‘Alan and I blamed ourselves for not being there, for letting the boys go in the first place. He was on business in Manchester. I think I told you that. There had been a certain amount of strain between us. Any marriage is difficult, particularly when you’re bringing up twins, but our marriage was never the same after we lost Timmy and although we got counselling, although we did everything we could, we had to face up to the truth, which was that it wasn’t working any more. He moved out just a few months ago, as a matter of fact. I don’t think it’s fair to say we split up though. We just couldn’t bear to be together.’
‘Can you tell me where I can find him? It might be useful to have a word.’
She scribbled on a sheet of paper and handed it to Hawthorne. ‘This is his mobile number. You can call him if you want to. He’s living in a flat in Victoria until we sell here.’ She stopped. She might not have meant to give us this information. ‘Alan’s business hasn’t gone very well recently,’ she explained. ‘We can’t keep this house up so we’re putting it on the market. We only stayed here because of Jeremy. It’s his home. Because of his injuries, we thought it was better for him to be somewhere he knew.’
Hawthorne nodded. I always knew when he was about to go on the attack. It was as if someone had waved a knife in front of his face and I had seen it reflected, for an instant, in his eyes. ‘You say you haven’t seen Diana Cowper. Do you know if your husband approached her?’
‘He didn’t tell me that he had. I can’t imagine why he would.’
‘And you weren’t anywhere near her home on Monday of last week? The day she died?’
‘I’ve already told you. No.’
Hawthorne rocked his head briefly from side to side. ‘But you were in South Kensington.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You came out of South Kensington station at half past four in the afternoon.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve been looking at the CCTV footage, Mrs Godwin. Are you going to deny it?’
‘Of course I’m not going to deny it. Are you telling me that’s where Diana Cowper lived?’ Hawthorne didn’t answer. ‘I had no idea. I thought she was still living in Kent. I went shopping on the King’s Road. The estate agent wants me to buy a few things for the house, to cheer it up. I went to some of the furniture shops.’
It didn’t sound very likely to me. The house was run-down and it was obvious that Judith Godwin had no money. It was the reason she was selling. Did she really think a few expensive items of furniture would make any difference?
‘Did your husband mention that he’d written to Mrs Cowper?’
‘He wrote to her? I don’t know anything about that. You’ll have to ask him.’
‘What about Jeremy?’ She stiffened when Hawthorne spoke his name, and he went on, quickly. ‘You said that he lives with you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Could he have approached her?’
She thought for a moment and I wondered if she was going to ask us to leave. But once again she was calm, matter-of-fact. ‘I’m sure you know that my son received severe injuries when he was eight years old, Mr Hawthorne. The lacerations occurred in the temporal and occipital lobes of the brain which control, respectively, memory, language and emotions and vision. He’s eighteen now, but he will never be able to have a normal life. He has a number of issues, which include short-term and working memory loss, aphasia and limited concentration. He requires and receives full-time care.’
She paused.
‘He does leave the house – but never on his own. Any suggestion that he might approach Mrs Cowper to speak to her or to do her harm is as ridiculous as it is offensive.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Hawthorne said, ‘just before she was murdered, Mrs Cowper sent a rather strange text message. If I understand her correctly, she claims to have seen your son.’
‘Then perhaps you haven’t understood her correctly.’
‘She was fairly specific. Do you know where he was last Monday?’
‘Yes, of course I know where he was. He was upstairs. He’s upstairs now. He doesn’t often leave his room and certainly never on his own.’
The door opened behind us and a young woman came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting jersey. I knew at once that this was Mary O’Brien. She somehow had the look and the manner of a nanny, with a sort of seriousness about her, thick arms crossed over her chest, a plump face, very straight black hair. She was about thirty-five, so would have been in her mid-twenties when the accident occurred.
‘I’m sorry, Judith,’ she said. Her Irish accent was immediately distinctive. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’
‘That’s all right, Mary. This is Mr Hawthorne and …’
‘Anthony,’ I said.
‘They’re asking questions about Diana Cowper.’
‘Oh.’ Mary’s face fell. Her eyes flicked back to the door. Perhaps she was wondering if she could leave. Perhaps she was wishing that she had never come in.
‘They may want to talk to you about what happened in Deal.’
Mary nodded. ‘I’ll tell you whatever it is you want to know,’ she said. ‘Although, heaven knows, I’ve gone over it a thousand times.’ She sat down at the table. She had lived here so long that she was on equal terms with Judith. She treated the house as her own. At the same time, though, Judith got up and moved to the other side of the room and I wondered if, after all, there might be some tension between them.
‘So how can I help you?’ Mary asked.
‘You can tell us what happened that day,’ Hawthorne said. ‘I know you’ve said it all before but it may help us, hearing it from you.’
‘All right.’ Mary composed herself. Judith watched from the side. ‘We’d come off the beach. I’d promised the boys they could have an ice-cream before we went back to the hotel. We were staying at the Royal Hotel, which was just a short distance away. The boys had been told never to cross the road without holding my hand and normally they never would have – but they were overtired. They weren’t thinking straight. They saw the ice-cream shop and they got excited and before I knew what had happened, they were running across.
‘I ran after them, trying to grab them. At the same time, I saw the car coming – a blue Volkswagen. I was sure it would stop. But it didn’t. Before I could reach them, the car had hit them. I saw Timothy knocked to one side and Jeremy flying through the air. I was convinced he would be the worst hurt of the two.’ She glanced at her employer. ‘I hate going over this in front of you, Judith.’
‘It’s all right, Mary. They need to know.’
‘The car came screeching to a halt. It would have been about twenty yards further up the road. I was sure the driver was going to get out but she didn’t. Instead, she suddenly accelerated and drove off down the road.’
‘Did you actually see Mrs Cowper behind the wheel?’
‘No. I only saw the back of her head and even that didn’t really register with me. I was in shock.’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s not very much more to tell. A whole crowd of people seemed to appear from nowhere very quickly. There was a chemist’s next to the ice-cream shop and the owner was the first to arrive. His name was Traverton. He was very helpful.’
‘How about the people from the ice-cream shop?’ Hawthorne asked.