Page 75 of One Left Alive
Greg Barker was nursing a mug of tea, and there was an untouched biscuit next to it. He didn’t lift his head to even acknowledge Ben or Abigail when they walked in. Tom had insisted on being present while he was interviewed, along with the solicitor who had been called out. Ben knew he was fearful of a repeat of earlier. Sitting down, he set up his laptop and turned it to face Greg with the video paused.
‘Greg, I’d like to talk to you about some new information which has come to light. I need you to watch this video.’
‘No comment.’
He didn’t lift his head.
‘Right then, I’ll just play it and see if you want to make a comment after it finishes. For the benefit of the tape I’m showing Gregory Barker some footage received as evidence.’
Tom walked around until he was standing behind Greg and could see the screen. Ben pressed play. Greg lifted his head to take a look; his eyes were red and swollen from the PAVA, making him look as if he’d been crying for hours. As the video played, he sat up straight. His solicitor and Tom both squirmed. Greg’s hands curled into fists. Tom waited until it finished then nodded at Ben and left the room.
‘Where did you get that? I want to make a complaint, that was taken without my knowledge.’
Ben had to admit the guy had balls. He was banged up, about to be questioned about murdering at least four people and he was still playing the victim.
‘We’ll deal with that later.’
‘Good, because it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’
‘What’s obvious? The only thing I can see is that you and Olivia Potter were clearly having an affair.’
‘Obvious that whoever sent that is the killer. Why would I kill the woman I loved and her family?’
‘You tell me, it looks to me as if she’s angry with you when she’s walking away from you. Was she trying to break up with you? You seem to me like a man who is used to getting what he wants. If she didn’t want you maybe you decided to teach her a lesson.’
Greg was shaking. He slammed his fists down on the table in front of him, and his solicitor pushed his chair away from him.
‘Calm down, Mr Barker, you’re not helping yourself.’
He turned to look at his solicitor and roared, ‘Get out, you useless piece of crap.’
The solicitor looked at Ben and shrugged. ‘Have it your way.’
Shuffling the papers in front of him, he snapped his briefcase shut and walked out of the door.
Now it was just Ben, Abigail, Barker and the two coppers on standby behind him.
‘What’s it going to be, are you going to answer my questions or not? I think that was a very bad move. Do you want me to ask your solicitor to come back in?’
Barker sat back in his chair, crossed his legs and stared at Ben. ‘No comment and it’s going to be no comment for every single question. So, unless you have enough evidence to charge me you only have a few more hours to keep me here, then you’re going to have to release me on bail. You’ve already screwed my entire life up, there’s nothing left to lose.’
Ben smiled at him. ‘Well, I’m getting paid for this so we might as well go through the motions.’
Abigail slid a clipboard across the desk to him and he began to read off his list of questions to be greeted with a ‘no comment’, every single time.
Forty-Eight
Morgan waited in the office for Ben. She’d shown Amy a copy of the footage. When he finally appeared, his face was red and he’d undone the top buttons on his shirt. His tie was loosened, and he looked like he needed to go home and sleep for a week.
‘How did it go?’
‘Rubbish, he’s not coughing to anything. Sacked his solicitor after ten minutes and went “no comment” the rest of the interview. How did you get on at the library?’
‘Interesting, the librarian said someone else had been in two weeks ago to search for the exact same thing I was looking for. Said he was a teenage boy with nice hair who kept running his fingers through it.’
‘Harrison Wright?’
‘I think so; he had a girl with him. She waited outside.’
