‘Lucy’s night light,’ said Jean. ‘What the diary says-it’s wrong. Lucy had a night light, yes, but it was a plug-in one, Winnie the Pooh. It went in the plug socket in her bedroom, next to her bed. It’s about the size of a normal plug, but round instead of square.’
‘The diary doesn’t specify the sort of night light, does it?’ Proust asked Sam.
‘Let me finish,’ said Geraldine’s mother. Both men turned to face her. ‘It says in the diary that Lucy wanted her door open because she was scared of monsters, the same reason she wanted it to be a bit light. It says that from that night, the first time she talked about being scared of monsters…’ Jean stopped, took a few breaths. ‘Every night after that, it says, Lucy slept with her door open and her night light on, but why would she have needed the door open? The night light was in her room.’
‘We assumed the night light was outside Lucy’s room, and the door was left ajar to let the light in,’ said Sam.
‘But didn’t you see Lucy’s Winnie the Pooh light? Didn’t you find it?’ Jean’s voice was full of contempt.
‘We did. Jean, there was no way we could have known Lucy had the light in her room and not, say, on the landing.’
‘But didn’t you plug it in? Didn’t you see how dim it was? Just a faint gold glow. Night lights like that are designed to go in children’s rooms. That’s the whole point of them. You should have known.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sam. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Someone should have known! How many detectives saw that light? Don’t you have children? Don’t they have night lights?’
How many detectives does it take to change a light bulb? Charlie mused.
Proust was looking at Sam, waiting for him to answer.
‘My sons sleep with their bedroom doors open, and we leave the bathroom light on.’
‘Mark didn’t know either,’ said Jean. It sounded like a concession. ‘He’d heard Geri mention a night light, but he won’t have known what sort, or where it was. Geri was always the one who put Lucy to bed and got up for her in the night.’
‘Was Mark a good father, would you say?’ asked Proust.
‘Of course he was! He has to work all the time, that’s what I meant. Like a lot of fathers. But it was Lucy’s future he was working for. He adores that child.’ Jean’s head dipped. ‘I still can’t believe she’s gone. My sweet Lucy.’
‘I’m so sorry, Jean. And I’m sorry to have to put you through a second interview.’
‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘You need to talk to someone who knows even more about Geri and Lucy than Mark does. And that’s me. I can’t believe you didn’t show me the diary straight away. That’s the first thing I’d have done, in your position. I could have helped you a lot sooner.’
‘The decision wasn’t-’
‘I wasn’t a part-time grandmother.’ Jean Ormondroyd cut Sam off angrily. ‘I spoke to Geri and Lucy on the phone every day. I knew every single detail of Lucy’s life: what she ate for every meal, what she wore, who she played with. Geri told me everything. The night light was in Lucy’s room, and the door had to be closed-Lucy insisted. That way the monsters couldn’t get into her room from the dark bits of the house.’ Jean looked at Charlie, dissatisfied with the reaction she was getting from Proust and Sam: solemn silence. Charlie smiled sympathetically.
‘When Geri and Lucy came to stay the night at my house, which they often did if Mark was away on business, the Winnie the Pooh night light came too. And Lucy’s door had to be shut; if we took too long to shut it, five seconds instead of two, she’d get panicky. We’d finish her bedtime story, kiss her goodnight and have to run to the door to close it before any monsters crept in.’
Proust leaned forward, rubbing the knuckle joints of his left hand with the fingers of his right. ‘Are you telling me that Mark never put his daughter to bed? Not once? At weekends, on holiday? He didn’t know she had a light in her room and that the door had to be closed?’
‘He might have had a vague idea, but Geri was always the one who put Lucy to bed. If Mark was around, he’d do the bedtime story session downstairs. He’d always read her as many stories as she wanted. But bathtime and bedtime was Geri’s responsibility. They had their routines, like most families.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Proust. He pulled a small grey mobile phone out of his shirt pocket, glanced at it, then dropped it back in. ‘I find it odd that he and Geraldine didn’t discuss Lucy’s fear of monsters and her need to have her door either open or shut.’
‘They did,’ said Jean. ‘Mark told me on the way here: he knew there was a problem about monsters, and he knew Lucy had been fussy about the light and the door, but he didn’t remember the specific details. He’s a very busy man, and… well, men don’t remember those domestic details in the way women do.’
Charlie was beginning to admire Jean Ormondroyd, who was clearly determined not to cry. She wanted them to focus on the information she was here to give them, not on her feelings.
‘It’s not just the night light that’s wrong,’ she said. ‘There are other things. Lucy had a DVD of Annie the musical, yes, but I didn’t buy it for her. Geri did. And the conversations the diary describes between Geri and me-they never happened. I didn’t buy her a mug with any book title on it-it didn’t happen!’
Mug with a book title? Charlie would have to look at the diary; she hadn’t a clue what Jean was talking about. I don’t work here, she reminded herself. I don’t have to understand.
‘Jean, who do you think wrote the diary, if not Geri?’ Sam asked.
‘The man who killed her, obviously. I can’t believe you need me to tell you. Haven’t you worked it out yet? He made her write it, before he murdered her. And the suicide note. He made her write a diary that would make the police believe she was capable of doing such a terrible thing-which of course she wasn’t! That’s why Geri wrote things that weren’t right, things he wouldn’t know weren’t right, as a way of signalling she wasn’t doing it by choice, so that Mark and I would know.’
Charlie thought this sounded far-fetched. If Geraldine had wanted to signal to her husband and mother that she wasn’t writing the diary of her own volition, would she really do it by changing the location of a night light? Or writing that Jean had bought Lucy the Annie DVD when she hadn’t? Mark hadn’t even known what sort of night light Lucy had. Had he known where the Annie DVD had come from? Doubtful. Geraldine could have planted an incorrect detail about his work if she’d wanted to be sure of alerting him to something being amiss.
‘Jean, I need to ask you something else,’ said Sam. ‘Have you heard the name Amy Oliver before?’
‘Yes. She was Lucy’s friend at school, one of her two best friends. Of course I’ve heard of Amy.’
‘How recently was Lucy in touch with her?’
‘Not since Amy left St Swithun’s, which was some time last year. Spring or summer. Amy moved away.’
‘Do you know where she went?’
Jean shook her head. ‘I was relieved, to be perfectly honest. So was Geri. She thought Amy was… well, a bit unstable. Volatile. She often upset Lucy. They fought a lot, and Amy always ended up screaming and crying.’
‘What did they fight about?’ Sam asked.
Jean sighed. ‘Lucy’s… Lucy was a real stickler for detail. She knew the difference between what was true and what wasn’t.’
‘Are you saying Amy used to tell lies?’ asked Proust.
‘All the time, according to Geri. And Lucy, who, bless her heart, couldn’t stand to let things pass if they simply weren’t right, she’d try to correct Amy. That’s when the screaming would start. Amy lived in a fantasy world, by the sound of it, and she was over-sensitive. Not at all robust.’ Jean made a dismissive noise. ‘You know what little girls are like-it’s the law of the jungle, isn’t it? No good being a timid little mouse.’