by Sibel Hodge
‘Can you describe your relationship with Max? Were there any problems between you?’
‘No! Of course not. I wouldn’t have married him if there were problems. We were very happy.’
‘You said Russell Stiles gatecrashed the reception. Can you go through in detail again what happened?’
She told me how she’d been standing by the pond at the bottom of the garden, getting some air because she was hot, stealing a quick moment alone in the hubbub of the party, when Stiles appeared. By the time she’d noticed him, he’d already climbed over the post-and-rail fence and was walking towards her.
‘What was he wearing that day?’
She gave a slight shake of her head. ‘Um . . . I think he had jeans and a T-shirt on.’
‘Do you remember the exact conversation between you?’
She took another sip of water. ‘He asked if I was sure I knew what I was doing. He said Max couldn’t be trusted. He asked if I was happy and said it wasn’t too late for us to get back together. He told me he still loved me, and he wouldn’t stop loving me.’
‘Did he give a reason why he thought Max couldn’t be trusted?’
‘No. I was a bit . . . well, shocked, I suppose. We were just supposed to be friends now. He kept sending texts asking how I was and that he wanted me back, and I replied, but I didn’t encourage him. I just wanted him to be as happy as I was.’ She sucked in a deep breath, waited a moment, then continued. ‘Then Max appeared and told Russell to leave and said he wasn’t welcome.’
‘What did Russell say to that? How did he react? Did he get angry?’
‘Um . . . he was angry and emotional and he was slurring his words because he was drunk. Then he looked at me and said, “Are you staying?” Which was just a weird thing to say.’
‘How did you respond?’
‘Of course, I said I was staying. I kind of laughed with disbelief and told him it was my wedding reception. Max was furious. Then he said to Max that he deserved everything he got and he should watch his back. Max tried to go for Russell. I stepped in between them, and then Russell climbed back over the fence. We watched him go into the woods, and then Leo came out and asked us what had happened. Leo went into the woods to make sure Russell had gone, and when he came back, he said there was no sign of him.’
‘What did Max do after that?’
‘He was fuming, but he didn’t want it to spoil our celebrations. He put his arm around me and said, “Let’s forget about this for the rest of the day and enjoy it.” He also mentioned something about getting an injunction against Russell to stop him contacting me.’
‘Did you ever pursue an injunction?’
‘No. Max was stressed about something going on at work and he was busy with that, and I suppose I didn’t take it that seriously. I’d known Russell for years and I didn’t think he would do anything to hurt . . .’ She let the sentence drift into thin air, as if unsure how to finish it. Her eyes shone with tears. ‘Do you think he did this? Murdered Max?’
‘Do you?’
‘I wouldn’t have ever thought so, but . . . now I’ve had time to go over what happened that night, what I saw, there was something familiar about the way the man moved, and his height and build. Although he was wearing the balaclava, I think . . . I think it could’ve been Russell.’
‘Can you walk me through again exactly what happened that night?’
She closed her eyes, lashes fluttering against her skin. Then she took a deep breath. ‘It was about midnight. Max was working in his office, and I ran a bath. While I was waiting for it to fill, I popped in to the office and Max was studying a document on his laptop, listening to music. We had a quick chat. He said he would be working for a bit longer and then going to bed. I gave him a kiss on the cheek, then I went into the en-suite and got in the bath.’
‘Did you leave the door to his office open or did you shut it?’
‘It was open.’
‘What about the door to your bedroom and the en-suite. Were they open or closed?’
‘The door to our bedroom was open. I shut the bathroom door to stop the steam going into the bedroom.’
‘So could you hear the music coming from Max’s laptop when you were in the bath?’
‘Yes, it was quite loud. He turned it up after I went out.’
‘OK, so what happened next?’
‘I got in the bath and fell asleep. When I woke up it was cold.’
‘Do you often fall asleep in the bath?’
‘Yes, all the time.’
‘Do you always take a bath at that time or does it vary?’
‘It varies. Sometimes it’s earlier if I’m tired. But I always have one before I go to bed.’
‘Who would know that was part of your nightly routine?’
‘I don’t know. I probably mentioned it to Vicky in the past, maybe Sasha, too. Russell knew I always used to do that when we were together.’
‘OK, what next?’
‘Um . . . I let the water out of the bath, dried myself and wrapped a towel around me, and walked into the bedroom, but Max still wasn’t in bed, so I walked through the bedroom and into the hall, intending to go into the office to check on him.’
‘Check on him?’
‘Well, to see if he’d finished and was coming to bed. And . . .’ Her hands shot up and cupped her mouth, eyes wide with fear, as if reliving the moment.
‘Take your time. You’re doing great.’
She bunched her fists together under her chin. ‘I . . . I got almost as far as the stairs. Then I saw a man coming out of the office with a knife in his hand.’
‘It couldn’t have been a woman you saw that night?’
‘Um . . . I don’t know. It’s possible. They were wearing a bulky black jacket. Probably the same height as me. I just assumed it was a man.’
