by Cara Hunter
She consults her map. The first house on the list is in the street opposite. A pile of bikes outside, wheelie bins stuck anyhow across the front garden. She rings the bell and stands, waiting, until the door opens.
‘DC Verity Everett,’ she says, holding up her warrant card. ‘Could I ask you a few questions?’
* * *
* * *
Interview with Robert Gardiner, conducted at St Aldate’s Police Station, Oxford
5 May 2017, 2.44 p.m.
In attendance, DI A. Fawley, DC A. Baxter, P. Rose (solicitor)
AF: Mr Gardiner, thank you for making time to come in. I apologize for the short notice. We wanted to talk to you because we have some additional questions in relation to the death of your wife.
RG: [silence]
AF: Mr Gardiner?
RG: I’m waiting to see what you have to say. I can’t imagine what you could possibly ask that you haven’t already asked me a hundred times over. The answers aren’t going to be any different. But go ahead – knock yourself out.
AF: As you know, we constructed our timeline for that day based on the fact that several witnesses said they saw your wife at Wittenham that morning. We know now they were mistaken. Obviously this means we have to re-question a number of people about where they were. Including you.
RG: So that’s it, is it - you’re going to try to stiff me with this? What about that bloke – Harper, whatever his name is?
AF: We expect to prefer charges shortly in relation to the young woman and child found in the cellar at 33 Frampton Road. We do not, as yet, have any conclusive evidence to suggest there is a connection between those offences and the death of your wife.
RG: So in the absence of any other options you’re going to have another run-up at me, are you? Just like last time?
AF: New information has come to light, Mr Gardiner -
RG: Right, so now you seriously think I killed Hannah? That I abandoned my own son?
AF: I didn’t say that.
RG: You didn’t bloody have to.
AF: Look, we’re trying to find out what happened. And to do that we need your help. Your cooperation.
PR: My client is more than willing to assist you in every reasonable way. Although I take it as read that you are questioning him as a witness, not as a suspect, given that you have not cautioned him?
AF: For the present, yes. So, let’s go over what happened again.
RG: How many more times. I left the flat at 7.15 and caught the 7.57 to Reading –
AF: Not that morning, Mr Gardiner. The night before. Tuesday June 23rd.
RG: But you know Hannah was alive that morning. You don’t even need to take my word for it – you heard her yourself on that voicemail. What difference does it make what happened the night before?
AF: All the same, I’d like you to answer the question.
RG: [sighs]
As far as I remember I collected Toby from the nursery on my way back from work. Must have been about 5.00. So I’d have got home about 5.30. I’d been in a meeting with some German investors most of the day so I was pretty knackered. We just had a quiet night in.
AF: Can anyone corroborate that?
RG: No. Like I said, it was just the three of us. Me, Hannah and Toby.
AF: Your childminder – she wasn’t there with you?
RG: No. She left about 7.00.
AF: Was your wife in when you got back?
RG: No. She didn’t get back till about 8.00.
AF: And how was she?
RG: What does that mean?
AF: Happy? Anxious? Tired?
RG: She was a bit preoccupied I suppose. She had a lot on her mind. The interview the following day – there was a lot riding on it.
AB: The interview at Wittenham? With Malcolm Jervis?
RG: Yes. You know that. We’ve been through it countless times. It was a big deal for her. A big story. She’d been working on it for months.
AF: So she’d been in Summertown that afternoon. At the BBC.
RG: As far as I know, yes.
AF: As far as you know?
RG: Look, what is this? Is there something you’re not telling me?
AF: We’re just trying to establish the facts, Mr Gardiner. There’s nowhere else she could have been?
RG: She told me she was in Summertown.
AB: When she got back?
RG: Right.
AB: At eight o’clock.
RG: Right.
AF: So it would surprise you to learn that she left the BBC offices at 2.45 that afternoon and didn’t go back?
RG: What are you talking about? This is the first I’ve heard about this.
AF: We had no reason to check before. As I said. Now we do.
AB: We have also ascertained that your wife’s car was picked up by number-plate recognition in the Cowley Road at just after 4.30 that afternoon.
RG: [silence]
AF: Do you know what she was doing there?
RG: No, I don’t.
AF: No other story she was working on?
RG: Not that I know of.
AF: There’s also a call from a pay-as-you-go mobile to your wife’s office line that afternoon. About an hour before she left. Do you know anything about that?
RG: No. I told you. And in any case it could have been anyone – some member of the public with a story. Anyone. One of those protesters at the camp. They all had that sort of phone.
AB: So why go to Cowley?
RG: How the hell should I know?
AF: I’m sorry to have to raise this, Mr Gardiner, but your son. Toby. He’s not your biological child, is he?
AB: We’ve spoken to a witness who told us you are unable to have children –
RG: What? How dare you – that’s personal. It’s nothing to do with any of this.
AF: I’m not so sure about that, Mr Gardiner. If you’re not Toby’s father, who is?
RG: I have no idea.
AF: Your wife had an affair?
