A tear streamed down her red cheeks. ‘Thank you.’
As Gina and Wyre scraped their chairs on the tiled floor, Beryl came back in and placed an arm around her friend. ‘Come on, love,’ she said as she hugged her friend. ‘Let it all out.’
‘We’ll see ourselves out.’ Gina nodded at Beryl as they left.
‘That was horrible, guv.’ Wyre closed her pad and popped it in her pocket.
‘I hated every moment of it. I suppose we really need to visit her workplace. What was it called again?’ As Gina opened the car door, a neighbour came out and got in his car. It was officially morning and neither she nor Wyre had been to bed all night.
‘Furnace and Blower Ales, in Stratford.’
Gina’s phone beeped. Briggs.
We’ve made an arrest. Remember the person you saw leaving the scene at the back of the garden? We have him. Uniform picked him up walking down one of the two roads.
‘We need to get back to the station, now.’ Gina started the car up and pulled away.
Chapter Eleven
‘Can you confirm your name?’ Gina’s voice echoed through the interview room, a tone of annoyance cutting the silence as she waited for Phillip Brighton to answer. Wyre stared sternly at the man as Mr Ullah, the duty solicitor, whispered in his ear.
Shrugging, his shoulders almost got lost in the material of his denim jacket. His belt had been removed when he’d arrived at the station, causing his jeans to slip to his thighs, exposing the grubby cream waistband of his boxer shorts. Spending an hour in a cell should have given him time to think, but he was still refusing to tell them who he was. The man barely blinked and this made Gina uneasy. His stare fixed on her, then across to Wyre as he scratched a few flecks of dried skin from his beard.
‘You have been charged with the supply of Class A and Class B drugs. What do we have?’
Wyre turned over the page in the file. ‘Twenty-five wraps of cocaine and a bag of cannabis have been seized, along with four hundred pounds in cash.’
‘Phillip Brighton. We have you on file and your fingerprints don’t lie. This isn’t your first offence. It isn’t even your second offence. You’re looking at a long custodial sentence so I suggest you start talking about last night.’
The suited solicitor whispered once again in his client’s ear and Phillip Brighton didn’t say a word.
‘Mr Brighton. You were picked up by officers on Blossom Lane, which runs along the back of Cleevesford Manor. We found you in possession of a substantial amount of Class A and B drugs, along with a wad of cash.’ Gina needed to prove to herself that he was the man running away from the building. ‘I saw someone who fits your build from the window of the manor, using a phone as a torch before disappearing into the woods.’ She couldn’t have identified him in a line-up. ‘You may or may not know that a serious attack took place last night resulting in the murder of a woman, so you need to start speaking. We are presently going through all the CCTV from the manor. If you were there, we will find out.’
She was bluffing. There was CCTV but she had no idea how good any of it was until they sat down and went through it. She knew that DC Harry O’Connor had arrived at the station a short while ago and she’d tasked him with that very job.
‘Okay. I was at the manor but I didn’t kill any woman!’ He kicked the leg of the table.
‘I’m not saying you did.’ He paused and twitched slightly, then again. Just a little shake of his neck. ‘I need you to tell me what you saw. Do you know Holly Long?’
‘Never heard that name.’
Gina pushed a photo of Holly across the table. ‘Do you recognise this woman?’
‘I’ve never seen her before. Look, if I tell you what I do know, will you drop the drug charges?’
Gina slowly shook her head. ‘I will make it known that you cooperated fully with our investigations.’ Phillip Brighton had been caught with the drugs and the cash and he was a known drug dealer in the area. She knew he was small fry in the big scheme of things but still, she couldn’t magic these charges away. ‘Phillip. Can I call you Phillip?’
‘Phil. I hate Phillip.’
‘Phil. A woman was murdered last night and we are interviewing everyone. Can you tell me when you arrived at Cleevesford Manor, how you got there and what you did?’
Mr Ullah whispered a few more words and Phillip nodded.
‘I wasn’t dealing, I just had some stuff on me for personal use. I heard that there was going to be a free bar and I turned up, taking my chances on getting a few drinks.’
‘Where did you hear about the free bar?’
‘The Angel Arms. I was in there having a quiet drink and someone let on that they were heading down to Cleevesford Manor.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. I overheard some of the lads talking. They were joking about milking some geezer called Trevor for a few free drinks. He’s the bride’s dad, apparently. I headed over there about an hour later. That’s how long it took me to walk. I think the others caught a taxi. They said to climb over the stile on Blossom Lane. It’s a short walk through the woods and there’s a cut through at the back of the garden. I couldn’t exactly swan in through the front door, could I? I didn’t have an invite. The aim of the game was to guzzle as many drinks as possible before we got chucked out.’
Gina knew he’d gone there to sell drugs but now wasn’t the time to interrupt him.
‘Carry on.’
‘I got there about half nine or ten, I think. When I came out of the toilets, I saw that all hell was breaking loose when the father of the bride could see that we didn’t belong. Food started flying, a few shirts were ruffled and most of us were thrown out onto the terrace. I waited outside and had a smoke until things died down and then the cops arrived and I heard people saying something about a dead woman. I knew I needed to get out. I shouldn’t have been there and I knew this would happen if I stayed. I ran to the back of the garden and I got a bit lost in the woods.’
Didn’t want to get caught with all the drugs in your possession more like, Gina thought. ‘You didn’t come when you were called.’
‘I fell asleep. Like I said, those drugs are for personal use. I had a smoke and I fell asleep in the woods.’
Gina didn’t believe any of it. ‘You went from running away in a panic to falling asleep.’
‘Yes.’
Gina cleared her throat and glanced across at Wyre who raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay, what happened when you woke up?’
‘I saw someone, but as I say, I was half stoned and it was dark but I know what I saw. He was feeling himself in the bushes.’
‘Feeling himself?’
The man rolled his eyes. ‘Wanking. He started to wank and I startled him.’
Something about what he was saying and the way he was saying it told Gina that amongst his lies, this was a truth. Even Phillip Brighton wouldn’t have embellished his story with something so bizarre.
‘You’re saying you saw a man masturbating in the bushes?’
‘Yeah, well starting to. It was way after things had died down. I’d been out of it for a while. I don’t know what time it was but it was late or should I say early.’