In the silence of the room, Molly’s gasp was loud. Covering her mouth with a shaking hand, she looked at the inspector. ‘He’s dead?’
‘You understand now why we need answers to our questions, Mrs Chatwell,’ the inspector said evenly.
She was frozen for a moment, then dropping her hand, she nodded.
‘So, I ask you again, were you and Oliver Vine lovers?’
A flashback of the canal encounter came to her; the handsome man, his smouldering sexuality, those vivid eyes. Now, he was dead. A twinge of regret for such a tragic loss made her clasp her arms across her chest. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we weren’t lovers, it was a moment’s madness.’ She gulped, feeling a wave of nausea sweep over her. ‘I need a glass of water.’ And before they could say anything, she left the room.
In the kitchen, she let the cold tap run, scooping water up with her two hands and bathing her face, the water dripping from her chin onto her shirt. After a moment, she turned the water off, grabbed a towel and hid her eyes in its comforting darkness.
She had to go back. Answer questions. Oliver Vine. She squeezed her eyes shut on the memory.
Returning to the lounge, she sat in the same chair. She didn’t wait for them to ask. In a slow monotone, she described the two occasions she had met Oliver Vine and what had taken place on the towpath. ‘It is completely out of character for me to do something like that,’ she said. ‘It was a moment’s craziness. He was so handsome, so… sexy… his turquoise eyes so mesmerising.’
‘Turquoise eyes?’ Fanshawe said, with a raised eyebrow.
DS Carstairs was less interested in the description. ‘You met this man a couple of times and tried to seduce him?’
Colour flooded her cheeks. Had she really? Hadn’t she simply wanted a moment – a moment of feeling desirable. But if Oliver Vine had responded, if he had lowered those gorgeous lips to hers, would she have done what Amelia had suggested, dragged him into the fields and had her wicked way with him? It sounded so unlike anything she would have done, and yet… Her eyes met Carstairs’ hard critical ones. How could she explain, when she didn’t really understand it herself? That for a while she’d believed this incredibly handsome man had found her attractive and desirable and it had made her feel good. That she’d relished the feeling and when the opportunity arose she’d taken it… and oh yes, she would have taken it further, would have lost herself in one crazy act, only it didn’t happen because she’d got it all wrong.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said. When neither spoke, her voiced hitched, a pathetic sound in the quiet room. ‘I thought it was a mutual attraction. I was wrong.’
‘So, you ran away?’ Fanshawe’s tone of voice said he wasn’t sure if he believed her.
‘As fast as I could,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘Humiliation, I discovered, makes me a faster runner. Maybe I should market it.’ She saw pity in his eyes, she wasn’t sure if it was preferable to his disdain. ‘So that’s as far as my…’ she hesitated over the word… ‘seduction, went.’
Fanshawe jotted in his notebook before looking at her with a critical light in his eye and giving a slight shrug. ‘And this was in Wiltshire?’
‘Yes, I was away with friends for a weekend in Semington House Hotel.’
Fanshawe wrote the name down, then looked back to her. ‘And their names?’
‘Amelia and Tristan Lovell.’
A murder investigation. Every stone was going to be moved, the dirt dug out and raked over. Tristan wouldn’t be impressed; Amelia would likely be amused.
‘And you are absolutely sure you didn’t tell Vine where you lived?’ Fanshawe asked.
‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘I definitely didn’t.’
‘When did he come here?’
‘The day before yesterday, he was waiting when I came home from work.’
Fanshawe scribbled as he spoke, ‘What did he say?’
‘I didn’t speak to him.’ She saw by Fanshawe’s expression that she needed to do better than that. ‘I saw him when I turned the corner and recognised him immediately. I didn’t want to speak to him. That moment by the canal was something and nothing, I’d been humiliated, I didn’t want to speak to him.’ She looked from one detective to the other. ‘I hid,’ she said.
Carstairs snorted his disbelief. Fanshawe, one eyebrow raised, said, ‘You hid?’
‘Yes,’ she said and rushed on. ‘You have to understand, I didn’t want to see him, or speak to him. I thought, if I didn’t turn up, he’d go away. The houses across the road, they have high walls, and gates. I went behind one and watched until he left.’
‘So, you never spoke to him?’
‘No.’
‘So how did you get his phone number? And if you didn’t tell him, how did he know where you lived?’
