With a cry of shock, Rose throws herself out of the way, landing hard on the ground. Her damaged ribs flare in agony. She scuttles back like a reverse crab as Celeste comes at her again, face twisted with terror even though she’s the one with the hammer. But Rowan launches herself at the other woman, trying to scratch her face. She’s making an unearthly sound. It’s a raw wail of pain that seems to come from something bigger than her elderly body could contain.
‘No, Celeste!’ she cries. ‘You’re not doing this to me again! I won’t let you make me part of it! Not again! No! No! No!’
The fight instantly leaves Celeste’s body at that and she drops the hammer. She starts to cry too, her mouth stretched wide and her arms wrapped around herself as though trying to hold something from leaking out.
Rose fumbles for her phone and calls 999.
‘This is DC Rose Gifford of the Met Police. I need immediate assistance at …’ For a moment she can’t remember the name of the property, but to her great surprise, Celeste says, ‘Caster Lodge, Bereweeke Road,’ through her tears.
After this, Celeste says nothing at all until she’s in the interview room at Kentish Town station. There was some debate, after the back-up had come screaming into the driveway, whether she should be questioned here in Winchester, or back in London.
But after a conversation with the SIO in London, a brisk and efficient woman called Sue Trainer, it was decided that she would be returned to the jurisdiction where the crime took place. Kentish Town have more resources than UCIT, so it is there she is taken. The murder squad are a different team to the one she met before and Rose is introduced to Trainer and DC Jimmy Omotayo, who allow her to watch the interview from their observation room. A kindly female PC gives her a cup of sweet tea and a packet of biscuits, commenting on how ‘peaky’ she looks.
Rose gratefully accepts both.
Celeste is stone-faced in the interview room. She’s accompanied by the duty solicitor, her back ramrod straight and her hands neatly folded on the table in front of her.
Sue begins the questioning and Celeste holds up a hand to silence her.
‘No,’ she says, ‘you don’t need to ask questions. I’m going to give it all up. I won’t repeat this. I want to make a statement.’
‘Celeste …’ the solicitor says hurriedly, ‘maybe we need a little more time to put this on paper together?’
‘No,’ says Celeste. ‘Let me speak. I want to get the words out and I don’t want you to interrupt me or I’ll never manage it. Please.’
‘Go ahead whenever you’re ready,’ says Sue and sits back.
Celeste puts her head back and looks at the ceiling.
‘It’s going to be awfully hard to make you understand what it was like, you see,’ she says. ‘It was a different world. We were … well, we were so lucky. The freedom … of living in a different way from our parents before us. It was intoxicating. There was so much joy in that house.’ She pauses for a moment and her expression is fierce, her eyes bright. ‘I created that community.’ She thumps her chest as she says this. ‘Me. I created that explosion of creativity. The art, the music. And the sex.’ She pauses, her expression wistful now. ‘You see Rowan as a dried-up old husk like me, I expect,’ she says, ‘but when she came, well, she was so beautiful. The kind of ethereal beauty you don’t see often. You want to paint it. Own it. I don’t know, make it your own. We all wanted her. But she had this son, you see. Vincent. Ugh.’ She gives a little shudder. ‘I knew there was something off about him – a bad energy – the moment I met him. He had a certain cruelty. I know for a fact that he terrorized a couple who were living there in order to get the attic room. But at the time, it sort of amused me. What harm could he do? And Rowan wouldn’t hear anything against him, not for a moment. Anyway, then my brother came to join us. Hugo.’ Her composure cracks for the first time, her voice quavering. She takes a sip from a glass of water and resumes.
‘And Hugo was entranced with Rowan too. We both were. And with each other. That was something you can’t understand unless you have experienced that kind of bond with a person. We were one being. We shared everything.’
She pauses.
‘Including Rowan?’ says Sue.
Celeste’s lip curls. ‘Yes of course. As I say, we shared everything.’
Sue and Jimmy momentarily exchange loaded glances.
‘Where is Hugo now?’ says Sue.
‘Gone. He died of AIDS in 1989,’ says Celeste. She seems to have run out of steam and stares down at the table.
‘Can I ask you about the events you referred to with my colleague now?’ says Jimmy. ‘You say you wanted to confess to murder.’
Celeste looks up at the camera in the corner of the room, as if she is looking for Rose, knowing she’s there. She gives a small, cold smile. Rose has met a lot of bad people in her job, and the darkness that can lurk beneath a sophisticated exterior doesn’t surprise her anymore. But it still feels uncomfortable to look it directly in the eye.
‘Rowan insisted that we keep our relationship from Vincent,’ says Celeste, ‘and we did, on the whole. But on this one night, the party had broken up a little earlier than we expected and for once, there were only the four of us in the house. We’d dropped acid earlier together and although Rowan had been unwilling at first, we persuaded her that Vincent would sleep right through it. He wasn’t even on the same floor.’ She pauses and takes another sip of water. ‘We didn’t expect him to react the way he did.’