RG: Yes. You know that. We’ve been through it countless times. It was a big deal for her. A big story. She’d been working on it for months.
AF: So she’d been in Summertown that afternoon. At the BBC.
RG: As far as I know, yes.
AF: As far as you know?
RG: Look, what is this? Is there something you’re not telling me?
AF: We’re just trying to establish the facts, Mr Gardiner. There’s nowhere else she could have been?
RG: She told me she was in Summertown.
AB: When she got back?
RG: Right.
AB: At eight o’clock.
RG: Right.
AF: So it would surprise you to learn that she left the BBC offices at 2.45 that afternoon and didn’t go back?
RG: What are you talking about? This is the first I’ve heard about this.
AF: We had no reason to check before. As I said. Now we do.
AB: We have also ascertained that your wife’s car was picked up by number-plate recognition in the Cowley Road at just after 4.30 that afternoon.
RG: [silence]
AF: Do you know what she was doing there?
RG: No, I don’t.
AF: No other story she was working on?
RG: Not that I know of.
AF: There’s also a call from a pay-as-you-go mobile to your wife’s office line that afternoon. About an hour before she left. Do you know anything about that?
RG: No. I told you. And in any case it could have been anyone – some member of the public with a story. Anyone. One of those protesters at the camp. They all had that sort of phone.
AB: So why go to Cowley?
RG: How the hell should I know?
AF: I’m sorry to have to raise this, Mr Gardiner, but your son. Toby. He’s not your biological child, is he?
AB: We’ve spoken to a witness who told us you are unable to have children –
RG: What? How dare you – that’s personal. It’s nothing to do with any of this.
AF: I’m not so sure about that, Mr Gardiner. If you’re not Toby’s father, who is?
RG: I have no idea.
AF: Your wife had an affair?
RG: [laughs]
You’re so far off it’s pathetic. That’s your theory, is it? That I beat my wife to death because I found out she had a mystery bit of rough on the Cowley Road who’d fathered her child? And then – presumably – I dumped Toby at Wittenham because he wasn’t mine?
AB: Is that what happened – your wife had an affair?
RG: No, of course she bloody didn’t. OK, yes, I can’t have kids. I’ve never made a secret of that, though I don’t go about broadcasting it on sodding Facebook either.
AF: Why didn’t you disclose it to us in 2015, when Hannah went missing?
RG: Because a) it was nothing at all to do with it, and b) it was none of your bloody business. And both of those, incidentally, still apply.
AF: So Toby is adopted?
RG: No, he was conceived by donor insemination. Hannah had no problem with that.
AF: But it had caused problems with other relationships, hadn’t it?
RG: You’ve been questioning my old girlfriends?
[turns to Mr Rose]
Are they allowed to do that?
PR: Is there anything else, Inspector? It strikes me Mr Gardiner has had more than enough for one day. He’s still coming to terms with the discovery of his wife’s body. In particularly gruesome circumstances.
AF: I’m afraid we’re not through yet. Analysis of the blanket found wrapped round your wife’s body bears traces of your DNA. Yours, hers and your son’s. That’s all. No one else’s. Can you explain that?
RG: [silence]
AF: Can you explain that, Mr Gardiner? Did you ever own a blanket like that?
RG: I have no idea.
AF: It was dark green with a tartan pattern in red. In case that jogs your memory.
[silence]
RG: The only thing I can think of is the picnic blanket she used to have in the back of the car. I thought we’d got rid of it but it may have still been in the boot.
AB: What did that look like?
RG: I really can’t remember. Some dark colour. Green maybe.
AF: There was also fingerprint evidence. When we found your wife’s body there was tape wrapped round it. Packing tape.
PR: Is this really necessary, Inspector? This sort of detail is extremely distressing.
AF: I’m sorry, Mr Rose, but these are questions we have to ask. There were fingerprints on the tape, Mr Gardiner, but most of them are too smudged to give a clear result. But one of those is a partial match to yours.
PR: A partial match? How many points are we talking about here?
AF: Six, but as I said –
PR: Oh for heaven’s sake, my prints are probably a six-point match. You’d need eight at least to even get to first base, Inspector. As well you know.
AF: Are you a violent man, Mr Gardiner?
RG: What? Not this again. No, of course I’m not violent.
AF: Your wife apparently had a bruise on her face a few weeks before she disappeared.
RG: [laughs]
Who told you that? Beth bloody Dyer? Had to be. She’s a right little stirrer – Dyer by name, dire by bloody nature. It was Toby, if you must know. He caught Hannah on the face with one of his toys. It was an accident. An occupational hazard with a small child. If either of you had a kid you would know that.
AB: Detective Sergeant Quinn also saw a bruise on your childminder’s arm yesterday.
RG: Look, is she pressing charges or something?
AB: We will be bringing her in to make a statement. It’s possible she may wish to take it further.
RG: [silence]
I barely touched her. Really. She just pissed me off, that’s all.
[silence]
Look, she’d just told me she was pregnant. She said it was mine – denied ever having slept with anyone else. Well, even you lot can put two and two together and make four on that one.
AB: So Miss Walker is your girlfriend.
RG: She’s not my girlfriend.
[silence]
We slept together. Once. OK? Have you ever done anything really stupid when you were pissed and depressed and regretted it afterwards? No? Well, go figure.
AF: So when she tried to pass off the child as yours you lost your temper?
RG: I was angry. I don’t make a habit of it.
AF: Really? It strikes me you have an unusually short fuse.
AB: Is that what happened in 2015? Did Hannah ‘piss you off’?
RG: Don’t be bloody ridiculous.
AF: Or was it something else – did something happen to Toby – something you thought was her fault?
RG: [silence]
I’m going to say this now, and then I am going to go home to look after my son, and unless you arrest me I don’t think there’s anything you can do to stop me. The last time I saw my wife was 7.15 in the morning on June 24th 2015. She was alive and well. I never hit her, I have no idea who killed her and I don’t know how her body ended up in Frampton Road. Is that clear?
AF: Perfectly.
PR: Thank you, gentlemen, we’ll see ourselves out.
***
Quinn is waiting outside when I leave. He was watching on the video feed. He seems jumpy. Uncharacteristically so.
‘So what do you think?’ he asks as we watch Gardiner and Rose disappear down the corridor.
‘What do I think? I think he’s angry, defensive and unpredictable. But I’m still not sure he’s a murderer.’
Quinn nods. ‘I can see him killing the wife in a fit of rage, but dumping the kid? That’s a big stretch.’