A Victim's Diary

23

Alistair really wasn't in the mood to talk to Jonathan Wilkes again. The man had been merely annoying the first time around, but now Alistair was disgusted by him. After he had read what kind of a person he was in Ruby's diary, he wasn't sure whether he could talk to him normally again. That's why he had requested Johnson to come along to the interview – Alistair didn't trust himself with this.

He had been thinking about letting Johnson handle the interview all on his own, but then again he had no idea how much he could trust Johnson with that. As far as he was aware he had very little experience with interviews and Jonathan Wilkes was one of Alistair's main suspects. He couldn't just take a gamble with that, if he didn't know how it was going to end. Johnson might do a great job, but he might also be way too soft on Wilkes. And Wilkes had a certain way with people which made it harder.

His wife had arrived with him, but she'd have to wait until he was done. Alistair wasn't looking forward to that either, especially since she was giving off a very cold and calculated vibe. She had the icy look of a rich woman that knew exactly how much money she had to spend to buy your loyalty and who wasn't afraid to use that power. Her hair was platinum blonde (dyed, obviously, but done well) and cut into a sharp bob that made her look much younger than she was. Her teeth were brilliantly white and her skin looked so smooth that Alistair was sure she had some sort of surgery done.

If he had been a few years younger he would actually have been afraid of her. But he had somehow managed to get used to talking to those upper-class women. There was one thing they were all afraid of and it was to lose face and to have a bad reputation – to have all the money and luxuries in the world, but to always have to worry about what other people might be thinking. He wasn't going to capitalise on that fear unless he absolutely had to, but it always worked like some sort of secret weapon.

Either way, he could worry about that much later. First of all he had to crack Jonathan Wilke's façade. That façade of caring about Ruby, of only wanting the best for her, of giving her a promotion and valuing her work – because that simply wasn't true. He had used it to reel her in and once she was believing in it all enough he was using it against her, to keep her working more, to keep her in his bed.

It was disgusting. Alistair still couldn't believe that Jonathan had managed to give such a convincing account of caring about Ruby and then turn out to be so nasty and abusive to her. She had been scared of him, she had said so herself and that made him a quite strong suspect. He had a motive and technically with a bit of imagination he even would have had the opportunity to kill Ruby. Alistair wouldn't put it beyond him. It all depended on this interview today, if he was being fully honest.

After he had calmed himself down a little, he made his way towards Johnson's desk to pick him up and head to the interrogation room. Johnson already seemed to be nervous as hell and Alistair felt sorry for him. He remembered his own first interrogation and how he had almost collapsed because he was so nervous. And Johnson was way more of a perfectionist than he had been – he was probably sweating buckets.

But everyone had to go through with it once in a while and since Alistair had set his sights on getting Johnson into the department (whether he wanted it or not), it would be better if Johnson got it done and over with sooner rather than later. Alistair was getting the feeling that Johnson had no idea what he actually wanted. He seemed to just be drifting along, going with the flow of whatever happened.

Either way, they had a job to do and it wasn't going to be an easy one. Jonathan Wilkes still had his self-assured grin, but he did look like he was faking it more than last time. He seemed to be surprised when he had heard that there were some further questions, which was a good sign for him, but it was easy to fake surprise on the phone. It was much more difficult when seeing someone in person.