‘First,’ I said, ‘we need to get you out of here and back to your horses.’
‘To hell with the horses.’
That was worrying, I thought. On the previous evening, he had been more concerned about the horses’ welfare than his own.
‘How can I go on without Bella?’
‘You will,’ I assured him. After all, he had revealed that Arabella was useless when it came to the horses. Too bloody busy with her effing make-up had been his exact words.
And the make-up did worry me a little. Would anyone really redo their mascara if they were about to kill themselves? But, I suppose, just maybe, the ‘distant and aloof’ Mrs Arabella Chadwick might have done so.
‘Is there anything more you need to tell me about your meeting with Zoe?’ I asked.
He waved his hand at me as if he considered anything other than the death of his wife was of no importance, but I knew otherwise. He was in a very low emotional state, and that was when he was most in danger of giving up the fight to clear his name.
‘Declan,’ I said clearly, ‘why has Zoe’s blood been found in your car?’
That got his attention.
‘Where in the car?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘On the front passenger seat, I bet,’ he said. ‘I told her to be careful, but you know what she was like.’
‘No, I don’t know what she was like,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’
‘She picked at her fingers. Always did. At the base of her nails. Made them bleed all the time. Done it since she was a kid and she’d obviously had a particularly heavy session on the train from London. Bleeding all over the place, she was, when I collected her. I told her to keep her hands off the seats, but she clearly didn’t. She never did anything she was told, that girl.’
‘Is that all?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean, all? There’s no pool of blood in the boot, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ He was getting quite agitated. ‘I tell you, I didn’t kill her. I dropped her at Newmarket Station just like I said. It’s not my fault if she didn’t catch the bloody train.’
I suddenly found that I believed him absolutely. My former doubts had been banished. In his current state of mind, and after the death of Arabella, I was certain he would have come clean, here and now, if he really had been responsible for Zoe’s demise and the fire.
‘What did Zoe want to talk about that was so important she came all the way from London to see you? Why not use the telephone?’
He threw his hands up in frustration. ‘You couldn’t have a sensible conversation with Zoe face to face, let alone on the phone. She would scream and shout all the time. In the end you’d have to hang up.’
And I knew all too well how annoying that could be.
‘But what did she scream and shout about?’
‘Money,’ he said. ‘It was always about money. She was perpetually broke, deep in debt, and always on the scrounge. And then she spent anything she was given on drugs. What a waste of a life.’
‘How about her husband, Peter? Doesn’t he have a job?’
‘Don’t make me laugh,’ Declan said. ‘Calls himself an estate agent but I bet he’s never sold a single house in his life. I certainly wouldn’t trust him with one. Probably high most of the time. Useless prat.’
‘Why did Arabella call him Pete, not Peter?’
The very mention of Arabella’s name seemed to spiral him back into deepest misery.
‘Oh God!’ he shouted loudly, as if seeking divine deliverance from his pain. ‘I can’t go on.’
‘Yes, you can,’ I said resolutely. And I wasn’t going to stop now. ‘So why Pete not Peter? How much contact was there between Zoe and Arabella?’
He sighed. ‘They talked a few times on the phone last year and then Bella went to London to see her. Last December, it was. I remember, because she took some Christmas presents for the children.’
Children again, I thought.
It was all about children, or the lack of them.
‘Zoe always called the prat Pete. So I suppose Bella picked it up from her.’
‘Did she actually meet him?’
‘I don’t know. She didn’t want to talk about the visit. I didn’t even know she was going until after she’d been. And it affected her badly.’
‘In what way?’ I asked.
‘She was nervous afterwards. Anxious and upset. She had difficulty sleeping. She wouldn’t tell me why exactly, but I think it was because Bella wanted so much to have children of her own. To love and cherish them. She couldn’t bear the fact that Zoe had kids but didn’t seem to care, or even to look after them properly. It was like a double torment for her. My poor darling.’
Declan leaned his head back down on his arms and sobbed.
I waited until the worst had passed.
‘So Zoe came to ask you for money?’ I said finally, trying to move things forward.
‘Demanded it, more like,’ he said. ‘Claimed she was entitled to it as my sister. The stupid girl was delusional.’
‘Did you give her any?’ I asked.
‘Only what I had in my pocket. Fifty quid or so. Anything to shut her up. Maintained she needed it to feed her kids, but I knew she’d use it for her next fix. Either that or for cigarettes.’
‘Did she smoke a lot?’ I asked.
‘All the time. I don’t know how she could afford it.’
‘Did she smoke when she was with you last Sunday?’
‘Like a bloody chimney. Had to buy one of those air freshener things for the car to get rid of the smell.’
‘Did she have a lighter?’ I asked.
‘Eh?’ He looked up.
‘A lighter? To light her cigarettes? Or did she use matches?’
He paused a moment as if remembering.
‘She had a lighter. One of those cheap plastic ones. Red, I think it was.’
Probably the one found next to her remains, although the red plastic had long gone in the fire.
Detective Chief Inspector Eastwood eventually lost his patience and knocked on the door. I went over and opened it.
‘We need to question your client,’ the DCI said to me. ‘Time moves on.’
I looked at my watch. It was already almost three o’clock. My trip to the races was looking increasingly at risk.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Just a few more minutes.’
We returned to the previous interview room and the DCI again went through the rigmarole of starting the recorders and introducing the same participants, not that Sergeant Venables had said or done anything at all.
‘My client wishes to make a further statement,’ I said, jumping in before the chief inspector could ask his first question.
Everyone’s eyes turned to Declan.
‘I reiterate that what I said last night is the truth. I picked up Zoe Robertson from Cambridge Station at noon last Sunday, drove her to Newmarket via the McDonald’s drive-thru for lunch, and then I dropped her off at Newmarket Station at about three-thirty before returning home alone for evening stables. I’d like to further add that my sister was in the habit of self-harming, in particular picking at her fingers so hard that they bled. She had done that extensively on the day in question and any of her blood found in my car would be as a result of that activity rather than of anything more suspicious.’
The DCI looked at me with contempt.
The finding of Zoe’s blood in Declan’s car had clearly been his trump card. But he had shown me his hand, and I’d overtrumped it. If he had wanted me to keep quiet he should have said so, not that I’d have taken any notice.
He seemed dumbstruck, so I took my opportunity.
‘My client would like to inquire if you have viewed any CCTV footage from outside Newmarket Station. He maintains that it will show Zoe Robertson after he dropped her there. In addition, my client demands that you study the security CCTV from his stable yard, which will show that he was back at work there by three forty-five.’ I paused, but I wasn’t finished, not by a long chalk. ‘Furthermore, I contend that any evidence you have against my client is none other than circumstantial, coincidental and speculative. Yes, we accept that he was in contact with the victim on the day she died, but that was several hours before her death, and you have nothing that places my client at Castleton House Stables prior to the fire. Therefore I demand that he be released forthwith to attend to the devastating loss of his wife.’