Cold Shoulder (54 page)

‘What about Thorburn?’ she asked Bickerstaff quietly.

‘We’re having him brought back from France.’ He hesitated and leaned over her. ‘How involved do you reckon the smooth bastard is?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You mean there’s something you
don’t
know about this business?’

‘I didn’t think he was involved.’

Bickerstaff tapped her shoulder. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

Now it was Nula’s turn. Bickerstaff was moving like a man on speed, talking non-stop, firing instructions right, left and centre. Lorraine remained sitting in his office until they were ready for her, thinking about Brad Thorburn.

Nula was brought up from the cells. She screamed for her lawyer and wanted to see Lyall. She was aggressive and abusive, and had to be half dragged into an interview room, kicking and spitting. Only when she saw Lorraine did she quieten down. As the door closed behind her, Lorraine entered the adjoining room, looking through the one-way glass as Nula knocked over the jug of water.

She refused to say one word without her lawyer present. He was, in fact, sitting beside Lyall, now under oath to tell the truth. He made a formal statement detailing his part in the blackmail of Norman Hastings and describing how Nula had killed Didi. He could give no details about Holly’s murder as he had not been involved.

Bickerstaff waited until Lyall’s statement was ready before interviewing Nula. By law she had to be allowed time to talk to the lawyer and he would be present throughout. Bickerstaff formally requested that Lorraine not only be present but a party to the interrogation. The entire station was buzzing with the new developments. There was no animosity, just strong professional back-up: anything Bickerstaff wanted he got.

They were ready to interrogate Nula, the last piece in the jigsaw. She now knew how serious the charges were, and that there was no hope of her being released from custody. She had become calmer, having been kept waiting for hours. She was sitting at the table, and had redone her make-up and hair. She looked almost perfect, every hair in place, her lips a deep dark vermilion with a sheen of gloss but small flecks of the lipstick stained her front teeth.

Bickerstaff, two uniformed officers and a stenographer entered the room, followed by Lorraine. Nula turned slowly to face her and then laughed. ‘I underestimated you,’ she said, completely relaxed, and apparently unconcerned by the formidable line-up. If anything, she seemed almost to be enjoying the attention. Her lawyer waited until everyone had been seated and the tape recorder switched on; the stenographer’s hands were poised.

Nula was facing two separate charges: blackmail and extortion, and first degree murder. She stated that her birth name was Nigel Simmons. Her lawyer now turned to Bickerstaff. ‘My client categorically denies any part in the charges levelled at her and she has the right to remain silent. She has been made aware of certain statements by Craig Lyall, implicating her in these said crimes, and again denies playing any part in the said crimes but will, if required, be prepared to stand trial for the prosecution and to implicate Craig Lyall as being solely responsible for the crimes.’

There was a short pause before Bickerstaff began by asking Nula directly if she had been involved in the blackmail of Steven Janklow.

No comment.

Had she struck David Burrows (Didi) during an argument and then with the assistance of Craig Lyall, carried his body to a stolen car and deposited it?

No comment.

Bickerstaff asked detailed questions for almost half an hour. Each one was answered with, ‘No comment.’

Throughout, Nula sat checking her nails, fixing her skirt, straightening her frilled blouse. She sometimes looked at Lorraine, raising an eyebrow, and then, as if bored by the proceedings, yawned, crossing and recrossing her legs. When the photographs of Didi were displayed, she averted her face and stared at the wall. When she was asked again to look at the photographs, she sighed and glanced down, then looked at her lawyer.

Holly’s pictures were laid in front of her. This time her lawyer asked her to look at the photographs as requested. She picked one up, glared around the room, and then let it drop back on the table, drumming her nails on it.

‘No comment.’

‘Are you saying you do not recognize her? Or that you do not know her?’ Bickerstaff asked impatiently.

‘My client refuses to answer that question in case it may implicate her request to act as a prosecution witness.’

Bickerstaff turned towards Lorraine. He gave a brief nod and they requested a break in the interview to enable them to confer. Both left the room.

Bickerstaff shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘This could go on for days. You want to have a try, see if we can hurry it up in there?’

‘Okay. Is it legal for the same lawyer to represent both parties?’

‘Lyall has already given his statement. It’ll be up to him to hire someone else. I would, if I was him, but that’s not my main concern right now.’

