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Jess can hardly breathe. The room is stiflingly hot. “What man?” she whispers.
“I don’t know, I didn’t recognize him. It looked like you were in some restroom somewhere. You were …” His voice tails off and he takes a shuddering breath in and out. “You were having sex. The time stamp said it was a week ago.”
Jess can’t move. Restroom. Some bloke. Someone, somehow, had been filming her, the day of the fire. She feels her skin prickling, her face flushing.
“When did you get this?” Jess manages to ask.
“Today. Then as soon as I finished watching, I got a message. It said that unless I …” He’s crying again, sniffing back snot and tears as he talks, his voice no more than a whisper. “Unless I killed Griffin, he would give this to the police. He was very specific—he talked about diamorphine. Then you called and I had the excuse I needed. I couldn’t have the police having the video. It shows motive, Jess.”
“I didn’t kill Patrick,” Jess mutters, still stunned by what he’s saying.
“I know. But that wasn’t all. There were … There were photos. Of … of women.” He screws his eyes tightly shut. “Dead women. Murdered. He said he’d do the same to you. That he’d kill you and Alice. That he’d make you suffer. Torture you, rape you …”
“So why didn’t you call the police? They would have protected me.”
He looks at her. “The very people you hate? The people you ran away from in the hospital, leaving your daughter behind, just so they wouldn’t arrest you? And he said it wouldn’t make any difference. He would still get to you. I—”
“But to kill someone, Nav? To kill Griffin?” Jess cries out.
Nav can’t look at her, but he squeezes her hand tightly with both of his. “I love you, Jess. I always have. I’d do anything for you.”
“I …” There’s nothing Jess can say. She did know, deep down, how he felt about her, but her shattered self-esteem never allowed her to believe it. Not really. Someone like Nav, falling for someone like her? But now—this? This is crazy.
“Where’s the memory stick now?” she whispers, glancing back at the door.
“Still at work, in my locker. Why—?” Then he realizes. “You can’t possibly go and fetch it? Jess, it’s too dangerous, this man … Promise me, please?”
“I promise. But Nav, you have to tell the police. Tell them everything. Otherwise, they’ll charge you with attempted murder. You’ll go to jail.”
The door opens and DCI Elliott comes back inside.
“Have you said all you need to say, Dr. Sharma?” she asks, her voice cold.
Nav nods. His face crumples and he starts to cry again, sobbing now, his head in his hands, fingers raking at his hair.
Jess wants to hug him, but DCI Elliott pulls her into the corridor. She hands Jess a tissue, and Jess realizes she’s crying too.
“What did he say?”
“You tell me. You were listening.” But they must have been speaking too quietly, and Elliott is still in the dark.
“Stop playing games, Jessica. What did he tell you?”
“Just what you said,” Jess replies. “That he injected Griffin with diamorphine.”
“Nothing else?”
“And that he loves me.”
DCI Elliott raises an eyebrow. “That’s becoming a bit of a problem around here,” she mutters under her breath.
Elliott escorts her back to her cell. The door slams shut and Jess stares at it, Nav’s words running around in her head. She’d promised him, but she knows there’s no way she’s going to leave that evidence out there. The proof that Nav was blackmailed to attack Griffin.
And a motive for killing her husband. Something she knows DS Taylor will twist and mold until she’s locked away for good.
Jess needs to get to the hospital, to get that memory stick. But how can she possibly do that, locked in here?
CHAPTER
