The Lying Room

by Nicci French

  He sat down opposite her and gave a rueful smile, as if all of this were a joke they were sharing. Neve thought to herself that Hitching was playing the part of a man who was a friend as much as a detective. And herself? What part should she be playing?

  ‘I’m sorry about all of this,’ he said. ‘Apparently some higher-ups don’t approve of me just chatting with witnesses. This probably seems horribly official.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  Ingram closed the door. She moved the other chair so that it was on Neve’s left side, just out of her eyeline, and sat down. Hitching smiled again.

  ‘We’re going to record the interview, if that’s all right.’

  He took the device – it was like a large phone or a small laptop without the top – and laid it in front of him.

  ‘We used to use cassettes,’ he said, with a frown. ‘I understood cassettes. Now it’s something digital. No idea how it works. But I’m going to switch it on now.’ He pressed a button and then leaned over and looked down at the machine. ‘At least with cassettes you could see the things going round. I don’t even know if it’s working. Is it working?’

  Ingram got up and walked across, her heels clicking on the linoleum. She leaned over.

  ‘It’s working,’ she said. ‘That red light flashes when it’s working.’

  Then she walked back to her chair and sat down.

  ‘Right,’ said Hitching, raising his voice slightly. ‘Present are DCI Alastair Hitching, that’s me. DC Louise Ingram. And Ms Neve Connolly. The interview is taking place in IR1 in West Central Station and the day is Monday September the twenty-fourth. So. Where were we?’ He looked at Neve and smiled again. ‘I should say that despite all the paraphernalia, this is a voluntary interview and you can leave at any time. Also, you’ve got a right to independent legal advice.’

  ‘Do you think I need independent legal advice?’

  ‘It’s not for me to say. I’m just meant to remind you.’

  ‘All right,’ said Neve.

  ‘You mean that you’re happy to answer questions?’

  ‘I’m not exactly happy. But yes.’

  Hitching flicked through the folders. He selected one and opened it in front of him but he didn’t look down at it.

  ‘The file,’ he said. ‘The one that was pushed through Mrs Stevenson’s door. The one with your name on it. The one with the stain.’

  ‘Yes, I know the one.’

  ‘It’s been tested. It was blood, as we suspected.’

  ‘I don’t see how—’

  ‘Do you want to know whose blood?’

  Neve felt panic pumping through her. He was going to tell her something she didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Whose?’ she managed to say.

  ‘It was yours.’

  ‘My blood?’ Neve felt the room tip slightly. She stared at him and he looked back at her. He wasn’t smiling any longer.

  ‘Yes. Have you any thoughts on that?’

  Neve had many thoughts. Many thoughts and many questions. The first was: how could they tell it was her blood? Then she remembered: the DNA sample in the office. How could her blood have got on the file? There had been lots of blood in the flat, but none of it was hers. She had cut her thumb that day, but that had been when she was wearing rubber gloves, which she had thrown away. She was sure it couldn’t have got on anything. Besides, the file hadn’t been in the flat. Or maybe it had and been removed later. Mabel was adamant she hadn’t taken it. Mabel . . . she wrenched her thoughts back to the interview. All she knew was that she had to be very, very careful. Keep it short. Act like a normal person.

  ‘I’m totally baffled,’ she said. ‘That’s all I can say.’

  ‘Look at it from my point of view,’ said Hitching, leaning back in his chair. ‘Whatever I do, it seems that all roads lead to Neve Connolly. Everyone talks to you, confides in you. You know their secrets before I do.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Bernice Stevenson told you about her suspicions before me. Renata Searle confessed her affair to you. I come round to your house and half the people I want to speak to are there.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘And then, at the murder scene, the personnel files of your colleagues are there but yours is missing. Then yours turns up and not only that, it has a holiday photo of you inside and it has your blood on it. Please, Neve, I’m on your side. But you need to give me something to work with.’

  Neve didn’t believe for a second that Hitching was on her side.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re asking me,’ she said. ‘Why would I even have that file? And if I did have it, how would I get blood on it? And if I did have it and get blood on it, why on earth would I push it through Bernice Stevenson’s door?’

  ‘Who suggested that you did?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Was there anything else on the file?’ Neve asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like fingerprints.’

  Hitching rapped the table. ‘Now that is a good question,’ he said.

  ‘What’s the answer?’

  ‘There were no fingerprints on the file.’

  ‘Apart from Bernice Stevenson’s.’

  Hitching looked at her sharply. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I just assumed,’ said Neve. ‘A letter is pushed through her door, she picks it up, looks at it.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Hitching. ‘I meant no fingerprints apart from Mrs Stevenson’s.’

  ‘Although her fingerprints might have got on the envelope some other way.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘It was just a comment.’

