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Sean smiled, ‘but all these pictures of the same person – a woman who’s now been murdered – possessing a replica firearm, the hunting knife, the combat clothes, your arrest for stalking her, another arrest for breaching a restraining order. Come on, Ruben. This isn’t looking good for you.’
    ‘I … I didn’t do anything,’ Thurlby stammered.
    ‘Why so obsessed with her?’ Sean picked up the pace of the questions. ‘Why her?’
    ‘She was beautiful,’ Thurlby answered, close to tears, ‘and kind.’
    ‘And the knife?’
    ‘For protection. To keep bad people away.’
    ‘And the gun, Ruben? Why the gun?’
    ‘Because … because it felt nice,’ he admitted. ‘It felt …
powerful
.’
    ‘And the combat clothes?’ Sean pushed. ‘Why walk around southeast London dressed like a sniper?’
    ‘I … I wanted to be a soldier,’ he answered, ‘but they wouldn’t have me.’
    ‘Jesus, Ruben,’ Sean raised his voice and made Thurlby visibly flinch. ‘What’s it really all about – the gun, the knife, the clothes, the photographs? Why, Ruben? Why?’
    ‘To protect her,’ Thurlby shouted back, tears rolling down his face and mixing with the spittle coming from his mouth as he tried to speak.
    ‘Yes, but who from?’ Sean showed no mercy.
    ‘I think that’s enough now,’ Harvey tried to stop them, but it was too late.
    ‘Everybody,’ Thurlby screamed. ‘I wanted to protect her from everybody, because I loved her.’
    ‘You mean you wanted to keep her for yourself,’ Sean accused him.
    ‘No,’ he banged his fist on the table.
    ‘And when you couldn’t have her all to yourself it was too much to accept, wasn’t it?’
    ‘No. I didn’t do anything.’
    ‘So you killed her, didn’t you? You took one of your replica guns and you somehow reactivated it, didn’t you?’
    ‘No,’ Thurlby sobbed.
    ‘And you made a bullet to fit the gun and used it to kill her, didn’t you?’
    ‘No,’ Thurlby wouldn’t move. ‘She was afraid. I wanted to protect her.’
    ‘Yes,’ Sean agreed. ‘She was afraid – afraid of you.’
    ‘No,’ Thurlby stood fast, his eyes becoming hard slits and his face turning to stone. ‘Not of me – of something else. Someone else.’
    Sean leaned back in his chair and sighed. He knew he wouldn’t get any more out of Thurlby – not now – maybe never. ‘Okay,’ he declared. ‘Let’s all take a break. This interview is concluded.’ He pressed the stop button on the tape recorder and ejected the two tapes – sealing and signing one as the Master Copy and pocketing the Working Copy. ‘We’ll leave you alone to have a further consultation, after which the gaoler will take Ruben back to his cell while we discuss what’ll happen next.’
    ‘I take it there’s no plan to charge my client with murder?’ Brooking asked.
    ‘Don’t assume anything,’ Sean warned him and stood to leave. ‘We’ll let you know what we decide.’ He quickly walked from the interview room, glad to escape the confinement of the tiny space, followed by Benton. He gave the Master Copy of the tape to the gaoler and headed for the Custody Suite exit, and into the front office.
    ‘What now?’ Benton asked as he followed across the office and into the corridor.
    ‘We speak to Featherstone,’ Sean answered.
    ‘The guv’nor’s here?’ Benton asked, surprised. ‘I thought he’d wait for us back at Peckham.’
    ‘I said I’d meet him in the canteen here,’ Sean told him as the climbed a short flight of stairs and entered the local CID office that was also used as a short cut to the canteen.
    ‘So what d’you think anyway?’ Benton tried to get Sean to open up. ‘Think he’s our man?’
    ‘What do you think?’ Sean replied.
    ‘Me?’ Benton asked.
    ‘Yeah, you,’ Sean said. ‘You’re a detective aren’t you?’
    ‘Okay – then I’d say he has to be our man,’ Benton declared. ‘Classic case of a stalker turned killer. He fits the bill perfectly: mentally