‘Can you describe the person again for me, please?
‘Yes, they were average height, average build, I suppose, and dressed in black, with a balaclava on, wearing gloves and blue plastic shoe covers. And now . . . now I do think it could’ve been Russell. He had the same colour eyes.’
‘He had brown eyes?’
‘Yes, I saw them through the—’ She motioned around her eyes in a circular movement. ‘The bit that was cut out for the eyes. I froze for a second and then ran back through the bedroom and into the bathroom. I locked the door and climbed out the window, on to the roof of the orangery. I must’ve lost my towel as I got through. Then I ran into the woods at the back of the house and towards the nearest neighbour. Gloria, Mrs Downes, she has the same post-and-rail type fence as most of the properties there, so it’s quite low. I climbed over it into her back garden and banged on the door that leads to the kitchen. She let me in and called the police.’
‘While you were climbing through the window, did you notice whether the intruder tried to open the bathroom door?’
‘I don’t think so. But I was so scared, and it all happened so quickly. They might’ve done.’
‘What happened earlier in the day?’
She took another sip of water before she answered. ‘Max went into Burbeck Developments for a meeting. He left about nine-thirty and got back about six. I cooked some pasta and we ate at about eight. Then we . . .’ Her cheeks flushed. ‘We had sex. In the kitchen. And afterwards, we watched a DVD in the lounge. It finished about eleven, then Max went upstairs to the office to work. He said he had a few more things to prepare for another meeting, and I watched the TV until about midnight, before going to have a bath.’
‘The curtains in the office were open when the police arrived. Are they usually left open at night?’
‘Yes. Apart from our bedroom, we often leave most of the curtains open at night. We only overlook the woods.’
‘What were you doing that day when Max was at work?’
‘I was working on my novel.’
‘Do you remember anything else that might be helpful?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
She finished reading, glanced up, and nodded.
I slid a pen across the desk and pointed to everywhere she needed to sign.
Her right hand lifted slightly, hovering in the air for a second before fluttering towards the box of tissues. She took one, wiped her nose delicately with it, and balled it in her fist, then picked up the pen with her left hand and signed it.
I checked out Malcolm Briggs, the gardener, on our databases. He’d been convicted of drink-driving twenty years before, and according to his details, he was sixty-five, short, and had blue eyes – as far away from Alissa’s description of the intruder as you could get. Not only that, he had a solid alibi. On the afternoon of the murder, he’d been rushed into the same hospital Alissa had been taken to for an emergency appendectomy, but had suffered a heart attack on the operating table. After a quick visit to the ICU, I discovered he was too weak to speak to us, so I left a message with his wife, asking for him to contact us when he’d recovered. That just left the other member of staff, Brenda Johnson, although as a cleaner she had a legitimate reason to have been in all areas of the house.
She sat in the same interview room three hours later. She was fifty-two, but looked much older. Her hair was dyed jet black with silvery roots poking through. She had the lines of a smoker around her mouth, giving her a harsh look, but when she spoke her voice was soft and friendly, her eyes sad pools of blue. She’d already given her fingerprints, and a DNA swab had been taken when she arrived at the station.
‘Anything I can do to help,’ she said. ‘It’s just horrific. You don’t think something like that’s going to happen to someone you know.’
‘I believe you worked for Max and his family for a long time as a cleaner, is that correct?’
‘Yes. I started working for Max’s parents ten years ago, cleaning twice a week. They were a lovely couple. Rich, you know, but they weren’t snobby with it. They’d always give me little gifts. They were very thoughtful. Then, when they died a few years ago, Max decided to move back into the family home and he kept me on.’
‘And when did Alissa move into the house?’
‘About a year ago.’
‘Being a cleaner means you often get to witness things behind closed doors no one else sees.’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’ She gave me a grim smile. ‘You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve had to clear up, or seen, or heard over the years! People often think cleaners are invisible, I swear.’
‘So how would you describe Max and Alissa’s relationship?’
Her forehead crinkled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, how did they get on? Did you notice any arguments between them lately? Hear anything or see anything out of the ordinary?’
She inhaled a puff of air. ‘Are you saying you think Alissa had something to do with Max’s death?’
‘No. But we need to ask these questions. Build up a picture, you know.’
‘Oh, right. I suppose the partner is always the most likely suspect, aren’t they? But Max and Alissa were head over heels for each other. Doted on each other. Alissa worked from home, writing her novel, and Max did, too, occasionally, so I got to see them quite a bit at the house when I was there. I never saw them argue. They were . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Well, they were just happy and in love. I don’t know what else I can tell you.’
‘How would you describe Max?’
‘I was his cleaner, not his friend.’
‘I know, but what were your impressions of him?’
‘He could be a little bit arrogant, I suppose, but he was always kind to me. Always friendly and jokey.’
‘And Alissa?’
