‘The eldest’s eight and the twins are seven,’ Susan Cooke replied. ‘They’re all at school now, thank God. It’s the only rest I get. We’ve got no space, that’s the problem…’
Claire Brown made one of her sympathetic noises.
Susan Cooke waved an arm desolately at the small, cluttered room, which Willis suspected hadn’t seen a duster or a vacuum cleaner in months.
Suddenly she sat up straight.
‘I’m forgetting my manners,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
Willis tried not to let the sheer horror of the prospect show on his face.
‘No, thank you, we have to be as quick as we can when we’re on an inquiry as serious as this,’ he said politely.
PC Brown quickly acquiesced.
‘Not for me,’ she said. ‘But thank you so much for the offer.’
She smiled kindly at Susan Cooke, who managed a small, tired smile back.
Willis had had enough. He decided the time for prevarication was over.
‘So Mrs Cooke, we need to ask you some questions about your husband’s whereabouts over the last few days…’ he began.
‘You mean last night?’ the woman queried sharply, interrupting him.
It seemed Prozac, and the other prescription drugs Willis reckoned she was taking, hadn’t completely numbed her senses.
‘Not entirely,’ he said. ‘Let’s start with the past week or so. Do you know when your husband last saw his daughter?’
Susan Cooke didn’t answer at once. She seemed to be thinking.
‘It must have been a couple of weekends back,’ she said eventually.
‘That’s almost three weeks ago,’ said Willis. ‘Did he usually see Melanie that infrequently?’
‘Well, he was supposed to be seeing her last Sunday. He usually saw her every other Sunday, at least. Or used to, anyway. They were going to the pictures, then for a burger. But she cancelled, said she couldn’t make it.’
‘Do you know why?’ interjected PC Brown.
Mrs Cooke shrugged.
‘Well, she’s that age, isn’t she? Tricky. Claimed she was having a bad period. They do that you know, these girls from split homes. Reckon their dads will be too embarrassed to ask any questions. He didn’t believe her, though, my Terry. And later on he found out by chance that she’d spent the afternoon with one of her mates.’
‘How did your husband feel about that?’ asked PC Brown.
Willis decided he would let Claire Brown have her head. He’d noticed before that, along with her sympathetic manner, she had an effectively neutral way of asking questions. She seemed to be doing rather well with Susan Cooke.
‘Well he wasn’t best pleased, but then nobody would be.’ She paused again.
‘Look, uh, you’re not trying to suggest… I mean, I can tell you now. My Terry would never hurt that girl, not his princess.’ Susan Cooke spat out the last few words. She touched her bruised face again.
‘How did you get that bruise, Mrs Cooke?’ Claire Brown asked quietly.
The woman looked startled. ‘What? That? Oh, I was putting the twins down the other night. They’ve got bunk beds. They was playing up. I knocked my face against one of the uprights, while I was trying to get them to settle.’
Brown and Willis exchanged glances. Neither made any direct comment.
‘You’re quite sure your husband would never hurt Melanie?’ asked PC Brown, keeping her voice expressionless.
If Mrs Cooke grasped the particular significance of the question, she showed no immediate sign of it.
‘Not in a million years,’ she said, with a sniff. ‘He worshipped her. Worshipped the ground she walked on. His little princess, as I keep saying, that’s what he called her.’ She paused then and seemed to be thinking things through. ‘He’d never hurt his princess,’ she repeated.
‘Look Mrs Cooke, we just need to learn everything we can about Melanie, her family, her friends, her behaviour patterns, everything. In your opinion, what sort of girl was she?’
‘I told you, I hardly ever saw her. But I know she was spoiled right enough, by her father, that’s for sure. He was always spending money he didn’t have on her. And by her stepfather by all accounts. Competing for her affections, the pair of ’em, if you ask me.’
‘What about her mother?’
Mrs Cooke shrugged.
‘Caught between the two men, I reckon. Takes the easy way out. Turns a blind eye to all sorts of stuff, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Willis thought it was time for him to take control again.
‘So let’s move on to last night,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me where your husband was, Mrs Cooke?’
‘I knew you’d get to that soon enough,’ the woman muttered. ‘Here, in bed with me, of course, like he always is. That’s one thing about my Terry. He’s not got enough life in him anymore to play around.’
‘And earlier in the evening, before you went to bed?’
‘He had a long job on yesterday. Left home soon after five and didn’t get in til gone seven. We had something to eat, then he slumped in front of the telly. Sometimes he goes to the pub, but he was too knackered. We were in bed by ten o’clock, or thereabouts. So we were together til Sarah called.’
Willis glanced toward the pill bottle.
‘What are those?’ he asked.
Sarah Cooke coloured slightly. ‘Oh, just something the doctor gives me for me nerves.’
‘Do you take any other medication?’
The woman nodded.
‘Sleeping pills by any chance?’
She nodded again.
‘And did you take any sleeping pills last night?’
‘Yes, I take them every night.’
‘How many?’
‘Two. I always take two.’
‘What brand?’
She told him.
Willis knew about sleeping pills. His mother had been on them for years after his father went, until she met her new man.
‘That’s about as strong a brand as you can get, Mrs Cooke,’ he said. ‘I would imagine they really knock you out, don’t they?’
‘Well yes, they do. But it’s the only way I can get any sleep, you see, with me nerves and the children…’
The woman’s voice tailed off. Willis thought she might be beginning to grasp the significance of his line of questioning.
‘So how can you be sure your husband was with you all night?’ he continued. ‘If he’d popped out for a couple of hours after you’d fallen asleep, you wouldn’t have even known, would you?’
Mrs Cooke looked confused. ‘Well, I mean, we sleep in the same bed. Anyway, he wouldn’t have. He didn’t. Really. I’m sure.’
She didn’t sound that sure.
‘I think you have to admit it would be possible, Mrs Cooke,’ Willis persisted.
‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ The woman still wouldn’t commit herself.
‘Mrs Cooke, did you wake when your husband’s ex-wife called him in the early hours?’
‘Yes, of course I did.’
‘Do you know what time it was?’
‘Not exactly. The middle of the night or that’s what it felt like. Maybe three or four.’
‘Weren’t you pretty woozy, disturbed at that hour, after taking your pills?’
‘Well, yes, I probably was, but I knew he had to go out and it had something to do with Melanie.’
‘Did you go straight back to sleep?’
‘I think so, until the kids woke me just after six. You don’t need an alarm in this house!’
‘I put it to you again, is it not highly unlikely that anything would have wakened you, before that call from Melanie’s mother?’ Willis persisted further. ‘Your husband could have slipped out for two, or even three, hours without you noticing. You must agree with that, surely?’