‘And was everyone at home when you went to call?’ Joe found he was speaking gently, as if to an invalid.
‘Yes. I didn’t see John O’Kane. He was working in his office upstairs, but he was there.’ Annie set her mug carefully on the floor beside her. ‘Janet was lovely. So kind. Then I went next door to tell the Lucases…’
Her voice tailed off and Joe had to prompt her. ‘How did they react to the news of Lizzie’s release?’
‘Nigel was fine.’ A hesitation. ‘They’ve never had children. It’s easy to judge, isn’t it, if you’ve never had any? You think the parents must be to blame if a child goes off the rails. I used to do it myself.’
‘And what about his wife?’ For a moment Joe struggled to remember the name of the Lucas woman. ‘Lorraine?’
‘She found it harder to accept. She worked in prisons at one time. Education. She taught art and crafts. Maybe you’re used to all the sob-stories if you work with offenders every day. You become less sympathetic.’
Not me, Joe thought. I’m still a soft touch. According to Vera, at least.
Annie was still talking, trying to explain her friend’s reaction. ‘I suppose she moved to the valley to escape screwed-up kids, and the last thing she’d want would be to have one turn up here. This is their idea of paradise.’
‘What time was that?’ Best stick to facts. He was more comfortable with those.
‘Oh, I’m not sure.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t wear a watch. We don’t need to, out here. Mid-afternoon sometime.’
‘Did you see or hear anything unusual while you were out visiting?’ Joe knew he was clutching at straws now. If Annie had seen a stranger she’d have mentioned it by now.
She shook her head.
‘Mrs Hewarth drove a black Golf. Did you see that along the track at any time yesterday?’
Another shake of her head before she turned to her husband for confirmation. Joe turned to him too.
‘Where were you all afternoon, Mr Redhead?’
‘Here, in the house. In the kitchen. Listening to a play on the radio. Then I pottered in the garden for a while.’ The man shrugged. ‘Time seems to pass without me noticing, and some days I wonder what on earth I’m doing with my life.’
‘And later you all went round to the Lucas house?’ Joe found himself overtaken by the same lethargy as the people he was questioning. He’d always envied people who could afford to retire early, but now he wondered what he’d do with his time all day if he wasn’t at work. He’d always been crap at DIY. ‘Was it a special celebration? A birthday?’
‘I think we were all feeling a bit strange,’ Annie said. ‘It was those two killings at the big house. Right on our doorstep. The fat detective poking into our business. I suppose we thought a bit of a party would be a way to relieve the tension. Besides, it was Friday night. We always get together on Friday night.’
‘Can you talk me through the evening?’ Joe thought it was pretty weird, these three couples living on top of each other. If they’d wanted to escape the horror of what had happened in the big house, wouldn’t Sam and Annie have chosen to get away from Gilswick altogether? The pictures in town followed by a nice meal perhaps. By themselves, so they had a bit of privacy before Lizzie landed up. The last thing he’d want, in their position, would be to spend the night with the same people he’d see every day.
‘It turned into a bit of a session,’ Sam said. ‘Nigel had made one of his lethal cocktails and the evening went downhill from there.’
Joe couldn’t imagine the man enjoying a party. A play on the radio seemed much more his sort of thing.
‘Did anyone leave the house during the evening?’
They looked at each other. Joe wondered now if their pallor and confusion were the result of a hangover rather than distress at another killing.
‘I can’t be certain,’ Annie said. ‘People came and went all evening. At one point Nigel came in and said how beautiful the stars were. I knew then that he must be seriously pissed. John might have gone out for a couple of sneaky fags. He pretends he doesn’t smoke, but we all know that’s not true. What I do remember very clearly is Janet leaving later, to take out the dogs. She told us to send out a search party if she was gone longer than a quarter of an hour. I was watching the clock then. And suddenly she was screaming.’
‘You could hear her from that distance?’ Joe tried to picture where the body had been lying. ‘Over the noise of a party?’
‘We were all quiet by then. There wasn’t any music and the windows were open.’ Annie must have sensed that Joe still wasn’t convinced, because she added, ‘It was definitely Janet screaming. We all heard it and ran outside. Perhaps she’d come down the track towards the house to call out to us.’
Joe made a mental note to ask Janet O’Kane, but let the subject go for now. ‘What time was that?’
‘A quarter past midnight. As I said, I was watching the clock.’
Joe tried to picture the scene. The five adults at the end of the day, sitting in companionable silence. The scream coming from a long way off. ‘You must have panicked.’
‘We all ran outside. Almost tripping over each other. It was dark. No street lights, all the way up here.’ Annie shut her eyes briefly.
‘You had no sense that anyone else was about?’ Joe thought it unlikely that the pathologist would pin down the time of death with any real accuracy. Paul Keating was scathing about theories that suggested such a thing was feasible. It was possible that the murder had been committed not long before the body was found, and that the killer had still been in the area while the party-goers were looking for Janet O’Kane.
The Redheads looked at each other. ‘It was just confusing,’ Annie said at last. ‘I have no sense where any of us were. I caught a glimpse of Nigel at one point, and I think Sam was right beside me all the way down the track. Other than that…’
‘Did you hear anything? A car in the distance?’
This time Sam answered. ‘All I could hear was screaming and the dogs barking, people slipping on the grass in the dark. It was like a nightmare.’
‘But you grew up round here.’ Joe remembered the details written in black marker pen on the whiteboard in the operations room. ‘Your family farmed the land. You must be able to find your way around the valley blindfolded.’
There was a moment of silence. Joe could feel the hostility coming from both people on the sofa. They stared at him.
‘What are you saying?’ Sam’s voice was very quiet. ‘That I’m telling lies? Our farm was on the other side of the valley. And besides, last night the shouting and the dogs and that poor woman lying there covered in blood – it was my idea of hell.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was gone ten when Vera and Charlie arrived back at Kimmerston and the team was still waiting for the evening briefing. No energy now. Everyone desperate for bed and food. She sat on the desk in front of them.
‘Right. Quick as you can and no messing. Just the important stuff. We’ll go into more detail in the morning. Joe?’
‘Everyone at Valley Farm has the same story. They’d got together for supper and drinks in the Lucas house. Everyone had too much to drink. Janet O’Kane went to take out the Carswell dogs. The dogs sniffed out the body. She screamed and they ran out to see what was going on.’ Joe paused and looked up at her. ‘It’s a long way for a scream to carry, but they’d all have to be in collusion if they’re not being straight about that, and why would they lie?’ Another brief pause. ‘Annie Redhead’s the only person who admits to knowing Shirley Hewarth – they met up yesterday morning to discuss Lizzie’s release from prison.’