How? She’d met him hundreds of miles away. ‘I don’t know how he found out where I lived,’ she said. ‘But the day he came here, before he left, he put a note through the door asking me to ring him. That’s how I was able to send a text.’ She blinked. ‘I still have it. I meant to take it to work to shred, but I forgot.’
Fanshawe nodded. ‘Can you get it, please?’
‘Of course.’ She stood immediately, left the room and raced up the stairs. The door to the spare bedroom was shut. She breathed a thanks for Jack’s ability to sleep through anything, and went into their room.
The note was where she’d left it, crumpled in the back of her drawer. She smoothed it out as she returned to the room where both men sat waiting.
‘Here it is,’ she said, handing it over.
Taking it by one corner, Fanshawe read it aloud. ‘we need to meat ring me.’
He slid the note into an envelope that Carstairs held out for him, then looked at her. ‘He went to the trouble of finding out where you live, then hung around hoping to speak to you. And you’ve no idea why? Are you sure you’re telling us everything, Mrs Chatwell?’
‘Yes.’ The word caught in her throat.
‘Yes?’ Fanshawe’s eyes bored into her. ‘You don’t sound so sure. Was the temptation too much to resist, Mrs Chatwell? Did you have a sexual relationship with this man, thinking you’d never see him again, that your husband would never find out. You didn’t tell him where you lived, you thought you were safe but then he turns up on your doorstep and you had to get rid of him.’
Molly looked at him, appalled. This couldn’t be happening. This kind of thing didn’t happen to women like her… but then again, exactly what kind of woman was she? She used to be so sure.
She ran a hand through her hair. ‘No, I swear. Nothing happened. I admit, I thought he was attracted to me, that he was reaching for me.’ She gave a short embarrassed laugh. ‘He must have been afraid I’d fall in; we were standing very close to the edge and the lock chamber is very deep.’
‘Looking out for you, was he?’ Carstairs said with heavy sarcasm.
She ignored him and looked back to Fanshawe. ‘He was being nice, I suppose, and as I said, we were standing very close to the edge. He seemed to know about canals and locks, he mentioned that there wasn’t a ladder so if you fell in, there was no way out. Perhaps, that’s why he was being careful.’ Molly shrugged as if it hadn’t mattered, as if she hadn’t been cut to the bone. ‘I misunderstood, that was all.’
If she’d hoped that Jack would stay asleep until they were gone, the creak of floorboards over their heads indicated she was out of luck. She closed her eyes tightly.
‘Your husband?’ Fanshawe asked. When she nodded, he looked down at his notebook again. ‘You said in your text he knew about your liaison. Is that true?’
Wanting to scream with frustration, she waited a few seconds before answering. ‘It wasn’t a liaison and no, he doesn’t know. I said that in case that man was going to try to blackmail me.’
‘Blackmail,’ the inspector said sharply. ‘You insist nothing happened and yet you considered that this might be an attempt to blackmail you?’
‘Nothing did happen but I suppose,’ she admitted finally, ‘I had wanted it to. I was afraid he’d tell my husband–’
‘That you were up for it?’ Carstairs said, leaning towards her, a sneer twisting his mouth.
It was exactly what she’d thought but hearing the words on this obnoxious man’s lips made it sound so much more sordid. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Anyway, what other possible reason would he have for contacting and wanting to meet me?’
‘And yet he went to the trouble of doing so,’ Fanshawe said. ‘You didn’t hear from him again?’
She handed him her phone. ‘Have a look,’ she said, ‘you can see he never answered.’
He took the phone and skimmed through without comment. ‘You might have deleted them,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it with us, if we may, and have it checked.’
It was a strange feeling, not to be believed. ‘Of course,’ she said.
Fanshawe put it into his jacket pocket and picked up his notebook. Turning to a clean page, he clicked his pen and looked at her expectantly. ‘What time did you leave work yesterday?’
‘I finish at four thirty,’ she said.
‘And you left immediately?’
She nodded and felt the blood rush from her as the seriousness of her position dawned on her. ‘You can’t think I’m anyway involved in what happened to him?’ She reached a hand toward Fanshawe, pulling back at his stern expression. ‘Oh my God, you do?’ Crossing her hands on her chest, she took a deep breath.
‘We’re gathering information for the moment,’ Fanshawe said, his voice cool. ‘We don’t speculate. It would be in your best interest to answer our questions as clearly and honestly as you can.’
A chill crept over her, making her shiver.
‘So,’ Fanshawe said. ‘You left work at four thirty. Did you come straight home?’
Reluctantly, she shook her head. ‘I decided to go to a bookshop one of my colleagues had recommended.’