  ‘You mean that Bernice Stevenson was lying about how she got the file. Are you making an accusation?’

  ‘I was just making a comment.’

  Without answering, Hitching took another file and opened it.

  ‘This is your personnel file,’ he said. ‘I mean a copy of your file. We wouldn’t want to get any prints on it by mistake.’

  Neve tried to read the writing, even though it was upside down. All she could make out clearly were her details at the top of the page.

  ‘They can’t even get my address right,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It says fifty-seven. We live at seventy-five.’

  ‘It’s just a typing error,’ he said.

  ‘If they can get that wrong, what else can they get wrong?’

  Another slow smile from Hitching. ‘You sound like a defence barrister,’ he said.

  ‘It’s just a comment.’

  ‘Another one of your comments.’ He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling as if he were deep in thought. Then he looked back at Neve. ‘I’ve just been looking at the description of the murder scene and I’ve got a couple of comments of my own.’

  Neve didn’t reply. She felt she had already said too much. From now on she would say as little as she could.

  ‘The murder scene was cleaned up,’ he said. ‘Really cleaned up. Not just around the body. It felt as if everything had been scrubbed. But I’ve told you that, haven’t I?’ Neve didn’t reply. ‘Everything back in its place, all surfaces clear. I wish the woman who cleaned my house did that. I keep saying to her: clean, don’t just dust. But there’s no telling her. But whoever went over that flat cleaned everything. But there was a funny thing. In the freezer, there was a bottle of gin and two glasses. You know, the kind you have cocktails in.’

  Neve hadn’t thought to look in the freezer. They had drunk dry martinis out of those glasses once. Afterwards she had felt him, warm between her cold lips. She kept her eyes on Hitching’s face.

  ‘It was just a pied-à-terre. Why did he have two glasses?’

  Guilty people stayed silent, thought Neve. She had to say something.

  ‘In case someone came round?’ she said.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘She almost never went to th
e flat,’ he said. ‘At least that’s what she told me.’

  ‘Someone else then. How would I know?’

  That place has always looked to me like somewhere for assignations. Like the one with your friend, Renata. Renata Searle. What do you think about that?’

  ‘You keep asking me for my opinion,’ said Neve. ‘I don’t think anything about it.’

  ‘She said that her affair with Saul Stevenson was over. But these glasses in the freezer suggest something different.’

  ‘No, they don’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They could have been left in the freezer for weeks. Months.’

  ‘There’s nothing you’ve observed about your friend?’

  ‘She only told me about the affair a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. That’s what you said.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But was she telling the truth?’ He leaned forward slightly. ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Even the truth felt like a lie now.

  Hitching nodded slowly, several times, as if he was considering this. The silence grew until Neve thought she would have to scream or throw something, just to break it. She laced her hands in her lap and squeezed them together, feeling her wedding ring biting into her flesh.

  ‘Mr Stevenson’s assistant is sure that an affair was still going on.’

  ‘Katie? How would she know?’

  ‘She seems to have known almost everything about his life. It was like her job. And her hobby as well.’

  ‘The affair with Renata?’ It came to Neve suddenly that by concealing her own involvement with Saul, she might, horribly, be incriminating Renata. She leaned forward and said urgently: ‘I’m sure Renata told the truth. It was over.’

  ‘I didn’t say the affair, I said an affair.’

  Neve kept her eyes locked on his face. She couldn’t speak, but she mustn’t look away.

  ‘The question is,’ Hitching said at last, ‘how did your blood get on to the folder?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘No idea? I’m assuming that you don’t leave your blood around in different places.’

  ‘It’s not just that. I’ve never seen the file. I didn’t even know it existed until a couple of days ago.’

  Hitching leaned forward and looked at her more closely. ‘You took a bit of a knock, though?’

  ‘What?’

  He gestured towards her face.

  ‘I came off my bike. On to my face.’

  ‘Bled a bit?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Several days ago.’

  ‘Before Mr Stevenson died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just before?’

  ‘A few days I think.’

  ‘Not the same day?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any witnesses?’

  ‘No. But I came home with bruises and scrapes. My family would remember.’

  ‘Your family?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hitching didn’t look impressed.

  ‘Anyway, there’s an example of bleeding.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve never seen the file.’

  ‘The file in which there was a photo of you.’

  Neve nodded.

  ‘You on holiday.’ He slid a plastic envelope with the photo inside towards her. There she was once again, laughing, wind blowing her hair. ‘Why would that be in there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you give it to Mr Stevenson?’

  ‘No.’ Again, another small piece of truth that was sucked into the swirl of lies.

  ‘I know you’ve answered this question before but I’m going to ask it again. What was your relationship to Mr Stevenson?’

  ‘I worked with him.’

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you ever go to his flat?’

