Page 31 of Her Hidden Shadow

‘Saffi. I’m the area sales manager.’

‘Is Mr Hale in today?’

She shook her head. ‘No. He went on leave last Friday and isn’t due back until next week. Is this to do with Sienna? I saw the news. We’ve talked about nothing else this morning.’

Gina nodded. ‘We’re investigating her murder. Did Mr Hale say he was going away or staying at home?’

She let out a smirk. ‘What home?’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means he lost his house just before Christmas and he’s been staying in his static caravan, that’s until that gets discovered as an asset. He’s not even meant to stay there as the park doesn’t open all year round. He leaves his car by the river and takes the walking trail in, so the site manager doesn’t see him.’

From what Gina had heard, Sienna had been living with him and she had left him mid-December. He must have lost his home after that. ‘Which caravan park is he staying at?’

‘Honey Pots Park in Stratford but he might not be there at the moment. He said he was going on holiday. He mentioned going on a short break to Magaluf, only for a couple of days. I don’t know whether he’s gone yet or if he’s going later this week. I didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know.’

Gina sensed that Saffi didn’t like Gerard.

‘I guess you’re here because you want to speak to him and in his absence, you want to know more about him. I can help you.’

Perfect. That was just what Gina needed. They’d have to check out Honey Pots later. ‘That would really help.’ Gina gently gestured for Wyre to follow her towards the wall. ‘Could you call in the information about Honey Pots Park? The sooner we can visit, the better.’ They could bring him in for questioning if he wasn’t yet in Magaluf. She checked her watch, knowing that she had a witness arriving at the station soon, as well as the boys who found Robbie Shields’s body. On top of all that, O’Connor would want to speak to her about Sienna Moorcroft’s post-mortem. Time was slipping through their fingers.

Gina pulled her own notebook out as her colleague stepped to one side to make the call. She headed back towards Saffi. ‘Did Mr Hale mention Sienna Moorcroft?’

‘Yes, he referred to her as his bird, which I felt was derogatory. Before he announced they were seeing each other, we wondered why he was always making excuses to go to Brunswick’s and then we found out. He’d been taking her to lunch on the company card. It flagged up with accounts when they were doing his expenses. He said they were having meetings. Accounts thought that was odd as they wanted to keep our business, so they normally paid for entertainment. Anyway, he was treating Sienna to posh dinners on company money. He got a slap on the wrists and that was it, so we thought.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘He seemed to toe the line for a while and then he announced she was moving in with him. He had this nice little semi, three bedrooms and a long garden. He showed me pictures on his phone. I don’t think Sienna was ready to move in with him.’ She paused and began to play with a strand of hair.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because I heard him joking about it, saying he was working on her, persuading her. No one needs persuading if it’s something they want to do. It came across like he was pressuring her. He would also call her every time he had a break. It seemed too full on and if she had a day off, I’d hear him asking her where she was and when she’d be home.’

‘Was this when she moved in with him?’

Saffi shook her head. ‘No, this was before. Anyway, she moved in with him and he started coming in late, saying that he needed to drop her off at work and then he’d leave early to pick her up. No one seemed to mind the hours he kept because he did a lot of work from home, but it was as if he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. A few weeks into her living with him…’ Saffi exhaled. ‘This is horrible, but I’ll say it as it is. I get the sense he’s not quite right and I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong. He comes across as controlling. I think that’s why she left him. It didn’t take her long to find out.’

Wyre returned and took over the note-taking. Gina continued. ‘And after that?’

‘After she left, he came into work looking dishevelled but not upset. He was angry. If someone made the tiniest sound, he’d jump down their throats. It was like walking on eggshells. That’s when things went downhill fast. We found out his house was being repossessed and that he’d accrued a lot of debt. He probably spent too much on Botox and his stupid teeth. I overheard a phone call he made to Sienna while she was at work, just after she left him.’

Gina held her breath in anticipation of what was coming next.

‘He called her a slag and he used the f-word first. Then he used the c-word. I’m not saying it. It makes my teeth itch, but you know the one I mean. He said it was her fault he was losing everything. I think he was hoping that Sienna’s savings were going to get him out of a hole. He did mention that she had some money in an ISA that she’d saved up for a house deposit. It wasn’t just about the money though. While on the phone, he ranted about her sleeping with someone else. I don’t know who the man was, but Gerard had seen her with him. I think he’d been following her otherwise how would he know these things? He seems the stalker type. He loves himself, he’s a narcissist and he seem to worship every chauvinist, using a men’s rights group as a front on the internet. He wears designer clothes that I know he couldn’t afford on his salary and his teeth, the man is as vain as hell. But the way he spoke to her – I’ll never forget that. He lost it on that call.’

There was a lot to process, and Gina knew that she had to get Hale to the station as soon as possible. He seemed to know that Sienna had moved on and he was angry. Sienna and Robbie had been murdered. Tiffany Crawford niggled at the back of Gina’s mind. She still needed to work out if the cases were connected. ‘Would you come into Cleevesford Police Station to give a statement after work?’

Saffi nodded. ‘It’s not ideal going on record as I have to work with the man, but yes. I’ll do it for Sienna. There is one other thing, but I can’t go on the record with it so stop writing in your pad.’

Wyre popped the notebook in her bag.

‘He cornered me one day, in the stationery cupboard, way before he started seeing Sienna. I’ve never felt so scared. For weeks, he’d been asking me out for a drink, but I had no interest in him. I didn’t even like him and I thought I’d conveyed that fact well but instead of deterring him, he saw me as more of a challenge. He forced me against the shelving, and I felt his erection through his trousers. He began slobbering on my neck and I don’t know how but I managed to get him off me. The whole shelf came down in the struggle. As I reached for the door to let myself out, he grabbed me and he said if I told anyone he’d say that I’d been harassing him, sexually, and that he’d get me sacked.’ The woman looked down at her shiny black heels.

‘What he did to you was serious. Do you want to report it now?’

She shook her head. ‘I hurt him. In the struggle, I managed to break one of his toes and he also said he’d then report me for attacking him because I brought the shelf down on him. Problem is, a few years ago I got into a fight. It was stupid really. I was drunk and I found out that my friend had slept with my then boyfriend. Cut a long story short, I punched her, got a caution, she forgave me and now we’re friends again. I was nineteen and stupid but that gave me a history of violence. I’ve never hurt anyone before that or since. If I report him and he goes not guilty, I’ll get torn apart. He will just say that I fancied him, he rejected me, and I attacked him. He said he’d tell everyone I was a crazy bitch. I only told you about what happened to me so that you knew the type of person you’re dealing with. I hope it helps you, but I won’t say any of that on record, ever. I think it shows that he was capable of hurting Sienna. You can get your notebook back out now.’

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