Читать книгу The Secret: The brand new thriller from the bestselling author of The Teacher - Katerina Diamond, Katerina Diamond - Страница 18

Adrian, Imogen and DCI Fraser walked into the tech lab to find Gary Tunney concentrating grimly on the laptop.

‘What did you find?’

‘Well, it looks like she set up a cloud account that all her videos were automatically sent to. It wasn’t easy to find. She used layer upon layer of encryption, but anyway, I’ve got them.’

‘I’ve always suspected that you’re a wizard,’ Imogen said, patting Tunney affectionately on the head.

‘So …? Don’t leave us hanging!’ Adrian interjected.

‘Right, well, one of the guys who visits her is an undercover, and they definitely seem like more than just friends. She puts the music on and then he gets a bit fresh, just a kiss, instigated by him. She pushes him away.’

‘So that’s it? Do we know who that is?’

‘I’ve put in a request to find out the name, we can’t blow his cover and we might not even be able to interview him,’ Fraser said.

‘Well, that’s bullshit.’

‘Do we think Sam knew about this guy and her?’

‘It’s possible,’ Tunney said, clicking on another one of the entries. ‘We know he wasn’t happy about something.’

Cue Sam bursting into her room and literally pulling Bridget out of the bed by her throat and pinning her against the wall. Tunney paused the tape and looked at them both.

‘Woah!’ Imogen exclaimed.

‘I should warn you, what happens next is not cool.’

‘Play it.’ Adrian braced himself.

Tunney turned the machine back on and they saw Sam Brown repeatedly hitting Bridget Reid in the face and stomach. Adrian felt himself getting light-headed just looking at the screen. It was a horrible reminder that your first instincts about people are usually the right ones. The first time he had met Sam Brown he hadn’t trusted him, but he’d allowed himself to be suckered in, had given him the benefit of the doubt. He felt guilty for what he’d said to Imogen earlier. The scene reminded him of being a child, of the awful times that he’d seen his father smacking his mother around, usually high on something or other.

‘So maybe it was Sam who made her delete the files.’

‘I think that’s a fair assumption.’ Tunney nodded.

‘Does this happen at any other time? Does he do it again?’

‘Yeah, none quite like this one, but he definitely hits her one or two other times.’

‘So maybe she knew something was going to happen to her, and she was collecting evidence,’ Adrian said, almost to himself.

‘That’s a hell of a leap, Detective,’ Fraser responded.

‘Desperate times.’

‘Undercover is very isolating, I doubt she felt like she could do much from where she was. Probably fewer than a handful of people knew what she was doing.’

‘Is it possible that she just ran away? We need to speak to that UC, he looked pretty friendly with her.’

‘I’m working on it,’ Fraser said apologetically.

‘What do we do about Sam?’

‘What do we do with any suspect? Bring him in,’ Fraser said.

‘Do we cut Vickers loose?’

‘Let’s just wait for forensics to go over the boat, the weather’s on the turn again so they’re doing their best to get it done before the rain starts. Find out what car Brown has and I’ll find out what this other fella drives.’ Fraser paused for a moment. ‘I shouldn’t need to say this out loud, but if any of the press approach you, don’t say anything. Only the people in this room know about this tape. Let’s keep it that way.’

‘Turn it off,’ Adrian said to Tunney, who still had the footage from the room showing: Bridget slumped against the wall with Sam consoling her. The disturbing familiarity made it impossible for Adrian to look away.