Bryan looked at the girl again. He wasn't sure of her motives or what information she had but he felt it was going to be very worrisome.
"What do you know?" Bryan wanted to crack this case and to do so, he needed information regardless whether the source was reliable or not. For a killer who was good at masking his trails and leaving no clues behind, it was very difficult to trace or predict his movements. He decided to listen to her and afterwards decide whether the information was useful or not, after all, it could be what the police already know.
"Can we talk somewhere else?" the girl called Mabel suggested, "I don't feel comfortable when I have a serious talk with someone on the streets."
"Let's talk over there." Bryan led her towards the Friendly Café which was just a few metres from where they were now. He also didn't feel comfortable discussing sensitive topics out in the open.
At the café, Bryan and Mabel found a table in the coffee section. The girl from before, Bryan noticed, was no longer in sight. She was probably working.
"What information do you have?" Bryan asked impatiently. Every fibre in him was itching to hear something that would create the big bang in this case. Bryan had to restrain himself a bit; impatience and itchiness were not the attributes of a good detective.
"I don't know if it would help, but there's something you need to know about Angelina."
Bryan rubbed his chin; he had some questions to ask this girl first.
"I have a few questions for you and I need answers before I can listen to whatever you're going to say."
"What's the question?" The girl had a frantic look on her face as if she was afraid of something.
"How do you know that I'm handling this case, only a few people know?"
"Through ma'am Janet, she mentioned your name alongside two other names." The girl replied as honestly as she could.
"Then why didn't you speak with the other two people?" Bryan asked suspiciously. What if it was a set up?
"I would have but then I discovered that the other two officers were directly involved with the police force here."
"Why didn't you go to the police then? Are you afraid of the police?" Bryan asked feeling more convinced that she was hiding something.
"No, I'm not afraid of the police but I also didn't want to get involved in the case. You're the only person I know who isn't related to the police here." The girl calmly explained her reasons for seeking out Bryan.
Bryan didn't want to ask why she was afraid of getting entangled with the police, after all, not everyone felt secure around the police.
"Then how did you find me? You were following me?"
This is why I need to find another house and some other documents that would help me maintain a low profile in this foreign city, Bryan reminded himself. He still hadn't found a suitable house apart from the one in Raymond Street.
"No. I've been searching for you after the funeral, I was lucky to come here today to visit a friend just to run into you."
"Last question," Bryan said and leaned back into his seat, "why didn't you try to give this information you have to the police, at least anonymously?"
It was a good thing that Friendly Café was friendly enough to allow people to meet here without being forced to buy a coffee or use the internet.
"I was afraid of what might happen to me if I said anything. According to the media, 'the exorcist' is very difficult to deal with and I didn't want to be targeted." Mabel explained while wringing her hands under the table, "the reason why I'm saying this now is because I want to see my friend's killer brought to justice and this drive has quelled my fear."
Bryan nodded and said, "Go on, tell me everything from the start."
Bryan didn't want to turn this into an interrogating session.
"Angelina and I were best friends. We worked at the same studio though she also had other freelance jobs. We were pretty close and we knew a lot of secrets about each other, secrets that even her mother didn't know.
"Angelina later introduced me to her secret boyfriend who stayed at a different place."
"Wait! A secret boyfriend?" Bryan asked again, wasn't Toby her fiancé?
"Yes. She didn't want anyone else to know about him, not even her mother or her official boyfriend Toby.
She told me that she never liked Toby and that she was only doing it to make her family happy since the engagement was set up by her mother.
"When I met him, he didn't seem to like me much. The reason he disliked me was that he felt I would convince Angelina to leave him."
Mabel paused to observe the detective, he seemed calm and unconcerned yet she was sure that he was listening attentively to what she was saying therefore she went on:
"Three days before her murder, Angelina told me that she was scared and that she felt an overwhelming presence around her and she felt she was being followed.
I comforted her and told her that everything would be fine, but she said that she wasn't afraid of the person watching her but she was scared because of his motive.
"She admitted that she had told her secret boyfriend that she had slept with Toby and was beginning to fall for him. Her secret boyfriend had gone completely crazy and said a lot of bad things to her. She told me that after she left his place, she felt someone start to watch her."
"This is…" Bryan found his heart beating faster and faster. A fight with a secret boyfriend, being watched and followed… isn't this too much of a coincidence?
"What sort of outcome was Angelina afraid of?" Bryan asked pointing out the statement she had made earlier.
"She was afraid that he would harm Toby or her mother. Then she later began to think that he might plan something bad about her."
Bryan went wide eyed. This was a clue.
"This is the guy's photo," Mabel took out a photo from her bag and handed it over to the detective, "his name is Gael Hanson."
Bryan looked at the photo of the young man with jet black hair, receding hairline, blue eyes and broad lips.
Bryan almost shouted out, this was the exact description of 'the exorcist' except that this guy didn't have an angled cheek bone….