‘Did you think we wouldn’t check?’
Michelle and Dylan were sitting together on their sofa. Michelle was upright, her knees drawn together. Dylan was lying back, his arms crossed, his feet stretched out. They both stared back at Maud without speaking.
‘Did you think I would just trust you?’ said Maud. ‘I’ve had to spend half a day going through this footage and then writing a report about it. I don’t feel very happy about that.’
That morning, after visiting Viv Melville, Maud had sat in a drab windowless office somewhere under the Hayward Gallery. The files were already set up for her on the screen, and she used the cursor to speed through the morning. The gallery filled with people scurrying around like high-speed insects, dizzyingly entering and exiting. It was a relief to slow them down at 13.29, which was when she had decided she would start, just to be safe: the Strausses had said they’d had lunch before going to the ceramic exhibition. Sometimes the room emptied entirely, sometimes it filled up and she had to stop the film to check the people one by one. Every time a couple entered the space, she studied the image more closely.
‘What do you think I saw on the gallery’s CCTV for Sunday the thirteenth of November?’ Maud asked Dylan and Michelle now. ‘Or more to the point, didn’t see?’
‘I think you’re going to tell us,’ said Michelle.
She didn’t seem flustered.
‘At fourteen twenty-three, I saw you, Michelle, entering Gallery Two. You were followed by a tall man in an anorak, an elderly couple and a woman carrying a baby in a sling. You were not followed by your husband.’
‘People don’t always go round art exhibitions hand in hand.’
‘I looked at the footage from all the other galleries. It was a laborious process. I followed you from room to room, from file to file, and you were always alone.’
‘Is this the point where we should ask to see a lawyer?’
‘You can ask to see a lawyer at any point. But as you can see, this is an informal interview. If that doesn’t suit you, we can make it formal. I could interview you under caution or I could even arrest you.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Dylan. ‘Arrest us for what?’
‘Perverting the course of justice. That would be a start.’
‘It was a stupid thing to do,’ said Dylan, and he cast an angry glance at Michelle. ‘I’m completely innocent of any crime, of course, but I didn’t have an alibi for the Sunday. Michelle went to the exhibition, and I didn’t. I’m not interested in gazing at old vases. They all look the same to me. I just stayed at home.’
His face was flushed. Michelle, on the other hand, remained composed.
‘Why would you have needed an alibi, when it was assumed that Kira had taken her own life?’
‘It felt awkward. We got anxious,’ said Dylan.
‘A woman who lives next door apparently takes her own life, and you pretend you were miles away at the time.’
‘It sounds stupid.’
‘It is stupid.’
‘I wholeheartedly apologise for what we did; it was foolish and wrong,’ said Michelle. ‘But you’ve got it the wrong way round: if we had for one second suspected that Kira hadn’t killed herself but been killed, then of course we wouldn’t have—’
For a moment her nimble tongue deserted her. She searched for the right word.
‘Lied,’ said Maud.
Michelle dipped her head.
‘And yet even after you knew we were reopening the case you didn’t come forward.’ Maud turned to Dylan. ‘Did anyone see you here?’
‘No.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I’m not sure. I just pottered about. I may have watched some TV.’
‘What did you watch?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dylan irritably. ‘I can’t remember.’
As he spoke, his wife was staring blankly in front of her. She gave no sign of hearing what he was saying. Maud turned to her.
‘What about you? Why did you collude with your husband in his false statement even after you knew it was murder? You provided him with an alibi you knew to be untrue.’
‘You’ve just said the words yourself. He’s my husband.’
‘You didn’t give the reason I expected,’ said Maud.
‘What did you expect?’
‘I expected you to say that you defended him because you knew he was innocent.’
‘That goes without saying,’ said Michelle.
‘It did go without saying,’ said Maud. ‘Because you didn’t say it.’
‘It didn’t need saying.’
‘Really?’
The Strausses were seated beside each other but they didn’t touch hands or exchange glances. They didn’t even seem aware of each other.
‘I think I know why you threw away the condom you found at Felix and Nancy’s flat,’ said Maud.
Dylan jerked his head up.
‘What the fuck? Condom?’
Michelle did not reply, simply tightened her lips.
‘Are you going to answer?’
‘It wasn’t a question,’ said Michelle. ‘I didn’t think it needed an answer. I throw lots of things away.’
Maud sighed.
