Page 65 of Her Hidden Shadow

‘How about the gifts?’

‘What gifts?’

‘The blue chemise.’

Lauren went to open her mouth but closed it again. ‘I, err, it’s nothing. It was a wrong delivery but there was no return address.’

‘Were you having an affair?’

‘No. Robbie was having the affair. I’ve never cheated on Robbie.’ Lauren’s bottom lip began to wobble.

‘How about years ago, around the time when your boyfriend, Robbie Shields, would have had his affair with your friend, Sienna Moorcroft? Were you having an affair back then?’

She huffed. ‘Damon said that, didn’t he? The man is transfixed, even told Robbie he should finish with me. I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else. Even if I was, it was a long time ago and unless you can charge me with cheating, I’m not answering any more questions like this. I will say again, I was not cheating on Robbie. He was cheating on me, with Sienna. Either her crazy ex, Gerard, killed them both, or her new boyfriend did. I feel like I’m on trial here.’

The room fell silent. Gina’s mouth began to dry up. She took a sip of water and placed the glass down. She considered what Lauren had said. Gerard couldn’t possibly have murdered Sienna which only left Jacob in the picture.

‘Did you meet Sienna’s new boyfriend?’ Gina hoped that the woman would describe anyone but Jacob. She knew that Lauren would have seen Jacob just after Sienna’s murder as he came to the scene with her. Surely Sienna would have discussed her new boyfriend with her best friend. She sat on her trembling hands under the table as Collier turned a page in his notebook.

‘No, I never met him, but she told me about him. Some sad case who was still in love with a woman who dumped him. He wasn’t really her boyfriend, just someone she’d meet up with and talked to. She said he was helping her to deal with Gerard and that he was trying to persuade her to report him. You know Gerard was stalking her? The man is a lunatic. He’d just be sat in his car outside where she lived. It was him, it had to be. He watched her turn up…’ Lauren swallowed, and Gina could see the pain on her face as she relayed her theory. ‘He saw her go into my bedroom with Robbie, he got jealous and killed her, and then he took Robbie from the bungalow, and he killed Robbie. It’s obvious.’

Gina shook her head. ‘Gerard Hale has an alibi, and he couldn’t have murdered Sienna.’

Lauren’s brows furrowed and she remained open-mouthed for a moment before licking her dry lips. ‘The man she was seeing, she said he was a policeman or someone who worked for the police. That’s why the protestors are outside, isn’t it? It’s him. He killed her, didn’t he? You don’t want it to be him so you’re inventing a scenario. I’m not stupid. You think I was having an affair and that I knew about Sienna and Robbie. You think I planned their murders, don’t you?’ She stood, pushing the chair back against the wall. ‘I tell you what, I’m going. You said I was free to leave at any time. I’m not under arrest and you know what, I don’t want to be here. Call me when Robbie’s body is released, and I can go home. Until then, I don’t want to hear from you.’ Lauren walked out of the interview room and left. Collier chased after her while Gina described what was happening for the tape.

‘Well, that was a success,’ Sullivan said as she entered.

‘You were watching?’

She laughed. ‘I’m always watching.’ She pointed at the clock on the wall. ‘Time is ticking and I’m looking forward to getting this case wrapped up so we can all go home.’ Sullivan pointed two fingers at her eyes, then pointed them at Gina before leaving the room.

Gina glanced down at a stray hair on the table, and she picked it up and pulled it taught. The ombre, brown at the tip, blonde at the other end. It was a beautiful transition of colour. Her mind kept going back to Hazel and Tiffany. She dropped the hair and her heart rate sped up. What if they’d been looking at the case all wrong. Hurrying out of the interview room, she burst into the incident room. She ran to the board and snatched up a pen with her clammy hands, crossed a name from the victim list and added another. The whole room went silent.

Sullivan shook her head. She took the pen and rewrote the original name on the list and crossed out Gina’s suggestion, dismissing her theory instantly. ‘DI Harte, you have been warned more than once. Leave it out. We have our murderer.’

‘But, ma’am.’

‘Don’t, Harte. Let’s not do this. You’re embarrassing yourself now and I won’t hesitate to throw you off the case. DCI Briggs and I were just talking about you and he agrees, you’re too close.’

Before she said something she’d regret, Gina stormed out of the room. She knew she’d blown it but if Sullivan wasn’t going to take her theory seriously, then she’d had it. For the first time in her career, she was going it alone. She would not let Jacob down by leaving stones unturned. Wyre and O’Connor followed her into the corridor.

After clearing her throat, Wyre spoke. ‘We’re with you, guv.’

Sullivan breezed past. ‘Briefing in ten. I expect you all to be there, including you, Harte.’ She disappeared around a corner.

They all went obediently back into the room, ready to play Sullivan’s game. As soon as the briefing was over, they were alone on the case without the support of the department. Gina knew it could cost her everything, but it no longer mattered.

Fifty

Tiffany

Tiffany wobbled slightly to the kitchen. Something wasn’t right. It was as if the room was tilting back and forth, only slightly. Her stomach growled. Hunger or nausea?

She poured a glass of filtered water from the fridge and took her tablets. Maybe she felt so rough because she hadn’t taken them. She took another swig of the liquid and felt like heaving. Maybe she was dehydrated. Her head began to throb. What she’d really like is a glass of wine, then she could sleep and forget everything. She slammed the glass down. Some crazed killer was out there, and he was coming for her, and she was expected to get by on water and… She paused and pulled out the bowl of lunch that her husband had prepared for her. Egg salad. She grabbed a fork and heaved as she forced a few leaves down her gullet before bouncing the bowl on the draining board. It had tasted funny. In fact, everything tasted odd. Maybe she was coming down with a virus.

Reaching into her pocket, she grabbed the blister pack of diazepam that she’d kept close all day. She’d happily kept them hidden from Kieron since finding them in her bag.

Her chat with Lauren had seemed a bit weird and Tiffany didn’t know if her friend had meant to tell her that she knew about Robbie and Sienna’s fling, and for a short while, Lauren had stared into thin air. On the way out, Lauren had been so consumed by her thoughts, she accidentally brushed into Tiffany’s photos on the hall wall, smashing a couple of frames.

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