"I think my next visit has to be to interview Doctor Rush." Camile said, wrapping chilled hands round the coffee Becky had brought her along with a sandwich.
Young nodded thoughtfully then brought his own coffee to his lips. He blew across the top of it to cool it a little before taking a sip.
"There's no evidence he's done anything wrong, but he's been involved with too many of the occurrences associated with this case. " Young said. "I've been trying to be objective about the man, but there's just something about him that doesn't sit right with me. I've got no evidence to back it up, but I'd swear you'd find out he was a champion liar."
Camile regarded him evenly over the top of her own cup.
"Gut instinct?" She asked.
Young shrugged and looked away.
"I don't think he likes me anymore than I like him, but he's always been civil."
They drank their coffee and ate the sandwiches quickly.
"Where's Brody?" Young asked her as he screwed up the paper his sandwich had come in.
Becky answered.
"He came in briefly around lunchtime to pick up his laptop then went back to the hotel to work with some information he'd been sent." She told them.
They both nodded slowly.
"I'll phone Icarus and arrange to go and speak to Rush this afternoon." She said. "I'll keep what you said in mind."
Camile waited in the meeting room for Doctor Rush. Whilst she usually preferred to carry out these sorts of meetings on police premises, the lack of facilities in Destiny made that impossible. The Destiny Sheriff's Office had one formal interview room and it looked exactly like what it was, not conducive to a simple discussion.
After about ten minutes she poured herself a coffee and took a pastry from the side table. About ten minutes after that Rush turned up. He poured himself a cup of coffee, added cream or sugar and sat down opposite her with exceedingly bad grace. Camile guessed the man was distinctly hung over.
"How are you feeling this morning?" She asked. "Have you had any aspirin?"
"Shite and yes." He replied curtly.
Camile looked down at her laptop and the screen of notes.
"Fine," she said, "let's get this over with as soon as possible then. Firstly do you mind if I record this? This isn't a formal interview, but it will make it easier for me to make notes later"
Rush shrugged.
"Be my guest, Agent Wray."
Camile took out her Dictaphone, turned it on and set it on the table.
"Okay, firstly I'd like you to explain the circumstances of the accident that killed Alan Armstrong."
In a tight, slightly strained voice, Rush laid out the circumstances of the accident for her. Somewhere between the intense technical information of the scene report and the brief explanation Chloe Armstrong had given it was clear and comprehensible.
His voice cracked slightly when he explained watching Alan Armstrong collapse, clutching his chest over the console and how this brief lapse in the management of the situation resulted in the explosion that killed him instantly.
"They said afterwards he was dead anyway, there'd been fumes released, and there would be…he'd never have made it."
Rush went on to the aftermath of the explosion, the arrival of the emergency teams and, having to vent the room. He didn't look up through the whole story, stayed staring at the table, face hidden by a curtain of hair. When he finally finished he lapsed into silence. Wray went to the side table and poured him another coffee, sitting it down in front of him. He looked up at her through his hair, eyes almost black in the shadow of his face and too shiny.
"I'm sorry Agent Wray, Alan and I were friends most of our lives. He was my oldest friend. I'll admit I took his death hard."
Camile gave him a sympathetic look.
"Understandably so considering your friendship and the accident."
The room suddenly seemed very quiet. Rush picked up the coffee and sipped at it for a short while, evidently composing himself. Finally he sat up straighter and looked directly at her.
"What else did you want to ask?" He asked her.
"We still don't have a firm motive for these murders," Camile said, "but you were one of the intended victims and involved with Icarus. I'd like to ask you about your involvement with Icarus, how did you come to be here?"
Rush sat back in his chair taking a breath in.
"I went to University with Alan," he told her, "I was doing my BSc while he was postgrad at Oxford. We used to sit up late, get drunk and talk explosions and science. When he finished and came back here we kept in touch and he was interested in the practical applications of my post graduate research. Once I'd finished he offered me a job."
Camile nodded.
"You were married when you came here weren't you?"
Rush shrugged.
"My marriage didn't survive the amount of time and work I put into Icarus." Rush admitted. "I was building a whole new department and research stream from the ground up." He pushed his hair out of his face. "It was ultimately very profitable for Icarus, but," he sighed, "but not very profitable for my marriage. Gloria left me eighteen months after we got here and divorced me two years later."
Wray made a few notes.
"Are you still in touch with your ex-wife?"
Rush raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
"Not in years," he admitted. "Last I'd heard she had remarried, another musician, but that must be fifteen years or more ago."
Camile made a note to herself to track down the former Mrs Rush.
"I'd like to talk to you about your relationship with Miss Armstrong."
"I'm very committed to the company." The scientist's voice was emotionless as he shuffled the papers into the folder on the desk.
"After our first meeting I saw you with her."
He looked up at this. His expression was guarded.
"In the next room along from the conference room. She was crying and you embraced her."
Rush's expression became a little cold.
"She was crying." He said. "Of course I comforted her."
Camile nodded, but continued.
"It does bring into question the nature of your relationship with Miss Armstrong. Externally your relationship is presented as entirely professional, but what I've seen, and to be honest your whole behaviour, suggests a level of intimacy beyond that."
