Hope to Die

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LK: Interview terminated at 9.40.

* * *

Adam Fawley

24 October

18.25

‘You spoke to her? What did you say?’

‘I asked about her weight gain. I mean, I didn’t put it quite that way, but that was the gist of it. God, it was embarrassing. It’s a massive no-no, talking to another girl about her weight.’

‘How did she react?’

‘She laughed. Said something about having eaten too much Häagen-Dazs.’

‘Was she just fobbing you off?’

She spreads her hands, at a loss. ‘I genuinely don’t know. It’s possible she really didn’t know she was pregnant.’

‘Was this the first time or the second?’

A pause, a frown. ‘The second.’

‘Then how could she not have known? Surely she’d have recognized the signs the second time.’

She shrugs. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you.’

‘Did you ever have any suspicions about who the father of that baby was? I know you said you didn’t in your original statement, but if there’s anything you might have thought of since, however vague, it might really help.’

She gives a lopsided smile. ‘’Fraid not. Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably.’

There’s a silence.

Quinn clears his throat. ‘Sorry to have to ask this, Ms Rutherford, but were you and Camilla ever sexually involved?’

Her mouth drops open. Only a little, but enough.

She swallows. ‘How did you know?’

He spreads his hands. ‘I didn’t. Not till now – what I mean is, you’re obviously in a same-sex relationship now, aren’t you? And then it struck me that Leonora Staniforth said something in the documentary about you and Camilla having been particularly tight around then.’

She sighs. ‘Well, since you’re asking, then, yes. We did have a thing. Briefly. No one knew – not even Leo. I think it was just experimenting – for Cam, I mean. It was different for me.’

‘Different in that you already knew you were gay?’

‘Partly. Cam certainly didn’t take it very seriously. It was just a bit of fun. For her. A sideshow to the real event.’

I sit forward. ‘And it wasn’t for you? It was serious?’

She sighs. ‘I thought so. For a time. She has that effect on people.’

‘You never mentioned this during the original investigation.’

She flushes a little. ‘I was just a junior in the firm then. And people weren’t as “open-minded” fifteen years ago, especially not in Magic Circle law firms. And like I said, I didn’t know who the father of the baby was. Letting the whole world poke about in my private life wasn’t going to change that. My relationship with Cam – such as it was – was entirely irrelevant.’

I leave a pause. ‘Not “entirely” irrelevant, surely?’

She frowns. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘If you were having a physical relationship with Camilla you’d have been better placed than anyone to know that she was pregnant. In fact, it’s hard to see how you couldn’t have known.’

She flushes and looks away.

‘Ms Rutherford?’

She turns back to face me. ‘OK. What I said before – about asking her about her weight – that did happen. The only thing I left out was that it was in bed. On a memorable Sunday afternoon when her parents were lunching with friends.’ She stares at me. ‘Happy now?’

‘And even in those circumstances – those intimate circumstances – she still managed to convince you she was telling the truth?’

She laughs grimly. ‘Well, I’m not the only one she fooled that way, now am I?’

* * *

When Quinn finally gets home he’s feeling pretty pleased with himself. Tired, but pleased. The lights are on in his top-floor flat and as he walks across the piazza and looks up he can see Maisie moving about. It’s the first time he’s seen her like that – at home, in his place – and he’s sideswiped by a little surprise of joy. He spent weeks persuading himself that asking her to move in was the right thing to do, and was then completely wrong-footed that she didn’t say yes straight away and he had to put even more effort into persuading her. He’d worried there’d be loads of girly crap about the place, and he’d be nagged, and not be able to just veg in his joggers, but apart from some make-up stuff on her side of the bed and a few more toiletries in the bathroom (some of which he’s actually tempted to try), things haven’t changed much. Visible things anyway. As for the rest of it, that’s fine too. Pretty good, actually.

He opens the door to music and a waft of cooking. Maisie is on the other side of the big open-plan living space, setting the table.

‘Hi,’ she says, looking up with a smile. ‘You OK?’

He throws his scarf and tablet on the side table and drops into the settee. ‘Yeah, fine. Pretty good, actually.’

‘What was she like – Rowan?’

He grimaces. ‘Right hard-faced cow.’

Maisie shrugs. ‘Well, fifteen years in prison and all that.’

‘Yeah, that’s what Fawley said too.’

‘So did she say anything?’

He shakes his head. ‘Nah. Nothing she hasn’t said before, that’s for sure. Now Melissa Rutherford, that was a whole different ball game.’

She pauses for a moment in what she’s doing. ‘You spoke to her as well?’