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THIRTY-NINE

‘If you’re selling something you can piss off,’ Mandy Brightwell said, when she opened the door.

Having established that, as a benefits claimant, Peter Brightwell’s wife would not – or should not – be working, and that she would not respond favourably to any polite request for a chinwag, Thorne had decided that his best bet was to turn up at her home address unannounced.

As predicted, he and Holland did not get the warmest of welcomes.

‘We’re not selling anything,’ Thorne said.

‘I’m joking.’ The woman smiled, thin and sarcastic. ‘Obviously not, because you’re coppers. You can tell a mile off.’

‘Could we come in for a quick chat?’ Holland asked.

‘As long as it is quick and you don’t bad-mouth my husband.’

Thorne smiled, thinking, Bad-mouth a convicted rapist, heaven forbid , and said, ‘That’s not why we’re here.’

‘Good, because I’d have to ask you to leave,’ Mandy said.

‘That’s entirely up to you.’

‘By which I mean, tell you to fuck off.’

‘Understood,’ Thorne said.

She stepped back and waved an arm mock-theatrically. ‘Then do come in, officers, and wipe your feet . . . ’

It was a one-bedroom flat in a bog-standard block opposite Crystal Palace station.

In many ways it reminded Thorne of the safe house in which Emily Mead was holed up; spotless laminate floors and simple furnishings, though there were at least a few pictures on the walls – abstract prints and black and white photos – and windows offering a view of the block opposite.

Following Mandy Brightwell into a small and overly warm sitting room, Thorne noticed the walking stick she was using. She leaned the stick against a low table and lowered herself gently on to a leather sofa.

‘I’m registered disabled, in case you’re wondering. Which you were.’

Thorne said nothing, but could not deny it.

‘I wasn’t before I went to prison, mind you.’ She shrugged. ‘But that’s what happens when someone doesn’t like the fact that you gave an alibi to a rapist and pushes you down a flight of metal stairs.’

‘That’s awful,’ Holland said.

Thorne nodded. ‘Sorry to hear that.’

She cocked her head and stuck out her bottom lip; like poor me , like she really didn’t want anyone’s sympathy and least of all theirs.

‘A blue badge is a blue badge,’ she said.

She settled back on the sofa, then immediately leaned forward again, as if she’d remembered something. ‘I should probably offer you tea.’

‘Oh . . . ’ Holland looked keen to accept her offer.

She sat back again. ‘But I really can’t be arsed.’

Mandy Brightwell was in her late thirties; five foot bugger-all and stick thin, with peroxide blonde hair shaved at the sides and teased into spikes on the top.

She wore a striped cardigan over a tie-dye T-shirt and camouflage trousers.

She looked like a cross between a hippie and a punk, who’d kick seven bells out of you if the fancy took her.

Or at the very least batter you with her walking stick.

‘How much time did you do in the end?’ Thorne asked.

‘I was sent down for six months and ended up doing three. Most of that in hospital thanks to two crushed vertebrae. Those stairs, remember?’

‘So why did you do it?’

‘Why did I . . . ?’

‘Give Peter an alibi?’

‘You’re seriously going to sit here in my living room and ask me that?’

‘I thought I’d give it a bash,’ Thorne said.

Her long-suffering sigh sounded more like a growl. ‘Because it was the truth, still is the truth. Peter was at home with me that night, simple as that.’

‘We’re well aware that’s your story—’

‘Not a story—’

‘—but why did you stick to it?’ Thorne watched Mandy Brightwell’s eyes narrow and, for a moment or two, he wondered if she might be about to reach for that walking stick.

‘Once the DNA evidence had come back, I mean. If you’d held your hand up then , when it was obvious Peter was going to be found guilty, you might have got a slap on the wrist for making a false statement, but I don’t think you’d have been sent down for it. ’

‘How many times?’ She looked at Thorne and Holland as though they were idiots. ‘Because it was the truth. Those DNA results were dodgy as you like.’

‘Were they?’

‘You do know they found DNA from someone else as well, don’t you?’

Thorne did know, because he had seen it when he’d read the court transcript; an attempt by the defence to suggest that the forensics were not conclusive.

It had been summarily dismissed in light of the fact that Siobhan Brady had freely admitted having sex with an on/off boyfriend a few days earlier.

‘DNA from some other bloke on a mouth swab, but the fact that they found Peter’s in traces of semen was enough, apparently.

’ She sneered and muttered something under her breath.

‘So, yeah . . . once those results were in, it was pretty clear to all of us that Peter was in trouble. I suppose I could have changed my statement, said I’d made a mistake or something – and, by the way Peter wanted me to because he knew what was going to happen – but it would have been like throwing him to the wolves and I wasn’t prepared to do that.

Yeah, maybe it was stupid.’ She straightened her back, wincing a little.

‘Sometimes, when the painkillers wear off or when I’m struggling to get out of bed, I know it was stupid, but I’d do it again any day of the week, because that’s what you do, isn’t it? You stand by the people you love.’

‘So, in all that time, you never once thought you might have made a mistake?’ Holland asked. ‘Maybe got the date wrong or something? Once they’d identified your husband’s DNA.’

‘For Christ’s sake.’ She shifted, groaning a little and clearly starting to get irritated.

