by Cara Hunter
‘You want me to take over?’
‘Aren’t you tired?’
‘I think I can still deal with a toddler.’
‘OK,’ she says, getting to her feet in obvious relief. ‘It’ll give me a chance to get the dinner on.’
Once the door is closed the boy stops screaming suddenly and rolls over to look at me. There are smears of tears on his cheeks.
‘Hello, mate, what’s up with you then?’
* * *
*
When Alex comes out an hour later I’m in the garden, having a fag. The air is cool and the grass dewy but there is still a glow in the sky. She goes to turn on the lights but I stop her. Some things are best said in shadows.
She hands me a glass of wine and sits down next to me. ‘He’s asleep. Finally.’
She looks down the garden. ‘Look at that lavender we planted last year – it’s been alive with bees. I must bring him out here to look at them.’
I take a drag on my cigarette, letting the pause lengthen.
‘Tough day?’ she says lightly, letting me tell her if I want to. Or not.
‘Every time I think I have this case nailed it turns into something else. Something even more horrific.’
‘How can it possibly be worse than it already was? That poor girl imprisoned and raped. Hannah Gardiner beaten to death –’
‘We’re going to arrest her husband in the morning. The childminder gave us a statement incriminating him.’
Alex has her hand at her mouth. ‘Oh my God –’
Then she stops. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there.’
I grind out the cigarette. ‘Yes. But not about the case. About us. The boy.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘It was when I had him on my lap in the bathroom – he started making these noises – moving against me – like – well –’
But I can see from her face that she knows exactly what I mean.
‘You knew?’
She nods. ‘That nice nurse. She warned me. Said he’d done it once before and I shouldn’t be alarmed. That he must have been exposed to all sorts of terrible things down in that cellar that he’s far too young to understand. His mother being – well, you know. She suggested I read that Emma Donoghue book – Room? It’s been on my Kindle for ages but I never got round to it before.’
‘Is it helping?’
She turns to me in the dusk. ‘It’s making me cry.’
* * *
*
Monday morning. Alex spends breakfast telling me all the things she’s planning on doing with the boy. Feeding the ducks, going on the swings, walking along the river. It’s as if she has a mental list – ticking off all the things we used to do with Jake. I can’t do it. It’s too close. And in any case, is it fair on that boy – to force him into the space made for another child? Or perhaps that’s just me looking for excuses. Not that I need any. Not right now.
When I get to the incident room the voice-recognition analyst is already there, along with almost everyone else. And word must have got around because the place is electric with expectation.
‘So what have we got?’
The analyst pushes his glasses a bit further up his nose. He clearly isn’t used to such a big audience.
‘Well, I looked at what DC Baxter suggested, and yes, it is possible. I can’t prove it, but the spectral interference pattern could indeed indicate –’
‘Hold on – in English, please.’
He blushes. ‘The background noise – the quality of the sound – it’s possible the voice on the call was a recording.’
There’s certainly no background noise right now. You can almost hear people holding their breath.
‘So, let’s be clear,’ I say. ‘You think it’s possible Gardiner played back an old message into the phone – something he already had on his own voicemail?’
The analyst nods. ‘It’s nowhere near one hundred per cent. But yes, he could have. It would account for the slightly hollow quality of the sound.’
‘And remember,’ says Baxter quickly, keen to capitalize on his coup, ‘Hannah never used any names on that call and she didn’t mention a time either – there was nothing that tied it to that particular day.’
I turn to the timeline again.
‘OK, let’s assume that’s what happened. Gardiner kills Hannah the night before, after she finds him in bed with Pippa Walker. He buries the body in Harper’s shed and when Pippa turns up again at midnight he doesn’t let her in, presumably because he’s still cleaning up the blood. Then the following morning he fakes a call to Pippa at 6.50 to make it look like his wife is still alive. But there’s still a problem, isn’t there.’
I turn to face them. ‘That call was made from the landline at Crescent Square at 6.50, which means Rob Gardiner had to have been at Crescent Square at that time. We dismissed him as a suspect before because there wasn’t time for him to get to Wittenham and back for the 7.57 train. And that’s still true. It still doesn’t add up.’
‘It could do, sir.’
It’s Somer. At the back. She gets up and comes forward.
‘What if he wasn’t on that train?’
Baxter frowns. ‘We know he was. We have footage of him arriving at Reading.’
But she’s shaking her head. ‘We know where he got off. But we don’t know where he got on.’
She looks to Gislingham, who nods. ‘You’re right. The Oxford CCTV was down that day.’
She turns and looks at the map. Wittenham, Oxford, Reading. She points. ‘What if he got on here instead?’
Didcot Parkway. Halfway to Reading, and only five miles from Wittenham by road.
Gislingham’s checking on his phone. ‘The 7.57 from Oxford stops at Didcot at 8.15.’