  Neve’s mind scrabbled and went blank. What had she told him before?

  ‘As I told you: I went once,’ she said. ‘To deliver something.’

  ‘Ah yes. The mysterious delivery. And that was the only time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Between each of her answers Hitching left a long pause. Neve knew she mustn’t speak into it, but it was hard not to. The silence was so frightful.

  ‘And there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’

  ‘I can’t think of anything.’

  She was beyond trying to work out how an innocent person would behave and was simply holding to a line that wouldn’t open the trap door beneath her feet.

  ‘Remind me,’ said Hitching. ‘Where were you on the morning of Saul Stevenson’s death?’

  ‘At the allotment,’ said Neve. She knew what he was going to say next.

  ‘With your daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’ Was that the right answer or should she have said that Mabel had been mistaken? Too late now.

  ‘Is there anyone who could corroborate that?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It must be a busy time of year for gardeners.’

  ‘It was Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Nobody around?’

  ‘There might well have been. I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Let’s go back to that photo. Can you think of how it got into the folder?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did you last see it yourself?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  That was true as well: she didn’t know. She had been straining to remember when she had last noticed it on the corkboard.

  Then he asked the question she had been waiting for. ‘Do you know where it came from?’

  ‘The photo?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sat back in the chair and folded his arms. ‘Do you know where the photograph was before it mysteriously ended up in the folder?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Neve. She had no idea if that was a dangerous admission or one that helped her. She was putting one foot in front of the other and everything else was a blur.

  Hitching raised his eyebrows. ‘Where?’

  ‘It was on the corkboard in the kitchen, near the door to the hall. There are lots of family photos pinned up there. That was one of them.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you notice it was missing?’

  ‘Not until you showed it to me. But I think it must have gone recently.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I would have seen it wasn’t there.’

  ‘Really? Because it was special to you?’

  ‘Because there’s a space in the collage of photos.’

  ‘So you’re saying that someone took it from the board recently and put it into the folder – on which, don’t forget, there is your blood.’

  ‘Yes. And pushed that folder through Bernice’s front door.’

  ‘You think you’re being framed?’

  ‘I can only tell you what I know.’

  He smiled at her. Her skin prickled. ‘Indeed.’ He waited for a few seconds, considering, then said, ‘You chose not to tell me you knew where the photo came from. Why is that?’

  ‘I didn’t choose. You didn’t ask until now.’ That sounded wrong. ‘I would have told you. I didn’t notice at once. And then there were so many questions coming at me.’ Neve forced a smile. Her face felt stiff. ‘I’m just trying to be as clear as I can about everything.’

  Hitching gave a snort. ‘You call this being clear?’

  ‘In what way is it not being clear? I’ve answered all your questions.’

  ‘If “I don’t know” is an answer.’

  ‘“I don’t know” is an answer if I don’t know.’

  ‘Your allotment—’

  ‘We’re going around in circles,’ said Neve, who felt that at any moment she would simply collapse and blurt out the truth, just to have this over with. ‘You said I was free to go at any time, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then I’d lik
e to go. Please.’

  Hitching and Ingram exchanged glances and Hitching shrugged.

  ‘Then go.’ He leaned over and switched off the recorder and then looked up at her with an expression different from anything she’d seen before.

  ‘Remember, if you’re holding anything back, I’ll find out.’

  Neve went down the stairs, along the corridor, out through the main entrance of the station, into the thin drizzle and roar of traffic. She tried to walk steadily, keeping her back straight. Her legs wobbled and her insides felt scraped out. She thought she might throw up. She reached the road and kept on walking, imagining Hitching and Ingram looking at her out of a window. Breathing made her throat burn. Her eyes felt raw.

  When she was sure she was out of sight, she lurched across to a bus stop and sat down there. She put her head in her hands and shut her eyes and waited for the terror to subside. What had she said? Had she said anything that would ambush her? She couldn’t remember; all she could remember was Hitching’s face and her sense of dread.

  At last she stood up and stared around her. Nothing looked familiar. Her own hands, when she held them in front of her, seemed to belong to a stranger. She looked at her watch: it was nearly a quarter past eleven. When she pulled her mobile from her pocket she saw that there was a missed call from Gary and a text from Tamsin asking her where she was.

  She made her way slowly to Old Street, feeling she was walking up a steep hill. Her heart was still hammering uncomfortably. People bumped into her, or maybe she bumped into them, unsteady on her feet. Hitching would talk to Mabel about the alibi, she thought – and the thought made her mouth furry with dread. Perhaps she should call Mabel and warn her. She rang Mabel’s mobile but it went straight to voicemail. She thought of ringing the landline but she didn’t want to talk to Fletcher.

  Coming out of the lift, she saw Katie approaching her.