RG: [laughs]
You’re so far off it’s pathetic. That’s your theory, is it? That I beat my wife to death because I found out she had a mystery bit of rough on the Cowley Road who’d fathered her child? And then – presumably – I dumped Toby at Wittenham because he wasn’t mine?
AB: Is that what happened – your wife had an affair?
RG: No, of course she bloody didn’t. OK, yes, I can’t have kids. I’ve never made a secret of that, though I don’t go about broadcasting it on sodding Facebook either.
AF: Why didn’t you disclose it to us in 2015, when Hannah went missing?
RG: Because a) it was nothing at all to do with it, and b) it was none of your bloody business. And both of those, incidentally, still apply.
AF: So Toby is adopted?
RG: No, he was conceived by donor insemination. Hannah had no problem with that.
AF: But it had caused problems with other relationships, hadn’t it?
RG: You’ve been questioning my old girlfriends?
[turns to Mr Rose]
Are they allowed to do that?
PR: Is there anything else, Inspector? It strikes me Mr Gardiner has had more than enough for one day. He’s still coming to terms with the discovery of his wife’s body. In particularly gruesome circumstances.
AF: I’m afraid we’re not through yet. Analysis of the blanket found wrapped round your wife’s body bears traces of your DNA. Yours, hers and your son’s. That’s all. No one else’s. Can you explain that?
RG: [silence]
AF: Can you explain that, Mr Gardiner? Did you ever own a blanket like that?
RG: I have no idea.
AF: It was dark green with a tarta
n pattern in red. In case that jogs your memory.
[silence]
RG: The only thing I can think of is the picnic blanket she used to have in the back of the car. I thought we’d got rid of it but it may have still been in the boot.
AB: What did that look like?
RG: I really can’t remember. Some dark colour. Green maybe.
AF: There was also fingerprint evidence. When we found your wife’s body there was tape wrapped round it. Packing tape.
PR: Is this really necessary, Inspector? This sort of detail is extremely distressing.
AF: I’m sorry, Mr Rose, but these are questions we have to ask. There were fingerprints on the tape, Mr Gardiner, but most of them are too smudged to give a clear result. But one of those is a partial match to yours.
PR: A partial match? How many points are we talking about here?
AF: Six, but as I said –
PR: Oh for heaven’s sake, my prints are probably a six-point match. You’d need eight at least to even get to first base, Inspector. As well you know.
AF: Are you a violent man, Mr Gardiner?
RG: What? Not this again. No, of course I’m not violent.
AF: Your wife apparently had a bruise on her face a few weeks before she disappeared.
RG: [laughs]
Who told you that? Beth bloody Dyer? Had to be. She’s a right little stirrer – Dyer by name, dire by bloody nature. It was Toby, if you must know. He caught Hannah on the face with one of his toys. It was an accident. An occupational hazard with a small child. If either of you had a kid you would know that.
AB: Detective Sergeant Quinn also saw a bruise on your childminder’s arm yesterday.
RG: Look, is she pressing charges or something?
AB: We will be bringing her in to make a statement. It’s possible she may wish to take it further.
RG: [silence]
I barely touched her. Really. She just pissed me off, that’s all.
[silence]
Look, she’d just told me she was pregnant. She said it was mine – denied ever having slept with anyone else. Well, even you lot can put two and two together and make four on that one.
AB: So Miss Walker is your girlfriend.
RG: She’s not my girlfriend.
[silence]
We slept together. Once. OK? Have you ever done anything really stupid when you were pissed and depressed and regretted it afterwards? No? Well, go figure.
AF: So when she tried to pass off the child as yours you lost your temper?
RG: I was angry. I don’t make a habit of it.
AF: Really? It strikes me you have an unusually short fuse.
AB: Is that what happened in 2015? Did Hannah ‘piss you off’?
RG: Don’t be bloody ridiculous.
AF: Or was it something else – did something happen to Toby – something you thought was her fault?
RG: [silence]
I’m going to say this now, and then I am going to go home to look after my son, and unless you arrest me I don’t think there’s anything you can do to stop me. The last time I saw my wife was 7.15 in the morning on June 24th 2015. She was alive and well. I never hit her, I have no idea who killed her and I don’t know how her body ended up in Frampton Road. Is that clear?
AF: Perfectly.
PR: Thank you, gentlemen, we’ll see ourselves out.
* * *
* * *
Quinn is waiting outside when I leave. He was watching on the video feed. He seems jumpy. Uncharacteristically so.
‘So what do you think?’ he asks as we watch Gardiner and Rose disappear down the corridor.
‘What do I think? I think he’s angry, defensive and unpredictable. But I’m still not sure he’s a murderer.’
Quinn nods. ‘I can see him killing the wife in a fit of rage, but dumping the kid? That’s a big stretch.’
‘I know. Walsh or Harper, yes, but not Gardiner. But Gardiner’s the only one who definitely knew where Hannah was going that day.’
‘Actually, boss,’ says Baxter, coming out and closing the door behind him, ‘I’m not so sure about that. I checked the spec of Hannah’s Mini. She had satnav. She could easily have loaded the directions to Wittenham into the system the night before. In which case –’
Quinn throws up his hands. ‘In which case any Tom, Dick or Harry who got into that car could have known where she was going. Jesus. Back to sodding square one.’
