‘Then let them enter, let them enter. You have nothing to fear.
‘Nothing to fear whatsoever.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
By two o’clock Meriel was sitting alone in a small room at county police headquarters. One entire wall was darkly mirrored and she was certain it was a singular arrangement, with others able to see into the room from the other side.
Probus, who had offices in Penrith less than ten minutes away, had returned to his chambers, promising her he would be back the moment questioning began. ‘I envisage you being home again in time for your evening meal, my dear,’ he informed her confidently as he left.
DI Thompson had been formal but polite earlier when he arrived at Cathedral Crag. He explained to Meriel that he had applied for a warrant to search the house, but that everything would be put back the way it was when his officers had finished. He’d asked her for a sample of her handwriting, and she gave him some programme notes she’d been working on. These were carefully placed into a clear plastic evidence bag which was then deliberately sealed in front of her.
Next she had been escorted to the big Rover squad car waiting in the drive, asked to sit in the back, and off they’d set for Penrith, Probus following close behind in his silver Jaguar. Meriel had not been formally arrested. That, she reasoned, must at least count for something.
There were three plastic chairs in the interview room, two on the other side of the table from hers. She’d spotted the fresh copies of The Night Book straight away; she could hardly miss them, placed as they were squarely in the middle of the table. It was obviously a crude attempt by the police to throw her off balance, and Meriel decided not to oblige them by looking at even a single page. She was sure someone was watching from the other side of the mirror. She also suspected that later they’d ask her to read some extracts aloud, but hopefully Probus could put a stop to any of that kind of theatre.
Just as she had during Seb’s monologue last night, Meriel crossed her ankles, folded her hands in her lap, and sat calmly waiting. In her head she endlessly replayed the same mantra, a comfort blanket of words.
‘I was the only one there. I am the only one who knows what happened. I was the only one there.’
Seb insisted on driving himself to the police station. He’d been bullish when the call came from a Sergeant Furness in Penrith, explaining that Seb was wanted for questioning and that a police car would shortly arrive at Lake District FM to bring him in.
As a reporter Seb had had many dealings with the police and he wasn’t intimidated by them.
‘Forget it, sergeant,’ he said. ‘Unless I’m a suspect, which obviously I’m not, I don’t have to get into one of your squad cars and I’m not going to. Have a parking space ready for me down there. I’ll be in a Triumph Spitfire. You can expect me within the hour.’
He’d been delaying having a conversation with Bob Merryman, but now that couldn’t be put off any longer.
‘A word, Bob?’ he called across to the news editor as he put the phone down. ‘In private?’
The others in the newsroom looked up curiously. Had Richmond been offered another job? He was certainly the network’s blue-eyed boy these days. Maybe he was going to ask Merryman for a pay rise.
When they were alone in a spare studio, Seb came straight to the point.
‘Obviously you know about Meriel and me.’
Merryman looked faintly amused. ‘No, Sebastian, I had no idea. Whatever do you mean?’
Seb ignored the irony.
‘Listen, Bob, this is heavy stuff. Seriously.’
Merryman stopped smiling and frowned. ‘Go on.’
‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that Meriel’s been arrested this morning or, if not, she’s at least been taken in for questioning. She’ll be down at Cumbria Police HQ in Penrith right now.’
The news editor gaped.
‘What? What the fuck for? What’s she done?’ Seb took a deep breath.
‘She might have murdered her husband. His drowning may not have been an accident.’
He thought his boss was going to fall off his chair.
‘Hold on. Just hold on a minute, Seb. You’re telling me Meriel Kidd maybe killed Cameron Bruton and now she’s in custody? How the hell do you know all this?’
Seb picked his words with care.
‘I found something, Bob. Yesterday. Something hidden at Cathedral Crag. I can’t say what it is, but it was . . . incriminating. There’s other stuff that I know, or suspect, that if I’m honest with you I’ve been trying to forget or ignore for weeks. But I simply can’t do that any more, not after what I found yesterday.’
