The session with Evelyn was a revelation, but the outer world soon broke into Tess’s subsequent introspection. The struggle between her need to think about what the session had brought up and the demands of the police and of Wellbridge House began the following morning when a message reached her via Mark that Mona wanted to see her in the office. She was informed that an appointment had been made for her to meet Inspector McKenzie in the boardroom on Monday in order to give a formal statement about her visit to see her brother. A time of ten o’clock had been confirmed and would she please attend on time. Tess confirmed she would be there.
She set out for the potting shed in the hope that her Friday morning stint would give her the time to herself that she craved, only to find that Ted was intent on turning the compost heaps and needed her help. That meant that she had to forgo any time alone in order to do the task, which would mean talking to Ted and concentrating on the job in hand. When the turning was done Tess headed for the potting shed again but was waylaid by Mona who requested her assistance in the office. There was a pile of collating to be done for an upcoming open day. The day was a fundraiser for the unit and the collating was the information that would be handed out to the visitors. She could hardly say no, and she usually enjoyed the gossip and the chit-chat that reconnected her with the outside world. Not so today, she thought. She agreed, reluctantly, and spent the afternoon caught between her preoccupation and the continuous chatter that constantly broke her train of thought. By late teatime she felt tense, frustrated and thoroughly thwarted. She felt as if her nerves were frayed and the muscles in her neck taut and brittle. The work done, she fled the office and walked quickly to her room, anxious not to be waylaid again and diverted unwillingly to another job.
She washed her hands clean of the ink from the collating, sluiced her face with cold water and lay down on the bed. She sank gratefully into the duvet that covered the mattress and, raising her head on her hands clasped behind her head, she looked out of the window at the dark sky and the vague shadow of a tree no more than ten feet from her window. She could see the branches moving slowly in the breeze. Her room was dark and she lay gazing at the tree and the window and the outlines and shadows of the familiar furniture in her room and let her mind drift back to the last session with Evelyn. Unbelievably, it was only just over a day ago, and yet the distractions and diversions made it seem like a week, a month or longer.
She had come back, she believed, from killing Stephen and she had walked down the cellar steps and dug Rachel out from her dry and musty resting place and taken her to a police station and presented her to the officer at the desk. She had been whisked up into the workings of the system and finally deposited at the unit to unpick the threads of her life which included killing Stephen and exhuming Rachel. Now she thought it ironic that the passivity that had led to her ending up in a dangerous situation at the behest of her mother had turned out to be a turning point.
*
On Monday morning Inspector McKenzie arrived to take a formal statement from Tess. The Inspector had arrived and was sitting in the boardroom in good time. When Tess knocked at the door Ann McKenzie opened it to her and offered her a chair at the large, polished conference table, facing the window and looking out over the garden. The table was a large expanse of finely grained wood and a statement pad had been placed on the table in front of Tess’s chair, together with a black biro and a glass of water. As Tess sat at the table with the writing paraphernalia in front of her she was reminded of school exams, sitting at a desk in a long row of desks, wrestling with the questions on a paper, writing her answers. She recalled the atmosphere of the exam room and how it made her anxious and tense. She felt that same anxiety and shivered.
“I hope you’re not too nervous, Tess?” said the Inspector, noticing her shiver.
“No, I’m fine,” Tess replied. “What am I to do? What should I write about?”
“Nothing scary. We just want your full account of what happened on your visit to your brother’s cottage in Pembrokeshire. Please be as factual as you can, give dates and times as accurately as possible. We’re trying to build up a picture and you are our only witness, except for the postman who found your brother’s body. Depending on what you say, we may well want to ask further questions of you at a later date, for clarification or further possible information. That’s all there is to it.”
“OK,” Tess replied. Still in exam mode Tess asked: “How much time do I have?”
“As long as it takes. I’ll be here in the room with you. Take your time. If you have any questions, ask.”
Tess nodded and picked up the biro. She began to write. An hour later the statement was written, Tess had left the office and Inspector McKenzie had picked up the sheets of paper and departed.
*
Back at the station, and having scanned her long list of new emails for anything urgent, she began to read the statement. Tess had made a good job of it. She’d followed the brief and been factual and relatively objective. When she came to the page and the section covering the beating of Stephen Dawson it became clear to her that, even in the dim and dismal surroundings of Dawson’s kitchen, there had been enough light for Tess to see the faces of the three killers. She was both elated and alarmed by this dawning fact. In all probability Tess had seen enough of their faces to be able to identify them. That was the cause of her elation but what came with it was the fact that Tess was both a key witness and potentially in danger. She had no idea whether Tess realised this or not.
*
Tess had gone to the dining room after she had finished her witness statement. She was mulling over the account that she’d just given, considering whether she had been accurate enough, had got the sequence of events right, had stated correct times and dates. She thought that some of the things she had written down could be confirmed by Geoff, Carol and Sian at the hotel. All in all she felt quite happy with what she’d written. She was waiting for other residents to come for lunch at 12.30pm and, after she had been waiting ten minutes, Judith appeared and waved and smiled and joined her at the table.
“How’d it go?” she tentatively asked.
“It went well,” Tess replied. “I could remember all the important things, the factual things. I was even able to give a bit of a description of the men who beat Stephen.” She had confided in Judith soon after she had given her account of what had happened to Evelyn.
There was a pause and Judith said slowly: “I didn’t realise you’d seen their faces.” She paused again. “Tess, you do realise that those men will know that you probably saw them. And as soon as the police read your statement they’ll know you can probably identify them. You do realise that?”
Tess sat, thunderstruck, the hair on her neck and arms bristling, her body suddenly slumped. She said:
“I hadn’t but I do now. Oh God,” she said. “The Inspector will be back. Oh God. They’re going to ask me to identify them.”
Tess got up from the table as the dining room was filling up. She left the room, heading for her own place of safety. She ate no lunch that Monday.
*
Ann McKenzie telephoned Evelyn Doyle as soon as the implications of Tess’s statement became clear to her. She told Evelyn what had happened. She then telephoned Dyfed-Powys Police and informed Alun Davies of the major development in the Stephen Dawson murder inquiry that had occurred. He was excited and intent on coming up to Wellbridge House without further delay. The possibility of Tess Dawson identifying the killers of Stephen Dawson was compelling to him and he told Ann McKenzie that he would put together a collection of photographs of possible suspects and email them over to her. Later that day she set the ball rolling for a further interview with Tess which would include the laptop identity parade. She phoned Evelyn to warn her of what was going to happen. Things were moving very fast.
*
That Monday afternoon it took Tess some time to get over the shock of what Judith had pointed out. Somewhere she couldn’t quite believe what she’d done. The thought of any more contact with the police frightened her and the realisation that she would be called upon to identify her brother’s killers and, eventually, even appear in court to testify against them, appalled her. She knew that she was not ready for that. It wasn’t until after tea that she thought again about her session with Evelyn in the quiet, security and comfort of her room. Thinking of Rachel and the way Evelyn had understood the meaning of her life and death was sinking in and it meant everything to her. She was moving towards a resolution about her child. And she hadn’t killed Stephen and the anxiety that had been growing about Stephen’s killers was ebbing away. She fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.