Con and Agatha watched Eliza for several minutes. She kept shivering occasionally, but her back was straight.
Suddenly Agatha stood up, so quickly Eliza flinched. Agatha opened the door and shouted, so Eliza could hear, ‘Could we have the heaters turned up in here?’
She returned and sat back down. She gave a sad smile. ‘Well, I can’t say I agree . . .’ She took some papers out of the folder and shuffled them. ‘But I suppose I understand.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Eliza.
‘I had the most interesting chat with Madison Mason earlier today. She remembers a lot that she initially didn’t think was important.’
The commander pretended to read through a typed-up ‘report’, which she and Con had fabricated just half an hour earlier. It was full of things that Madison definitely did not say. It wasn’t illegal, as it wouldn’t leave the room: it was just a prop. That’s what Con kept telling himself, anyway.
‘Madison said Cierra told her that there was a man coming – a man, mind you – who wanted to experiment with twins.’ She glanced up at Eliza. ‘She said that she heard a thump, like a heavy body hitting the ground. And that, now that she thought about it, the hedges outside her sister’s window were much flatter than before. As though someone had jumped out the window. In fact, that’s likely the bump that she heard.’
The commander showed Eliza a photograph from the Masons’ house, which Con had raced to take just fifteen minutes earlier, with a red circle drawn around the hedge underneath Cierra’s window. There did seem to be some damage to the conifer.
‘The smell of marijuana and the empty bottles in the room . . . Tell me, what is Tom’s alcohol tolerance like? Of course, when you add marijuana, you’re much more likely to feel . . . unwell. No doubt you saw it firsthand when you rushed to the Masons’ house to rescue him. I’ve also heard you should never drink while on steroids.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Eliza.
‘What I am surprised by is that he called you. Did his wife know about it? I’m guessing it was a fetish of his long before he even met you?’ Agatha grimaced. ‘I’m not begrudging the man his sexual tastes, but when it comes to underage girls, especially his students . . . wait, no . . . Cierra called you, didn’t she? Not Tom. She called you, the only person she thought might be able to help in that situation. Did she call from her own phone or from Tom’s?’
‘I want my lawyer.’
‘Certainly. You don’t have to say anything more until she arrives.’
That was Con’s cue.
He tapped at his phone under the desk. Ten seconds later, the timer’s alarm began to ring, sounding like his ringtone.
He made a show of pulling out his phone and looking at it, puzzled, then pretended to answer.
‘This is Con. What have you got, Tran?’ He raised his eyebrows and pitched his voice higher. ‘She’s alive?’
Eliza leaned forward over the table. Con mirrored the action, leaning towards Eliza. He met her eyes, looked away.
‘Yes. Where? Any sign of Jasmine?’ He let his shoulders slump. ‘But Cierra? She’ll be able to talk?’
Eliza released a sob. ‘Thank God!’
‘I’ll be there soon, I just need to finish with Eliza . . . Yes, I agree. We’ll ask the girl to corroborate.’
Eliza had one hand resting on the table and again he mirrored her pose, not letting his gaze linger too long. Mirrored body language to build subconscious rapport. Drawing her into his web.
‘I’ll call you back soon.’ He pretended to hang up the phone, then blew out a long sigh through his teeth. ‘She’s alive,’ he whispered, almost to himself.
‘Perhaps next time you can take the call outside the interview room?’ said Agatha, words clipped.
‘Where is she? Where did they find her? What about Jasmine?’ said Eliza. ‘Con, please!’
Con opened his mouth to reply, but Agatha spoke over him, her voice hard. ‘No. You’ve already said enough, Badenhorst. She’s still a person of interest.’
Eliza fell back, anguish playing on her face.
Con felt a stab of guilt.
‘You know what I think, Miss Ellis? You’re taking the fall for Tom,’ said Agatha. ‘I think you wanted to do the best thing for your sister, her daughter. And I understand that. But I wonder what it is about Tom that makes you want to protect a man like him.’
For the first time, Con saw anger in her face.
‘If Cierra is alive,’ Agatha said wryly, glancing at Con and his phone, ‘then we’ll be finding out the truth soon anyway. But in the meantime, we’re wasting time and resources investigating you. We should be investigating Tom.’
‘You know Tom can’t have been involved,’ said Eliza. ‘He was far ahead of our group.’
‘Then why lie about his relationship with Cierra?’
Eliza was silent.
‘He’ll go to jail. Maybe you will, too, if we don’t find Jasmine. Once Cierra confirms you were lying, it won’t take long until people start wondering why you haven’t been more closely examined as a suspect.’
‘But Wren will be the one to suffer . . .’
‘And how much has Cierra suffered? And it could have been Madison, too, that night. It was only a matter of time before Tom had them both, just like he wanted. You realise this is sexual abuse, right? Does Monica know?’
‘Yes,’ Eliza finally forced out. ‘She stayed with Wren when I went to get Tom.’ Tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘Cierra is safe . . . thank God . . .’ She began to cry.
Con felt the prickling of guilt all over his body.
When Eliza regained a little composure, Agatha slid one of the pieces of paper across the table – it was a typed confession. Agatha, with Con’s input, had included everything. ‘You’ll sign this, confessing that Tom was the perpetrator,’ said Agatha.
Eliza picked up the pen and signed.
An hour later, Con and Agatha sat across from Tom North and his lawyer, a Mrs Barrow.
‘Whatever that bitch said about me, it’s all lies,’ Tom shouted.
Commander Normandy took a long sip from her cup of tea, never taking her eyes off him.
‘Shall we discuss the ludicrous charge against my client?’ said Mrs Barrow finally.
‘Yes,’ said Agatha, ‘we shall. We have a statement here, from Eliza Ellis.’
‘You’re basing this on the word of a woman trying to save her own bacon?’ said Mrs Barrow. ‘Surely you’re smarter than that?’
‘It won’t be long before we have a forensic report showing Mr North’s DNA matches that found on the weed and condom wrappers from Cierra’s room. Curiously, did you know your client tried to refuse a DNA sample? It had to be taken from him by force.’
‘Be that as it may —’
‘Be that as it is, Mrs Barrow. Mr North, are you going to be honest with us, or will I need to make another cup of tea while you continue playing games?’ Her voice was hard. ‘There are three missing girls, and a family mourning the loss of another. I would like to put my energy into investigating that. The more you delay me here, the more I suspect you have something to do with it.’ She leaned forward. ‘Word has already started to spread about you. Our custody may well be the safest place for you right now. If you continue to waste our time, imagine what will happen if that time is the difference between life and death for Cierra?’