‘Right,’ I say, picking up the pen and drawing a second timeline next to the first one, ‘let’s work it through. If he left Oxford just before seven, straight after faking that voicemail, he’d have got to Wittenham, when?’
Gislingham considers. ‘By car, at that time in the morning, I reckon it’d only be half an hour.’
‘Which would put him at Wittenham by 7.30. Perhaps 7.25. And he’d need to leave Wittenham by around 7.50, to be on the train at Didcot at 8.15. The question is, is that enough time? To dump the car, take the buggy up the hill, leave his son and go, all in less than half an hour.’
‘I think so, sir,’ says Somer. ‘It would be tight, but it’s possible. He could have done it.’
Gislingham is nodding. As is Baxter. There’s only one person who hasn’t said anything at all.
Quinn.
* * *
* * *
Outside the incident room, Gislingham gets hold of Quinn and pulls him into the empty office next door.
‘What the fuck’s going on? Have you got a death-wish or what? I saw Fawley giving you a funny look – it won’t take long for him to rumble you if you keep going on like this.’
Quinn’s standing with his back to him, but now he turns round slowly. Gislingham has never seen him look so haggard.
‘What is it? There’s something, isn’t there?’
Quinn sits down heavily. ‘She lied. Pippa – in her statement. Perhaps only about some of it, but I know she lied.’
Gislingham pulls up a chair. ‘The text, I’m guessing.’
Quinn nods. ‘She said she texted Gardiner that night but I know she didn’t. I saw all her texts to him. There was nothing that night.’
‘Perhaps she deleted that one?’
‘She’s got the same phone as me. If you delete one it deletes the whole thread. There was no text.’ He puts his head in his hands. ‘It’s like a bloody nightmare. The more I try to sort it the worse it gets. Fawley’s going to arrest Gardiner on the basis of a witness statement I know isn’t reliable and yet I can’t say
anything without putting myself irretrievably in the shit.’
‘OK,’ says Gislingham, going into fix-it mode. ‘We’re just going to have to get that warrant to look at her phone records, aren’t we? That way you’ll be in the clear. We’d have had to verify that statement anyway, even without all this.’
‘But the magistrate’s bound to wonder why we haven’t just asked her if we can look at the bloody phone – why we need a warrant at all if she’s just a witness –’
‘Yeah, well,’ says Gislingham, ‘you’re just going to have to think of an answer to that one, aren’t you?’
‘But you know what’ll happen the minute we put Pippa under any pressure – she’s going to tell, isn’t she? That she stayed in my flat – that we – you know.’
‘Well, did you?’
‘No. I told you.’
But he’s sweating like a man who did.
‘Look,’ says Gislingham. ‘If that’s what she says you’re just going to have to come clean. Tell Fawley you’ve been a twat and hope he doesn’t want to take it any further. And in the meantime focus on something useful. Like trying to get that bloody warrant.’
‘Right,’ says Quinn, his voice lifting a little.
‘And while you’re at it, try to act a bit more like your usual irritating cocky sod of a self, would you? This give-due-credit-to-others stuff is giving me the willies.’
Quinn smiles bleakly. ‘I’ll give it a go,’ he says.
* * *
* * *
Interview with Robert Gardiner, conducted at St Aldate’s Police Station, Oxford
8 May 2017, 11.03 a.m.
In attendance, DI A. Fawley, DC V. Everett, P. Rose (solicitor)
PR: I have to say, Inspector, that this is veering perilously close to harassment. Do you really have adequate grounds for arresting my client? For murdering his wife? I fail to see what new ‘evidence’ you can possibly have, and it’s extremely inconvenient, given he currently has no permanent childminder.
AF: Yesterday afternoon, my detectives questioned Miss Pippa Walker. I imagine you thought she had left town, Mr Gardiner. Or hoped as much.
RG: [silence]
AF: But she’s still here.
RG: [silence]
AF: She has made a full statement about your wife’s disappearance.
RG: That’s ridiculous. She can’t have told you anything because she doesn’t know anything.
VE: We also had our doctor take a look at that bruising on her wrist. The bruising you gave her.
RG: Look, it wasn’t like that. I told you before. I found out that she was trying to pass off someone else’s kid as mine – that she’d been screwing around –
VE: And that gives you licence to hit her?
RG: I didn’t hit her. I told you. I just grabbed hold of her – probably tighter than I realized. If she’s telling you something different then she’s lying.
AF: [silence]
I imagine it wouldn’t go down well, would it?
RG: What are you talking about?
AF: With your employers. I don’t imagine they’d be very happy about one of their senior managers being prosecuted for domestic violence.
RG: How many more times. It wasn’t domestic violence. It was a row. There is a difference.
AF: It’s not my place to advise you, of course, but I wouldn’t rely on that by way of defence –
PR: Look, Inspector –
AF: But moving on. When did your relationship with Miss Walker begin?
RG: I’m sorry?
