SM: No. I haven’t looked.
AF: Perhaps you could do that, Mrs Mason. Given that you won’t allow us to conduct a proper search ourselves.
[pause]
GQ: What time did you pick the children up from school?
[pause]
SM: Actually, I didn’t.
AF: I’m sorry? Are you saying you didn’t collect them after all? You specifically told us you’d picked them up –
SM: No I didn’t. I said I drive them to school. And I do. There and back. I just didn’t do it on Tuesday.
AF: Do you realize how serious this is – how much time we’ve wasted? If you’d told us Daisy came home alone -
SM: She wasn’t alone. Leo was with her. I told them both that morning they’d have to walk for once.
AF: And why didn’t you tell us this before?
[pause]
SM: I knew you’d only get the wrong idea. That you’d start blaming me. And it’s not my fault. I can’t be in two places at once, can I? Do you know how much work a party like that creates? Barry was supposed to help me - he said he’d take the afternoon off, but then he called and said he’d be late. As usual.
GQ: What time was that – the phone call?
[pause]
SM: I’m not sure. Perhaps about four.
GQ: We can easily check with the phone company.
AF: And you’d told Leo that morning that he had to walk his sister home?
SM: Yes, I told both of them at breakfast. I told Daisy to make sure to find Leo, and not run off on her own.
GQ: Was she in the habit of doing that?
SM: Not in the way you mean. She was always very sensible. But she’s interested in things. Animals and such. Insects. She gets distracted sometimes, that’s all.
AF: I gather she wants to be a vet when she grows up? That’s a long training.
SM: Daisy knows how important it is to work hard at school and get a good job. She’s extremely bright. She got 97 out of 100 in a maths test last term. The next best after that only got 72.
AF: So to get back to Tuesday afternoon. What time did the children get home from school?
SM: Daisy came in about 4.15. I was in the kitchen. The door slammed and she went up to her room.
AF: You saw her?
SM: No. Like I said, I was busy. She was really banging about upstairs so I guessed there must have been some sort of squabble on the way home.
AF: Do the children argue a lot?
SM: Sometimes. No more than other people’s children, I daresay.
[pause]
Perhaps a bit more lately.
AF: So why’s that?
SM: Who knows, with children. You could drive yourself mad working out why they do this and that.
AF: Has it been one child rather than the other who’s been acting up?
SM: Oh, Leo. Definitely Leo. Adolescent boys can be so moody.
GQ: He’s ten years old.
[pause]
SM: Barry thinks he might be worried about his SATs.
AF But that’s a whole year away. He’s only in Year 5 now, isn’t he?
SM: He’s not as clever as Daisy.
[pause]
AF: I see. So going back to Tuesday afternoon. Daisy gets back at 4.15. When did you next see her?
SM: I called out and asked her if she wanted anything but she didn’t answer. I assumed she was sulking.
AF: So you didn’t actually see her? Not then, and not earlier, when she got home?
[pause]
SM: No.
GQ: What time was that, when you called up to her?
SM: I don’t remember.
AF: So when did she come down for the party?
SM: People had started arriving by then. It was all a bit chaotic. I remember seeing her running about with her friends. Like I told you.
[pause]
AF: I see. And what about Leo? Was he with Daisy when she got back from school?
SM: No. I saw him later.
AF: How much later?
SM: I don’t know. About a quarter of an hour. Something like that.
AF: So about 4.30. What had happened, Mrs Mason? Why did they not come back together?
[pause]
Mrs Mason?
SM: He said they’d had an argument and Daisy had run off.
GQ: What was this particular argument about?
SM: Like I said, no doubt something and nothing. I couldn’t get a word out of him.
AF: So you didn’t go upstairs and talk to Daisy about it?
SM: No, of course not. I told you already. She was obviously OK, wasn’t she? She didn’t need me fussing over her. She was always saying she hated that. And in any case, I don’t see what difference it makes.
[pause]
What? What are you looking at me like that for? It’s not my fault. Whatever it was that – that - happened, it must have been after that, mustn’t it? Someone must have taken her at the party.
AF: We’ve already established she was never at the party, Mrs Mason.
[pause]
The first guests arrived at about seven, I believe?
SM: Yes. Around then. Though they were invited for earlier. People can be so rude.
AF: So your contention is that sometime between 4.15 when she got home, and seven when the first guests arrived, your daughter disappeared from under your nose – from her own bedroom?
SM: Don’t you dare take that tone with me. What do you mean ‘my contention’ – it’s not my contention, it’s what happened. She was in her room. There was music on – it was still on when I got back. Ask Barry – he heard it too - when he finally deigned to show his face -
AF: Hold on – what do you mean ‘when I got back’?
[pause]
SM: Well, if you must know, I popped out for twenty minutes. I had to get mayonnaise. I bought some the day before, but when I went to make the sandwiches I realized someone must have broken the jar. And since no one had bothered to tell me about it, I had to go out again.
AF: Why on earth didn’t you tell us this before?
SM: Barry doesn’t like leaving the children in the house alone.
AF: So you didn’t want him to know that’s what you’d done.
[silence]
Is there anything else you haven’t told us, Mrs Mason?
[silence]
So when exactly was this shopping trip of yours?
SM: I didn’t notice the time.
AF: But before your husband got back.
SM: He got in about fifteen minutes later.
AF: And the front door was locked?
SM: Of course the door was locked -
AF: And what about the side gate?
[pause]
SM: I’m not sure.
GQ: You said that it was open during the party. And presumably it’d been open the night before as well, when Mr Webster brought round the gazebo. Did you lock it after he left on Monday?
SM: I can’t remember.
GQ: What about your husband? Did he help Mr Webster with the gazebo?
SM: He wasn’t there. He was home late. Again.
GQ: And the patio door – was that open when you went to the shops for the mayonnaise?
[pause]
SM: I think so, yes. I was only popping out for a minute.
AF: So you left the house open and the side gate possibly unlocked. With two young children alone in the house.
SM: You can’t blame me. It’s not my fault.
AF: So whose fault was it, Mrs Mason?
[pause]
This mayonnaise, where did you buy it?
SM: I couldn’t find any. I tried that funny little place on Glasshouse Street but they’d run out, and then I went to the Marks on the ring-road roundabout but they didn’t have any either.
GQ: It must have taken you more than twenty minutes to do all that. Parking, going in, driving, parking again, driving back. I’d say half an hour minimum, even forty minutes. Especially at that time of day.
AF: More than enough time for someone to get into the house and take your daughter.
SM: I told you. The music was still on upstairs when I got back.
AF: But you have no idea if she was there to hear it. Do you, Mrs Mason?
*
When Everett and Gislingham get to Bishop Christopher’s the bell has just gone for lunchtime and two hundred kids are hording out of the doors.
‘Where do they get the bloody energy?’ yells Gislingham over the din.
‘Carbohydrates,’ grins Everett. ‘You know, that stuff Janet won’t let you eat any more.’