‘I doubt she’ll have her phone on her today – we’ll have taken it.’
‘That’s a good point.’
‘I can’t tell you how Jemma’s doing, I’m afraid,’ Simon said. ‘Haven’t spoken to her since before she knew about the murder.’
Stupid.Now Mayo was bound to ask him why he’d had cause to speak to her before that.
Thankfully, he didn’t. He said, ‘Jemma and I used to be …’
Did he want Simon to finish the sentence for him? Or to say or do something else? His eyes were searching, questioning, even though he hadn’t asked anything. ‘She means a lot to me,’ he said eventually, and though the words meant something different, what Simon heard was a plea for him to do something, anything, to put Mayo out of his misery. This was not a happy man, he thought.
‘Tell me about Marianne Upton meaning a lot to you,’ Simon said as Mayo started to make their cups of tea.
‘When I first met her, I thought – incorrectly – that I’d give anything to have a mum like her. Mine had no interest in children or family life. And she’d died by the time Jemma and I met. My dad tolerates me at Christmas and buys me the odd lunch, and that’s about it. He only really seeks me out when he wants to criticise me. He didn’t want me to join the fire service – very opposed to that, he was. Then, not too long afterwards, he didn’t want me toleavethe fire service and pursue psychotherapy.’ Mayo shrugs, as if still puzzled by the contradiction. ‘But the main thing he didn’t want me to do was expect him to be a proper father. And Marianne was the opposite of all that. In every way.Allshe wanted was a happy family. I don’t think I realised how much I wanted that too until I met her. I’d never known anyone before who … had it as an ambition in that way.’
‘She didn’t think she already had a happy family?’ Simon asked. ‘Husband and stepdaughter?’
Mayo’s expression darkened. ‘Gareth was as devoted as she wanted him, but she couldn’t accept Jemma as she was. Jemma’s always had a mind of her own. Look, I need to make it clear: Marianne was a dangerous person. Definitely borderline. Some kind of Axis II personality disorder. I’m trying to explain why I didn’t see it straight away, that’s all. She had something I wanted: a … a shared priority. A yearning in common, I suppose you’d call it. So … I didn’t spot the danger she presented for a very long time.’
Presumably because he wasn’t a therapist when he was initially impressed by her, Simon thought. He suspected not many firemen went round diagnosing people with Axis II personality disorders, whatever they were.
‘I’ve looked at the files from 2012,’ he said. ‘You and Jemma Stelling split up in 2006, yet you were in touch with Marianne after that, visiting her regularly immediately before the attempt on her life in November 2012.’
‘That’s right.’ Mayo handed Simon the slogan mug. It was better than the amorous elephants, Simon supposed, though not by much.
‘That’s unusual, isn’t it? Keeping in touch with your ex’s mother?’
‘Very,’ Mayo agreed. ‘Unusual, inadvisable … Perhaps just plain wrong.’ He sighed. ‘I couldn’t see it at the time. I thought Marianne and I were … friends. Confidantes, really, more than friends. Before you ask, there was nothing romantic or sexual between us, ever, though we both understood without having to say so that nobody could know about our … meetings. No one at Devey House,’ he clarified. ‘Jemma didn’t know. Marianne didn’t tell anyone, I don’t think. Not even Gareth, who would never have gone against her on anything, or expressed disapproval. Oh!’
Mayo winced, then tried to hide it by raising his mug to his face. ‘I told my dad, in a futile attempt to bond with him. Desperate stuff! Didn’t work. He just sneered and lectured: business as usual for him, showering me with his disapproval. There was nothing to disapprove of at that point, though, apart from the secrecy. Marianne and I just met and talked. That was it, all we ever did: long conversations about things that mattered deeply to both of us. It’s thanks to those chats we had that I decided to train as a therapist, so I have Marianne to thank for that at least. It sounds pathetic, but she was the closest thing I could get to being close to Jemma, which is all I really wanted. I’ve never stopped wanting it.’ He made this last part sound like a challenge, as if he was daring Simon to object to it.
‘Even though you broke up in 2006,’ said Simon, matter-of-factly.
‘Correct.’ Mayo looked as if he was struggling to maintain his composure. His Adam’s apple moved up and down.Come on, mate, how bad can it still hurt, seventeen years later?Would Simon still be ranting about Dooper destroying everything that mattered to him seventeen years from now? Christ, he hoped not.
‘You said there was nothing to disapprove of “at that point”. When was there something to disapprove of?’ he asked. ‘Later?’
Bullseye.Mayo looked scared. He’d revealed more than he’d intended to.
‘What did you and Marianne get up to later that you don’t want to tell me about?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mayo. ‘I didn’t mean to imply what that sounded like.’
‘These deep chats you and Marianne had: they all happened in her study, didn’t they?’
A nod of confirmation from Mayo. He was holding his mug in front of his face, perhaps trying to hide behind it.
‘Her locked room,’ said Simon.
‘Yes.’
‘How come you were allowed in and her family weren’t?’
‘She trusted me,’ said Mayo. ‘There was … some personal stuff in there.’
‘Such as?’
‘Family photos, that kind of thing.’
