‘Yeah, I did. I do. I mean, I know her well enough to have a brief conversation with her, when she’s not locked away with Bethany, scheming. The two of them stay in Bethany’s room most of the time. I didn’t realise for weeks that Chloe was a bit special because I never heard her say anything except hello and thank you and goodbye.’
‘So you wouldn’t have been in Kate Emery’s house for any reason.’
‘No. I said no.’ He looked from Pettifer to me. ‘Why?’
‘Our crime scene examiners spent a lot of time in Kate’s house looking for trace evidence, fingerprints, DNA – anything that could help us find whoever harmed Kate.’
‘Yeah, I know that. And I know that you took my DNA and my fingerprints. I cooperated fully because I had nothing to hide. If you found something, it’s a mistake. Cross contamination. Something of mine that Chloe took home by accident.’
‘If it was trace evidence, you could be right,’ I said. ‘But it’s not.’
‘What is it?’ The laidback amusement was gone. He was alert and wary now.
I took the folder Pettifer had brought into the room. For the benefit of the tape, I said, ‘I’m showing Mr Norris a folder containing a series of photographs.’
‘What’s this?’ He leaned forward. ‘Fingerprints?’
I let him leaf through the pictures which showed a wooden surface and the fingerprints they had recovered.
‘Those images are from Kate Emery’s bedroom,’ I said. ‘That’s the back of the headboard of her bed. The report suggests that the person who left those fingerprints had put his hand on the top of the headboard, curling his fingers over the top. And those fingerprints are a match to yours. Your right hand, to be specific.’
He looked at the images for a long time, considering his response. The fingers in question were drumming lightly on the surface of the table. Eventually he looked up. ‘Is it worth telling you I helped her to move the bed once?’
‘Not if it’s not true.’
He opened his mouth to say something and I held up my hand. ‘Before you say anything, you should know that, from the angle, we are sure that you were in the centre of the bed, facing downwards. And then, of course, they did find skin cells and body fluids there that matched Kate’s DNA. The reason you left fingerprints was because you had touched her intimately.’
‘And in English?’
‘Your fingers had been in or near her vagina,’ I said. Clear enough for you?
Very slowly, he closed the folder and leaned back in his chair. ‘OK. Should we start this again?’
‘I would like you to tell me the truth about your relationship with Kate,’ I said evenly.
‘You could have given me a heads-up before I started lying.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have known better than to try and trick you. I didn’t think there was anything to link us. No one knew about it.’
‘About what?’
‘We had a fling.’ He managed a rueful smile. ‘I wouldn’t even call it a fling, actually. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. A one-off. I’d been for a run and I was on my way back, sweating like a horse, tired – I mean, not at my best. She called me in. She said there was a spider in her bathroom and Chloe was away and she was terrified. So of course, like an idiot, I run up the stairs to deal with the big bad spider. Only I was the one who got caught.’
‘What happened?’
‘She – well, she seduced me. She was wearing a shirt with buttons on it and most of them were undone. She had the most amazing tits. Sorry,’ he said, seeing the expression on my face. ‘I couldn’t help noticing. I was meant to notice them. I was in running shorts and there’s not much you can hide in them. It had been a while since I’d been with someone and I was horny and she took advantage of that.’
‘You didn’t want to have sex with her.’
‘No, I did. I mean, I did at that moment. I hadn’t been planning it. And I wouldn’t have wanted it to happen that way if I had been planning it, because I’d just run six miles and I wasn’t able to give it my best shot.’ A sheepish look at Pettifer. ‘I wasn’t surprised she didn’t invite me round again, if you know what I mean.’
Pettifer’s face was about as expressive as a slab of granite. For the first time, Norris looked uneasy.
‘Tell me what happened after you had sex. Did you stay?’
‘No. No way. I had a shower and got dressed again and left.’
‘Where did you shower?’
‘Downstairs. There’s a shower room near the kitchen. She told me I could use it when I asked. She wanted to use her bathroom. I think she was a bit pissed off and she wanted me out of her life.’
Of course it had been downstairs, where Kate’s killer had washed away the blood. Of course he had found a way to put himself there, using the shower. An explanation for any evidence we found. Something a barrister could use to create doubt in the minds of a jury, if he ended up in the dock.
‘When you say she was pissed off with you, what do you mean?’
‘I mean she was disappointed in my performance. And I think I offended her by saying something I shouldn’t have.’
‘Which was?’
‘That we shouldn’t have done it. I blurted it out. I was – well, I was still inside her at the time.’ He winced. ‘If I’d known I was going to have to recount the whole experience to the police I would have handled things differently.’
I was still stuck on what he’d said. ‘Why did you say you shouldn’t have done it? You were both single, both consenting adults.’
‘I know.’ He pulled another face. ‘This is going to sound really weird. As if the rest of it wasn’t, I mean.’
‘Go on.’
‘Eleanor. She didn’t like Kate. At all. They were obviously very different. They’d made different choices in life. Eleanor disapproved of Kate, but I think she envied her too.’
I frowned. ‘So why wouldn’t she have wanted you to pursue a romantic relationship with Kate?’
‘Um. Because Eleanor thinks of me as her property.’ He grinned. ‘I know it sounds strange but she’s never liked any of my girlfriends. I met her first – did you know that? I was the one who introduced her and Ollie.’
‘Did you have a relationship with her?’ I asked.
‘Nothing serious. She was saving herself for marriage. To my brother, as it turned out.’ A smirk. ‘But I don’t think she’s ever quite given up on me. And she hated Kate. She’d probably have kicked me out for immoral conduct and being a bad influence on Bethany.’
‘So you had sex with Kate,’ I said. ‘Once?’
‘Once.’
‘Did you use a condom?’
A muscle tightened in his jaw. ‘No. She didn’t mention it and I didn’t have one on me. Is that illegal now?’
I ignored the question and made a note. ‘Was it consensual?’
‘Was it— what the hell are you implying?’
‘I’m not implying anything. I’m asking if Kate wanted you to have sex with her.’
‘Yes. Yes, she did. She initiated it.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
He looked wary. ‘Why not?’
‘Because you lie when it suits you. You’ve lied to me several times already in this interview, haven’t you? And then you changed your story when you got caught out.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘Do you remember what Kate was wearing on the single occasion you and she had sex?’
‘Not much by the time I was finished with her,’ he snapped.
‘Before that.’
‘No. Not in detail.’
‘The shirt with buttons – you remember that, don’t you?’