They went back into the interview room and the tape was turned on again. Lorraine pulled her chair up close. Nula giggled and leaned across the table. ‘Your turn now, is it?’

Lorraine ignored her remark. ‘She was just seventeen, Nula. Why did you have to kill her? What harm had she ever done you?’

Nula conferred with her lawyer and then sat back.

‘My client wants to know why Mrs Page is present at this interview. She is aware that she is not attached to the FBI or the police homicide division. She is also aware that Mrs Page is a chronic alcoholic. I would also like to lodge my own formal complaint as to such a woman being present.’

Bickerstaff leaned back in his chair. ‘No comment.’

‘Is she some kind of witness?’ the lawyer asked tersely.

Nula smirked. ‘They couldn’t get her on a stand in any court of law, she’d be laughed off. She’s a drunkard, she’s a whore and she’s even been paid for working with Art Mathews. She more than likely instigated the blackmail — she was certainly paid enough to keep quiet. Ask her! Has anyone asked her how much Art Mathews paid her? I never touched Holly, nor did I hurt my best friend. She’s making it all up, probably with that pervert Lyall. I can even smell the booze on her — it’s coming out of her pores. Look at the way her hands are shaking.’

Lorraine refused to be goaded. She turned to Bickerstaff and got a steely glint stare. She leaned back and imitated Nula’s smiling face, ‘I’m as sober as she is and she’s lying. I was never paid a cent by Art Mathews.’

‘You lying cunt,’ Nula spat out.

‘Takes one to know one,’ Lorraine snapped back. ‘But then you don’t have one. Is that your problem? Is that why you had to kill little Holly? Because she was young, beautiful, everything you wanted to be but—’

Nula stood up, pushing away the restraining hand of her lawyer. ‘She was about as innocent as my ass!’

‘Taking your clients away, was she?’ Lorraine shot out and Nula swiped at her across the table.

Lorraine was on her feet. ‘That’s it, Nula, come on, show what you’re really like. Show just what a mean bitch you are — and you
are
mean. The way you hammered poor Didi’s face after all she’d done for you.’

No one in the room acknowledged what was going on. They sat stony-faced as Nula and Lorraine shouted at each other. At one point, an officer half rose but Bickerstaff glared. He wanted this row to continue.

Nula snarled, ‘It was
me
that did everything for
her.
Don’t you know anything?’ She pointed a red-tipped talon at Lorraine. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’

‘Without Didi you were nothing. She had to tout you around—you couldn’t even pick up a john without her.’

‘Fuck you, that’s bullshit.’ Nula’s hands were on her hips. Her lawyer tried to make her sit down but she stepped away.

‘She told me, said you were a useless piece of garbage.’

Nula swiped at her again.

‘And then when you found out she’d kept a ring, you just snapped, didn’t you?’

Nula looked at them all smugly. ‘I know what you’re trying to do. Well, I’m not saying another word.’

She sat down and smoothed her skirt as Lorraine walked to the side of the room and propped herself against the wall. ‘Nobody’s asking you to, Nula, because we know. We know that you tried to get the ring off her finger — even threatened to cut it off — but she wouldn’t part with it. She told you to piss off so you punched her, like the man you really are. All this paint and wig, all the glam clothes, you’re just a heavy-handed man underneath it all, aren’t you, Mr Simmons? But Didi, she was really beautiful, wasn’t she?’

Nula elbowed her lawyer. ‘Tell her to shut the fuck up. This isn’t legal. I want to leave.’

Bickerstaff calmly looked at the lawyer. ‘Tell her she won’t be leaving here for a long time.’

Nula stood up again and lunged forward. ‘You’re all jerks, all of you, you’ve got nothing on me, nothin’ but what that wimp Lyall has told you and he’s full of shit.’

‘Then why don’t you tell us what really happened?’ Bickerstaff asked.

‘No fucking way, you asshole, I’m not sayin’ another word. I know my rights, I don’t have to tell you anything because I know all you’ve got is his word against mine. That’s
all
you’ve got and until we make a deal and make me a prosecution witness, I’m not talking.’

Lorraine was still standing by the wall, arms folded. ‘Tell us about Holly. Why did you kill Holly?’

Nula shouted, ‘I never touched her, I never touched Didi, I never did anything and I know you got nothing on me, nothing. Janklow killed them, just like he killed all the others — it’s in the papers. It’s Janklow — I’ve got nothin’ to do with anything.’

