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“I hope I never annoy you,” Charlie replied, and Patsy laughed.
The sky was clear enough to see the moon and a couple of the brightest stars, despite the street lamps. The earlier wind had dropped, along with the temperature. Charlie smelled woodsmoke hanging in the still air, and beyond it, the undefinable scent of a frost to come. Under his feet, a few charred spots showed where his car had stood. The foam had all gone, along with the van and the two cars. But he didn’t need to worry about them tonight. He was certain he had the arsonist in handcuffs, and the knife suggested Gwilym might have other questions to answer. It was time to bring Ravensbourne up to date.
The Llanfair police station interview room was typical of the rest of the place. Small, dark and badly maintained. There was a faint smell of mould from the carpet, and there was no tape recorder or video camera, just a table bolted to the floor, and four chairs. But it was all they had. Feeling like he’d stepped back to the 1970s, Charlie handcuffed Gwilym to the table, and led Patsy and Mags to the break room next door. He rang Ravensbourne and put the phone on loudspeaker.
“Hi, Charlie,” she said when she answered. “I’m glad you called. I was about to call you. I’m getting some grief about you harassing that Vitruvious bloke. Better leave him alone unless you have something solid. He seems to have a lot of media connections and he’s threatening to use them.”
“We haven’t spoken to him, boss.” Charlie said. The others all shook their heads in confirmation.
“Good. Keep it that way.”
“I did arrest Gwilym Bowen though. He was hiding out in a kind of annex attached to the station. Ex-police flat, in really bad condition. He waved a big knife at us. The kind of knife the flasher uses. And, I’m pretty sure he’s been at Harrington-Bowen’s house. So I can arrest him for threatening us, even if he doesn’t want to talk about anything else. But if we’re keeping him overnight, it can’t be here. There are cells, but you wouldn’t keep an animal in them.”
“I’ve heard. I’ll send transport,” Ravensbourne said. “He’s yours until it arrives. Remember that Harrington-Bowen has plenty of friends in Clwyd Police.” She ended the call.
If Charlie understood her correctly, Ravensbourne had given him until the transport arrived to get a confession out of Gwilym, because once he was moved to Wrexham, he’d be safely back under his uncle’s protection. Fine.
“Let’s make some tea and get on with it,” he said to Mags and Patsy. “We’ve got about an hour to get Gwilym to tell us what he’s been up to. Mags, go upstairs and get the knife from the kitchen and bag it up. Have a poke around and see if there’s anything that suggests Molotov cocktail making.” Mags left.
“Patsy, go and find a tape recorder, or a video recorder. There must be something we can use, to make it look more professional than just our phones.” She left.
Charlie ran upstairs for a laptop and the data stick with the Playboy bunny logo. He took the laptop into the interview room and set it up. Patsy followed with the video recorder on a tripod. Gwilym’s eyes widened as he watched them plug the equipment in to the one available socket, making a daisy chain of extension leads. There was a knock at the door. Charlie opened it to see Mags with a mug of tea and a sandwich on a plate.
“Gwilym,” Charlie said. “Have a drink and something to eat. We need to ask you some questions.”
Gwilym looked at the sandwich and shook his head. “Not hungry,” he said. But he picked up the tea, wrapping his hands around the mug and hunching his body over it as if to warm himself.
“What questions?” Gwilym asked. He sounded nervous. “Are you going to tell my uncle?”
“Do you want us to?” Charlie asked.
Gwilym shook his head so hard that the tea began to slop over the side of the mug. “He’ll be angry. He’s angry enough with me already.”
Doubt began to creep into Charlie’s mind. Was Gwilym competent to answer questions? Mags would be the better person to have with him in the interview, he thought, so he asked her to stay. He told Gwilym his rights, double checked that he understood them, asked if Gwilym wanted a solicitor (he didn’t) and made sure that the video recorder was picking everything up.
Then he produced the data stick from his pocket and plugged it into the laptop. The first of the videos began to play. A shadowy figure masturbating in front of a young woman; her face visible, tears rolling down her cheeks, arms wrapped around her body. Her sleeve had been cut, and the slash was easily visible. In the background, the video showed one of the cubicles in the art studios in the college building. It was dim, and the walls were out of focus, but Charlie could see grey and white paper pinned to the flimsy board walls. He stopped the video, and looked at Gwilym.
“I think that’s you, Gwilym. It is you isn’t it?”
Gwilym looked down at his mug of tea. “I never hurt them,” he said, and the tap opened to a flood of words, all spoken into the cooling mug of tea. Gwilym confessed to all the assaults, remembering each of them in detail, describing how he waited until the college was quiet and then stalked the corridors, workshops and storage spaces for women on their own. “I cut their clothes. Only their clothes. I wanted them to know the knife was sharp. I wanted them to keep still and watch. But I wouldn’t hurt them.”
“The women didn’t know that,” Charlie said. Gwilym just repeated that he wouldn’t hurt them.
“When did your uncle find out?” Charlie asked, because time was passing.
There was no answer.
“Your uncle,” Charlie repeated.
“He caught me,” Gwilym whispered into his mug. “In the college. I was watching a girl, and I heard him so I hid.”
“What was your uncle doing in the college after everyone had gone home?”
“He was arguing about money with Mr Vitruvious. My uncle said Mr Vitruvious should give him more money, or he would have to sell the house. They were shouting at each other, and I must have made a noise because they stopped and my uncle found me. He asked me why I was there, and he … guessed. I think he might have guessed before.” Gwilym’s head was almost resting on the rim of the mug, his entire body curved into a donut around it. Suddenly, he looked up.
“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked.
“Tonight you’ll be going to Wrexham police station and in the morning you’ll be asked about the things you’ve told us, by some other detectives. After that you’ll probably be charged with the attacks on those women, and you’ll go to court. If you are found guilty, then you’ll go to jail.”
