Renée’s pen stops in mid-air, Parnell’s eyebrows hit the strip lighting.
‘I saw them argue and Gina pushed her down the stairs, or maybe Maryanne fell down the stairs, I couldn’t say for sure from where I was standing.’ She puts her head in her hands, talks to the table. ‘Maryanne must have hit her head because there was blood, quite a bit. And I panicked, I legged it. I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought Gina would blame me for suggesting she see Maryanne and I just wanted out of there. But Maryanne was definitely moving when I left. I know I shouldn’t have run off and I’ve lived with it ever since, but she was alive, she was trying to sit up.’ Her voice gets smaller. ‘The papers said she was strangled though, cuts on her throat and stuff. I don’t know anything about that. I promise you, I don’t.’
Renée jots a few notes down while Parnell digests this, pushing his chair back from the table, giving himself more room to absorb the enormity of what they’ve just heard. If he’s waiting for Saskia to fill the silence though, he’s out of luck. She sits patiently waiting for his reaction, waiting for his judgement.
‘Two questions,’ he says eventually. ‘Firstly, you confirmed to us that you were having a relationship with Nate Hicks but your colleague, Naomi Berry, seemed surprised by this.’ He pulls out a piece of paper from Renée’s stack. ‘“Incredulous” is the word my officer wrote. So do you still stand by that claim?’
I don’t think Ben would have used the word ‘incredulous.’ He’s more of a ‘fucking gobsmacked’ kind of guy.
Saskia flaps a hand. ‘Oh God, that. No, I don’t stand by it. I wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole.’
‘So why did he say it?’ asks Parnell.
Completely deadpan. ‘Because he’s an idiot. But a loyal idiot, to Gina and Patrick Mackie. He says and does anything to make sure he stays in favour.’ She rubs her thumb and first two fingers together, symbolising money. ‘It pays him to.’
‘Would that include strangling Maryanne and dumping her body by Leamington Square Gardens?’
Saskia shrugs, doesn’t commit. ‘I don’t know. Maybe?’ A harsh laugh. ‘Do you wanna hear something funny? That affair bullshit, that was all his idea, independent of Gina. He didn’t know Gina was going to walk into your station and give you a load of crap about IVF forums and what-not. He thought by making up that story about us, he was deflecting the attention away from Gina and putting the spotlight on himself. He called me after you left their house that day to make sure I said the same thing if you asked. He was so fucking pleased with himself. What an absolute tool.’
But the question is, would he want to deflect attention onto himself if he killed Maryanne? The answer’s ‘quite possibly’ – Nate Hicks’ life, his lifestyle, probably his whole self-esteem is built on staying in favour with his wife and her father, and while Gina played a great role, casting Nate as man of the house and her, the harassed middle-class mummy, it’s pretty obvious now who calls the shots in that relationship.
Renée pulls her up. ‘So you’re admitting you lied to us about Nate Hicks? That you obstructed our investigation?’
‘Yes.’ A long hiss like a snake.
Parnell scrapes his chair forward, closes in again. ‘You see, you’ve lied about a lot of things, Saskia. Mainly to protect Gina Hicks too, which brings me to my second question – why should we believe you now? Why are you telling us this now?’
A tension grips her whole body and I feel myself stiffen. Sympathy pains. ‘Because I know I’m a loose end to them. Gina might have been happy sending that little runt round with a threatening message, but Patrick Mackie?’ There’s a tremor around her mouth but she leaves the rest unsaid.
Parnell tries to throw a crumb of comfort. ‘I’ve seen him, Saskia, he weighs less than Renée here. He’s not the man you remember, trust me.’
She taps her chest. ‘Doesn’t matter if his body’s broken, it’s what’s in his heart – and there’s nothing there, trust me, just a black void.’ Parnell opens his mouth but Saskia’s not finished. ‘But I’m also telling you because a very long time ago, Maryanne was my friend, and she didn’t deserve to die. She didn’t deserve me running out on her. I didn’t help her that day but maybe I can help her now.’
Parnell lets out a pained sigh. ‘We still don’t know who killed her though, Saskia. What you’ve given us isn’t quite enough. Ridiculous as it sounds, Gina Hicks could claim Maryanne walked out of her house and straight into the path of a violent stranger. It’s called reasonable doubt and it’s the good friend of the guilty.’
‘Then do your job better.’ Her voices pulses with anger. Anger at herself. At Parnell. At the sheer misfortune of landing the receptionist job that led to this miserable mess. ‘Find out what happened to Maryanne or we’ll both have failed her, won’t we?’ Her eyes well up again. ‘And take it from me, Detective Parnell, it’s a not a nice feeling.’
As I slip out of the observation room and into the lift before Parnell catches me, I consider Saskia’s words and can’t help but agree.
Failing those who’ve put their trust in you is not a nice feeling at all.
28
‘I’ll be honest, it’s not looking good, Gina.’
Silence.
Parnell, king of the understatement, sits across from a rigid Gina Hicks the next morning. Renée simmers gently beside him, ready to jump in with a barbed word or a subtle knife twist as per the interview plan. Felix Whiteley looks like every other extortionate brief I’ve locked horns with, bloated in speech and bloated in stature, with an air of cool arrogance masking a hawk-eyed hyper-vigilance.
I’m back in the observation room, this time with Seth and Ben. Flowers sticks his head in occasionally, asks if there’s ‘anything juicy’ to report.
The short answer’s no. Nothing juicy at all, unless you count Whiteley’s fruit smoothie. Smoothies, in fact – plural. One for him and one for Gina. That’s what ￡650 an hour gets you – a radioactive-looking Fibre-Blast and a hairbrush by the looks of Gina’s mane. Her smoothie sits untouched though. According to the custody sergeant, nothing more than a few sips of water have passed her lips since he took her through the charge-room process seventeen hours ago.
Same goes for me almost. Just a couple of pints of water and a few tots of rum. The thought of anything solid makes me heave.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Parnell had said when he’d found me hunched over my desk this morning, researching concert venues in Vienna. ‘Seriously, you look worse than yesterday. Do you know what would do you the world of good, Kinsella? A dose of home comforts. Chicken soup, a bottle of Lucozade and a few days’ rest.’
Home.
Comfort.
Two words I’d never put in the same sentence. An oxymoron, Seth would say.
‘Honestly, it’s not looking good Gina,’ repeats Parnell. ‘And it’s looking worse every minute we sit here. I’m losing my patience and you’re losing any chance of getting out of prison before pension age.’
It’s been an hour already. The gist of Saskia’s statement has been outlined to Gina but ‘no comment’ is the order of the day. ‘No comment’ peppered with the odd, ‘My client declines to answer’ from Felix Whiteley, just to mix things up a little. Keep everyone on their toes.
Same from Nate Hicks a little earlier – Seth and Flowers had toiled through that one.
‘Come on, Gina, you must realise that “no comment” makes you look guilty?’ says Parnell.