‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Janine interrupted him. ‘We know about your relationship. We know you were her pimp.’
His expression shifted, concern replacing the jaded look. ‘I…’ he faltered. ‘I liked her. We hit it off. She couldn’t settle, though. Some of them, they get used to being on the game but she hated it. So I let her work at the club, instead. But she still wasn’t happy.’
‘She was pregnant,’ Janine said.
Harper blinked. It backed up her hunch. ‘It was yours,’ she stated.
He looked a little uneasy. ‘She said it was.’
‘You thought she was lying?’
A moment then he swung his head, no. He pressed his palms against the table and ducked his head as if steeling himself. ‘She began to talk about going back. She had nothing over there.’ He implied her decision was ridiculous.
‘Family?’
Harper shrugged. Either he didn’t know what family Rosa had or he didn’t think it relevant. ‘I said I’d try and find a way, smooth things over. Then Sunday night, at work, she’s on about it again, getting in a state. I told her maybe I could persuade Sulikov to let her go – tell him she was seriously ill or something. But I needed some time.’ He spoke calmly, plenty of eye contact. ‘I told her to wait. I thought I’d got through to her.’ He shook his head.
Richard moved position. ‘Did you see Rosa on Monday?’
‘No,’ Harper said. ‘I told you.’
‘You were close to Rosa,’ said Janine, ‘but maybe a baby wasn’t part of the plan. Convenient for you – her disappearance.’
Harper’s face fell, his mouth opened as he reacted to the implication. ‘No, it wasn’t like that.’
‘You were sleeping with her, you were the father of her child and yet when she was murdered you said nothing.’ Janine challenged him to justify his actions.
‘I was scared,’ he protested.
‘She was dead.’
He flinched.
Janine carried on, hoping that more pressure would push him into talking. ‘Tell us, Mr Harper. What really happened? You killed her, didn’t you?’
‘No,’ a wobble of panic in his voice. ‘I didn’t touch her.’ He looked from Janine to Richard. His eyes shone with intensity. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘The truth would be a start. How about something like this?’ In considering Harper as the killer, Janine had already formulated an account of events that didn’t stray too far from the few facts they had. ‘You did see her on Monday: she told her friend that she was going into work but she came to you and you had sex. She told you she was running away. You had to stop her leaving.’ Janine laid out each part of the scenario in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘You argued. You put your hand around her neck. How long did it take?’
