Grace took some moments to process this. ‘What do you think actually happened?’
‘Too early to say, Roy. I need input from the Collision Investigation Unit, which will take some days. But at the moment, it looks like Bruno was distracted by his phone when he stepped off the pavement. We will carry out cognitive witness interviews with this lady and any others who come forward and see if we can learn more. I’ll keep you updated on any information that comes in from our public appeal.’
‘Thanks, James, I’d really appreciate that.’
‘I’ll keep everything crossed for your lad making a full recovery.’
Grace thanked him and hung up, blinking away tears.
53
Feeling completely hollowed out, Roy and Cleo sat in the Relatives’ Room eating some kind of pasta with plastic forks. Macaroni, linguine, fettuccine, penne, whatever. Although they’d not eaten for hours, neither of them had any appetite.
‘I just can’t believe it. He’s that bad... this is awful, darling.’ Cleo’s voice was breaking up and she started crying again.
He hugged her tight.
She bowed her head for some moments, then looked up at him, sniffing and wiping her tears. ‘Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this, not tonight anyway, but maybe you should hear it before you see it for yourself.’ She fell silent.
‘See what?’
She shook her head. ‘Forget it, I shouldn’t tell you. Now isn’t the time.’
He looked hard at her. ‘You can’t leave me dangling. What is it? Tell me?’
She shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t have raised it, not tonight.’
‘Well you have,’ he said, his anxiety rising again. ‘So what is it? Tell me, please?’
‘Bruno’s two favourite hens, Fraulein Andrea and Fraulein Julia.’ She looked at him flatly.
‘Yes, what about them?’
Hesitating again, she said, ‘I went out this morning to let them out. But I couldn’t find them anywhere. So I looked inside the hen house thinking they might be broody and sitting in nesting boxes. They were in there.’ She looked at him with a strange expression.
After some moments, Roy Grace said, ‘Broody, as you thought?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Roy. They were dead.’
‘Dead?’
She nodded.
‘Poor things. It said in that book you got that sometimes they die suddenly and young — often when an egg gets stuck. Is that what happened — they got egg-bound?’
She gave him a resigned look. ‘I wish I could say it was.’ She shook her head again. ‘But I don’t think getting an egg stuck would do that to Andrea and Julia.’
‘What is it? What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Both had their necks wrung, their heads twisted round the wrong way.’
54
‘The time is 7.39 p.m., Tuesday,’ Norman Potting said for the benefit of the recording. ‘DS Potting and DS Exton interviewing Niall Paternoster, under caution in the presence of his solicitor. This is the fourth interview.’
‘Niall,’ Exton began, ‘can we go back to your wife’s engagement and wedding rings and her passport. Why were they apparently hidden under a floorboard? How did they get there?’
Looking increasingly ragged and short-tempered, Niall replied, ‘I haven’t a clue.’
Exton looked him in the eye. ‘Did you put them there?’
‘No bloody way. I can only think Eden put them there.’
‘Why would your wife do that?’
‘I haven’t a clue. You’re the detectives, not me.’
Ignoring the remark, Exton glanced at his notes.
‘Your wife is normally active on a number of social media platforms, but there’s been no activity by her on any since Thursday night. Can you explain that?’
‘I was with her through until Sunday afternoon, so I don’t know why she didn’t post. She’s always on it, bloody lives on it.’
Exton nodded politely. ‘You told us you didn’t know why Eden wasn’t answering her phone and that it appeared to be switched off. Can you explain how it came to be underneath your bed in the house? How did it get there? Were you responsible for hiding it there? Is there something you’re not telling us?’ He stared hard at Paternoster, but the man just gave a ‘couldn’t care less’ shrug.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t put it there, I have no idea.’
Norman Potting took over. ‘Niall, when we interviewed you earlier, you told us you had a nice evening last Thursday, you and Eden having a barbecue at home. You mentioned having a minor disagreement over smoking meat, but no more than that, correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Officers have spoken to your neighbours. Your next-door neighbour told us something different. She said she heard raised voices, a violent-sounding argument and what seemed to be some sort of blow delivered. She was so concerned she thought about ringing the police.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ he replied angrily. ‘I told you we had an argument but it’s nothing like she’s describing.’
‘Why would she make it up?’ Potting asked.
‘She’s a nosy old bat and she doesn’t like me for some reason. Probably wants to get me into trouble.’
‘Other neighbours have corroborated what she said. They heard the row, too,’ Potting said calmly. ‘Can you explain that?’
Paternoster looked at Rattigan, who gave him a signal. He turned back to the detectives. ‘No comment.’
Potting continued. ‘When you gave your account about what the two of you did last week you told us your wife had gone to work on Friday. We’ve checked with her company and they tell us she never turned up and it surprised them as she missed an important meeting. Can you explain that?’
Paternoster’s brow furrowed. ‘What? This is complete nonsense, she went to work and then came home, she’d have told me if she hadn’t gone into work — and no way would she have missed an important meeting — she’s very conscientious.’
Norman Potting paused for a moment. ‘Niall, could you tell us again about your journey home from visiting Parham House, last Sunday afternoon, the first of September. You made a stop on your way?’
‘Yes,’ he replied sullenly. ‘As I’ve told you and your colleagues repeatedly, I stopped at the Tesco Holmbush superstore at approximately 3.15 p.m.’
‘What was the reason for that?’ Potting asked disingenuously.
‘God, how many times do I have to repeat this? People talk about wasting police time, what about you wasting our time?’
Rattigan looked at his client with a nonplussed expression.
‘Please could you answer my question,’ Potting persisted.
‘I... we... stopped at the store because my wife needed to buy a sack of cat litter.’
‘Why did she want to buy a sack of cat litter?’
‘Because we’d run out of the stuff — I’d forgotten to buy some the day before.’
‘You’d run out of cat litter?’ Potting asked.
‘Yes,’ he replied tetchily. ‘Is there some part of that you don’t understand?’
Potting did not respond for some moments, while he made a note, then he looked back at him. ‘I’d like to ask you a question about your wife, Niall. Is she good at running your house?’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ his solicitor jumped in.
‘If you’ll allow me to continue,’ Potting said, with consummate politeness, ‘I think it will become clear.’ He turned to Paternoster. ‘If I could repeat my question, was your wife good at running your house — your home, Niall?’
‘She doesn’t run the home, we run it together,’ he said reluctantly.
‘Would you say she would have known when you were critically low of household items — such as cat litter?’