He reached for the photo and stared at it. ‘Okay, it’s me in the picture.’
‘Why did you say you didn’t know Holly when clearly you do?’
‘Look, I didn’t even know her name was Holly.’
‘But you recognised her?’
‘I thought I’d be in trouble. I was in the toilet at the time of her murder and I told you that already. I don’t have an alibi and you lot hate me. That’s why I didn’t say anything.’
‘What size shoes do you wear?’
‘Nine. Why?’
Gina exhaled. ‘Where were you last night? That’s Monday the eleventh of May, between six and eight in the evening?’
‘At home?’ His gaze darted from Gina to Jacob, then back to Gina.
‘We visited you last night and you weren’t at home. I will repeat the question, where were you last night?’
‘I want my solicitor.’ He made a zip motion across his lips with his grubby fingers and his left eye twitched a little.
‘Interview terminated at thirteen twenty-two hours.’ Gina slammed her folder shut and stood to leave the room. ‘I suggest we get Mr Ullah here straight away. We are going to get to the bottom of this. It’s not looking good for you, Mr Brighton.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
The strip light above flickered as Gina and Jacob headed away from the interview rooms.
‘Phillip Brighton was definitely up to no good last night, but did he kill Francesca and if he did, why? He has no history of violence whatsoever. Why won’t he just tell us where he was and get this over with? But he’s not making it that easy. His solicitor, Mr Ullah, will take ages to get here. He’ll then tell him to keep his mouth shut and we’ll be none the wiser.’
Gina rolled up the sleeves of her oversized shirt and undid her top button. It was stuffy at the station or maybe she was having a flush. One or the other. She continued leading the way along the corridor. ‘If he has no history and he did murder Holly and Francesca, what triggered it? I don’t feel as though he has the intelligence to have committed the crimes. Francesca’s murder was well thought out. The assailant wore boot covers, possibly gloves too as no unexplained prints were found. So far, there has been no DNA evidence turn up.’
Jacob followed her and loosened his tie.
Gina stopped outside the closed incident room door as she continued to ponder. ‘I just don’t get it. He wears size nines, that’s a start but not much else fits. He had opportunity but no motive. Maybe Holly was buying drugs from Phillip Brighton and she threatened to shop him at the reception. Would he care that much? None of this is making sense. We need to find the father of Holly’s baby. I checked the system. The foetus’s DNA has been catalogued but there was no match on the system.’
‘One thing we can confirm, although it’s not much, is that the baby’s father was neither Phillip Brighton nor Robin Dawkins. They both have a past. We have them well and truly logged.’
‘Elimination is a start. One thing to consider though is the murderer may not have been the baby’s father either.’ She twisted the strands of hair that framed her face and pulled a frustrated expression. ‘We’re close you know.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘Maybe Francesca’s post-mortem might throw us a lead. Also, do we have access to Holly’s bank statements yet?’
‘Yes. They arrived this morning.’
‘Great. I want to delve into her lifestyle. I can’t see how she could have afforded everything she had on her salary.’
Jacob nodded. ‘Yes, that’s a mystery.’
‘And, Trevor Reed, our witness who saw what Samuel Avery was up to on the night of the reception, do we know when he’s due in?’
‘Not as yet.’ He pushed the door open.
Wyre removed her coat as O’Connor slumped into the swivel chair next to his computer.
‘Alright, guv? We’ve just brought Robin Dawkins, AKA Elvis, into custody. He’s in interview room one at the moment. PC Kapoor is with Lilly Hill, setting up the panic alarm and we have concrete confirmation that Holly’s manager at the microbrewery, Rick Elder, was skyping his sister in Australia at the time of Holly’s murder. The sister’s girlfriend took a piece of time-stamped video footage of them doing stupid impressions and joking around. The communications provider has also backed this up.’ O’Connor smiled as he clicked his email icon.
‘I suppose we can finally eliminate him for now. Good work. What time is Trevor Reed due in to make his statement?’ Gina grinned. Finally, she’d be able to convince her daughter once and for all that Samuel Avery was bad news.
‘He’s just arrived,’ Wyre interjected.
‘Robin Dawkins can stew for a while. I’ll grab a drink and then take his statement. This, I’m looking forward to.’ She pulled her sleeves back down and tucked her loose strands of hair behind her ears.
‘We’re just leaving for the morgue, guv,’ O’Connor said. ‘We’ll catch up later.’
‘Great. Anything to do with flowers anywhere in the body, let me know immediately. Any sign yet of Samuel Avery?’
Wyre shook her head. ‘None at all. His staff opened the pub. They said he’d headed to his sister’s in London last night, just for a visit apparently. They also said he’d be back later today.’
‘Mystery solved. That’s if he ever even went to his sister’s.’ As far as Gina was concerned, until that information and his timings had been confirmed, he was still a suspect in Francesca’s murder. She inhaled, taking a moment. Time to nail Avery on other charges for now. With two witnesses he had a lot more explaining to do. Since the last time she interviewed him, things were looking even worse now that Francesca, the one witness, had been murdered. In the absence of any carnations placed at the scene, she had to consider that someone else was involved and that maybe it was Avery.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Gina entered the room to find Trevor Reed already seated and sipping a machine coffee. The man looked to be in his early fifties and was equally as well preened as Alison Reed had been when Gina saw her the night before. He smoothed his full head of hair down with one hand and rested his other on the leather wallet and phone that lay on the table that divided them. Jacob shuffled behind him in the snug room and sat next to Gina.
‘Thank you for coming in so promptly,’ she said.
‘Once I heard what had happened to Fran, I had no choice. I can tell you, our family are deeply saddened by what has happened. Holly and Fran have been a part of our lives for years, on and off. They were Kerry’s best friends. I remember the slumber parties, the cinema nights. I picked them up when they all went to their first night club.’ He paused. ‘My wife and I treated them all like our own and I saw how that man was treating Fran at our daughter’s reception. To think I paid good money for him to provide the guest ale bar, then I see him upsetting one of her bridesmaids.’ The man closed his eyes and swallowed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m still taking all this in.’
‘That’s okay. Take your time.’