The Doll's House - [19]

‘Three-timing her, actually. I don’t know what it is about the girls round here.’

‘And how did you react when she dumped you?’

Helen clocked the tiny reaction from Price, a little spike of anger at the word ‘dumped’, which he quickly suppressed.

‘What are you going to do?’ he replied casually, but Helen wasn’t buying it.

‘You went nuts, didn’t you?’

‘No. I di-’

‘You didn’t like being dumped and you blew your stack. I have a witness statement here from one of Pippa’s colleagues at Sun First. Says you barged in there, caused a massive scene.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Apparently you had to be hauled out by security. We also have a statement from a long-term tenant at Bedford Heights in Merry Oak who confirms that you turned up drunk several times, banging on Pippa’s door, demanding to be let in.’

‘She’d changed the lock and I didn’t have a key. It was no big deal.’

‘Why had she changed the lock, Nathan?’

For once, Nathan didn’t have a ready reply.

‘Because she was scared of you? She told colleagues she was scared of you. Said you were stalking her.’

‘No way.’

‘You didn’t want to let her go, did you, Nathan? I think you liked her. Where did you take her?’

A long silence, as Nathan stared back at Helen. Then he dropped his gaze.

‘I want a lawyer.’

‘A duty brief is on the way. She should be here in a few minutes. But I’d like to keep going with these general questions, unless you’d specifically like me to stop for some reason.’

Another long pause, then a dismissive shrug.

‘Tell us about Ruby Sprackling,’ Lloyd said, taking up the baton.

‘Don’t know her.’

‘Pretty girl. Similar look to Pippa. You’re fixing a leak in her flat.’

‘Oh yeah, I got you.’

‘Still got keys to her flat, have you?’

‘I did until you took them off me.’

‘And where is Ruby now, Nathan?’

Another long beat, then:

‘No idea.’

‘When did you last see her?’ Helen countered quickly.

‘A couple of days ago. She was heading out to the shops or something -’

‘She disappeared on Friday night, hasn’t been seen since. Did you see her Friday night, Nathan?’

‘No, I was off to a job in Bournemouth.’

‘So you weren’t at Revolution then? On Friday night?’ Helen fired back.

Finally, a flicker of fear in Nathan’s expression. Helen slid a photo across the table towards him.

‘This is a CCTV still of you queuing up to enter Revolution, a club off Bedford Square. Look at the date and time code. Friday night. Ruby was there that night.’

‘Piss off.’

‘We see you going in, but we don’t see you coming out. A place like that must have emergency exits, somewhere you can slip out. Is that what you did? Before you followed Ruby home.’

‘I never saw her.’

‘Your van was parked in Ruby’s road. Traffic cameras pick you up entering the road just after six p.m. Same camera sees your van driving away at four a.m. But the club shut at two a.m. What were you doing in the intervening two hours, Nathan?’

‘I want a lawyer.’ His tone was angry now.

‘Why won’t you talk to me, Nathan? What have you done?’

Nathan stared at the floor, saying nothing.

‘This is your one chance to come clean. Any denials or lies will play very badly in court,’ Helen continued. ‘We can’t do anything for Pippa now, but if you give up Ruby, then maybe I can help you. So please, Nathan, tell me where she is.’

A long pause. Helen shot a look at Lloyd, then back at Nathan. Slowly the suspect raised his head. All the attitude was gone now, he looked like a cornered animal.

But when he spoke, he simply said:

‘No comment.’

32

The sharp pain had subsided, to be replaced by a dull ache. Ruby lay on the bed, cradling her defiled shoulder, wishing the whole thing would just go away. After he had finished tattooing her, he had seemed quite emotional. Tears hugged the corners of his eyes as he leant forwards and kissed her gently on the head. He left soon after, as if not trusting his composure to hold.

Ruby’s despair was total, her mood black – those early hopes that she might bargain with him, bribe him, were now in tatters. She had cried and cried, the pain of her recent tattoo amplified by her feelings of hopelessness. She realized now that she was his toy. She was his plaything in this doll’s house where everything that looked real was fake.

She had examined every inch of her surroundings now. There was little else to do in the long hours alone and she had spent the time hunting for anything that could be used as a weapon, should the need arise. Though she tried to deny it, she had seen the intense emotion that gripped him when he looked at her, had felt his eyes crawl over her body. If he did force himself on her, how would she fight him off?

There was a kettle on the rickety sideboard, but that was made of plastic and would be cumbersome to wield. There were other strange additions to the room – framed pictures on the walls, a calendar from 2013 and hooks on the walls on which to hang a hat or coat – but nothing of any use. She had tried to rip the hooks off the wall, but they were sealed in concrete and impossible to budge. Why were they there in the first place? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to visit. So why? Why go to such trouble to create a picture-perfect room that was just for show? Ruby buried her face in the sheets, trying to stem a rising wave of nausea.