Her face brightened into a smile. ‘She’s a real sweetie. You know those few genuinely lovely people? That’s Alissa. Always kind and smiling and polite. She looked after her mum single-handedly for a long time after the stroke. Put her studies on hold. That’s the kind of person she was. Warm-hearted.’
‘Did you notice anyone suspicious hanging around the house?’
‘No.’
‘How about anything odd that happened with Max or Alissa recently? Anything that seemed out of character? It doesn’t matter how small or inconsequential you think it might be.’
She pursed her lips, thinking. ‘Well, Max seemed a bit stressed about work. When I went into the office to clean last week and he was in there working, he told me not to bother. He actually snapped at me, which is something he’d never done before.’
‘Right. And anything with Alissa?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Oh, wait, there was something, but it’s not really odd, I suppose. She always used to make me lunch when I was working there and we’d sit down together and have a little chat. But she stopped doing that when they came back from Australia. I mean, she was still lovely and friendly, but . . . she was just busy, organising the finishing touches for the reception, settling into married life, writing her book. But I missed that. Missed our little chats.’
‘Is there anything else you can think of?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Well, thanks very much for your time.’
She clutched my arm. ‘You will find out who did this, won’t you?’
I smiled reassuringly. ‘We’re doing everything we can.’
THE OTHER ONE
Chapter 16
The only thing I was any good at was art. It was the only way I could express everything bad inside. I hardly talked to the other kids at school, but I’d learned by then not to shout at everyone. I’d learned by watching and listening to all the others. How they ate in the canteen. How they laughed. What they talked about. I could probably hold a conversation and pass for normal, but it didn’t interest me. I was just keeping to myself, biding my time, waiting for some way to escape everything.
But art was my way of talking. It was something I was in control of. I’d tried to stop eating meat at home after Lulabelle’s calf was killed, but Dad forced me to. Even though I threw up every time. He made me clear up the sick and sent me to the cupboard. It was a constant battle that I knew I wouldn’t win. He seemed to take great delight in sitting at the table, making me force every mouthful down my closed-up throat, watching me retch, knowing it wouldn’t be long before it came back up again. But it didn’t stop me trying to refuse every day, and sometimes he’d shove the food in my mouth himself, holding my jaw open with one strong hand, shovelling in meat with the other, until I choked and spluttered. The thought of eating animal flesh after what I’d seen was unbearable, and the only satisfaction I had was when I vomited on him.
So even though I couldn’t control what went inside my body, through my eyes and ears and mouth, I could control what came out of my head. Mostly.
My art teacher at secondary school was called Mrs Tucker. She looked at me differently from the other teachers. They just saw a sullen, uncommunicative kid who’d never amount to anything, so they’d stopped trying. If you weren’t in the boffin brigade, they weren’t interested. And they didn’t bother to root around to find the cause of my weirdness. But Mrs Tucker smiled at me, put her arm around me in class as she examined my work, gave me words of encouragement, and slipped me chocolate bars for my undernourished body in the canteen during lunch. She tried to get me to talk, to open up about my home life, but what would I say? And my mum’s voice still echoed in my head: Never talk about what goes on behind closed doors! I’d grown to hate Mum as much as him, for her weakness, for letting the badness in, for not caring.
There was an art competition at school and Mrs Tucker announced with excitement that we could work on our entries as part of our homework and to submit t
hem to her by the end of the week. The prize was a voucher for an art supply shop.
I hadn’t gone past what I call my ‘dark art’ stage – the drawings of people with no faces, self-portraits with me as the devil, couples screaming as they were devoured in flames – but I knew by then that interpreting the boring still life of a fruit bowl as something warped would attract more unwanted attention. And I didn’t need that, thanks. The school calling my parents again and complaining about my antisocial behaviour was the last thing I wanted. The punishment at home wasn’t worth it.
I wanted to win. For once in my life, I wanted to achieve something more than just simply surviving each day. Even if I won, though, Dad would never let me spend the voucher on something I actually wanted. He’d think it was frivolous. Good money thrown down the drain on things that don’t matter! (Hello? What about all the whisky?!) I could get away with never telling him, but how would I get into the nearest town to spend the voucher? The only time I left the house was with Mum, when she made me help her with grocery shopping. Or to school, when the bus picked me up at the end of the road and deposited me back at that madhouse at the end of the day. Still, if I could win, at least I would’ve beaten him somehow. And that was all the incentive I needed.
I worked on my project in my bedroom at night when they thought I was asleep. I no longer interrupted their fights. They were both as bad as each other, feeding on the other’s insecurities. Both looking for someone to blame and usually coming up with me as the No. 1 reason. Never doing anything to end the constant violent loop. So they were welcome to each other. It wasn’t my problem any more, and I wasn’t going to intervene and get stuffed in the cupboard again. Or worse. Fuck that! You shouldn’t go round having kids if you didn’t even want them in the first place, so there was no loyalty left inside me. If they were on a game show, there’d be a loud buzzer squawking over their heads constantly, saying Loser! Loser! Loser!