‘I’m doing you a favour by coming here and talking to you like this. If you’re going to be difficult about it, then we can do it in a police interview room with witnesses and a recording and you can bring a lawyer if you want. Once we do that, the pressure’s on me to start getting results and that would mean charging you.’
‘What’s this about a condom?’ asked Dylan.
‘Do yourself a favour and shut up.’ Michelle didn’t bother to keep her voice down.
Dylan sat up straighter.
‘We’ve said everything we could possibly say. I told a silly little lie to stop things becoming complicated and my lovely wife backed me up, like any wife would.’
He put a hand out, and put it on Michelle’s thigh. She pushed it away with an expression of obvious disgust. Then she turned back to Maud.
‘You want the truth? All right, I’ll tell you the truth. When Dylan and I met, we didn’t believe in…’ She gestured with her hands as if she were trying to seize the right phrase. ‘Tying each other down. It felt very easygoing and modern. In the early days, I had my own affairs from time to time. It doesn’t seem right to call them affairs. Encounters. That would be a better word. But I got tired of that. It just became boring…’
‘Michelle, for God’s sake…’
‘I’m answering the detective’s questions, Dylan. I’m performing my civic duty.’
‘Humiliating yourself is not performing your civic duty.’
‘I’m not humiliating myself,’ said Michelle. She was speaking to her husband now but she was looking straight at Maud. ‘What was I saying? Yes. I got bored with it, but Dylan did not get bored with it. Was it ever exciting? I don’t know. I told myself it was. But I just got used to being at parties and watching Dylan doing his version of what he thought was flirting. You know the thing, getting a bit too close, touching a bit too much, laughing too hard at their jokes.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake…’
‘I didn’t think it was anything to be ashamed of. We’ve always been civilised about it. If I thought that a middle-aged man behaving like this was a bit pathetic, then I didn’t say it out loud.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Maud asked.
‘I was just providing some background before I answered your question. Yes, I did throw away that condom in the way I’ve been throwing things away and covering them up and pretending not to notice them for years.’
Dylan broke in.
‘Would it make any difference if I said that that bloody condom had nothing whatever to do with me?’
Michelle continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
‘I know what’s behind your question. You’re wondering whether I did that because I believed that he had sex with that poor girl and killed her and I wanted to cover up for him.’ She stopped and seemed to think about this idea as if it was something new. ‘I saw Dylan talking to her sometimes, accosting her outside the house.’
‘I never bloody accosted her.’
‘She was pretty and friendly, and I knew he fancied her.’
‘I did not fancy her!’
‘Do I think he fucked her? I know he would have done it if he had had the chance. Would she have let him? Maybe. He can still look a little bit attractive when he makes the effort.’
‘I’m not interested in his infidelity,’ said Maud. ‘Except where Kira is concerned.’
‘You want to know if I think he killed the girl.’ She looked round at her husband and then shook her head slowly. ‘When I look at it dispassionately, I think Dylan has the rage but not the coolness required to cover it up successfully. I’m not sure that he could have managed to conceal it from everyone, me in particular. I know him very well.’ She turned to Dylan. ‘Don’t you think that’s right?’
Dylan had turned a deep, unhealthy red. His face seemed to have swelled in size and his jaw looked bigger than ever. His eyes seemed to bulge.
‘I’m not sure I believe you.’ Maud’s voice cut through the ugly atmosphere, cool and clear.
They both turned to her and she saw the expressions on their faces. Michelle looked cold and contemptuous, Dylan hot with impotent rage.
‘I’ve told you the truth,’ said Michelle.
‘And yet you went to considerable efforts to have Nancy North sectioned.’
‘This again.’
‘Yes.’
‘Nancy North suffers from psychotic delusions.’
‘No,’ Maud said sharply. ‘She wasn’t deluded. Kira Mullan was murdered. You tried to keep Nancy quiet. She thought you were her friend and you lied about her.’
‘You thought it was me,’ Dylan broke in. ‘You thought I’d murdered Kira.’
Michelle seemed to come to a decision.
‘Interesting use of the past tense,’ she said with an ugly smile.
Maud kept very still, saying nothing.
‘Why not?’ Michelle said, composed now. ‘You push yourself at women who aren’t interested in you. You drink too much. You get angry. Sometimes you can’t control your anger.’ She turned to Maud. ‘You’ve probably had enough of this. Perhaps you can let yourself out.’
‘What interests me,’ said Maud, ‘is if you feel like this about your husband, why do you try to protect him?’
‘Good question.’