AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But it’s coming up now.”
Alexia sighed. “Yes. That night, at Kingsmere, the figure on the CCTV footage. There was something familiar about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. But then it came back to me.”
“You recognized Hamlin?”
“Not definitively. I didn’t know it was him. I wasn’t sure. Like I say, I hadn’t seen him since we were children. But as soon as Commissioner Grant mentioned the name . . .”
She left the sentence hanging.
“Did you know he’d been in prison?”
Alexia hesitated for a moment. Then she said, “Yes. The case was in the news at the time.”
“About the child who drowned.”
“Yes.” Alexia shivered. Just hearing the word drowned still made her blood run cold. “But I knew nothing about what had happened to him since. His mental illness, the delusions, all of that stuff.”
Sir Edward Manning asked, “Why do you think Hamlin would want to contact you now?”
“I have no idea. You saw his file. He’s had business and financial problems, as well as his mental health issues.”
Sir Edward Manning cast his mind back. He did remember reading something about bankruptcy. Hamlin’s auto-repair business going under during the recession.
“You think he may be after money?”
Alexia shrugged. “Like I said, I have no idea.”
“Were you lovers?”
The question was so blunt, for a moment Alexia was blindsided.
“I . . . we . . . does it matter? For heaven’s sake, Edward, it was forty years ago!”
“It may matter, Home Secretary. Does Hamlin know anything that he could use to blackmail you?”
Alexia looked away. “No. Not that I can think of.”
“What about sexual peccadilloes, things of that nature?”
“No.” Alexia shot her PPS a look that could have frozen fire.
“Drugs?”
“No! I mean maybe the odd joint. It was the sixties.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Look, when Commissioner Grant confirmed that the man at Kingsmere that night was Billy Hamlin, I was curious as much as anything. That’s why I asked you for his file, privately. But what I read disturbed me. Clearly Billy isn’t well. He’s psychotic, he develops weird obsessions with famous individuals. And now he shows up here, in England, behaving in a very confused, aggressive manner toward me. I don’t like it.”
“Nor do I, Home Secretary,” Sir Edward Manning said with feeling. “Nor do I.”
For a few moments silence fell. On one level, Alexia had told Edward the truth. She didn’t know what Billy Hamlin wanted from her. He’d mentioned his daughter being in danger, but according to his psychiatrist’s report, unspecified threats to the lives of loved ones were a common delusional theme. Or perhaps it was money he needed. Who knew?
What Alexia did know, with certainty, was that she wasn’t about to let Billy Hamlin destroy her life. She’d worked too hard for her career, and her marriage, to allow them to be threatened by a ghost from the past, a past to which she no longer felt any connection. Not while she still had breath in her body.
Besides, the girl that Billy Hamlin was looking for was already dead.
Alexia De Vere had buried Toni Gilletti a long, long time ago.
“Edward?”
“Home Secretary?”
