then early next morning they wanted me to go and buy an axe. So they could cut open the surfboard. This time Sammy drove me to get it ’cos I was so scared they didn’t think I’d come back. We went back into the flat but by this time Silas had used a hammer and screwdriver and he was in a terrible rage ’cos he said it was not the right board and again they came at me, but I swore I’d told them the truth and that I didn’t understand what they were talking about.’

Tina sniffed and was passed a tissue. She blew her nose.

‘They said I had to go to work and that if I told anyone about what had happened, I would be killed like Alan.’

‘So it was now two days since you brought Alan back from his garage?’

‘Yes. They made me help clean up with the carpet cleaner and bleach, scrub and turn the mattress, and change the bed and put a fresh set of bedlinen on it. They cut out the bloodstained bedroom carpet and put the other piece from the lounge over it. They moved the bed and I just had to do whatever they told me.’

Again the tears came down.

‘I thought it was all over. I was just hoping and praying they would leave, and I was gonna go to the police, I was. Sammy went out and left me with Silas. He came onto me all nice and quiet and said I’d done very well, and then he dragged me into the bedroom and he raped me.’

Anna tapped her notebook. ‘This was now the seventeenth, two days after you had returned with Alan?’

‘Yes, but they had moved his body. It wasn’t in the bathroom ’cos we’d been cleaning it with the bleach. I think they did it whilst I was at work.’

‘Why didn’t you call the police when you were at work?’

‘I was too scared. They knew where I was and they said that if I didn’t do what they told me to do they’d make sure I’d be implicated in the murder and that I’d be sorry.’

‘What about the surfboard?’

Tina looked confused and then shrugged.

‘I don’t know. It wasn’t left in the flat. When they took the body out they must have taken that as well. They did come in and out at night, but as I was at work in the day I didn’t know what they got up to.’

Anna paid close attention to her notes. She turned one page forward and backward and then tapped the book with her pencil, repeating from her notes what Tina had said to her.

‘“I couldn’t have done anything about it. I was that scared. It was Alan’s father who reported him missing and so I had to go along with it.” You seem to have gone along with an awful lot of things, Tina.’

‘I was raped. I saw the state of Alan, the blood in the bathroom. I knew what these two maniacs could do. I was terrified.’

‘But you also had every opportunity to go to the police. You knew Alan had been murdered, you knew that drugs were involved.’

Tina made a gesture with her hands, touching her breasts as her voice quavered.

‘I am just a woman and was so frightened. I honestly don’t remember what I was even thinking.’

‘But you hadn’t been raped – that came later, on the seventeenth, didn’t it? I just find it hard to believe that you could remain in that flat over two nights and then go to work as if nothing was happening when the man you have said you cared for and intended marrying was lying beaten to death in your bathtub. As I recall there’s only one lavatory, so what did you do when you needed to use it?’

‘I pissed when I got to work, Miss Clever Fucker. I never looked into the bathroom, bar that one time I told you about.’

Jonathan Hyde tapped her arm, saying quietly that she should watch her language. It looked as if she wanted to spit in his face, but then she gave a coy, whimpering smile.

‘Sorry. I am so sorry. Please forgive me for swearing.’

‘If you were so distraught, why take the axe back to the store?’

‘I told you why – because it might have implicated me. I didn’t want to be asked about it, it was never used.’

‘So did Sammy or Silas accompany you that time?’

‘No, they’d both gone by then.’

Anna looked up as there was a knock on the interview-room door. Brian Stanley was outside, indicating that he wished to speak to Anna. She got up, and for the recording announced that she was leaving the interview room and that it was five-fifteen in the afternoon.

Paul asked Tina if she would like more water, but she refused.

Jonathan Hyde sighed irritably, looking towards the door. Tina had been held in custody since the previous day. He knew they would soon have to either press charges or go before a magistrate to extend the custody time. He leaned closer to Tina, asking if she was in need of anything and she looked at him stonily.

‘I need a bath and a massage – are you gonna give me one?’ Hyde moved away from her fast.

Anna came back in, sat down and the interview continued, with Paul stating for the tape the time that DCI Travis had returned.

‘Tina, you have said that you had never met Sammy Marsh before, is that correct?’ asked Anna.

‘Yes,’ she hissed.

‘The other man was Silas Douglas – is that correct?’

‘I didn’t know his full name.’

‘Really? Did he use another name when you knew him previously?’

Tina blinked rapidly and then swallowed.

‘You did know him, didn’t you?’

‘No, I did not. I’d never met him before.’

‘Do you know a Wanda Douglas, his wife?’

‘No.’

‘We have been able to talk to Mrs Douglas who is at present living in Florida, and she says that you did know her husband. In fact, you had a lengthy affair with him over nine years ago.’

Tina shrugged.

‘So you see, I am doubtful about everything you have admitted as being the truth. You did know Mr Douglas . . .’

‘He walked out on me. I never knew he was married. He lied to me.’

‘Tina, you have also lied and I am now giving you one last opportunity to tell the truth,’ Anna said.