‘But he didn’t kill Holly and he didn’t kill Didi.’

‘
Yes, he did?
.’ Nula was red in the face with fury. ‘He was a sicko, everybody knows it, he’s nuts, can’t even stand trial. Don’t you follow what’s going on with your so-called investigations? I know what you did. You put poor Art in prison and you killed him. You gave a big press conference, “We got the killer” and you were wrong. How come nobody is standing trial for that? He was innocent. I’m innocent.’

Getting no reaction from anyone she turned back to Lorraine, pointing at her. ‘I’ll scream it all out to the papers about you, Mrs Page, about what’s going on in this room. Janklow has admitted to killing Holly and Didi, Janklow is a sicko, a pervert and—’

‘So are you,’ Lorraine said softly.

‘
Get her out of this room or I’ll—’

‘You’ll what, Nula? Kill me like Holly?’

‘This isn’t right, she shouldn’t be allowed to do this to me, she’s saying things to get me going. Well, I’m not gonna say another word. If you got the evidence then arrest me, charge me. Go on, let’s hear you do it.’

Bickerstaff checked his watch. It was almost nine thirty. He suggested they take a break and continue the interview the following morning.

‘Does that mean I can go?’ Nula asked.

‘You will be held in custody pending further inquiries.’

‘But you haven’t charged me,’ she said. ‘Can they do this?’ she asked the lawyer.

‘Yes.’

‘Bastards,’ she muttered.

‘You’ll meet plenty of them, Nigel,’ Lorraine said quietly. ‘How many will be in her cell with her? Three or four?’ she asked Bickerstaff. He made no answer.

‘I want to be put in the women’s section,’ Nula demanded.

‘That won’t be possible,’ Bickerstaff said flatly and turned to the lawyer. ‘Please explain to your client that as she is listed as male on her birth certificate she cannot be placed in a female wing.’

For the first time, Nula seemed frightened. She clung to her lawyer. ‘But I’m a woman. They can’t do this to me.’ He whispered to her and she looked at Bickerstaff, then Lorraine, lunging at her, knocking over the table. ‘You bitch!
You did this to me!
You know what’ll happen to me in with those animals.’

Lorraine ducked and sidestepped Nula as an officer grabbed her. ‘Then talk, Nula. At least they can segregate you. Tell us the truth about Holly.’

‘Shut up, you schmuck.’

‘Tell the truth, Nula. It was an accident, wasn’t it? You never meant to kill Didi, did you? She was your best friend — I know that, ‘I’ve seen you two together.’ Lorraine saw the change sweep over Nula in her body language; she lost all the fight.

‘Yes, she was,’ Nula said softly, and then averted her face. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Best friend I ever had.’

The room fell silent as if everyone knew it was coming. Nula looked up at the ceiling, her eyes brimming with tears, and Lorraine moved silently back to her own seat. Nula blew her nose on a tissue and then began plucking at it. ‘Oh, all right, there’s no point, is there? You’ll find out, I suppose. She fell and hit her head on the side of the glass coffee table. Craig started to panic because we couldn’t find her pulse. We thought she was dead and what with—’

‘The blackmail? You were worried about that, were you?’ Lorraine asked softly.

‘It was all getting out of hand, right? We suspected Janklow was doing these killings because he was a real crazy fucker. He always paid up like it was a joke, like he got off on it. He never argued or nothing but paid up once a month regular as clockwork. But Art began to get greedy, kept on pushing him for more and what was so sick, we were blackmailing him because of all his drag pictures but he still wanted more of them. We all kinda knew he was going to crack someday. That was maybe why Art kept asking him for more money, more jewellery, like he knew he was gonna break.’

‘But why did you think it was him murdering these women?’

Nula was tired; she supported herself on her elbow. ‘Art put it all together, don’t ask me how. He always was an intuitive shit but instead of backing off, he asked for more. We were against it but he wouldn’t listen to us. I mean, we were doing okay, we had dough and then he opened that gallery. There was no need to be so greedy, we even had the other business, the photo sessions. We’d all never had it so good—’

‘How did you collect the money?’

‘We’d just go to his garage, one or other of us, pretend we were looking for cars. Art used to drive an old Bentley. He’d bought it from S and A, so he was able to go in and out of Janklow’s place. We’d not go in dragged up, anything like that. We were pretty cool, changed into straight gear.’