After Persephone was processed, they obtained her house keys and went to exercise the search warrant they had for her flat. When Swift arrived and walked into the pink paradise that was her sitting room and surveyed the extensive menagerie of stuffed toys, he turned to Cross and Ottey and said, ‘Have you arrested a twelve-year-old?’
‘I know. Right?’ commented Ottey.
They proceeded to search the flat and it wasn’t long before they found a leather holdall in a cupboard. Then Swift’s voice called them from inside the bedroom. As they walked in they saw he was standing next to a bedside cabinet holding up a six-inch, or thereabouts, brass letter opener. It was covered in dried blood.
‘You’d think she’d’ve got rid of it,’ he said.
‘It’s a souvenir,’ replied Ottey.
*
‘Persephone, are you aware of why you’ve been arrested?’ asked Cross in the MCU interview room. She was sitting next to her solicitor.
‘Yes,’ she replied quietly.
‘Did you kill Ed Squire on the twenty-fourth of April this year?’
‘No comment.’
‘You told us that you heard Ed let someone into the building that night. Is that correct?’ Cross continued.
‘No comment.’
‘No one came in that night, did they?’ suggested Ottey.
‘No comment.’
‘You killed Ed Squire, in a frenzied attack, then hid the weapon as well as maybe some clothing in a holdall in the cupboard next to your desk. Which you retrieved before you went home. Isn’t that true?’ asked Ottey.
‘No comment.’
‘Persephone, we found the letter opener used to kill Ed Squire in the bedside table in your bedroom. Why did you have it?’ asked Cross.
‘No comment.’
‘Why keep it?’ asked Ottey. ‘Were you so confident you wouldn’t be found out? That it was so unlikely the police would look at the victim’s own niece? Someone most people would adjudge owed him so much?’
Cross saw that Persephone reacted ever so slightly to this. A small, involuntary, twitch.
‘Who’d taken you in as a troubled adolescent. Dealt with an unwanted teenage pregnancy. Then years later, when you lost your job, gave you employment,’ Ottey continued.
‘No comment.’
‘Did you kill him, Persephone?’ asked Cross.
‘No comment.’
‘We not only found the murder weapon in your flat, but there are also traces of blood in the holdall. It’s being tested as we speak. I’m fairly certain it will come back as Ed Squire’s. The evidence really is stacking up against you. Why don’t you just tell us exactly what happened?’ asked Cross.
‘No comment.’
‘Did something happen that made you do it? I think there must be a reason. If you did it. Did you have a good reason to kill your uncle, Persephone?’ asked Cross. She looked up at him. Was she deciding whether to answer? Cross wondered. ‘You’d been working for him for almost four years. Why now? Why at all?’
‘No comment.’
‘You told us you were grateful for the opportunity. You called it a lifeline. So, what happened?’ Cross persisted.
‘No comment.’
‘Did you think that without Ed in the picture and his children showing no interest in continuing the business, that he would simply hand it over to you?’ asked Ottey.
‘What would be so strange about that?’ asked Persephone, speaking for the first time.
‘Miss Hartwell,’ her lawyer cautioned her.
‘Did he ever tell you it was his intention to let you run the business?’ Cross asked.
‘He didn’t have to. It was obviously the plan,’ she said.
‘Miss Hartwell,’ the lawyer said again. ‘I need a moment with my client.’
*
Cross went back into his emails and looked at the information Mackenzie had sent him after their impromptu dinner together. Despite the development with Persephone in the interview room, the timing of her mother’s recent scene at the house struck him as odd. He wasn’t sure he believed Sarah when she said it was an argument with her ex, Ian. It had to be material in some way. He wasn’t even sure if Hartwell was in the country on the day in question. He then checked and found that he was in fact in Spain at the time of the alleged argument. He was annoyed with himself that it hadn’t occurred to him to check this earlier. But if Persephone was the culprit, if she had killed Ed through some misguided notion she would get control of the business, why now? The timing didn’t make any sense to him. Had Ed let her down? Made her some promise he’d later reneged on? Or was she just deluded? She was certainly an idiosyncratic young woman, as Ottey had observed right from the start of the investigation. This reminded him of something else Ottey had said then. He got up and went over to her desk.
‘You remarked on something Victoria Squire told you at your first encounter with her at the Berkeley Square Hotel. You said it struck you as odd,’ he told her.
‘I did?’
‘You said she described Persephone as a niece “by marriage”. Which you found strange.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she replied as she remembered. ‘Oh my god.’
He turned to a WPC sitting at a desk nearby.
‘Could you get Persephone Hartwell back up from her cell for another interview?’
*
‘What was your relationship with Ed like? Recently. Had anything changed?’ Cross asked.
‘No comment.’
‘Can we go back to the events of 2014?’ he asked. This was the first time it’d been brought up. She blanched a little and looked over at her solicitor. Was this an appeal for some sort of help, or was it an indication that she wasn’t happy about such personal information being shared in front of a stranger? ‘You fell pregnant. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ she replied quietly.
‘And you had a termination which was organised for you by your aunt and uncle. Is that also correct?’ Cross asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How did you feel about that?’ asked Cross.
‘I don’t know. Relieved? Guilty, maybe? I thought it was the right thing to do,’ she said.
‘Why was that?’
‘I was too young to have a child. I was only just sixteen. The pregnancy was a mistake,’ she said.
‘So you felt they made the right decision at the time?’ Cross asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you still feel that way about it?’ he went on.
She paused for a moment before answering. ‘Yes.’
‘How did the father of the child feel about the decision to terminate?’ Cross asked.
‘The father?’ she asked, looking a little confused.
‘Yes. Did you discuss it with him at all?’ Cross went on.
This seemed to throw her. She shook her head in confusion as if to shake the question out of it. She muttered something inaudible.
‘Did you know who the father was?’ asked Cross.
‘Yes!’ she replied indignantly. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Did the father even know about the pregnancy? Maybe you didn’t even tell him you were expecting,’ Cross suggested.
‘Um, yes,’ she replied.
‘You’d told him,’ Cross clarified.
‘Yes.’
‘Who was it?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘The father. Who was it? Are you still in touch with him?’ asked Cross.
‘No.’
‘You don’t speak with him anymore?’ Cross continued.
‘No.’
‘Is that because he’s dead?’ asked Cross.
‘What?’
‘Is that because the father of your unborn child is himself dead? Because the father was your uncle, Ed Squire. Your uncle by marriage?’ he suggested.
She looked completely stunned by this, as indeed did her solicitor.
‘I think we should have a break,’ the lawyer suggested.