Fanshawe looked up from his notebook. ‘And where is that?’
‘It’s called The Final Chapter. It’s a second-hand bookshop. They have a lot of rare and unusual books…’ Her voice tailed away.
‘Where?’
‘It’s on White Horse Street, a few minutes’ walk from the station.’
She saw his expression change, eyes growing harder, lips pressing into a thin line.
‘That’s Green Park station, isn’t it?’ he said, exchanging a glance with Carstairs. ‘How long did you stay in this shop?’
She lifted her hands. ‘An hour or so.’ She saw the inspector’s look of disbelief and added, ‘If you like books, it’s a fascinating shop.’
‘And the staff will be able to vouch for you being there for that length of time?’
It would have been good to have been able to say yes, but it was unlikely that the assistant would remember her. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
Fanshawe looked at her. ‘We’ll check it out. They might have CCTV.’
Molly had her doubts; the exterior of the shop had been rundown and tatty, but what did she know? Less and less by the minute.
‘And what time did you arrive home?’
‘A little before six,’ she said, confident in this if nothing else.
He tapped his notebook with the pen. ‘Between four-thirty when you left work, and six when you arrived home, did you speak to anyone?’
‘No, there was no need to. I had intended to buy books in the shop, but the only assistant was so engrossed in his phone that he didn’t bother to look up, so I didn’t speak to him.’
‘What did you do with the books?’
Surprised, she glared at him. ‘I didn’t steal them, I dumped them on the counter and left.’
The door opened and Jack stood there, looking confused. ‘I thought I was hearing the radio,’ he said. ‘What the hell is going on?’ Panic appeared in his eyes. ‘It’s not the children?’
DI Fanshawe stood, putting his notebook and pen in his inside jacket pocket. ‘No, it’s not, Mr Chatwell. I’m sure your wife will explain everything. I think we’ve got all we need for the moment.’ He turned to look down at Molly. ‘If you would keep yourself available for further questions, we’d appreciate it. And,’ he finished, and for the first time she saw a sympathetic look in his eyes, ‘it might be in your best interest to hire a solicitor.’
‘Hire a solicitor! What the hell is going on?’ Jack repeated, as the two men passed him by.
Molly walked with them to the front door and shut it after they’d left, resting against it briefly before turning to Jack. He was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before, and he didn’t even know what it was about yet.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ she said, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible.
He took the same seat the inspector had, and she sat opposite. Crossing her arms, she told Jack, in much the same way she had told the police, keeping her eyes down, unwilling to see the expression on his face change from anxiousness to disbelief. When she stopped, she waited a moment for his reaction and when he said nothing, she risked looking up.
She couldn’t read his expression, he seemed stunned into immobility.
‘You tried to seduce a total stranger,’ he managed at last, each word spat out.
‘I misread the signals, I thought he was attracted to me. He was young, gorgeous and I was flattered. I wanted to kiss him. That was all.’ And what did it matter that it was a total stranger – would Jack have found it easier to take had she tried to seduce someone he knew? She felt a quiver run through her as she thought back to those brief minutes over two mornings that would change her life. Forever. The man had been murdered.
Jack continued to look at her in silence, as if she were some strange bug he’d never seen before.
‘It didn’t mean anything.’ She wanted to shriek that nothing had happened, she hadn’t dragged the man into the long grass of the field beside the towpath to fornicate like wild animals. Because he didn’t want you, a little voice sneered. How much worse to be vilified for her pathetic failed seduction.
‘It must have meant something to him,’ Jack said, unconvinced, ‘after all, he turned up on our doorstep. You must have given him our address. Maybe you were hoping to continue your little dalliance in London?’
‘No,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t give him our address. I’ve no idea how he found out where I lived. I promise you. There wasn’t a dalliance.’ She rubbed both hands roughly over her face before admitting, ‘He didn’t want me, Jack. He was appalled when I tried to kiss him.’
Jack stood and walked to the window. Keeping his back to her, he twisted his wrist to look at his watch and grunted in disbelief. ‘I need to leave for work. I can’t be late, there’s too much going on. Tell me quickly, why are the police interested in your sordid behaviour?’
Molly had hoped he’d stay with her, but she saw his rigid expression and knew that wasn’t going to happen. He was consumed by whatever problems were going on in his life, her sordid behaviour didn’t count.
She didn’t answer until he turned around. When he did, she stood. ‘The man has been murdered, Jack. I think they suspect I might be involved.’