‘Though in that case, my money would be on Walsh rather than Harper,’ continues Baxter evenly. ‘Harper’s never even owned a PC as far as I can tell, never mind a car new enough to have satnav. He probably wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘OK,’ I say, ‘get on to Gislingham and ask him to check if Walsh has a satnav in his car. And ask him to cover off the Cowley Road angle when he gets back – see if anyone there recognizes Hannah. It’s a very long shot after all this time, but it’s a box we need to tick, all the same.’
‘Right,’ says Quinn, turning to go, but I hold him back and turn instead to Baxter.
‘Can you do that?’
Baxter nods and starts off down the corridor, though not without a quizzical glance back over his shoulder.
* * *
*
Once he’s out of earshot I turn to Quinn. ‘Two things. First, where the hell is Pippa Walker – I thought you were bringing her in?’
He blinks. ‘I’m on it.’
‘Well, get a move on. And second, sort out whatever it is you have going on with Erica Somer. I don’t particularly care what you do, Quinn, or who, for that matter, but I’m not having it getting in the way of this investigation. Don’t make me say it twice.’
‘Right,’ he says. And odd though it sounds, it’s almost as if he’s relieved.
* * *
* * *
At 4.00 p.m. the Cowley Road is just getting into its stride. Stacks of exotic fruit in boxes, someone sweeping the pavement outside the Polish grocer’s. Kids and bikes, mums and pushchairs, a couple of Rastas smoking cross-legged on the pavement, an old lady bent double over a floral shopping trolley, a mangy-looking terrier out on its own. Gislingham locates the number-plate recognition camera that picked up Hannah’s car and looks back down the parade. Three betting shops, a 24/7 convenience store and half a dozen restaurants – Slovak, vegan, Lebanese, Nepalese, Vietnamese. He’s prepared to bet most of them weren’t here two years ago. But there’s one place that was. The traditional family butcher that’s probably been there a generation, never mind a decade. Pies and sausages in the window, an old-fashioned scalloped canopy and an even more old-fashioned life-size plastic butcher standing cheerily outside, hands on hips. Gislingham edges his way to the front of the queue and asks for a quick word.
‘What’s the problem, mate?’ says the man, eyeing Gislingham’s credentials as he trims a joint of beef, expertly turning, cutting, turning, cutting.
‘No problem. No problem at all. I just wondered whether you’d seen this woman?’
He unfolds a picture of Hannah Gardiner. The one they’d used at the time. She’s standing with her back to a gate; her long dark hair is tied in a ponytail, she’s wearing a navy quilted jacket and there’s a view of fields and sheep and mountains. Somewhere in the Lake District.
‘I remember her – that’s the woman who went missing, right?’
‘You remember her – round here? When was that?’
The man looks apologetic. ‘No, sorry, mate. I meant I remember that picture. It was all over the papers.’
‘Do you think you ever saw her, though? Her car was picked up on the traffic cameras along here, the afternoon before she disappeared. The car was a bright orange Mini Clubman, but she may have come along here on foot as well.’
‘But that’s at least a year ago
, isn’t it?’
‘Two, actually. June 23rd 2015.’
The man pushes the cuts of fat to one side and reaches for the string. ‘Sorry, but no chance. Not that long ago.’
‘Is there anywhere round here you can think of she might have been going? She was a journalist.’
The man shrugs. ‘Take your pick. Could be anything. Have you looked at the paper for that week? Oxford Mail? Might give you a clue.’
Now why the hell didn’t I think of that, Gislingham says to himself. ‘Cheers, mate – really helpful.’
The man looks up. ‘No worries. Always happy to help the police. Do you want some sausages before you go? On the house?’
* * *
*
Back out on the pavement, Gislingham tucks a packet of the house speciality into his jacket pocket and calls Quinn.
‘Yeah, what is it?’
‘I think I may have an idea on Hannah Gardiner. I’m coming back to the station to check it out.’
‘OK, whatever.’
Gislingham frowns. ‘You all right? You sound a bit off.’
There’s a silence, then, ‘Look, if you must know, I think I fucked up.’
So that’s what it is, thinks Gislingham. Not the Erica thing. Or perhaps not just the Erica thing. He waits. Wouldn’t do to sound too keen. Or too gloating.
‘That childminder of Gardiner’s,’ says Quinn. ‘Pippa Walker. You met her too, didn’t you?’
For one horrible moment Gislingham thinks he knows what Quinn’s about to say – but surely even he wouldn’t have –
‘You didn’t – tell me you didn’t.’
‘No, of course I bloody didn’t. It’s something else. I let her stay.’
‘What do you mean, you “let her stay”?’
‘Gardiner had chucked her out. She had nowhere else to go so I let her stay.’
‘At your flat? Jesus, Quinn –’
‘I know, I know – look, nothing happened, I swear –’
‘That’s not the point though, is it? You need to get her out of there – pronto.’