Merryman was slowly beginning to recover his poise.
‘So you took this thing, whatever it was, to the police?’
Seb shook his head. ‘No. I couldn’t bring myself to. I took it to the coroner instead. That didn’t seem quite so . . . perfidious.’
‘Perfidious? What is this, Shakespeare?’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake then . . . disloyal. OK? The coroner said he’d hand it over to an assistant commissioner he knows personally, first thing this morning. That’s clearly what must have happened because I just had a call from police headquarters. They want to question me as a witness. Now. This afternoon.’
The news editor noisily blew out his cheeks.
‘Christ almighty, Seb, what the fuck have you got yourself into here? This is going to be huge, and you’re right in the bloody middle of it. In fact, it sounds like you could be a material witness. That means I’ll have to pull you off the story.’ He paused, thinking furiously. ‘D’you know if the cops are going to put out a statement of any kind? Announce that they’ve pulled Meriel in on suspicion of murder?’
Seb stood up to leave. ‘I have no idea. If they do, I know she has a solicitor who’ll handle things for her. But you don’t need to wait for the police to announce anything, do you? I’ve just given you the exclusive, haven’t I? You can run this ahead of everyone else.’
Merryman nodded grimly as he too rose to his feet.
‘I suppose you’re right there; thanks to you we’re ahead of the pack.’ He shook his head. ‘Jesus . . . I’d better go see Peter Cox. Right now. I’ve no idea how we’re going to cover this. Meriel’s one of our own. As are you, you stupid bastard. Why couldn’t you keep it in your trousers? I warned you, didn’t I? I bloody warned you.’
The two men went out into the corridor. ‘Seriously, what about you, Seb?’ the news editor asked his reporter flatly. ‘Do you want us to sort you out a solicitor?’
Seb shook his head as he headed for the lifts.
‘No. I don’t want to add to the drama of this thing. I can handle it myself.’
‘Well, OK . . . call me if you change your mind. Don’t underestimate the police. They can be tricky bastards. I once knew a – Peter? PETER!’ The station manager had stepped out of his office a little further down the passage. He spun around, startled.
‘Bob? Christ, what’s up? Something serious happened?’
‘Serious?’ echoed Merryman. ‘Serious?’ He began to walk towards his boss. ‘Peter, you have absolutely no fucking idea.’
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Unlike Meriel, who remained sitting quite alone – but observed – Seb was questioned almost as soon as he arrived at police headquarters. He was shown straight into an interview room where Mark Thompson immediately joined him.
‘Hi, I’m DI Thompson,’ he said, shaking Seb’s hand. ‘This isn’t an interview under caution, Mr Richmond, so I’m not going to record it or ask anyone else to be present. We’ll need to do a formal interview with you at some point, get a few things on the record, but this afternoon you’re simply helping us with our inquiries. OK?’
Seb nodded. ‘That’s fine. But you’ll appreciate how extremely difficult this is for me, Inspector, given my close relationship with Meriel Kidd.’
‘Of course. That’s one of the reasons I want to keep this as informal as possible. But I re
ally need your co-operation, Mr Richmond. Are you willing to be completely open with me?’
Seb gave a weary shrug. ‘Look. I’ve thought this all through as best I can and I’ve decided that the only thing I can possibly do now is what I think is right. Dr Young was very useful last night in getting me to see things straight. And call me Seb, by the way.’
The detective sat down opposite.
‘Thank you, Seb, I will. Now . . . let me be quite frank with you. Miss Kidd is still awaiting questioning here. That’s because I wanted to talk to you first. So I’d like you to take me through it all, starting with how you stumbled across this manuscript of hers yesterday.’
Seb had barely finished going through the events leading to his discovery in the fuse box when the door opened and a uniformed constable poked his head into the room.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but the officer organising the search at the house is on the line. He says it’s important.’
The DI sighed. ‘Apologies, Seb, I have to take this. Constable, bring Mr Richmond here some tea, would you?’ He left the room.
