I nod slowly. ‘Anyone would be angry. That sort of deception.’
She sighs. ‘I think he hated her, even before that. Because of what their affair did to Nancy. I tried to tell him the breast cancer would have happened anyway, but he kept blaming himself – saying that between them, he and Priscilla had killed her. Apparently, when he told Priscilla he would never leave Nancy, she went round to the house and told her what was going on. Nancy had no idea – she was very trusting. The thought of Bill being unfaithful would never even have occurred to her. She was diagnosed less than a year later and she only lasted six months after that. That’s where a lot of the animosity is coming from now. All that fury he had to suppress while Priscilla was alive – the Alzheimer’s is letting it all out. And then when you show him a picture of someone who looks so like her – well, it’s small wonder he reacts how he does.’
‘So how would he have reacted if he’d actually met her? If he’d seen Vicky outside his house?’
The doctor goes pale. ‘Oh Lord – is that what you think happened? Is that what he meant about a moment of madness?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’
She shakes her head sadly. ‘That poor, poor girl. And that poor child. Do you know how he’s doing?’
I could say something, but I don’t. ‘He’s in good hands. At least for now.’
***
In the incident room, Somer is on one of the computers, scrolling down through batch after batch of images. One of the DCs wanders past behind her and bends to have a look. ‘If it’s furniture you’re after you could try Wayfair. My girlfriend swears by it. I should know – I have to pay for all the bloody stuff.’
Somer is still staring at the screen. ‘It’s not for me. There’s a particular type of cupboard I’m trying to track down.’
The DC shrugs. ‘Suit yourself. I was just trying to help. We’re not all after a shag, whatever you might think.’
She watches him walk away, her cheeks burning, wondering what she did wrong. Or if she did anything wrong at all. Then she sighs, knowing exactly what her sister would have said if she could see her now. But Kath was the most beautiful girl in the school from the first day she arrived: she got used to the cost of her looks very early on. Somer, by contrast, spent her childhood being told she was merely ‘nice-looking’, and the change, when it came, forced her into attention she had no idea how to handle. There are times, like now, when it feels as if she’s hardly made any progress at all.
She turns back to the computer, and a few minutes later she sits back, gazing at the screen. Then she logs on to the shared CID server and pulls up the photos taken in Frampton Road.
‘Gotcha,’ she says, under her breath.
***
Donald Walsh is sitting in exactly the same chair William Harper was sitting in half an hour ago, if he did but know it. In the room next door, Everett is watching on the screen. It’s clear that Walsh is in full performance mode. He’s making a great show of checking his watch every thirty seconds and looking around with an increasingly irritated expression. The door opens and Gislingham comes to join her. His face says it all.
‘So you got something?’
‘Yup. Walsh’s prints are an exact match to the unidentified sets in both the cellar and the kitchen. They are also – and this is where it gets interesting – a match for some of those we found in the shed. But only on the paint tins and the garden stuff.’
‘So you’re going to interview him?’
Gislingham nods. ‘He’s deffo got some explaining to do.’
On the screen, the door opens to reveal Quinn, who looks around, clearly expecting Gislingham to be there already.
‘Oops,’ says Gislingham, ‘I’d better go.’
Everett watches as he joins Quinn, taking his seat and pushing his chair back.
‘Mr Walsh,’ begins Quinn, ‘I am Detective Sergeant Gareth Quinn. DC Gislingham you already know. For the purposes of the tape, I can confirm that you have already been cautioned –’
‘Which is a preposterous bureaucratic overreaction, if you don’t mind me saying so – I had absolutely nothing to do with any aspect of this ludicrous shambles.’
Quinn raises an eyebrow. ‘Really?’ He opens the file he was carrying. ‘We’ve just had confirmation that some of the fingerprints we found at thirty-three Frampton Road are a match for yours.’
Walsh shrugs. ‘That’s hardly surprising. I have visited several times. Albeit not recently.’
‘When exactly were you there last?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps the autumn of 2014. I came to a conference in Oxford that October and popped in to see Bill for a few minutes. To be honest, I pretty much stopped going after Priscilla died.’
Gislingham raises an eyebrow; that doesn’t sound right, not with everything he’s heard about her. ‘So did you get on well with Priscilla then?’
‘If you must know, I thought she was a terrible woman. A vicious bitch and a marriage wrecker, though I’m aware the latter is a rather old-fashioned concept these days. She turned my aunt’s final years into a complete hell. I made a point of only going there when I knew she’d be out.’
‘And how often was that, would you say?’
‘While Nancy was still alive I used to go two or three times a year. After Bill married Priscilla, probably once a year at most.’
‘So why did you stop going altogether after Priscilla died? Surely that should have made things easier between you and Dr Harper?’
Walsh sits back in his chair. ‘I don’t know, it just happened that way. There’s not some ulterior agenda here, Constable.’
But Gislingham isn’t giving up. ‘So let me get this straight – you stopped going to see him at the very point when he needed someone to look out for him? He’s on his own, he’s getting on, he’s starting to show signs of dementia –’
‘I knew nothing about that,’ says Walsh quickly.
‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you. Since you’d stopped bothering to go and see him.’
Walsh looks away.
‘It wasn’t just that though, was it?’ says Quinn. ‘You two had argued. A major falling-out, from what we hear.’
‘That’s absurd.’
‘Someone saw you.’
Walsh gives him a withering look. ‘If you’re talking about that old dear from down the road, she’s hardly my idea of a reliable witness.’
There’s a silence. Walsh is drumming his fingers on his thighs.
Then there’s a knock on the door and it opens to reveal Erica Somer, with a sheaf of papers in her hand. She tries to catch Quinn’s attention but he studiously avoids looking at her.
‘Sergeant? Could I have a word?’
‘We’re in the middle of an interview, PC Somer.’
‘I know that, Sergeant.’
Gislingham can see it’s important, even if Quinn is refusing to. He gets up and goes to the door. Watching on the screen, Everett sees Quinn get increasingly irritated until Gislingham finally returns to the room. And this time, Somer follows him in. Quinn doesn’t look up. And when she takes the chair in the far corner facing him, he still won’t meet her gaze.
Gislingham puts the papers down on the table, then swivels one of the sheets round to face Walsh. It’s a photograph.
‘Do you know what this picture is of, Mr Walsh?’
Walsh looks at the paper and shifts slightly. ‘No, not offhand.’
‘I think you know very well. You have one like this yourself.’
Walsh sits back and folds his arms. ‘So? What’s that got to do with anything? It’s just a cupboard.’