‘Can you tell me about the food and water?’
She blinks, confused. ‘What do you mean, the food and water?’
‘I’m sorry, I know it’s difficult, but the prosecution is going to have to explain things like that to the jury.’
She nods. ‘OK. I see. He’d leave bottles of water. Food in tins. It was all old people’s stuff. Peaches. Manky stew. I had a plastic spoon. My wrists were tied in front with those tie things. But I could eat. Just about.’
‘And write,’ I say, smiling at her. ‘That’s impressive. Not many people would have the presence of mind to do that.’
She lifts her chin. ‘I wanted everyone to know what happened. If I died down there I wanted people to know what he’d done.’
‘The same as he did to that other girl.’
‘He boasted about it. About burying her in the garden. I didn’t think it was true. I thought he just wanted to scare me. So I’d do what he wanted.’
‘Did he tell you how he was supposed to have killed her? When it happened?’
Her eyes widen. ‘I don’t remember exactly, but I’d been in the cellar a long time by then.’
‘And you were in Dr Harper’s cellar for nearly three years?’
‘I didn’t know how long it was. Not till I got out.’
She gives a little gulp that’s half a sob.
‘And he still kept you down there – even when you were pregnant?’
She nods again.
‘And what about when the contractions started? Surely you were let out then?’
She hangs her head. The eyes she raises to mine are full of tears.
There’s a knock at the door and one of the DCs appears. I get up and go towards him.
‘Sorry, boss,’ he says in a low voice. ‘But you’re wanted. Next door.’ He gives me a meaningful look.
When I turn back to Vicky she’s leaning against Wilcox, crying silently.
‘I’m really sorry, Vicky. I didn’t mean to upset you. Perhaps we should stop for now?’
Wilcox looks up. ‘I think that’s best. She’s had enough for today.’
‘Tomorrow then? Tennish?’
He nods, and helps the girl to her feet.
I watch the two of them down the corridor and through the swing doors. At one point Wilcox places his hand lightly on the girl’s shoulder.
*
When I open the door to join Gow he’s scanning back through the interview footage.
‘Here,’ he says, without looking round. ‘It’s where you asked her about the food and water. She drops her eyes before she answers, then looks to the right. If you believe in Neuro-Linguistic Programming – which I do, incidentally – that’s a big red flag for fabrication. But that’s not the only thing. When you asked her that question, she repeated it. She doesn’t do that anywhere else. She was trying to buy herself time.’ He leans forward and points. ‘And then she brings her hand to her mouth as she replies. Look.’
‘So she wasn’t telling the truth?’
‘Certainly not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’ He sits back and turns to face me. ‘I think I was right about the collusion – I think she came to some sort of accommodation with Harper. Something she accepted out of desperation at the time but now finds deeply shameful. Shame’s a rather unfashionable sentiment these days: the modern world is always telling us we don’t need to be embarrassed about anything we do – or think. But the shame response is still there, in the psyche – self-disgust, regret, revulsion. Those are immensely powerful emotions and all the more so when the subject is in denial. Whatever that girl did, she doesn’t want to admit it – certainly not to you, and on the evidence I’ve just seen, not even to herself.’
He sits back and starts to clean his glasses. Which is his own particular ‘tell’, though I’ve never had the courage to say so.
‘But that doesn’t invalidate her whole story, surely?’
He puts his glasses back on. ‘Of course not. It just means there’s some element of what happened in that house that we don’t yet know about.’
‘So how do we find out the truth? We can’t ask Harper – he’s still claiming he doesn’t know anything about any of it. That’s when he’s in a fit state to say anything at all.’
He can see the exasperation on my face. He checks his watch and gets up. ‘You’re the detective, Fawley. I’m sure you’ll work it out.’
My phone goes. A text, from Baxter:
At Frampton Road. Somer thinks she might have found something.
Gow, meanwhile, has stopped at the door. ‘Might be worth looking at the journal again. I can’t point to anything specific, but something about it doesn’t quite ring true.’
***
At Frampton Road, there’s a uniformed constable at the door and the sounds of movement overhead. Whatever it is, it’s upstairs. The bathroom on the first landing has its floorboards exposed now and the ancient lino is rolled up in the corner. The carpet’s up in the master bedroom too. That very faint smell Luminol has, that you don’t even notice unless you’ve been around it many times.
They’re on the top floor. Baxter, the forensics officer, Nina Mukerjee, Erica Somer and another uniform whose name I can’t remember.
‘So, what have we got?’
Baxter gestures at Somer. A gesture that says, as far as I’m concerned this is a wild goose chase so if it goes tits up it’s down to her, not me.
‘In here, sir,’ she says.
The room at the front. It was probably a servant’s bedroom once, with its low window set into the roof and its small cast-iron fireplace. She turns to me, more than half apologetic.
‘You’re going to think this is a crazy idea – that English grad thing again –’
‘No. Go on. We’ve run out of options. All we have left is crazy ideas.’
She blushes a little; it rather suits her. ‘OK, if we assume Hannah definitely did die in this house –’
‘I think she did. I know she did.’
‘OK, and yet forensics found absolutely nothing. That’s just not possible.’
‘It shouldn’t be, no.’
‘No,’ she says, insistent now. ‘It isn’t. There must be evidence. We just haven’t found it.’
‘As Challow keeps reminding me, they Luminol’d every floor –’
‘Exactly, so what if it isn’t the floors we should be looking at?’
‘I’m not with you –’
She turns and points overhead. ‘Look.’
A dull brown stain, darker at the edges, curiously heart-shaped. The rest of the ceiling is blotched with damp and age, but this – this is different. Deeper. Heavier.
‘It’s dry,’ she says. ‘I checked. And I know it’s crazy – I mean, how could she possibly have died up there – it doesn’t make sense – but there’s that scene in Tess –’
But I’m not listening – I’m already out on the landing. The loft hatch is directly above the stairs. The Victorians weren’t constrained by such nice concerns as Health Safety.
‘Didn’t someone check up here?’
Baxter makes a face. ‘Uniform were supposed to, but it looks like someone dropped the ball. Sorry, sir.’
‘Right, well, we’d better look at it ourselves then, hadn’t we.’
Baxter finds a chair in the next-door room and I climb on to it. The hatch is stiff, and I have to force it to get it free. But I can’t get all the way up from the chair.
‘Do you have a torch, Baxter?’
‘There’s one in the car, sir. And there’s a stepladder in the conservatory. I remember seeing it.’
‘OK, fetch the torch and I’ll get the steps.’
When he gets back I’m wedging the stepladder against the hatch.
‘I’ll hold it for you, sir,’ says Somer quickly. ‘You’d break your neck if you fell from here.’