‘Now what exactly do you want?’ he asked. ‘The police told me they’d arrested Declan Chadwick for murdering my wife, so why aren’t you in Newmarket making him confess, instead of worrying me and my kids?’
‘Because he didn’t do it,’ I replied.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Perfectly sure.’
‘Then why haven’t the police let him go?’
‘They have,’ I said.
‘But not completely. He’s still under investigation.’
‘If the police really thought he’d done it, they would have charged him by now.’
‘So who did kill her?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. Was it you?’
‘The police asked me that.’
‘I thought they would have. What did you tell them?’
‘The truth,’ he said. ‘I was here looking after the girls last Sunday. My neighbour, Jerry, brought his girl over to play with mine while he and I watched the final day of the football season together on the TV. We’re both Palace supporters. He took his girl home about seven-thirty. After that I was here alone with mine.’
‘What time did Zoe leave?’
‘The police asked me that too.’
‘And?’
‘I told them she wasn’t here at all on Sunday morning. Nor Saturday. She left sometime during Friday evening. I’d dozed off in front of the telly and, when I woke up, she’d gone.’
‘Weren’t you worried?’ I asked.
‘Not unduly. She did it all the time.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘All sorts of places. The police brought her home a few times. Once they found her asleep in a bus shelter. Another time she was spotted in A&E at Ealing Hospital. She wasn’t ill or injured or anything, she’d just gone in and sat in the waiting room to sleep. She did that quite a lot until they worked out what she was doing and stopped it.’
He was far more talkative than I had expected. Relaxed too.
‘But she always came home in the end?’ I said.
‘Yeah. It would be as if her being away somehow cleaned the demons from her system, at least for a while. She always came home happy. They were the best times.’
There were tears in his eyes.
‘Was she taking drugs?’ I asked.
‘All the time,’ he said. ‘Antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills by the bloody handful. Not that they did her much good.’
‘I meant did she take any other drugs when she disappeared? You know, illegal drugs?’
‘I reckon she must have,’ he said. ‘But she always denied it and I wanted to believe her. We used to do stuff a lot, coke mostly, so she’d know where to get some.’
‘Used to?’ I said.
‘Yeah. Used to,’ he said vehemently. ‘I’m clean now and I hoped that Zoe was too. I haven’t had a snort of coke in more than five years.’ He laughed. ‘Mind you, I’ve felt like having a bit this past week, I can tell you.’
‘But Zoe didn’t come home as usual this time?’
‘No.’ He swallowed hard, clearly trying not to cry. ‘I got a bit anxious when she hadn’t turned up by Monday. She liked to see the girls off to school at the start of the week. By Tuesday morning I was proper worried. She’d never been gone for four nights at once before.’
‘Did you call the police and report her missing?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘The police and I haven’t always seen eye to eye. Anyway, I thought she’d come back. Always had done before.’
‘But you did call Arabella Chadwick,’ I said. ‘I was there.’
He looked at me. ‘I hear that she’s dead now as well.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She is. But why did you call her?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know. I was that worried, I had to call someone. Arabella, she came here. Just before Christmas. Turned up one Sunday. She loved the girls and said that she wanted to get to know us better. Some guff about the family having to stick together. But it wasn’t a good day. Zoe was very agitated and she told her a few home truths about being a member of the Chadwick family.’
‘What sort of home truths?’ I asked.
Peter suddenly became very defensive. Was he going to keep the big secret as well?
‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘Mostly things about her growing up in Newmarket.’
I decided that the time for niceties was over.
‘Was it the same things you’re blackmailing Oliver Chadwick over?’
He stared at me.
‘Come on, Peter,’ I said. ‘Look at this place. Nice furnishings, big-screen TV with satellite sports channels, no debts, girls in nice clothes. Where’s the money coming from, Peter? Not from your job, that’s for sure. How many houses have you sold recently?’
‘I think it’s time you went now,’ he said.
‘I’m not the police, you know. I don’t like the Chadwicks any more than you do. Talk to me. Was that why Zoe died? Did she go and ask for more blackmail money and got herself killed for her trouble?’
‘I said it was time for you to go.’
‘What is it, Peter?’ I asked him forcefully. ‘What is so awful that a family, who individually hate each other so much, will still stand shoulder to shoulder to keep secret?’
‘Get out,’ he shouted at me.
Both his girls came running into the kitchen with troubled faces.
‘Daddy, don’t shout,’ Poppy said. ‘It frightens us.’
‘Will you please leave,’ Peter said to me quietly but firmly. ‘Now.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’m going.’ I took one of my business cards from my pocket and placed it on the kitchen worktop. ‘Call me if you want to talk again.’
I went back into the living room. Kate was sitting on the sofa next to Yvonne. ‘Come on, Catherine,’ I said. ‘We’re leaving.’
She stood up.
‘It’s been so lovely to see you again,’ Kate said.
‘And you too, Catherine, my dear,’ replied Yvonne. ‘Such a shame it’s in these dreadfully sad circumstances. Please do give my best wishes to your sister.’
‘Thank you. I will.’
Kate and I went out onto the open walkway and Peter Robertson shut the door firmly behind us.
‘What was all that about?’ I asked as we walked away.
‘Yvonne reminded me that she once came to our house to collect Zoe. I was there and met her. She remembers Janie well and seems so grateful that Zoe had at least one friend in her life. Sad, really.’
‘Did she say anything else?’ I asked.
‘She said that being in hospital had done no good for Zoe, in spite of the Chadwicks’ best endeavours to keep her there. According to Yvonne, it was Oliver who arranged to have Zoe sectioned the first time, and she also claims that he did it without telling her. Seems Oliver found a psychiatrist friend of his prepared to diagnose Zoe with schizophrenia simply based on her behaviour. He didn’t even see her or speak to her.’
‘That’s dreadful,’ I said.
‘It’s worse,’ Kate replied. ‘The shrink also claimed Zoe was a danger to herself and had to be restrained in a psychiatric hospital.’
‘When was this?’
‘Just after she was found in Croydon.’
Perhaps Oliver had been doing what he thought best for his daughter. Being in hospital at least kept her away from the cocaine.
‘Yvonne said she only found out about it years later, after her divorce.’
‘How did she find out?’ I asked.
‘Zoe accused her of being party to it. Apparently Zoe found out from her medical records and confronted her mother.’
‘Did Yvonne tell you who she thought had killed her daughter?’
‘No, but she did say one thing that I thought was odd. She told me that she believed that the Chadwick men had killed Zoe a long time ago. What did she mean by that?’