Eric paused for a moment, looking at his lawyer who nodded in encouragement.

"Ok" he took a deep breath "when Helena paid me to tamper with the brakes, she asked what I thought would happen. I said it’d most likely make Tina run off the road but nothing more coz she’s such a careful driver. She said….well…"

"Go on" Bette encouraged.

"She said that she’d have to deal with it. Look, I didn’t question her, I just took the money. That’s all I was interested in" Eric wrung his hands.

"And what did you think when you found out she’d been shot at?" asked Bette.

"I realised just how serious she was"

"You mean being paid to tamper with breaks wasn’t serious enough?" Bette asked incredulously.

"You know what I mean, it wasn’t really real until then" Eric tried to explain.

"And what about the poison?" Dana asked.

"I don’t know anything about that, I swear"

"And the fire?" Bette enquired.

Eric shrugged his shoulders.

"I’m going to throw you a line here. We know you couldn’t have started that fire because we had you under surveillance at the time. But you could really help yourself out here by telling us what did happen" Bette told him.

"You were spying on me?" Eric asked.

"Luckily for you in this case" Dana pointed out.

"Just tell us what you know Mr Martin" Bette ordered.

"And what do I get out this?" Eric folded his arms.

"You don’t get charged with something you didn’t do. And we can tell the judge in your case that you were co-operative. It’s amazing how much more lenient judges are with people who help the investigation" Bette told him.

Eric turned and whispered something to his lawyer, who advised him to answer Bette.

"Look, ok, here’s the deal. Helena didn’t think I could really do the job. I hadn’t had any success so she said she was going to have to do it herself, all I had to do was give her some information and my money was safe"

"What sort of information?" Bette pushed him.

"Just stuff like Tina’s address, who would be around, her evening routine and what the hallway was like"

"And you told her it all?"