Searching the cottage didn’t take long. It looked abandoned from the outside, with no four-by-four parked snug alongside, and Karl had stripped the interior of his few personal items, leaving only the bulky furniture behind. His note was wedged under an empty vase on the dining table.
My chest felt tight as I reread it, squinting in the poor light cast by a naked bulb. The conclusion I’d leapt to as soon as Leo told us Karl had left was exactly what he’d been afraid of. Maybe the mistake I’d made wasn’t trusting my gut too much, but not being open enough. If I’d told Karl I didn’t see him as a serious suspect, he wouldn’t have acted rashly and made himself one.
Gravel crunched outside and Terence ducked through the low wooden doorway. His hair was carefully styled, his coat probably worth more than I earned in a month.
‘You’ve heard our groundskeeper has done a runner, then?’
Juliet walked out of Karl’s bedroom. She’d been examining the books left on the shelves. ‘Is that what you want us to think?’
Terence reared back. ‘What?’
‘Did you write this note?’ Juliet pointed at it. ‘Karl knew too much. Leo said you two argued last night. Maybe Karl was fed up of keeping your secret, and no amount of money you threw at him would work. There was only one way left to silence him. You killed him and faked his escape.’
Terence’s mouth fell open. I kept my face blank. Juliet hadn’t shared these suspicions with me. She probably didn’t think it was true, but one way to get someone to talk was to throw a whole lot of muck at them. They’d clear it away without realising they were getting their hands dirty in the process.
‘You don’t honestly believe that?’
‘You tell us the truth, and we’ll know exactly what to believe,’ Juliet said.
‘Bloody hell.’ Terence ran his hands through his hair, making it stick out at the sides. ‘I can’t talk in here. I can barely see you.’
He walked outside. Juliet winked at me before ducking through the wooden archway. I shook my head as I followed. I didn’t enjoy playing with people like Juliet did. I couldn’t ignore how it would impact them when they went on with their lives.
Terence led us over to my car. It was lighter outside despite the setting sun, the bags under Terence’s eyes and the red skin around his bitten-down nails clear.
‘I didn’t have anything to do with Karl scarpering.’ Terence planted his feet and sunk his hands into his coat pockets. ‘We argued last night, but only because he was badgering me to tell you the truth and he wouldn’t take no for a bloody answer.’
‘Why do you think he ran?’ I asked.
‘You saw the note. I don’t think Karl’s a murderer. I don’t like him but he’s always very upright, a bit too honest. But apparently he’s got a dark past. That was always going to stand against him.’
‘Mr Hogan hasn’t yet confirmed your alibi.’ Juliet switched the conversation back to Terence. ‘And you still won’t tell us what you were doing.’
‘Christ.’ He looked skyward. ‘Is it so important you know what I was doing? Isn’t it enough to know I wasn’t here?’
‘You’re being evasive,’ Juliet said. ‘That makes us think we’re right, and that you had something to do with Melanie’s death even though you were technically away when she was killed. Unless we know what you were doing, we’ll assume the worst; that your secret is worth committing murder over. And why would you stop at Melanie? Karl was annoying you. The easy way to get rid of him was to kill him too.’
‘Jesus.’ The word was no more than misted breath over Terence’s lips. He tore his hands from his pockets and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. ‘We were fucking, alright? I meet up with Benny a few times a year and we fuck.’ He lowered his hands, the skin around his eyes pink. ‘That’s my big secret. That’s it. I wouldn’t kill anyone over it. I would just ask them not to tell my dad.’
My heart clutched uselessly inside my chest. Forcing someone to out themselves was never something I wanted to be involved in.
‘So Karl saw you with Benedict? That’s what he was threatening you with?’ Juliet asked.
Terence rolled his eyes. ‘He didn’t threaten me. Or blackmail me. He took those photos because I wouldn’t talk about it unless he had proof. He said he’d known for a while, God knows how, and he thought I should come out to Dad. But he doesn’t know my father. I asked Karl to delete the photos and he did, but I didn’t like him being here, knowing. I wanted him gone but he needed money, so I gave him some. End of story.’
‘Would it be so terrible if your father found out about Benedict?’ I asked. I’d been afraid to come out to my parents, everyone is, but more often it was becoming a positive experience. It had been for me. Mum fell over herself to reassure me that nothing had changed and Jesus still loved me, while Dad listened quietly from his chair and squeezed my hand.
‘Yes.’ A muscle in Terence’s neck twitched. ‘It would be.’
I felt an uptick of sympathy for him, despite the ways he helped me fight that impulse. Having to hide part of himself to be accepted by his remaining parent had to hurt.
‘Melanie didn’t know?’ Juliet asked.
Terence shrugged. ‘If she did, it would have been news to me. As I said, I wouldn’t have killed her to ensure her silence anyway. If you could not tell my dad, I’d be much obliged.’
‘We won’t,’ I said.
Terence examined me for a long moment. ‘Thank you. I’m going to go deal with the dogs, since there’s no one else to do it.’
He strode across the gravel driveway and into the forest, his shoulders slumped.
‘Do you believe him?’ Juliet asked.
‘What he’s said makes sense.’ I unlocked the car. ‘Dunlow doesn’t seem particularly tolerant and Terence doesn’t want to be disowned. He was hiding the truth because he doesn’t want his dad to know he’s with a man, not because he’s a murderer.’
Juliet huffed and got into the car. I looked over at the cottage. If Terence’s alibi was true, then he wasn’t part of a plot to kill Melanie. That left Karl as our main suspect.
No matter how incriminating it was that he’d run away, thinking of him as a murderer didn’t sit right. But if he wasn’t the killer, who had shot Melanie between these silent trees?