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‘Look at the most likely explanations,’ Richard said. ‘It’s not hard to understand.’
‘It could have been the wife. If she found out her husband was having an affair.’ Fiona was clearly not interested in the zebras, and was of the opinion that an affair was good grounds for throat-slitting.
‘And she was desperate to get back inside the house,’ I said. ‘I think she may have messed up the scene deliberately. And someone had been in the shower.’
‘But her story adds up,’ Craig said. ‘She was at a petrol station in Matlock at nine in the morning.’
‘She could have come to the house earlier and then gone back to Matlock. We need to check. There are no immediate neighbours, and there are ways to the house that avoid CCTV altogether, but we can look at the camera on the main road.’ I raised an eyebrow at Richard. ‘And the spouse is always a horse, don’t you agree?’
‘Didn’t the little girl see anything?’ Fiona asked.
‘She was on sleeping pills for night terrors she’s been having. We haven’t been able to get much sense out of her. It looks like she must have woken up, wandered through to her parents’ room, found her father, tried to wake him and got blood all over her, and then run out into the woods.’
‘How horrendous,’ Fiona said.
‘She’s a lovely kid too.’ I felt that weight again. The responsibility to solve this, for Abbie. ‘You know this area well, don’t you, Fiona?’
Craig butted in. ‘Her gran does. She’s on our Blue Rinse Task Force.’
I smiled at Fiona. ‘Do you know about a folk story associated with that house? There are some statues of children in the woods.’
‘Really, Meg.’ Richard wafted his arm as if he was standing over a decomposing rat. ‘What does this have to do with the investigation?’
‘His wife said the victim was obsessed with the statues, and something about wanting to do penance. It might be relevant. He’d replicated one of them out of wood, except with its heart ripped out.’
The door bashed open and Emily walked in and stood as if under stage lighting. ‘Got the trace on that mobile phone,’ she said. ‘It’s a colleague of Phil Thornton’s. Karen Jenkins.’
5. (#ulink_f85a1f85-6659-560e-9ab4-d8b2efccf4dd)
Karen Jenkins shuffled into the interview room, bashed her leg on the drab grey desk, and apologised to it. I smiled. It was the sort of depressingly British thing I’d do.
Craig sorted out the recording apparatus and took her through the formal bits and pieces. Jai was watching from an observation room. It was still only the afternoon of the first day and we had a solid lead. I prayed we could get this one cleared up fast so I could avoid my lie to Richard being exposed. There was no way I could delay my time off, whatever I’d said to him.
Karen was in her mid to late forties, and reminded me of one of those hairy dogs whose eyes you never see. She cleared her throat a couple of times and licked her lips. Glanced at me and quickly looked away. ‘Sorry. I’m not used to being questioned by the police.’ She gave a high-pitched laugh. ‘Can I make notes in my pad? It calms me.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I leaned back in my deeply uncomfortable chair.
She shook her head so her hair covered her eyes almost completely. ‘Right. Yes. No. I can’t believe it. Can’t believe it happened.’ She picked up her pen and tapped it against her pad, but didn’t write anything.
I chatted nonsense for a while to relax her and calibrate – noticing what she did with her hands and face when she was talking about the weather and the traffic.
Once I’d got the feel of her, I asked casually, ‘Were you close to Phil Thornton?’
She swallowed and looked down, much stiller than before. ‘We were colleagues. Not close as such.’
‘His wife was concerned someone might have been following him. Do you know anything about that?’
She hesitated. I could see her breathing. Raised voices drifted in from in a nearby room. ‘No. Sorry,’ she said.
‘Anything worrying him that you were aware of?’
‘Nothing that would get him killed,’ she said, more abruptly. ‘He was worried about Abbie. And about his wife, I think. She’s a bit odd.’ She made a few swoopy doodles on her pad.
There was a smell in the air, familiar but wrong in this context. I looked up sharply and scrutinised her. Had she been drinking?
‘When was the last time you went to Phil’s house?’
Her eyes widened a fraction. ‘I don’t know. Ages ago.’
‘What was the occasion?’
‘You should be looking at his wife, not me,’ Karen said. ‘He was worried about his wife.’
‘The occasion you went to his house?’
‘They had me and my husband round. I can check the dates and get back to you.’
I glanced at the wedding ring on her hand. ‘Look, you need to be totally honest with me. Nobody’s judging you. But what kind of relationship did you have with Phil?’
‘We were close. Nothing ever happened.’ Jagged lines on the pad, deeper now, solid fingers gripping the pen, her body tense and so different to when she’d been chatting earlier.
‘Karen, I don’t care if you were having an affair, but you need to tell me the truth.’
Her voice shook, as if she was about to cry. ‘We were friends.’
I waited a moment, but she said no more.
‘Have you ever watched those TV murder mysteries where the victim’s friend is always forging Dutch masters or stealing prize orchids or something like that?’ I asked. ‘So they lie to the police, and you’re screaming at the telly saying, “Just tell them about the sodding orchids” because it never turns out well. Have you watched any of those?’
She nodded and licked her lips again, looking on the verge of tears, the skin beneath her eyes beginning to puff up.
‘Where were you on Sunday night?’ I asked.
‘Me? I was at home. You don’t think I did it? I would never . . . ’ She was crying now, gulping and wiping her hand over her nose.
Craig dived in. ‘You see, we have these texts and phone calls on Phil’s phone.’
Karen jumped and looked at him, as if she’d forgotten he was there. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You think I . . . Oh my God.’
