Rose prompted her again. ‘Just start at the beginning,’ she instructed.
Constance sighed. ‘There were a lot of games I liked to play. And there was one in particular. My favourite, I suppose. It was all about having sex with a stranger. Usually Charlie was involved. I specially liked Charlie, you see...’
She paused, staring straight ahead of her at the blank wall, perhaps remembering Charlie, perhaps seeing something the others with her there in the room could not. This time Rose let her take her own time. She did not think Constance would stop now, not when she had got this far.
‘First I would have sex with Charlie,’ Constance continued almost expressionlessly. ‘Then he would leave and I would remain lying on the bed, face down, the room lit only by candles. A second man — the stranger — would then enter the room. I was always...’ She paused again. ‘...ready. The stranger would start to have intercourse with me at once. I would not even turn to look at him. He would not see my face, nor me his — that was the most important rule of the game. There would be no foreplay — and no dialogue until after it was over.’
Constance’s eyes were quite blank, her words curiously precise. She could have been reciting from the telephone directory.
‘I used to find it very exciting,’ she said, and with a dry humourless laugh added, ‘So did they, I think.’
Rose could imagine it so vividly. Constance lying there naked in the dimly lit room, with the blonde hair of her wig spread out, her face buried in the pillow. Wanting sex at its most basic. Excited. Expectant. The young men eager, aroused by something different, relishing the game nearly as much as she did.
Constance’s voice came to the Detective Chief Inspector from the distance when she continued to talk, jerking Rose out of her brief reverie, back to the present. Back to the truth behind it all at last.
‘The last time, the very last time I hired Charlie, it went horribly wrong. In fact... in fact, it turned into an unbelievable nightmare. The stranger Charlie brought with him was good, very good, perhaps particularly good. I can still remember the pleasure, in spite of everything, and that makes it even more awful. I can remember, too, being aware of just how much he had seemed to be enjoying himself, even though he was being paid for it. When it was over and we were both fighting to get our breath, he spoke for the first time. I shall never forget what he said.’ She paused. ‘“God, that was amazing.”’
Constance gripped the edge of the table in front of her. She almost spat out the last four words.
‘“God, that was amazing,”’ she repeated, her voice cracking this time. ‘And I shall never quite be able to explain how I felt when I heard his voice. I was overcome by horror, no, more than that, by fear. I had to turn around and look at him. But I didn’t want to, because I knew what I was going to see. Knew, without doubt. My... the...’
Constance seemed to be physically gritting her teeth now. Rose noticed that she had closed her eyes, seeing it all again, reliving it, the policewoman realised.
‘The young man was grinning broadly, pleased with himself, I suppose. But when he saw my face, when he recognised me, the grin seemed to freeze.’
Constance looked around the room, almost as if she were seeing Rose, DS Mellor and her own solicitor for the first time, and was challenging them to react.
‘I had just had sex with my son,’ she said.
She sounded quite detached, as if she were telling a story about somebody else.
She stopped then, for a while. The enormity of what she had revealed was just too much.
‘Could I have some coffee?’ she asked, and she attacked it thirstily, drinking deeply from the steaming liquid as if it contained some magic elixir which might revive her.
Rose did not push her, instead waiting for Constance to speak in her own time. Sergeant Mellor cleared his throat and the silence was such in the room that the rasping sound he made seemed very loud and was somehow almost as shocking as the story Constance Lange was telling.
Rose glanced at him. Mellor was virtually open-mouthed with amazement. She noticed that he even appeared to have forgotten to arrange his stunned features into the expression of disdain which seemed to have become customary for him when confronted with behaviour of which he disapproved.
Then Constance began to speak again, and instantly nobody in the interview room had eyes or ears for anyone but her. She was a naturally articulate woman and now, telling the whole truth at last, her words came fluently, almost pouring from her.
‘I tried to explain to William. But how could I explain? What could I say? That I liked sex, raunchy illicit sex? That I had never wanted to hurt anybody — least of all him? That it had all been a ghastly accident, a shocking coincidence, that we should both forget about it and carry on being a normal caring mother and son? That it didn’t matter? There was nothing I could say.
‘William screamed. It was a terrible haunting anguished cry. He rushed into the bathroom and turned on the shower full pelt. Then he dressed, pulling on his clothes. He was weeping and shaking uncontrollably, yet I could not comfort him because he would not let me near him. He would not look at me. He would not talk to me. And afterwards he totally refused to discuss the incident with me. He would never talk about it. Not when the murders started. Not when Freddie died. He just shut me and all of it out.’
Constance picked up her coffee mug and drained it.
‘Could I have some more?’ she asked.
Rose gestured to Mellor who left the room briefly and returned with a refill. Only then did the interview continue. Rose stared at Constance.
‘And you, how did you feel?’
Constance shook her head. ‘I didn’t matter, did I? I already didn’t matter.’
‘But how did you feel, Constance?’ Rose persisted.
The other woman seemed to crumple in her chair.
‘I suppose I went into total shock. I stayed at the Crescent much later than I usually did. I know that I began to cry, and once I had started I couldn’t stop. I was physically sick, then and later. It took me several hours to completely stop crying, to clean myself up, to regain any kind of self-control. I made up a story about breaking down on the motorway and having flat batteries in my mobile phone. It didn’t sound very believable to me, but I think Freddie believed it then. He trusted me, you see.’
Her voice cracked again. Her eyes were full of tears now, Rose noticed. The policewoman forced herself to be businesslike, to be professional.
‘What was William’s motivation for getting involved with Avon Escorts?’ Rose asked. ‘Presumably he didn’t need the money.’
‘No,’ agreed Constance. ‘His father provided him with more than enough. I could only assume that he found that kind of sex exciting — as I did, that he too had liked the idea of games.’
She held her head in her hands. ‘Well, I know he liked the game I enjoyed most, don’t I? And that, liking it, me knowing that, made the whole sordid thing worse for him.’
‘Do you want to talk about the murders, Constance?’ asked Peter Mellor.
Rose guessed that Mellor couldn’t cope with much more discussion about sex games and was not surprised by the interruption which, in any case, came at an opportune moment.
‘Why don’t you tell us the truth about them, too, Constance?’ she joined in.
Constance nodded and half shook herself as if returning reluctantly to reality. Her eyes lost the faraway look and at last she focused on the Detective Chief Inspector who was continuing to stare at her earnestly.
‘You’ve known, you’ve always known, haven’t you?’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know how, but you have.’