Gut Instinct (13 page)

T
his interview will be taped.
..................

Ivan nodded looking anxiously at
the duty solicitor as he did so
.

H
e
had
n’t fel
t
very confident with him and
had noticed that he appeared irritated that he had been pulled away from whatever he was doing.  He had spent five minutes maximum with him before the interview and had said very little to reassure him. 

Ivan felt scared, very scared.

“W
ould you like to start by tel
ling us about the evening of Friday 21
st
March into the early hours of Saturday 22
nd
March
” Derek asked.

“
What
from beginning to end”

“
Yes
”

“Well I had a birthday party starting at seven o’clock with one of my friends from this transvestite group that I am a part of, so I went there, then I left about nine to go home and quickly get changed because I had promised to meet Lizzie at Jason’s”

“Get changed?” Derek asked, not understanding why he had to get changed.

“
Yes
,
I
was in drag you see, dressed as a woman, Lizzie doesn’t know about..... about my other life”

“Okay”

“I had planned to meet Lizzie and didn’t want to let her down and...”

“How long had you known Lizzie? Derek asked.

“About four weeks, we’d been chatting and dancing and things, you know”

“And so on Friday 21
st
you met her down Jason’s is that right? Then what happened?” Derek asked.

“We chatted and danced for a while, then we
er
... got a taxi and went back to her house”

“Had you been to her house before?”

“No” Ivan replied “This was the first time.

“And then what?” Derek asked.

“We had sex
” Ivan replied.

Derek looked at John and they both knew that they had to tread carefully here; this guy could get away with this if they didn’t.  Clever bastard had worked out that they had DNA so was covering himself by admitting that they had sex.
 

“Was the sex good?” It was John’s turn now and Derek had worked with him long enough to know where this was heading.

“What?” Ivan asked.

“Was the sex good?” John asked again “Did she enjoy it?”

“I
er
think so” Ivan replied confused by this line of questioning.

“What time did you leave?” John asked.

“Oh, after about half an hour” Ivan replied pleased that this uncomfortable subject had been dropped. “She made me a potted beef sandwich then said she was tired”

“So” John said “in the space of half an hour, you entered the house, performed foreplay, had sex and
then
she made you a potted beef sandwich and
I’m guessing
you ate it, did you have drink with that?”

“Yes, a cup of tea”

“So how long exactly did the foreplay and sex last Ivan, two, minutes?”

“I don’t know I didn’t time it?” Ivan replied, his face starting to flush.

“She can’t have been very happy Ivan, what happened next did she taunt you, accuse you of being a lousy lover?”

“No!” Ivan replied looking at his solicitor, wasn’t he supposed to fucking do something here, he thought.

“Is that why you killed her Ivan, did she ridicule you, damage your male ego?”

“No!” Ivan replied

“Of course she didn’t, we know that Ivan, you know that too
,
don’t you?”

“Yes” Ivan replied.

“I believe you Ivan, I believe you’re telling the truth
,
we
all know that she didn’t taunt you
” and just as the relief was spreading across Ivan’s face, John jumped in with his ace card.

“She couldn’t ridicule you because she was out for the count wasn’t she? Because you’d spiked her with a date rape drug hadn’t you?!” John shouted.

Ivan sat there with this mouth wide open,
he
couldn’t respond, these guys really thought he had hurt Lizzie, even his solicitor must do because he had not helped him one little bit.

“Interview terminated at” Derek looked at his watch “9 p.m.”

He switched off the tape and both
he
and John left the room without saying another word.

“We’ll leave him to sweat on that for a bit” John said to Derek
as they left the interview room and were out of earshot.

“Let’s go and see what they have turned up at his house, or in his belongings
,
”
and t
hey headed to the evidence room.
This would be
where anything of interest taken from Ivan’s home, car etc would have been bagged up and stored.

Chapter
Twenty

It was ten o’clock when Derek and John knocked on Stephens door, he had been waiting for them to get a run down on their progress before he headed home.

“Come on in lads” he responded “anything to report.”

“Well we’ve left him sweating sir, he’s admitted to having sex with her.  I think he’ll crack sir, he’s pretty bloody nervous.” Derek said.

John handed him two evidence bags. Stephen looked at the first
one;
it contained a small clear glassed bottle containing a yellow liquid.

“What’s this?” he asked “Don
’
t know sir we’re ab
out to send it to the lab, but thought you should see it first.
”

“
Erm
interesting” he said picking up the second bag.

His heart
suddenly
went
cold;
he could feel his face going ten shades whiter than white and his hands
beginning
to shake
.  He must stay calm
he thought.