"Intimacy?" Rush asked his voice flat and definitely unfriendly.
"Yes. Let me be blunt Doctor, are you having a relationship with Miss Armstrong?"
An expression flashed over his face, there for only a split second, Camile wasn't sure but it looked like momentary confusion. It was quickly squashed and replaced with fury.
"Agent Wray," he ground out, his voice low and cold, "I have known Chloe her whole life, I'm a friend of the family!"
He stopped and Camile realised he was actually shaking with emotion. He shot her another venomous look. The tense moment was broken by a knock at the door. Camile gave the door an irritated look. There was a tap again and then it opened slowly, just a little before Eli Wallace pushed his head through the gap.
"Um, sorry," he said, ducking his head in embarrassment a little, "er, Doctor Rush, have you seen Ginn?"
Rush visibly reined in his anger.
"No Eli, I haven't seen her since yesterday and she wasn't around when I got up this morning."
Eli's looked concerned.
"Um, we'd arranged to meet for lunch and she hasn't phoned in sick as far as I know."
Rush sighed.
"Check with Stella, she'd have phoned Stella if she was sick, if she's not in and hasn't phoned in get Stella to phone her at home."
Eli nodded and disappeared.
Camile looked at Rush.
"Why the worry?"
Rush scratched his jaw.
"Ginn is in the process of divorcing her abusive husband."
Camile frowned.
"Is her absence a genuine cause for concern?" she asked.
Rush looked genuinely troubled.
"The last time she didn't appear it was because he had apparently kicked the living crap out of her and thrown her from a moving vehicle." He said harshly.
Camile tipped her head and regarded him
"Apparently?"
Rush shrugged.
"Ginn had head injuries and claimed not to remember the assault. But Alan did convince her to start divorce proceedings, and move out into a different flat. Sent Telford and some of the security with her to collect her things."
"When did all this happen?"
Rush paused for a moment, before speaking.
"Five months ago." He pulled out a small leather bound notebook or diary and flicked through. "Yes, five months, she was in hospital for two weeks, and saw David Walters the day after she came out."
Camile typed rapidly into the computer for a moment until Eli tapped on the door and walked back in again. He spoke immediately the words tumbling over themselves to get out.
"I saw Stella, she's not in, she's not phoned in and she's not answering her phone." Eli looked very worried. "She was in yesterday; we arranged to have lunch in the canteen."
Camile stood and pulled out her mobile phone.
"Everett? It's Camile. Can you do me a favour, can you send someone round to check on Ginn..."
She looked to Eli.
"Ginn McNiven." He supplied. "Apartment 3, 45 Rain Street."
She relayed the information.
"Yes, she's not come into work, not phoned in and isn't responding to the telephone and there's some concern about her…yeah, the ex-husband."
Scott stepped out of the patrol car and up to the building. It was neatly kept, like al the Baras family properties. This one wasn't a purpose built apartment block but a converted saloon and hotel from where there had been a significant trapping and logging industry in the area. The building had been converted into eight small one bedroom apartments, none of them very big, but carefully converted with a lot of original features. He'd seriously thought about renting one himself, but in the end had taken the apartment in the old mission building, larger and slightly closer to the office.
He walked up to the front door and rang the buzzer for apartment 3. There was no name against the buzzer, but it was the only one that didn't have one. He wasn't surprised really. He'd seen what Simeon had done to her when she was in the hospital, no wonder she wasn't going out of her way to advertise where she was.
There was no answer. Hew tried it again a couple of times then stepped back and stared up at the window, apartment three was second floor left. There were no lights on, and as the early winter night was drawing in this was unusual.
He stepped up to the door again and looked at the names, then shrugged and rang apartment one. After a long pause there was a response at the intercom.
"Hello?"
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and could see an old woman staring at him through parted curtains at the window to his left.
"Hello Ma'am, I'm Deputy Scott from the Sheriff's office, I'm trying to check to see if the lady who lives in apartment three is okay but she's not answering."
He stepped back from the intercom and held his ID up to the window. The old lady pulled out a pair of reading glasses, perched them on her nose and scrutinised his ID carefully, before giving him a good look over the top of the wire rims. The intercom crackled again.
"I'll let you in Deputy, you can go up and check on her."
The door buzzed and Scott let himself into the small entrance lobby. There was a click to his left and the little old lady's door opened a crack. He could see her watching him, peering over the security chain. He walked up the stairs directly ahead, to the next floor.
From the top of the stairs everything looked fine. It wasn't until he got almost in front of the door that he realised that it was open a crack. He pushed it and it swung fully open. The short hallway was empty and the flat quiet. Scott pulled his gun and crept forward into the living room. Deserted. He tried the kitchen-diner, bedroom, bathroom, all empty. The room was deserted. However there was a coat hanging over the back of a chair in the kitchen diner and a purse on the table. He checked the purse, keys, coin purse, mobile phone. No woman left home without their purse.
He pulled out his mobile and called the Sheriff.
"Young?"
"This is Scott, I'm at Ginn McNiven's apartment, she's not here but the door was unlocked and her purse and coat are still here on the table. This doesn't look right."