Five minutes later he was back, thoughtful.
‘Well, well,’ he said, resuming his seat. ‘My men have discovered a second manuscript – another set of photocopies. They were in an envelope taped behind a radiator in the kitchen. It sounds to me as if they’re exactly the same as the ones you found yesterday. But I can’t understand why Miss Kidd would go to such lengths to duplicate her pages and then hide them. Can you shed any light on that?’
Seb have a short, humourless laugh. ‘Yes, I think I can. I had exactly the same question. Last night after I’d left the coroner I went back to Cathedral Crag to see Meriel. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I felt I owed her an explanation of what I’d done. It was a difficult conversation, as you might imagine. But during it she told me it wasn’t she who made these copies, let alone hid them. It was her husband. He did it without her knowledge, after he’d found the originals.’
DI Thompson sat up a little straighter. ‘Let me get this right. Cameron Bruton discovered the book and made the photocopies behind his wife’s back? When did she become aware he’d done that?’
Seb shook his head. ‘I’m not sure. But it was obvious she knew, because she told me she’d searched all over the house for them, without success.’
The detective sat in silence for some time.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll come back to this. Meanwhile, what about Miss Kidd’s relationship with her husband? You told Dr Young it was a pretty bad set-up.’
Seb went through what he knew about the Bruton marriage. When he’d finished, the DI put both hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling.
‘Right, let’s take stock here. So far, we have a relationship gone toxic, a wife so angry with her husband that she writes vengeful filth about murdering him, he then discovers it, duplicates it and hides it – and at some point, tells her what he’s done. Where’s the original diary, by the way? Any ideas?’
‘Meriel burned it.’
‘What? Why?’
For the first time during the interview, Seb looked distressed.
‘Last night she told me that when she realised that she had fallen in love with me . . . that I’d saved her, as she put it . . . she suddenly wanted to get rid of it. She said she wasn’t proud of what she’d written; in fact, she said she was deeply ashamed of it. So she burned it.’
The policeman looked at him with barely concealed sympathy. ‘I’m really sorry, Seb. Truly, I am. I can see all of this is proving extremely difficult for you. Your whole world’s turned upside down in the last twenty-four hours, hasn’t it?’
Seb stared miserably at the floor.
‘You could say that. This time yesterday I thought I’d found the woman I was going to marry. Now look at me. I’m helping in a murder inquiry that could see her jailed for life. And God knows what she’s going through right now.’
He suddenly looked up. ‘Is Meriel all right? She must be in a dreadful state. Christ, I feel awful about this . . . What a fucking mess.’
DI Thompson looked shrewdly at the man opposite him.
‘I wonder how well you really know this woman, Seb. Far from being in a state, as you put it, she’s remained remarkably calm under the circumstances. When I went to her house this morning to bring her in, she was cool as a cucumber.’
Before Seb could reply to that, the detective pressed on.
‘Now, I want you to tell me exactly what she told you about what happened on the boat that afternoon. Try to remember anything and everything she’s said about it.’
Seb nodded. ‘All right . . . Well . . . she’s always been quite straight about it with me. She said they had a row.’
‘So you knew at the inquest that she was lying – lying by omission. Because she never mentioned any such argument to the coroner.’
Seb looked slightly uncomfortable.
‘That’s right. But I didn’t think it was important . . . not at the time, anyway. I thought she was just, well, embarrassed that the last exchange she’d had with her husband was an unpleasant one.’
‘OK, Seb, that’s fair enough. Do you know what the row was about?’
‘Yes, I do. Meriel told Cameron that she wanted a separation, that she was leaving him. He got very angry and threatened her with a nasty divorce. A lot of mud-slinging. Bad PR for her career, all of that. But . . .’
Seb paused.
‘Go on. But what?’