‘Look, I’m the last person who’d ever claim Peter was a saint.

I know he’s done all sorts in his time, but even if he hadn’t been at home that night, sitting watching TV with me, which he was, I’d never have believed for one second that he raped that woman.

’ She sniffed; shook her head. ‘No, my old man is not someone who’ll do an honest day’s work if he can make a few quid more doing a dishonest one, and fine, when he’s had a drink he can get a bit lairy, but attacking a woman in a dark alley is not something Peter would ever do.

Never in a million years, OK?’ She looked hard at both of them. ‘It’s not who he is.’

Thorne took a few seconds, waiting for her to calm down. ‘When was the last time you had any contact with Peter’s brother?’

She blinked. ‘Alex?’

‘We know he’s always been very proactive when it comes to maintaining your husband’s innocence, so we’re presuming you saw a lot of each other. At one time, anyway.’

‘Well, yeah, to begin with, at least,’ she said. ‘After I came out of prison, we sort of pooled resources. Got leaflets printed up, wrote letters or whatever. We supported each other, you know, especially after Peter and Alex’s parents died.’

‘Why only “to begin with”?’ Holland asked.

‘He got a bit full-on about it all. I was busy trying to find a job and somewhere to live, getting my life back. He had no time for anything except the campaign to get Peter released, and, seeing as that wasn’t ever going to happen, in the end I just let him get on with it.

’ She cocked her head, suspicious. ‘Why are you so interested in Alex?’ When she didn’t get an answer immediately she sat forward. ‘What’s he done?’

Thorne and Holland had talked about exactly how much information they were willing to share with Mandy Brightwell on their way over. While there was no need to tell her everything, they also needed her to understand the importance of anything she could share with them .

‘We need to talk to him urgently in connection with the murder of a police officer,’ Thorne said.

‘Which one?’

It was a telling response. ‘Is the name Christopher Tully familiar to you?’

Thorne could see that it was, even before she answered. ‘Yeah. Alex mentioned him a few times, but— shit , was he one of those four coppers killed a couple of weeks back?’

‘Ten days ago,’ Holland said.

‘So, what . . . you think that was down to Alex?’

Thorne had told her as much as he was willing to.

‘Why did Alex talk about Tully?’ He felt the same disconnect that he’d felt after he and Tanner had talked to Peter Brightwell at Woodhill prison.

When he hadn’t even worked on the investigation, why was Tully’s name being mentioned in discussions about the rape of Siobhan Brady?

‘I always thought it was about Peter being fitted up,’ she said. ‘Like maybe Tully was one of the coppers involved.’

One of the coppers . . .

‘When was the last time you had any contact with Alex, Mandy?’

‘I don’t know.’ She seemed nervous, suddenly. ‘A few months back, maybe. He used to call after either of us had been in to see Peter, sort of compare notes on how he was doing. I don’t think he’s been to visit in a while, though.’

‘Have you any idea where he might be living now?’ Holland asked.

‘Not a clue.’

‘Have you got a phone number?’

‘I did have, but it doesn’t work any more.’

‘OK. Well, if Alex does contact you, or you remember anything that might help us locate him, you need to let us know immediately.’

She nodded, said, ‘Yeah, course,’ but she was clearly thinking about something else. ‘Your investigation, whatever it is . . . will it change things for Peter? I mean, it’s obviously connected, so is there a chance you’ll be looking at his case again?’

Thorne was starting to think that there was every chance, but could not say as much.

Sharing any further information with someone who might one day be called to give evidence was definitely not a good idea, so instead he made a few noises about being unable to comment further on an ongoing investigation and said, ‘We’ll get out of your way . . . ’

He stopped at the front door, and turned. ‘You asked me which one,’ he said. ‘When I was talking about murdered police officers.’

‘Did I?’

‘Is that because Alex had talked about killing police officers?’

‘No—’

‘Did he tell you that’s what he was planning?’

‘No. I didn’t know he was going to do anything like that, I swear.

’ She leaned on her walking stick. ‘Look, I’m not a big fan of your lot, I’m sure you’ve worked that out already, but that’s nothing compared to what he thought.

So I can’t say I was very surprised, that’s all, because on top of how much he hates coppers he was always an oddball, you know? He can get a bit intense.’

Thorne had already changed his mind several times about exactly what manner of killer they were looking for.

The poisonings pointed towards someone who was methodical and organised, who planned carefully and didn’t take chances, but he also remembered Emily Mead’s description of a man charging from the bushes and repeatedly plunging his knife into Adam Callaghan’s neck.

Was Alex Brightwell frenzied or meticulous? Careful or reckless?

Ultimately it didn’t much matter, and Thorne was happy to let prison shrinks work all that stuff out later on. But he also knew that understanding the man he was after might make him easier to catch.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Peter loves his brother,’ Mandy said. ‘But even he thinks Alex is a bit of a weirdo.’

Thorne thought that weirdo just about covered it, even if it wasn’t a word that cropped up too often in psychiatric textbooks.

‘He had this pet snake once, right?’ Mandy Brightwell screwed up her face and feigned a shudder.

‘Found it in the woods or whatever and took it home. He used to kill baby birds and frogs and stuff to feed it and then, when he got bored with doing that, he killed the snake, cut it up and fed it to a neighbour’s dog. ’