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SEVENTY-TWO HASTINGS POLICE STATION

The woman sitting in front of DC Ian Langtry is around sixty-five to seventy years of age.

She is well preserved, slim, and nicely dressed in fitted trousers, a striped sweater, and a woolen overcoat.

Her hair is dyed a subtle blond and tied back at the nape of her neck.

Her reading glasses sit on top of her head and her nails are painted a milky-coffee color.

But despite her elegant appearance, it is clear she is in some distress.

She seems flighty and panicked; her eyes will not rest on one spot.

“I’ve come to report an assault,” she says, so quietly that DC Langtry asks her to repeat herself.

“Sorry. Yes. I’ve come to report an assault.”

“And are you the victim of this assault?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“And what is your name, please?”

“It’s Jessica Bland.”

“Your address?”

She gives an address in an apartment block overlooking the sea.

“And can you tell me what happened exactly?”

The woman shuffles slightly in her seat. “I, er… it’s very sensitive. It’s… I mean, I need a lot of what I’m about to tell you to remain confidential. Otherwise, I’m not sure I can go through with this.”

“Well,” says DC Langtry gently, “why don’t we start at the beginning and then see where we end up. But certainly, for now, everything you tell me remains between us. If you choose not to pursue your allegations, then that is your prerogative.”

The woman sighs and grimaces slightly, then inhales hard and says, “I have been having a casual relationship for many, many years with a man called André. I do not know his surname—as I say, it has been incredibly casual. Last week, he came to my apartment and said that he was homeless, had nowhere to go, could he stay with me, just for a few days. In all honesty, I wanted to say no. But soft touch that I am…” She sighs again.

“Anyway, it seemed fine at first. He was pleasant company. A good houseguest. We had dinner together every night. I felt very much that he was readying himself to leave. And then two nights ago, he…”

Jessica puts a hand to her throat and touches it softly.

“He got very angry, very suddenly. I’d never seen that side of him before.

He had always been such a gentleman, so polite, so charming.

But it was like these doors came down and a new version of him appeared.

He was asking me for money, and I said no, I’m sorry, I can’t give you money, and suddenly his hands were at my throat.

I thought, I genuinely thought he intended to kill me. I thought it was the end.”

DC Langtry sees the marks now: soft brownish pink spots in the flesh of her neck, the size and shape of fingertips. He makes notes.

“And then just as suddenly as he attacked me, he let go of me, and this is where, I’m afraid, this is where it gets murky, and frankly, I’d wondered if I could tell you about this without mentioning all the facts, but really, I don’t think I can because it wouldn’t make any sense, not without the full picture.

Because the thing is, you see, André was slightly more than a friend.

He was a friend with benefits. And the benefits were—well…

” Jessica’s face contorts with discomfort.

“Paid for,” she says finally. “André was a male escort and I had been paying him for many, many years for his occasional company, and, well, I have grown children, I’m a respectable woman, and André knew that and used it as a weapon to blackmail me.

He blackmailed me into giving him all my cash, every penny of it.

There’ll be CCTV footage of me visiting two banks over the course of a day, emptying out my accounts for him, in cash.

“Twenty thousand pounds. I gave that man twenty thousand pounds and I tried to be pragmatic about it, I really did try so hard. But as time went by, well, I just got crosser and crosser and more and more disgusted with him. Yes, that’s the word.

Disgusted. And I thought, No. What’s more important, your bloody reputation—or stopping this horrible man doing this to somebody else?

And I really, really, really don’t want him to do this to anyone else, because believe me, as he held his hands around my neck, I knew without any shadow of a doubt that this was not his first rodeo.

Oh no. Definitely not. I knew then that he was evil and that he hurt women and that stopping him was more important than saving my reputation.

And I’m sorry that I don’t know more about him, I don’t know his surname, I don’t know where he lives, and I don’t know who he is.

But I have this…” She pulls out her phone and plays a small video of a man on a Ring app, the familiar ding-ding-dong ringtone playing in the background.

The man is tall and has a thick head of silvery white hair and a neat silver beard.

“This is him. This is André at my door when he first arrived, just over a week ago. It’s pretty clear, I think. And hopefully, maybe, you can use it to track him down. And at the very least, might the notes I gave him from my bank accounts be marked and traceable?”

DC Ian Langtry makes another note in his pad and sighs.

“I’m very sorry,” he says, “that you have experienced this. If it’s OK with you, I would like to take you now to have your injuries photographed. Would you agree to that?”

Jessica nods. “Yes,” she says. “Please. Anything. Whatever it takes to get this creep off the streets.”