‘You went there, didn’t you,’ Craig said. ‘To his house.’
Karen flipped her gaze from me to Craig, and to me again, and shoved herself back in her chair as if wanting to put distance between us. She moved her foot in anxious circles over the dismal grey carpet.
‘You’ve nothing to worry about if you tell us the truth,’ I said. Which wasn’t strictly true.
‘No. I wasn’t there. I phoned him, that’s all. You need to look at Rachel.’ She hunched over her notepad and drew more swoops, then dropped her pen onto the desk. ‘She’s had mental health problems. Who knows what she’d do?’
‘What problems has she had?’ I settled in my chair, as if there was all the time in the world.
‘She had a psychotic episode. She could be dangerous.’
‘What exactly happened?’
‘You know Jess died? Rachel’s daughter?’
‘Yes. Four years ago.’
‘Well, that was . . . ’ Karen picked her pen up again and fiddled with the end of it. ‘Anyway, Rachel had a psychotic episode afterwards.’
‘What were you going to say about Jess? You cut yourself short.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. I don’t know the full details.’
‘Of how Jess died, you mean?’
‘Yes. Phil didn’t like to talk about it.’
‘Just tell me what you know.’
Karen wriggled in her seat. ‘She fell out of a window. In that weird house. Not long after Rachel and Jess moved in.’
‘From a window?’ I was momentarily pitched off course. Why had I thought about dead children at the top window? Maybe I’d seen a news report and then forgotten it.
‘The attic window. The girls weren’t supposed to go up there.’ Karen grabbed her pen and doodled again. Jagged lines this time, like the start of a migraine. There was something she didn’t want to say. Something around Jess’s death. ‘It’s a weird house. Out in the middle of the woods. I remember when he bought it. He got obsessed with it. Had to have it.’
‘Did you know why?’
She relaxed a little with that question. ‘It seemed to be something to do with those weird statues in the woods. He was into art so maybe he liked the idea of owning them. I mean, I suppose they are cool in a creepy sort of way. But he was in a strange state at that time – I think he was in shock about his ex-wife dying.’
‘His ex-wife as in Abbie’s mother?’
‘Yes. She died not long after they separated.’
‘How did she die?’
‘Laura? In a car crash.’
I pondered the statistically improbable amount of death in this family, and made a note to do a check on the car crash, as well as the daughter’s death.
‘Rachel got really overprotective about Abbie,’ Karen said. ‘She adores Abbie, Phil said. As much as if she was her own daughter. And she kept thinking Abbie was ill all the time, even when she wasn’t, because she’d been diagnosed with Phil’s heart condition.’
‘Phil and Abbie had the same condition?’
‘Yes. Phil had a heart transplant a few years ago. I think he had to go abroad for it, actually, to China or somewhere. He’s fine now, but he has to take medication for the rest of his life. So of course they knew all the issues about waiting lists and how Abbie could die before a suitable heart came up. She got the symptoms younger, obviously. Phil was lucky in a way that it didn’t come on till later in life.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So, Rachel didn’t cope very well with Abbie’s condition?’
‘No, I suppose having already lost a child . . . ’
‘I don’t see the relevance of this,’ Craig said.
Karen reddened. ‘I just thought I should tell you Rachel has some strange beliefs. She could be going psychotic again.’
I gave Craig a Shut up look. At this stage anything could be relevant and I didn’t want to close Karen down. There’d be time to push her later if we got more evidence against her. ‘What beliefs does she have?’
‘It was because Abbie was having night terrors. She was screaming that her dad was trying to kill her or something.’
I glanced at Craig. He was very still, staring at Karen.
‘Did you say Abbie was dreaming that her father was trying to kill her?’ I said.
‘That’s what Phil told me. He was really upset about it. Obviously. He would never lay a finger on Abbie, so it was awful.’
‘It must have been. And he shared all this with you?’
Karen reddened. ‘Only because it was so weird and upsetting. Rachel thought some bizarre stuff about Abbie.’
‘What did she think?’
This seemed to be getting us off track and was probably a distraction, but I thought we might as well hear her out.
Karen pushed her hair off her face. ‘Rachel got it into her head that Abbie was remembering what had happened to her heart donor.’
I looked up sharply from my notes. ‘What do you mean?’
Craig stopped fiddling with his pen.
‘She thought Abbie was having nightmares because she remembered what had happened to the girl she got her heart from. Rachel had this theory that the donor child had been abused or even killed by her father.’
Nobody said anything for a moment. The room seemed to shrink a little. ‘Rachel Thornton thought that was why Abbie was having nightmares?’ I said. ‘Because of her new heart?’
‘Yes. She thought Abbie’s dreams were from the donor child’s memories. From her death, in fact. That’s why she thought Abbie was scared of Phil. She thought Abbie was confusing him in her sleep with the donor child’s father.’
This was one of the stranger things I’d heard.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re right to tell us anything you think could possibly be relevant.’
‘I think you’re trying to distract us,’ Craig said. ‘There’s no way a kid could remember something that happened to a different child.’
‘I didn’t say Abbie remembered,’ Karen said. ‘I said that was what Rachel thought.’
‘Thank you, Karen,’ I said. ‘It could be relevant, so thank you for telling us.’
She smiled and said almost under her breath, ‘I just thought it was weird.’
I left it a moment and then said, ‘We still need to know if you were having a relationship with Phil.’
She shook her head. ‘My husband mustn’t know . . . ’
