Alix nodded. She always liked getting her own way, but she didn’t want to show how pleased she felt. “Fine.”
Jayne made no attempt to usher her guest inside or to effect introductions. Instead, she stood her ground and spoke to her daughter.
“I’m going out for a little while. We’re going to have a cup of tea down at the front. I won’t be more than an hour, promise.”
Rosie shrugged and said nothing. She walked straight past them into the house and pulled the door closed behind her.
“Come on, then,” Jayne said, waving in the direction of the sea-front.
“I do appreciate this, Mrs. Ive.” Alix concentrated on investing her tone with the maximum sincerity. “Or Jayne — if I may.”
“Call me what you like,” Jayne said with a shrug. “I mean what I say, mind. An hour, maximum.”
Alix inhaled the salty air. “Wonderful. This really is good of you.”
She fell into step beside the older woman as they moved down the hill. Jayne Ive kept up a brisk pace, as if anxious to get away from her home. Stretched out below was the beach. Children were playing on it with bats and balls, their parents sunbathing or eating ice creams. Fishing boats plied to and fro. Only the jagged remnants of the castle outlined against the sky testified to Peel’s violent past.
“This is a lovely place,” Alix said. It seemed the right thing to say and she had to admit to herself that the resort would photograph well. For her money, though, Mauritius was more like it as a holiday destination. Never mind the history, feel the heat.
“Beautiful,” Jayne said, almost whispering the word. “I love it very much.”
“I gather the wind blows pretty fiercely.”
The bloke who had sat next to her on the plane to Ronaldsway had told her this. His name was Rupert and he wasn’t a native, just a young city trader who was flying over to a branch office in Douglas to sort a few tax-efficient deals. By a happy coincidence, as he described it, they were staying at the same hotel, off the main road between Peel and Port Erin. He’d asked Alix to have dinner with him and she’d said yes. Why not?
“Man is a small island, it’s a healthy place.”
“Bracing, huh?” Alix said, just about resisting the temptation to say Surely no man is an island?
When they reached sea level, Jayne waved a hand at a cafeteria squashed between The Longboat Guest House and a tiny gift shop. Its signboard bore the name Maisie’s. “We can talk there. It’s quiet enough.”
Maisie, whoever she might be, was obviously a gingham fetishist, Alix decided as they settled down at a corner table. The place smelled of fish and chips. Apart from a noisy family of six by the door, the two of them were the only customers under seventy. As for the menu, it was very British seaside.
“I’ll have a pot of tea and a plate of bread and butter,” Alix said. Her tone was mildly satiric — she just couldn’t help it — but Jayne didn’t seem to notice.
“Me too.” Jayne waved at a fat waitress, inevitably clad in a gingham overall, and ordered for them.
“Thanks for sparing me your time,” Alix said.
“I don’t feel you left me with much choice.”
“Don’t worry. Look at me, I’m not taking notes, and I promise I’m not wired for sound. Like I said on the phone the other day, I just want to hear your side of the story.”
“I haven’t got a ‘side of the story.’ I never talked to the press, not once. You must have heard — I was offered money, big money, as it happens, but I turned them all down flat.”
Alix leaned across the table, her hands almost touching Jayne’s. “I respect your wish for privacy,” she said earnestly.
“Then why are you here? Why don’t you take the next flight back to London?”
“Jayne, you must understand, I’m not a tabloid journalist. I’m a serious documentary maker. There’s a world of difference.”
“Not to me. Wherever you come from, whatever your agenda is, you all have one thing in common. You want to reopen old wounds.”
“Please. It’s not like that. I want to present the public with a balanced picture about the case. Something they haven’t really had until now. It’s been pretty much one-way traffic, don’t you agree? The police have had a field day — that inspector with the squint and his blond P.R. lady. After the trial, the media hung on their every word. You kept your own counsel, from the best of motives, I’m sure. But time has passed and maybe you ought to start wondering whether silence was the best idea.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because tongues start wagging, that’s why.” Alix shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, Jayne, but there’s no point in beating about the bush. You need to get real. And the reality is that when people stop talking about your husband, they start talking about you.”
“About me?” Jayne Ive looked puzzled, as if the idea had never occurred to her. A bluff, surely? No one could be that unwise to the ways of the world.
“You’re married to a convicted serial killer, Jayne,” Alix murmured. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but it’s not a conventional situation. Besides, it goes further than that. You worked side by side with him, you lived together in the home where all the deaths occurred. Face it, you can’t be surprised that questions have been asked. Why didn’t you figure out what your husband was doing to the residents? Did you help in a cover-up? Maybe — I won’t spare you this, Jayne, we’re both adults — you knew what was going on all the time. Trust me, that’s what people were talking about.”
Jayne received the little speech in silence. She didn’t even blanch at the dread suggestion. She must have known. But then, she was bound to have gone through it all in her own head a thousand times.
The tea and bread and butter arrived. “Lovely,” Alix said, and the fat waitress positively simpered.
“I’m not even supposed to talk about the case,” Jayne said presently. “That’s on legal advice. William’s appealing against conviction, as you know.”
“Lawyers.” Alix raised her eyes to the heavens. “Don’t they see, an appeal against a miscarriage of justice needs the oxygen of publicity?”
“Besides, some of the relatives have threatened to sue me, to claim compensation. Even though there was never any suggestion of my being charged with anything. Even though I’ve suffered, too. I’ve lost a loved one, but they never think of that.”
“You owned the Sunny Hours Home.”
“William put it in my name. It was a tax thing, I don’t know the details. As for being sued, there’s a lot of emotion about. A little bit of money. It affects the way some people think.”
“But not you?”
Jayne’s lips formed into a thin line. “Alix, my husband was given four life sentences for crimes he didn’t commit. What do you think that I think?”
Alix tried her tea, but it scalded her tongue. The bread and butter didn’t look promising, either. The things that you do in the line of duty.
“Well, that’s what I’d like to discuss with you. You obviously remain convinced he was innocent.”
Jayne took a deep breath. “The first time we spoke on the telephone, I told you I had no intention of pouring my heart out to you. But I still say what I’ve always said. William didn’t kill those poor old people.”
“The evidence—”
“Don’t talk to me about the evidence! It wasn’t worth two ha’pennies. Those so-called expert pathologists, disagreeing among themselves. Even that jury, that stupid jury, had two members who realised it didn’t add up. It took the best part of a week to screw a majority verdict out of them. The judge should have called a halt long before.”