She looked towards Clayton as she spoke. There was no mistaking the message in her eyes. The doctor had arrived with the test results.

‘Right.’ Anni opened the folder, read down. Clayton knew there was often nothing in these files they brought out in front of suspects; they were just props. There was nothing someone who had a problem with authority found more terrifying, a training officer had once explained, than someone in authority holding a file on them.

Anni looked up, seemingly startled to find Clayton still there. ‘I thought you were off this case now?’

Clayton felt his cheeks warming up. ‘Yeah. I’ll just . . .’ He rose, scraped his chair back along the floor. Made his way reluctantly to the door and out. He glanced at Sophie before he left, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring straight ahead, her face unreadable.

Once outside the room, Clayton looked quickly round, then made his way as fast as he could to Ben Fenwick’s office. There was a CCTV relay in there and he could watch the interview on it. He ran up the stairs, stood outside, getting his breath back, knocked. No reply. He tried the handle. Open. He went inside, set the TV monitor up. Started watching.

‘Sophie Gale,’ Anni was saying as he turned it on.

‘Yes.’ Sophie’s voice was dry and cracked.

Anni looked up from the file, directly at her. ‘But that’s not your real name, is it?’

‘It’s . . .’ Sophie looked towards where Clayton had been sitting. She seemed to have guessed which way this was going to go and, now that he was no longer there, suddenly needed an ally.

‘It’s not your real name,’ said Anni; not a question, a statement.

Sophie nodded.

‘Gail Johnson. That’s the name under which you first came to our attention. When you were a prostitute.’

‘Yes.’

A tight smile from Anni. ‘Good.’ She looked down at the file again, pretended to be reading. ‘Charges were never brought against you, were they?’

Something hardened in Sophie. ‘You know they weren’t. And you know why.’

‘Yes. I know why. Just found out today.’ Anni’s gaze went to the screen.

Clayton jumped back. Was she looking at him? Did she know he was watching?

She continued. ‘You were an informant. You were protected. ’

Sophie nodded.

Anni’s voice changed. Became less accusatory. ‘Very good. Can’t have been easy to do that. Downright dangerous at times, I would have thought.’

Sophie shrugged. Clayton could tell she was thawing. He knew Anni was playing her.

‘Having to go with men you didn’t want to was bad enough. But then having to come and tell us about it . . . bad men, dangerous men . . . that’s real bravery. I mean it.’ And she sounded like she did. She smiled.

‘Thank you.’ Sophie returned the smile.

‘How long did you do that for?’

Sophie thought. ‘Oh . . . feels like for ever. But it also feels like it happened years ago. To someone else.’

‘So how long?’

‘About five years.’

Anni looked impressed. ‘Long time.’

‘Felt like it.’

Anni nodded, smiled. ‘But that’s all in the past now.’

‘Absolutely. New life, new everything.’ Sophie gave a tentative smile. Even on CCTV, Clayton could see that her guard was starting to drop. He knew exactly what Anni was doing. And what the end result would be. And he was powerless to stop her.

‘So.’ Anni looked back at the file. Pretended to be reading. ‘Wednesday the seventeenth. You were at home. With Ryan Brotherton.Your boyfriend. In the house you share together.’ She looked up. ‘That right?’

‘Yes.’

Back to the file. ‘And you were there all night. Watching DVDs. Eating takeaway food.’

Sophie nodded.

Anni looked directly at her, the earlier friendliness now completely absent. ‘No you weren’t.You’re lying.’

Sophie was taken aback by the words.

The test results were back, thought Clayton. And they were positive.

46

‘But let’s put that to one side,’ said Anni. ‘We’ll get to that. Let’s talk about Ryan first. How did you meet him?’

Sophie, shaken from Anni’s previous words, trotted out the same story Clayton had heard the previous night. She was seeing one of Ryan’s competitors, she heard there was a job going, she applied, was taken on, then dumped her boyfriend and took up with Brotherton. Anni listened, nodded, said nothing.

There was silence while she consulted the file once more. Clayton watched the monitor helplessly. There was nothing he could do. Anni was controlling things now.

‘Did you know Susie Evans, Sophie?’

Sophie seemed to be deciding on what her answer should be. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But not very well.’

‘You got pulled in with her. On a raid.’ Anni read down. ‘Couple of raids.’

Sophie nodded, but said nothing.

‘Did Ryan, your boyfriend, know Susie Evans?’

Clayton saw the fear and desperation in Sophie’s eyes as she stared at Anni. ‘No. I don’t know. Not that I know of.’

‘Which one is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know.’

‘If he did, he never mentioned it.’

‘Right.’ Anni flipped over a few pages, brought out another sheet of paper. ‘Funny, that, because his name has come up a couple of times where hers is concerned. Quite a few times, actually. And yours is there too.’

Sophie again looked round, trying to find help and support from some corner of the room, fear now rampant in her eyes. Clayton, in the office, looked at Anni, knew that look on her face. She was trying not to smile. She had something.

‘Yes. When you and she were picked up a few times, he was picked up too. Never charged, which was why it took me so long to find the information, but his name was taken. Don’t you think that’s a strange coincidence?’

Sophie looked at the table. ‘Yes. It’s a coincidence.’

‘A coincidence. Right. So it’s a coincidence that you knew Susie Evans. Worked with her. And that Ryan Brotherton knew Susie Evans. And that Ryan is now your boyfriend. And Susie Evans is dead. Murdered. And Ryan’s ex-girlfriend, Claire Fielding, is also dead. And Ryan, your boyfriend, the one you were eating takeaway food with and watching DVDs with the other night, has a history of violence towards women. A problem with women, in fact. A very serious problem.’ She sat back, her eyes locked on to Sophie like laser beams. ‘Quite a coincidence.’

Sophie looked frantically at Anni.

Anni leaned forward. ‘You want to tell me the truth now?’

Sophie’s head dropped into her hands. ‘No . . . He’ll kill me . . .’

‘Yes,’ said Anni, her tone conciliatory yet steely. ‘He very well might. So I’m your only chance, Sophie. You’d better talk to me. Right?’

She nodded.

‘Truth this time.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘The truth.’

Phil walked back into the interview room holding a document file. On the file was Ryan Brotherton’s name. He set it on the table, resumed his seat. Brotherton looked expectantly at him. Phil opened the file, glanced at the contents. Raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh, Ryan . . .’

‘What?’ Brotherton craned his neck forward, trying to see what was written there. Phil moved it further away from him.

‘Jesus, you have been a naughty boy . . .’ He held his gaze on the pages for a few more seconds, just long enough for Brotherton’s anxiety levels to increase, then flipped the cover of the file closed and looked levelly at him. This was a different Phil from the one who had left the room. He had appeared to be Brotherton’s friend, someone on his side. This new Phil was something different. A professional. A heat-seeking missile zeroing in on his target. And he wasn’t going to miss.

‘Where were you on the night of Wednesday the seventeenth of November?’ he asked.

Brotherton looked startled at Phil’s abrupt tone.