Let the Dead Speak (Maeve Kerrigan #7)

‘Yeah. I mean, sort of.’

‘Is this the shirt?’ I picked up one of the evidence bags from beside my chair and flattened it out so he could see what was inside. The shirt was unbuttoned. Two of the buttons dangled by threads and a third was missing.

‘It could be.’

‘Was she wearing a skirt or trousers? Jeans?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Did she go up the stairs in front of you?’

‘Yes. Yes, she did.’

‘So you were looking at her walking in front of you.’

He rubbed his mouth with a hand. ‘Yes. OK. It was a skirt.’

‘This skirt.’ I laid it on top of the other evidence bag: a navy-blue cotton A-line skirt.

‘Looks like it.’

‘The forensic testing we did showed that your DNA was on the inside of the skirt. Your seminal fluid was all over it.’

He shrugged. ‘So?’

‘So was she wearing it when you had sex?’

His face twisted. ‘Do you want all the details or something? Does this turn you on?’

‘I’m trying to get your version of events, Mr Norris. At the moment we can’t ask Kate for her story. All we can do is look at the evidence. Your account so far doesn’t match up with the evidence we’ve got.’

‘I’m telling the truth.’ He was staring at me, his eyes locked on mine.

‘You said you took her clothes off, but that’s not true, is it? You took off enough clothes to be able to have sex with her.’

‘Look, no one was lighting any candles or scattering rose petals on the bed. It was a quickie.’

I put another evidence bag on the table: a plain white bra, lightly padded. There was a very small brownish mark on the edge of the left cup: Kate Emery’s blood. ‘Is this the bra she was wearing?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Your DNA was on it.’

‘Then it must have been.’

‘Tell me about the blood.’ I held the bag so he could see it: a smudge, nothing more.

He shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

‘Did you hurt her?’

‘No. Not deliberately. Not as far as I was aware.’

‘Did you scratch her?’

‘I might have.’

‘Did she scratch you?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘This is the last item we found. It’s a pair of knickers. I don’t know if you can see their condition through the evidence bag.’

He glanced at them briefly, then stared back at me. ‘Say it.’

‘They’re ripped. Did you rip them?’

‘Yes. I did.’ He leaned forward, dropping his voice. ‘Come on, Sergeant. You must have had sex like that in your time. Down and dirty, anything goes. If you haven’t, you’ve been missing out.’

‘I’m going to ask you again if the sex was consensual.’

‘And I’m going to tell you again, that it was. It was what she wanted. She told me to do it. She was begging me to tear her clothes off and fuck her.’ He threw himself back in his chair, irritated. ‘What was I supposed to do? Say no in case she got herself murdered and I got accused of rape?’

‘She kept the clothes. She didn’t wash them.’

‘Maybe she wanted a souvenir.’

‘A souvenir of what, by your own account, wasn’t very good sex.’

‘I don’t fucking know, do I? If I knew why women do the things they do, I wouldn’t be single.’

‘Don’t you think it’s possible that she kept them because they were evidence of an unwanted sexual encounter? That if she made a complaint of rape against you, she’d be able to produce the clothes to help prove her story?’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘It’s what I suspect,’ I said.

‘You’ve made up your mind. You haven’t even considered that Kate was pissed off with me. If she wanted to frame me, this would be a good place to start, wouldn’t it?’ He turned to Pettifer. ‘You’re a man. What do you think?’

‘I think your explanation doesn’t hold together very well.’

Morgan nodded, biting his lip. To give him his due, he wasn’t panicking. ‘Did she make a complaint? To the police, I mean?’

‘No.’

‘Did she tell anyone she’d been raped?’

‘Not as far as we know,’ I admitted.

‘So all you have is a bag of dirty laundry and suspicious minds. And I have to defend myself against an accusation that no one has even made.’

‘You can understand why we need to ask these questions,’ I said.

‘Oh, I can understand it all right. You don’t have a clue what happened to Kate and you’re hoping I’ll incriminate myself.’ He leaned forward. ‘Not going to happen.’

‘Did you talk to Kate again after this incident?’

‘No. Kept my distance. I wanted to apologise to her for having been a sweaty mess but I thought it would look as if I was asking for a rematch or making excuses, neither of which I wanted to do. It wasn’t hard to avoid her and that’s what I did.’

‘And then Kate disappeared.’

A slow nod. ‘Yeah. That was a shock. But it didn’t have anything to do with me.’ He had recovered his composure quickly, I noticed: the anger had disappeared as completely as if I’d imagined it. ‘You know, I think you’re looking at this from the wrong perspective.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘If she was yanking strange blokes off the street to shag their brains out, she probably wasn’t exhibiting very good judgement. She didn’t know me. She knew who I was, but she didn’t know if I was a good guy. She might have picked up the wrong kind of person in a bar or on a train or something. Or – or a plumber. An electrician. Someone who came to her house. She was living dangerously.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’

‘When I was leaving the house after I had sex with her. This would have been about six weeks ago. I said “Thank you for having me” and she didn’t so much as crack a smile.’ He shrugged. ‘That was when I wrote her off completely. No sense of humour, no chance.’

I had never met Kate Emery but I was sure she had been a long way from heartbroken about that.

‘What did you think of that?’ Pettifer asked.

I dropped my notes on my desk and stretched, feeling all the small muscles along my spine complain. I tensed up in interviews and it wasn’t good for me. ‘I think he raped her.’

‘You’ll never prove it.’

‘Nope. And he knows it.’ I shook my head. ‘There’s something about him that’s not right. Objectively speaking, he’s attractive, physically fit, sort of charming … but I wouldn’t go near him. Too arrogant. He’s the kind of person who sends unsolicited dick pics and gets all hurt when you’re not impressed.’

‘Talking about me again?’ Derwent slid across the room on his desk chair. ‘Except you can’t be. You know that the ladies are always impressed with my dick pics.’

‘If they’re not expecting much, it’s easy to impress them, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘Who are you talking about? Morgan?’ Derwent revolved slowly on his chair. ‘I don’t like him either. I thought he was a turd.’

‘He admitted that he and Kate had a one-off fling,’ Pettifer said.

‘He couldn’t do much else, could he?’ Derwent looked at me. ‘But you don’t believe him.’

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