In his hands in a clear plastic bag was a business card and written in bold letters was:

Tanya Wright – Psychosexual therapist

John broke
into
his thoughts, clearly not noticing
Stephens’s
anxiety,

“We thought we’d tak
e this in and ask him about it
, might be
something to it, having a sex
therapist’s
card and
t
his
being a potential sex motivated crime”

“
Yes
, yes,” Stephen answered trying not to sound too interested.

“Let me know what he says, then wrap it up for tonight, let him sleep on things and we will re interview him in the morning.  Thanks guys” he said desperately wanting them out of his office before they noticed his distracted and concerned behaviour.

**********

Derek and John re-entered the interview room, re did the tape procedure and Derek put the card in front of him and asked

“Y
ou had this card in your belongings, can you tell us who it is and why you have it?”

“N
o problem, it’s my therapist Tanya, I’ve been seeing her for about two years”

“W
hat for” Derek asked.

“F
or my problem, my cross dressing”

It was Johns turn now to intervene.

“T
wo years
of
therapy
for cross dressing?”

“Well not just that, there were other things”

“L
ike what”
John asked.

“W
ell my sex life things like that”

“Like what?”
Derek now piped in
.

“Oh bloody hell do I have to go into that”

“
It’s
important that we know everything
Ivan
, for all we know this woman may be next on your list”
Derek answered “And it could actually help your case, prevent you from being charged” he lied
using his I’m your best friend tactic.

“For what I’ve already told you I haven’t done anything”
he shouted and then hastily calmed down, knowing that shouting would not go in his favour, not with these bastards they were trying to mess with his head.
They were trying to bloody set him up and his solicitor had
clearly gone to fucking sleep.
  He needed to stay focused.

“Okay, okay,”
he said containing his anger.
“I have a sex problem, an erection problem”

“You didn’t appear to have that problem the night you met Lizzie”

“No I’m okay if I’m not emotionally involved, and we talked about my mother sometimes too” he added keen to get off the subject of his sex life.

“What about your mother”

“She was domineering, suffocated me”

“S
he suffocated you”
John seized upon this and again Derek knew where he was going with it.

“
Yes
”

“Interesting that”

“
What
?
”

“T
hat she suffocated you”
John replied a grin crossing the whole of his face.

“W
ell she did”
Ivan said morosely

“J
ust like you suffocated
Jane and
Lizzie”
he said. 

“Interview terminated at” Derek looked at his watch, “eleven fifteen”

They both left the room, leaving both Ivan and his solicitor dumbfounded.

**********

It was midnight
by the time Stephen got in his car to drive home, his thoughts in turmoil.

Tanya
,
his
girlfriend
was the
suspect’s
therapist
.  They were going to Bill’s party on Saturday night, where most of his team would be.  He would have to introduce her; they would then put two and two together.

It would be unethical for him to not say anything and this unnerved him.  He liked to keep his private life, private.

As far as he could see he could
not pull out of taking
her, this would upset her and leave her feeli
ng that he was ashamed of her. H
e
could
find an excuse not to go himself or he could
be upfront with his team.  Both options left him feeling tense. 

Stephen was feeling drained.  This whole case was getting to him.
He decided
that he was best to sleep on it, and make a decision in the morning.

**********

Ivan sat in the cells rubbing his forehead, sweat dripping onto the grubby wooden table.
It was five o’clock on Friday.  They had held him for almost twenty four hours now and a decision had to be made. He had not admitted anything during the interrogation that they could clearly use as a confession.  All they had was the DNA and the dental match to Lizzie’s bite mark.

He had admitted having sex with her and to biting her but adamantly denied murdering her.

Stephen and Derek
watched him through the two way mirror as he picked his nose and flicked it on the floor.

“What do y
ou think sir” Derek
asked, trying not to think about what he had just seen for fear of heaving.

“He’s not gonna crack, sure a tough one this one, especially for a tranny, we’ve got the DNA
and the dental match
that’s all we need to charge him, he was the last person to see Lizzie alive, so that’s enough for me.
” Stephen said.
“
Charge him Derek and then get yours
elf home, it’s been a long couple of days
.
”

His boss left the room and relieved to be going home, Derek went to look for John so that they could nail this bastard do the paperwork and get the hell out of there.  It had been a long week.

Stephen left the station still feeling unsettled.  He had decided to take Tanya to the party on Saturday and had called his team together to disclose his relationship with the suspect’s
therapist.  It had been a difficult decision and one that he had spent most of the night tossing and turning over.