‘All right, I knew him from a long time ago, but I hadn’t seen him for years, and when he turned up in my flat with that Sammy, I was shocked.’

Anna sighed and then it looked as if havoc was about to break out again. Tina began to push at the table, but this time Anna was faster. She stood up and warned the woman that she would be cuffed if she continued.

‘I don’t care what you do to me. I DON’T CARE.’

Thankfully she sat back in the chair and started to cry. ‘Oh Christ, it’s all such a mess. Everything is a mess.’

‘Tina, if you start to tell the truth we can help you, but if we uncover lie after lie it only makes us even more suspicious. Continually lying makes it harder for us to believe that you were held against your will and that you never intended things to have happened in the way that they did. Unless we know the truth about what did happen, it’s hard for us to understand your part in it all.’

Tina hung her head and then after a beat, continued, ‘It was like it was happening to me all over again. It got that bad I didn’t believe how I could be such a dumb bitch. One man after the other had taken money off me, made me promises, screwed me and dumped me, and with Alan I really believed it was different. It was different all right – he would go from me to his fucking little toy boys and pretend that it was my paranoia. If you knew how many times I tried to confront him, wanting to know why he wouldn’t let me go with him to Cornwall, he’d just give me all this bullshit about needing space and needing time on his own, but he wasn’t, he was screwing around and I was so determined to find out. I was living with him, for God’s sake! He told me to go and get a wedding dress. He said to start arranging for a fucking wedding – and all the time he was planning on ditching me like all the rest of them.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘I knew that Sal was living down there or working the beaches with his boards so I called him up and asked him to check Alan out. I told him not to phone the flat but that I’d wait in a pub close to the salon for when he would call me, and I’d phone him from there. Those little cows at the salon are always poking their nose into my business. Anyway . . .’

She swallowed and then gave an open-handed gesture.

‘He rang me back, said he had found out and that I’d probably not want to know, but I insisted. He told me that Alan wasn’t even using his own name for one, but was a regular at all the gay clubs and was friendly with a real piece of work called Sammy who was running the drugs scene there. What I didn’t know was that Sal too was in it up to his armpits with Sammy. He supplied the drugs, but I didn’t know – I swear before God I didn’t know.’

Tina paused for breath. ‘At first I didn’t tell Alan what I’d found out, but I had to get my own back.’

She pursed her lips, chewing the lower one until she calmed herself down.

‘I wanted to put a knife through his heart. He lied. I could have got AIDS after he came back to me from fucking those waiters. He made me out to be a total idiot and then one night I couldn’t stand it any longer and I confronted him. I told him what I knew about him and he wouldn’t talk about it, he just ignored me until I started screaming at him, about how he’d wasted years of my life with his promises. I did fight with him, but he just gripped my wrists and told me to calm down and then afterwards he said he’d be moving out anyway. It was then he actually told me how long he’d been preparing to walk out on me, about the house he’d bought, the bank accounts – he told me all of it.’

‘So did he also tell you that he was now involved with drug-dealing?’

‘Yes. He said that was how he had made all this money, and then he said to me that he was doing some big deal and that he would give me a share of it. This time it was heroin: Sal was apparently bringing in a big shipment that would make everyone rich.’

The tears were gone. She sat almost composed as she said that she had found the suitcase with the money.

‘I knew he was going to dump me and so I said I had to go and do something at the salon and I took the suitcase. I stored it in the locker in my treatment area upstairs. I knew it’d be safe as none of the girls are allowed up there. I felt really good – you know, that I was getting my own back on him – because no way was I going to let him just walk out on me. And then I phoned Sal and told him that Alan was planning on leaving, and that he’d even rented his house out in Cornwall. Sal was really uptight because he said Alan wasn’t only walking out on me, but that Alan had got his hands on his last shipment so he was doing the dirty on him as well.’

Tina’s part in the whole hideous scenario began to take shape as she continued to talk. It sickened Anna. Alan had rung her to collect him from work because he’d had a threatening call from Sammy and he was scared. What he didn’t know was that Tina, through Silas, had been the one stirring it up. She knew they would both be there at the flat because she’d left the fire exit open and the front door on the latch for them to gain entry easily and unseen. Silas and Sammy wanted their drugs and the money; they didn’t believe Alan when he said it had gone. Whilst Tina went to work at her salon, as she had admitted, and returned from there at the time she had always maintained, Alan was still alive, but he had been tied across the width of the bed, gagged and beaten. His head was over the edge of the bed and Sammy had put a pillow case over it to stop the blood splashing about when he hit him with the club hammer. Silas would then remove it to un-gag him and ask again and again where the drugs and money were and the blood from his head injuries flowed onto the carpet. Alan kept saying that he didn’t know where the money was and he hadn’t taken the drugs, so Sal would replace the gag and pillow case and Sammy then beat him again. Eventually Alan passed out and they left him there while they discussed what to do next. The pool of blood on the carpet got bigger and bigger.