McDermott looked down at what Lilian assumed to be the police doctor’s report on the table before him.
‘You know, Mrs St John,’ McDermott continued almost gently, ‘it could be regarded as understandable that your husband hit out at you in the circumstances you describe. After all by your own admission you had just very nearly rendered him unconscious—’
‘It wasn’t like that, I was so afraid of him,’ Lilian interrupted. ‘You don’t understand...’
‘And then you stabbed him,’ DS McDermott continued. ‘You have admitted that.’
‘Yes. Well, he sort of lunged at me. The knife went into him, I didn’t know quite how...’
‘But you were holding the knife at the time, were you not?’
‘Y... yes.’
‘So, you had already nearly knocked your husband out. He hit you. You stabbed him just below the heart. Is that the correct sequence of events?’
‘Yes, yes, and he bit my nipple,’ Lilian blurted out, feeling herself blush, thinking at the same time how lame she sounded. ‘He tore my shirt half off me and bit my nipple till it bled. Surely your doctor noticed that?’
McDermott shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as if the mention of a bitten nipple was far too much information. He glanced down again at the medical report.
‘Yes, that is mentioned here. However this kind of injury is also consistent with rough sex, of course...’
Where did that come from? What could DS McDermott possibly know about Kurt’s sexual preferences? Lilian simply stared at the policeman and said nothing more at all. Even facing the possibility of serious criminal charges, she could not bring herself to discuss the horrors of her sex life with Kurt.
Before she could dwell further on what had caused McDermott to make such a remark he had moved on.
‘Did you intend to kill your husband, Mrs St John? Did you plan it?’
Lilian gasped. ‘Of course not. I... uh, didn’t know what I was doing.’
‘Did you know what you were doing when you left your husband for dead and ran from the room?’
Lilian was aware of McDermott’s line of questioning becoming harder. But then, she was also aware of how badly she was telling her story.
‘I panicked. I told you. I was so afraid...’
‘You keep saying that, Mrs St John. But frightened of what exactly? You were quite sure that your husband was dead, so he was no longer someone to be afraid of, was he?’
‘I was confused. I just couldn’t stay in that room with him. You must realize what he’s done to me. Look at the state I’m in.’ She gestured to her leg in its plaster cast. ‘Contact the Charing Cross Hospital. And the Met. There’s a warrant out for Kurt’s arrest. They’ll tell you what he did to me when I tried to leave him before. I ended up in hospital for nearly three weeks. He fractured my skull, for God’s sake.’
McDermott and Richardson watched her impassively.
‘Look, he abused me throughout our marriage...’
‘Had you been hospitalized previously as a result of this abuse?’ asked PC Richardson.
‘No. Only the one time. He’d come back unexpectedly and found me packing a bag. That night he was punishing me. Usually...’
Lilian stopped abruptly. She just couldn’t tell them how it had usually been. How it was Kurt’s desperate need for sexual arousal which was the cause of his consistent abuse of her. She could not find the words. She never had been able to find the words.
‘Usually what?’ enquired PC Richardson.
Lilian shook her head and looked down at the table.
‘Let’s just concentrate on what happened in the hotel, shall we, Mrs St John,’ said DS McDermott. ‘You say you tried to escape from the hotel room because you were so frightened of Mr St John, and that you acted in self-defence. Is that the crux of it?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’ Lilian kept her eyes down.
She didn’t want to look at the policemen. Why did she still feel more shame at the sheer humiliation of what passed for her sex life with Kurt than she did at having killed a man? It was bizarre.
‘But wasn’t Mr St John merely trying to rescue his marriage? You admit, don’t you, that he told you that is what he wanted to do?’
‘Well, yes. But it wasn’t like that with Kurt. Everything he did was extreme. He was obsessed with me, you see...’
Her voice tailed off. McDermott and Richardson both looked as if they found that hard to believe.
‘Mrs St John, you left your husband for dead,’ McDermott persisted. ‘You weren’t just running away from the law, were you? It must have occurred to you that you could face a murder charge.’
Lilian shook her head. Bewildered, bemused.
‘No. I didn’t even think about that. Really I didn’t. And I phoned the police. I confessed.’
‘But hadn’t you realized by then that you couldn’t escape, that you’d left so much evidence behind, and indeed that you had nowhere to go?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that. I’ve told you the truth about what happened...’
DS McDermott leaned back in his chair and his voice was quieter when he spoke again.
‘Well, Mrs St John, I have some news for you. You did not kill your husband. It was, however, a very close thing. Half an inch higher and that little knife you plunged into him would have entered his heart. As it was, you merely severely damaged an artery. The paramedics were able to revive him almost at once. I am told that if you had left it just a few minutes longer to call us they would not have been able to do so.’
Lilian was poleaxed. The first thing she felt was overwhelming relief that she was not a murderer. The second thing was a return of the dreadful all-encompassing fear which had been part of her life ever since her marriage. As long as Kurt St John was alive that fear would remain. He would never leave her alone. She would never get away from him.
Tears filled her eyes. The shock and the horror of it all overwhelmed her.
‘No, no, no.’
She shouted out the words, rocking forward over the table, holding her head in both hands.
The two policemen just watched and waited until she slumped back into her chair exhausted.
‘That’s a very revealing reaction, isn’t it?’ remarked DS McDermott, his voice soft.
‘What?’
‘I tell you that your husband is still alive, and you scream “no no no”. If you were me what would that indicate, Mrs St John?’
Lilian shook her head. It was all she had the strength for.
‘It rather indicates that you’re sorry he’s alive, doesn’t it?’ DS McDermott continued. ‘That you are sorry you didn’t succeed in killing your husband, isn’t that so?’
‘No. I’m afraid, don’t you understand, I’m afraid,’ Lilian managed to blurt out. ‘I’ve told you the truth. The absolute truth.’
‘All right, Mrs St John.’ McDermott stood up abruptly. ‘Your husband has regained consciousness and we’re hoping that he will soon have recovered enough to give us a full statement. So I’m going to suspend this interview until we have made further enquiries. I have no choice but to formally arrest you, at this stage on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm, and I am afraid you will have to be held in a police cell overnight. You still have the right to make a telephone call if you wish.’
Lilian nodded numbly. She didn’t know quite what she had expected to happen, but somehow, and probably extremely naively, she had not considered even the possibility of being locked in a police cell.
Seventeen
‘Where do we go from here, boss?’ asked Saslow as the two officers left Helen’s House.
‘Well, we certainly should talk to Gill Quinn again as soon as possible, and her son,’ Vogel replied. ‘But we need her in a better state. So it’s probably best to give her a bit more time to recover, and leave it until this afternoon. Meanwhile, let’s head back to the incident room and liaise with the team.’