‘I was feeling desperately low,’ Jodie replied. ‘I’d just lost my fiancé and his family made it clear I wasn’t welcome at his funeral. I went out for a drink to my favourite bar in Brighton to try to cheer myself up — and I arranged to meet Rowley there. His wife had died a while ago and he seemed like a lost soul. We just sort of connected as we had done over the internet — it was as if we knew each other after our online chats.’
‘Is that so?’
‘We had dinner and then, later, he told me he was booked on a cruise and asked if I’d like to accompany him. I thought why not, what the hell. I had nothing else on, and I was feeling pretty distraught about Walt — I thought it would be good to have a total break.’ ‘You didn’t know Rowley Carmichael well at the time you were dating — and engaged to — Walt Klein?’
She hesitated. ‘No, not really, we had never met.’
‘So you were in regular email correspondence with him for several months prior to going on the cruise with him — during the time you were seeing and dating and subsequently engaged to Walt Klein?’
She turned to her solicitor.
‘My client has no further comment to make,’ Clifford Orson said.
‘We have a few further questions,’ Batchelor responded. ‘Jodie, can you confirm that you were registered with at least three different internet dating agencies for single ladies to meet wealthy men?’
Despite another warning glare from her lawyer, Jodie said, ‘Are you married, Detective?’
‘I’m asking the questions.’
‘I’m thirty-six. I don’t know if you are aware just how hard it is for a woman my age to meet a decent guy without baggage. My biological clock is ticking. All I’ve ever wanted is to be married to a man I love and raise a family. I’m getting increasingly desperate and I’ve registered with loads of dating agencies. Is there something wrong with that?’
Choosing men in their late seventies as potential life partners and fathers is unusual, Batchelor wanted to say. But instead he merely shook his head. ‘Not at all. But it’s certainly at best unfortunate that your late husband, Rowley Carmichael, a very rich man, died within days of your wedding. But very fortunate for you that the ship’s captain was a legally registered celebrant. So many ships’ captains aren’t, so although they perform weddings at sea, they are not recognized in law. But in your case, your marriage was completely legal.’
‘What are you implying about my client, Detective Sergeant?’ Orson demanded. ‘She didn’t book the cruise.’
‘I’m merely making an observation. And of course I would like to point out the coincidence of the terrible tragedies, that both your client’s first and second husbands died from the venom of saw-scaled vipers.’
‘Precisely,’ Orson said. ‘Your words. She is completely innocent. You have no evidence at all. Everything you and your colleague have said is pure conjecture. Unless you have any real evidence, I want my client released immediately.’
Batchelor replied, ‘At this moment in time that’s not going to happen. The investigation continues as we speak and we believe your client is responsible for the deaths of at least three men and was possibly already planning to kill her latest victim, who narrowly missed being blown up by a car bomb yesterday morning. Your client’s house continues to be searched and we are looking in detail into the exact circumstances of the deaths of Christopher Bentley, Walt Klein and Rowley Carmichael. The case may be circumstantial at present but we have many more questions for your client.’
Orson responded, ‘Circumstantial and no more, she is entitled to be released.’
The door opened and Roy Grace, holding a laptop, entered the room. He introduced himself to the solicitor and to Jodie Carmichael, as well as formally for the benefit of the tape, then placed the computer on the table and said, ‘I am about to show your client some material held on a laptop that has been seized from another suspect.’
He opened the computer’s lid. ‘Mr Orson, your client is probably not aware that her house was very elaborately bugged with cameras concealed in every room. We believe the person who fitted them had come to collect items he had been sent to recover, that he suspected your client had stolen from a person in New York.’
‘Do you have any evidence to support this accusation, Detective Superintendent Grace?’
‘Actually, I do. What I’m about to show you is from a clone of a hard disk taken from a computer we found in a car close to your client’s residence in Roedean Crescent, yesterday morning.’
He tapped some keys on the laptop, then turned it so all present in the room could see the screen clearly.
The images were from a camera, positioned high up on the wall of a room containing glass tanks filled with snakes, scorpions, frogs and spiders.
Jodie Carmichael was standing at one end of the room, lifting the lid from a tank containing a large snake. There was a loud boom, causing the camera to shake for some moments. Then a small man ran into the room. As he did so, Jodie lifted the snake from the tank and hurled it at him. The creature hit him full in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards onto the floor.
They all watched in silence.
‘Yurrrrggggghhhh!’ the man yelled, trying to get up, as the snake instantly began winding itself round him, as well as biting him, furiously, on the hand.
‘Yowwwww!’ he yelled, rolling over and over, as the massive snake wrapped itself round him, pinning his arms to his midriff, then continuing to wind round his shoulders. They saw him scream and shout out in pain and rage. ‘Get him off, you bitch!’
Jodie grabbed a glass vivarium containing what looked like four tarantulas, raised it in the air and held it over him.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she shouted. ‘Are you police?’
He looked up at the spiders, clearly terrified. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he shouted back. ‘Jodie? Judith?’
‘Both of them,’ she replied, clearly. ‘And more.’
‘Get this thing off me!’
‘Oh yes? And then what?’ She raised the vivarium higher as if preparing to bring it smashing down onto him.
‘No. Noooooo! Please, I hate those critters, please. Look, lady, I’ll go away, I promshhhh.’ The snake was winding more tightly round his throat.
‘Like I believe you. You know something? I’ve killed three people — two husbands and a fiancé — actually, four, if you count my stupid sister. You think I care a toss about some shitty intruder?’
Grace stopped the recording and looked down at Jodie, who was again toying with the chain of her locket, and then at her solicitor. ‘Is that real enough evidence for you?’
‘With respect, Detective Superintendent, this is my client, in fear for her life, shouting out a threat in self-defence.’
‘Self-defence? Strangling her intruder with a massive snake? I don’t think so. And that explosion you heard, for your information — that was a bomb placed in her Mercedes car, possibly with the intention of killing a police officer, and we are looking to establish if your client was involved.’
‘Can you give us one shred of evidence that it was placed there by my client?’ the solicitor asked. ‘It’s preposterous.’
Grace closed the lid and picked the computer up. ‘We’ll let you have a copy of this recording before you leave, Mr Orson.’ Then he smiled. ‘Oh, and by the way, the police team searching your client’s house discovered the sum of one hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred dollars, in new bills, concealed in a mattress in one of the rooms. This may be entirely coincidental, but I’ve been informed by the New York Police Department that your client is a person of interest in the theft of two hundred thousand dollars from a hotel room in Manhattan on the night of Wednesday 18th February of this year. However, what your client doesn’t know is that it is counterfeit money. As I say, this might be entirely coincidental or perhaps even circumstantial. I apologize for interrupting this interview. Please continue.’