This time the weather was less welcoming: a constant mithering rain. The kind, Hadley thought, that soaked through clothes and skin down into your very soul. Overhead, the sky was a leaden, uncompromising grey. There would be no sitting in the arbour, enjoying the scent of flowers, the touch of the sun.
There was a light dully shining in one of the upstairs rooms, the curtains not quite closed. They could hear Susannah Fielding’s hurried footsteps on the stairs before she opened the door with a look of half-surprise.
Following her through into the kitchen, they politely declined the offer to take a seat.
‘Tea, then, it won’t take a minute. I could make tea …’
Hadley shook her head. ‘We just wanted to ask you a few questions about Melissa. It need not take long.’
‘Melissa, yes, I’m afraid she’s not been well.’
‘About her relationship with her father.’
‘With Anthony …?’
‘When she was younger, she posed for him, I believe?’
‘Yes. Yes, she did.’
‘And this was after she’d posed for you? The portrait we were looking at before.’
‘Yes.’
‘The riding lessons,’ Alice said with a helpful smile.
‘Yes, that’s right.’ She smiled back. ‘You remembered.’
‘When she posed for her father,’ Hadley said, ‘it was different.’
‘I don’t …’
‘She posed in the nude.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘And at the time she was how old?’
‘She … she would have been, I think, fourteen. Yes, fourteen.’
‘And how did you feel about that? As her mother, I mean?’
‘I don’t know, I mean, I really can’t remember. I … And why, anyway? Why does it matter now? I don’t understand.’
‘I’m wondering how you felt about Melissa posing in that way?’
‘I thought … I thought …’ Susannah’s left eye was starting to blink, almost uncontrollably. ‘I thought since he was her father it was all right.’ Leaning sideways, she reached out a hand towards the back of the nearest chair.
‘Maybe you should sit down?’ Alice said, moving towards her, concerned that she might fall.
‘Yes, I think …’
Alice took hold of her arm and helped her into the chair while Hadley fetched a glass of water. At the far side of the room a clock was quietly ticking; muffled, the sound of footfall overhead: all the colour had gone from Susannah Fielding’s face.
‘Did Anthony behave inappropriately towards your daughter, Mrs Fielding? And if so, were you aware …?’
‘No, no! Of course not! Of course …’ Susannah brought her head down hard and fast, face first, against the kitchen table.
Alice let out a small, involuntary cry and, darting forward, reached for Susannah’s shoulders, easing her gently back. Blood was beginning to run from her nose and there were the first signs, already, of a swelling above her right eye. Hadley ran water on to a clean tea towel and held it against her face.
In the commotion, the sounds of someone descending the stairs had gone unnoticed.
‘It’s me you should be talking to,’ Matthew Fielding said.
The air in the interview room was heavy and still. Matthew Fielding sat beside his solicitor, upright and steely-eyed, lean face, closely cropped hair.
‘My client is prepared to make a statement,’ the solictor said.
The pulse in Hadley’s temple quickened and, alongside her, she sensed Chris Phillips tense momentarily, then relax.
‘Mel had been ill for years,’ Fielding began, his voice even, matter-of-fact. ‘Little things, off and on. No particular reason, no particular cause. Doctor would examine her, find nothing, prescribe a few pills. Then, when she went to university, she had this kind of breakdown. I suppose that’s what it was. I was off in the army by then and all I knew was little bits Mum’d tell me if I asked. Fobbing me off, really, I suppose. Not wanting me to worry. Enough to worry about out where you are, she’d say. But then this last time, when I came back on leave – just a few weeks back, this – Mel and I, we went for a drink together. Something we’d hardly ever done. Not talked either, I suppose, really talked, not properly, seriously, not since, well, not since we were kids. And not much then. But she started telling me – we’d been talking about something else at the time – suddenly started telling me about what had happened. With … with, you know … with …’
Pausing, he glanced from Hadley to Phillips, from one face to another, then up for a moment at the ceiling.
‘I went round there. That evening. She tried to stop me, Mel, said what was the use, it wouldn’t do any good. But no, I wanted to have it out with him, see his face when I made him tell me … tell me what it was he’d done. At first he wasn’t going to talk to me at all. Point-blank refused. Then came over all friendly, offered me a drink – I think he’d been drinking pretty heavily already. Put his arm round me. Tried to. That was when I hit him first. Not hard, but he went down all the same, and I could see the fear in his eyes. And seeing him like that, it made me think of how he’d fucked up our lives, Mel’s and Mum’s and mine, and I hit him again. And made him tell me about what happened with Mel. And I think he knew then I was going to kill him. He started yelling, yelling and screaming and trying to get away and I grabbed him and got hold of this chain and started swinging it round my head and …’
He broke off again, steadying his breathing; his voice, when he resumed, quieter, back under control.
‘The thing is, I no longer knew what I was doing. I’ve seen it happen, in a fire fight, the heat of the battle, you lose control. It’s not you. There’s something else takes over, driving you on. As if, for those moments, you’ve literally gone out of your mind.’
He looked across the desk evenly and folded his arms across his chest.
‘What d’you think?’ Phillips asked. They were in Hadley’s office, Matthew Fielding in a cell below, waiting to be charged.
‘I think he’ll try to plead manslaughter, some kind of diminished responsibility, temporary insanity, whatever. The CPS will go for murder, straight and simple.’
‘Is it ever?’ Phillips asked ruefully.
‘Is it, fuck!’