‘Now I think there was more to it than that. A lot more. I think when she told him the marriage was over, he took the gloves off. Revealed to her he knew all about her diary, that he’d found it, taken copies and hidden them. I think that was the threat he made: that if she left him, and humiliated him, he’d retaliate, using The Night Book as grounds for divorce. The publicity would have been off the scale and it would certainly have finished Meriel’s career. She would have clearly understood that.’
‘Hmm.’ DI Thompson stroked his chin. ‘That’s an interesting theory, Seb. But why do you believe it was out there on the boat that Bruton told her he’d found the book? Why not at some earlier point?’
Seb leaned forward impatiently. ‘Because I would have had an inkling. Meriel told me that very same morning – when we were in bed together – that she was going to ask Cameron for a divorce when she got home. If he’d already threatened her with the book, she would have been far less confident about doing that. She would have said it was more complicated than I realised, or something. Plus, I’d managed to reassure her that the publicity surrounding a divorce wouldn’t be all that bad. If she’d known Cameron had found her notebook, she would definitely have argued with me about that. Even if she didn’t actually tell me about the book.’
The detective nodded slowly.
‘You might be right. In fact, my hunch is that you are. But it’s all still entirely circumstantial; actually, it’s closer to conjecture. The prosecuting police officer is going to need something a lot more solid to throw into the mix. Which brings us on to the business of the missing watch. Has Miss Kidd said anything to you about that?’
Seb sighed. ‘No. Not really. I knew nothing about it until the inquest. Which was odd, because a few days earlier Meriel had sat next to me going through a box full of her husband’s personal valuables – gold cufflinks, tie pins, that kind of thing – and she never mentioned the Rolex, or that she’d lost it. Later, when I asked her why she hadn’t, she said it was simply because she was embarrassed to have mislaid something so valuable.’
‘Did you believe that?’
‘No, I didn’t. I thought she was lying.’
‘Any theories?’
Seb nodded. ‘Yes. It ties in with something else Meriel didn’t tell me about; her last exchange with Cameron – you know, that stuff about him asking her the time. After the inquest I asked her about that, too, and she said she hadn’t thought it was important.’
‘But you think otherwise.’
‘I do. I think her reluctance to tell anyone – including me – about Cameron asking her the time, and then her dissembling over the watch, are definitely connected in some way. Last night I directly accused her of lying about all of it. In fact, I went on to ask her outright if she’d killed her husband.’
‘And?’
‘She told me to clear out.’
DI Thompson examined his fingernails.
‘An option that won’t be available to Miss Kidd when I question her.’
The policeman stood up.
‘Thank you, Seb. You’ve been extremely helpful under difficult circumstances. I’ll be in touch.’
Seb looked surprised.
‘I can go?’
‘For now. As I said earlier, we’ll need to conduct a more formal interview with you, on the record. I suggest you have your solicitor present on that occasion.’
‘Why? Should I be worried?’
DI Thompson offered Seb what he intended to be an encouraging smile as they left the room together.
‘Not specifically, no. But as I believe the coroner may have already said to you, if this matter comes to trial, I think it extremely likely that you will be called to give evidence. In fact, I’m certain of it.’
‘Evidence for the prosecution, you mean.’
The inspector turned around in the doorway and stared at him.
‘Oh yes. You’ll be their star witness.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Seb knew the game was up the moment he left the building. Over towards the main entrance of the car park he could see glaring lights, two or three of them, on tall metal stands, and as a marked police car swung through the gates, a few flashbulbs popped.
The pack had descended. Merryman must have broken the story already.
Seb looked at his watch. It was almost three o’clock. If he got to his car quickly he’d catch the bulletin at the top of the hour.
He was just in time. The station jingle was playing as he switched the radio on, and then the voice of one of his colleagues filled the little car.
‘The news headlines at three. Within the last hour Cumbria police have confirmed that they are questioning Lake District FM’s Meriel Kidd over the drowning earlier this month of her husband, millionaire businessman Cameron Bruton. Mr Bruton’s body was recovered from Ullswater after what an inquest later ruled had been an accidental drowning.
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