AF: It’s a simple enough question, Mr Gardiner.
RG: What has that got to do with anything?
AF: If you could just answer the question.
RG: There is no relationship. I told you. We only slept together a couple of times. And it was after Hannah disappeared. Months after.
VE: I thought you said it was a one-night stand?
RG: Once, twice, three times – what difference does it make? It wasn’t a relationship. It was just sex.
AF: So any suggestion that you are having an affair that began long before your wife’s death is completely untrue. According to you.
RG: Of course it bloody well is – is that what she’s been saying?
AF: So when did she move into your home? Exactly?
RG: Well, she was staying a bit, on and off. Look, I was all over the place after Hannah disappeared. Wasn’t eating, couldn’t even organize myself to do the washing – and I had Toby to think about. One day Pippa just turned up on the doorstep and said she was worried about me and did I need any help. I was on my way to work and when I got back the place was clean and there was food in the fridge and a meal on. She stayed over on the couch a few times after that, and when she said she was going to have to move out of her bedsit I said she could stay for a few weeks.
VE: So how long ago was that?
RG: I don’t know. Three months. A bit more. She hasn’t been able to find anywhere yet.
VE: I bet she hasn’t.
RG: What’s that supposed to mean?
AF: You should be aware, Mr Gardiner, that as a result of questioning Miss Walker, we have completely revised our previous theory about your wife’s death.
RG: [looks from one officer to the other but says nothing]
AF: The broad outlines of the story go like this. By June 2015 you and Pippa have been sleeping together for at least six months. The fact that she is looking after your son gives perfect cover to the relationship. But on Tuesday June 23rd your wife comes home early. Unexpectedly. And what she finds is you and Miss Walker having sex.
RG: Is that what she told you – that we were having sex?
AF: She says there was a furious row, that your wife was hitting you, and you sent Miss Walker away, saying you would ‘deal with it’. She texted you and got no reply, and when she came back again several hours later, you wouldn’t let her in.
RG: Absolutely none of that happened –
AF: We believe that in the course of that row your wife received a heavy blow to the head. Possibly an accident, possibly in self-defence. Whatever the truth of it, you had a serious problem on your hands. You fetched the rug from your wife’s car and wrapped her body in it, securing it with packing tape. Then, once it was dark, you took the body out the back of the building and through the ramshackle fence into William Harper’s garden. A garden you knew – having had a clear view of it from your flat for several months – was almost never used. Looking for something to dig a grave with, you broke into the shed and found there was a trapdoor in the floor. Scarcely able to believe your luck, you stowed the body underneath. No one would ever be any the wiser. Or so you believed. The following morning you faked a message to Pippa Walker using a voicemail you had previously received from your wife. Then you drove to Wittenham, where you left the car and your son in his buggy, thinking – wrongly, as it turned out – that someone was bound to discover him within a few minutes. You then went by bike to Didcot, where you boarded the train to Reading. It was almost the perfect murder. Almost, but not quite.
RG: [silence]
PR: Hang on a minute, I thought you were talking about an accident? Self-defence?
AF: The initial blow may have been, but that didn’t kill her, as your client well knows. What happened, Mr Gardiner – did she move? Cry out in pain? Was that when you realized you hadn’t finished the job? Was that when you tied her up? Was that when you caved in her skull?
RG: [gets up and rushes to side of room to vomit]
PR: That’s enough, Inspector. For the avoidance of any doubt, Mr Gardiner absolutely and categorically refutes this new version of events. It is a complete fabrication from first to last and you don’t have a shred of evidence to support it, as far as I am aware.
AF: We wil
l be carrying out a full forensic search of Mr Gardiner’s flat –
RG: [leaning forward]
Well, you won’t find anything, I can tell you that for nothing -
PR: [restraining Gardiner]
You don’t need to say any more, Rob.
[addressing Fawley]
My client had nothing to do with his wife’s death, and he was not having a relationship with Miss Walker at the time his wife disappeared. It’s not my place to advise you, of course, but I venture to suggest that that young lady has some serious explaining to do.
AF: Thank you, Mr Rose, your comments have been noted. Interview terminated at 11.34.
* * *
* * *
BBC News
Monday 8 May 2017 | Last updated at 12:39
BREAKING: Hannah Gardiner’s husband arrested for her murder
The BBC has learned that Robert Gardiner has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife, Hannah, who disappeared in June 2015. Police now believe that Mrs Gardiner died on the evening of 23 June, after an argument at their flat in Crescent Square, Oxford. Mr Gardiner’s son, Toby, is understood to be in the care of Social Services.
Thames Valley Police have confirmed that a 32-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the case, but have declined to release his name. They have also insisted that there is no evidence to link the death of Mrs Gardiner with the discovery of a young woman and a child in the basement of the house where Mrs Gardiner’s body was found, though ‘enquiries are still ongoing’.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
* * *
