Page 78 of The Truth Will Out
Sam returned to her seat. “Guilty as charged. I’d rather not discuss it; my head’s a mess.”
“You need to talk to someone; otherwise, you won’t be able to move on, Sam. Rhys wasn’t to blame, nor was I, and yet you seem to have forgiven me. Or is that my imagination?”
Sam waved her hand from side to side. “I said I still have to work through my emotions. Can we talk about this later? I have two interviews I need to prepare for, and time is running out.”
“Whatever. I’ll tell Nick that he’ll be required to sit in with you.”
Guilt ripped through her for upsetting her partner after all he had been through in the last twenty-four hours. She watched him walk away, shoulders heavy with fatigue, and regret burned her chest like acid.
Half an hour later, notes in hand, Sam collected Nick, and they made their way downstairs.
“I appreciate you choosing me for this task, boss,” Nick said without sounding too gushy.
“Consider it your initiation test. I’m kidding. I would normally have chosen either Liam or Oliver, but they’ve sat in on interviews before; you haven’t. Hopefully, it’ll help you settle in and appreciate your position on the team.”
“I won’t let you down. You’re amazing. You’ve always put others before yourself. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me over the years; that’s why I jumped at the chance to join your team.”
“I’m delighted to have you on board, Nick. Let’s see what the evil twins have to say.”
“Blimey, are they related?”
“No, at least, I don’t think they are. It was me fooling around. Who do you reckon we should speak to first?”
“The female.”
“Good, that’s what I thought as well. Right, will you do the honours and ask Jason to bring her in? I’ll be in Interview Room One. The solicitor is ready and waiting for us.”
Michele Turner entered the room, indignation rife in her eyes. Nick said the normal verbiage for the recording, then Sam asked her first question.
“Which do you prefer to be called, Ivy or Michele?”
“Whichever. You’re not going to get anything out of me anyway, so it doesn’t really matter, does it? Er… no comment.”
Sam resisted the urge to roll her eyes and sigh. Instead, she fixed a smile in place and asked another ten questions, to which Turner gave the obligatory ‘no comment’. Then Sam asked the officer at the back of the room to escort Michele back to her cell.
“I had a feeling it would go like this. The next suspect is an ex-copper. Will you be wanting a word with him before the interview begins, Miss Nyland?” Sam asked the duty solicitor.
“It might be a good idea, Inspector.”
Sam and Nick took a ten-minute coffee break before returning to the room. She sat opposite Gareth Penn. His demeanour was entirely different to Turner’s. Sam sensed he was going to be more forthcoming with his answers than his associate.
“Tell me, Mr Penn, when did you meet up with Michele Turner?”
“I can’t remember the exact date. It must have been nearly twenty years ago, during the investigation into Pendle House. The longer the investigation went on, and the more times I met her, the more I knew we had an affinity for each other. Before you ask, there was never anything romantic between us. It was obvious pretty early on that the investigation would fail the minute I set foot in that place. It didn’t take long for my DCI to warn me off. He told me to wrap things up early before they got a chance to get going. You know yourself what that’s like, Inspector. To me, it was like a red rag to a bull. I spent thenext two months going back and forth to the children’s home under the pretext of wrapping up the investigation. Every time I went back, the hackles rose on my neck. My gut told me that the man in charge, Foster, was lying and that sinister things were happening there.”
“I can only imagine the frustration you must have felt. Why didn’t you take it higher?”
“Back in the day, there was a lot of corruption going on in the Force. If you do your research, the superintendent at the time, Morley, was on the take. He was brought down by another DCI and his team. The case of Pendle House got shoved to the side until things were deemed to have settled down. By then, it was too late. The children’s home had already been classed as unsafe by the public, and the council finally grew some balls and shut it down.”
“So justice was finally served.”
“Hardly. That’s when Ivy—sorry, Michele—and I decided to work together. I uncovered some secret files when Pendle closed down. Don’t ask me how I gained access to the place. I’m sure you can figure that out yourself.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Okay, can you tell me what was in the files?”
“Kids’ names, the dates they arrived, the punishments they received and, in some cases, the manner in which they died.”
“And you did nothing about it?” Sam queried, aghast.
