9

The figure on the screen seemed diminished by the room. His entire body transmitted his grief, the story amplified by the raw emotion on his face. This was not the face of a killer. This was the face of utter disbelief. Rose-Marie Bateman was not murdered by her boyfriend, of that I was certain.

The interview room was spartan – it was not designed with comfort in mind. Quite the contrary. On one side of the table came the barrage of questions from Detective Reihana; on the other side, weathering the brunt, was James Collingwood, aged twenty-three and about to break down into tears again. I reached forward and hit the rewind button as I didn’t catch the question the first time.

‘Did you and Miss Bateman have a sexual relationship?’

The young man’s shoulders shook as he tried to keep the sobs at bay. ‘Yes, well, no, not exactly,’ he said, through rasping breaths. ‘Rosie and I are Christians. We don’t believe in sex before marriage, so we didn’t have intercourse as such, but we messed around a bit.’

‘What exactly do you mean by messed around a bit?’ the detective asked.

‘You know, kissing, fondling, that kind of stuff?’

Not only was the poor boy trying not to cry, his squirming and the ruddiness of his cheeks told me he was hugely embarrassed by this line of questioning.

‘Did the fondling extend to oral sex?’

Shock darted across his face, which reddened even more.

‘God, no, we never went that far. No, she wouldn’t let me. Rosie was a good girl, such a good, good girl.’ At this point James broke down completely and Detective Reihana reached towards my screen to pause the recording.

I was sitting in the very room where the interview had taken place twenty-four hours earlier, but on my own clock, not the station’s. DI Johns might have been able to keep me off the front line as far as questioning was concerned, but he couldn’t stop me from watching the recorded interviews on my own time, especially if he didn’t know. I was buggered if I was going to be left out of the loop. The station was now tomb-like as it was late Sunday afternoon and everyone else with a life had gone home. It was the perfect opportunity to get up to speed on the murder investigation.

So far what I’d learned from James was that he didn’t do it. Yes, they all say that, but in this instance, I believed him. He had last seen Rose-Marie on the Friday; they had lunch together on the University Union lawn with several other friends. They had first met at a church students’ youth group and had been seeing each other for well over a year, and they didn’t flat together. I found it hard to believe that a hot-blooded young couple could be dating that long and never have jumped in the sack. My hormones were a damned sight more demanding than that and the abstinence would have driven me insane. I guess they were, as he said, very good little Christians. A bit better than a few others I knew who used the title, but who were busy shagging each other’s brains out at any opportunity. Each to their own.

A few zigzaggy black lines danced across the screen as the interview resumed. The timer indicated that it took James ten minutes to compose himself.

‘How often did you see Miss Bateman?’

A very juicy sniff made one eye twitch. ‘Normally, I’d see her most days on campus and perhaps two or three nights a week; we’d study together at our flats or at the library, and then we’d hook up at youth group on Sunday nights.’

‘Normally?’ the detective asked. ‘Had that pattern changed recently?’

‘A bit. This year we were both doing more study. Rosie and I are both doing doctorates, so getting together has been a bit more difficult. We’re in different departments, so I guess I only got to see her for lunch a few times a week and not so much in the evenings. She had a lot of lab work to do.’

‘What sort of lab work?’

‘She was doing work in the Pharmacy Department with medications, dosage forms for insulin, that kind of thing.’

‘You don’t do those kinds of things?’

‘No, I’m in Computer Sciences. Our building is on the other side of the campus.’ He didn’t look like what I’d consider a computer geek. His short-cropped dark hair had a very up-to-date cut and his clothing had a hip kind of style. None of that could deflect from the pain written across his face.

‘So how often did you talk, then?’

‘You mean on the phone?’

‘Yes.’

I was pleased the detective’s voice was firm and patient. He must have realised James Collingwood was no suspect. He seemed a bit of a sap, a good-looking one, but a sap all the same, truth be told.

‘Not that often, actually. A couple of times a week. We messaged or texted all the time though.’

What a strange age it was when you did your romancing via text message. I supposed it helped with the abstinence if you didn’t actually get within arms’ length of each other. What you can’t touch you can’t get into trouble with. They can’t have been hopelessly in love. If they were, they would have seen each other every day come hell or high water. Little things like clashing timetables and pressing deadlines would not have kept me from my Mr Right, if there was such a creature. Rampant ardour was a hard beast to restrain. I decided they’d had an odd kind of a relationship.

‘When you did talk, did Miss Bateman mention she was having difficulties with anyone? Her flatmates or anyone at the university?’

He shook his head slowly.

‘Her flatmates are cool. I thought she was really lucky with them. There was one who kept leaving her heater on thermostat all day when she wasn’t even home, which pissed them all off ’cos they divided up their power bill equally, but I think they’d sorted that out. They’re a great bunch of girls and they were good friends.’

‘What about at university? Did she say there were any issues?’

‘No, not that I can think of. She didn’t really talk much about her studies.’

‘Why was that? Was she avoiding talk about her studies? Was she struggling with them?’

Too many questions at once, I thought, don’t bamboozle the guy.

‘No, I don’t think she avoided it, although she did mention some of the things they were doing could be commercially sensitive. She’d never repeat anything said in confidence, she was careful like that…’ He trailed off like he was thinking about other things.

‘And her work?’ Reihana prompted. ‘Was she coping with everything?’

James snapped his head up again and nodded repeatedly. ‘She was really bright, right at the top of her class. Study was never a problem. It all came easy for her. She had a pretty big workload, but it never fazed her. She was happy to put in the long hours. We never talked that much about our studies,’ he said again. ‘It’s just we talked about other stuff.’

‘What kind of other stuff?’

‘You know, friends, family, what was happening around the place. The usual things.’

‘So you had no reason to think she was concerned about her safety?’

The shoulder quaking and thick voice started up again. ‘No, she was just her usual happy self.’

The interview ended shortly after and offered nothing in the way of helpful information other than eliminating one person from the list of likelies. The impression that young man gave was he wouldn’t hurt a fly and was far too well-mannered. I clicked on the next file, one of Rose-Marie’s flatmates. It might give a better picture of the young woman to hear from those who had to live with her day in and day out. So far, she’d been described as an angelic, intelligent young woman who held very old-fashioned views on loyalty, love and propriety. She sounded too good to be true. Perhaps they might offer a different perspective. Nothing like the grind of daily life to show what someone was really made of.