He scribbles all this down without speaking. Then he lifts his head and blinks at me. ‘Can I speak to your mother?’
‘Of course. Please come through.’
I lead him into the dining room. Mum sits at the table with Nathan. Adrian has left. I hope he’s seeing to the girls. I know they have Julia with them but they need a parent. It must be so confusing and upsetting for them.
I make the introductions, and when Nathan notices I’m empty handed, he gets up to make more tea. He almost runs to the kitchen.
DS Middleton takes a seat opposite Mum and rests his notebook on the table.
‘Can you tell me what happened, please, Mrs Hughes?’
Mum nods. She still looks shaken. I wish she’d changed her jumper. I can’t bear seeing Selena’s blood.
‘I woke up early. I can’t be certain if someone woke me. I think I heard something. A noise. A banging, like a door closing. I lay in bed for a bit but I couldn’t get back to sleep so thought I’d get up.’
‘And what time was this?’ asks the detective.
‘About five thirty. I got dressed and came downstairs. And that’s when … that’s when I saw something at the bottom of the stairs. It was Selena.’
‘And what was she like when you found her?’
‘Very still. I thought she was dead. I didn’t know what to do. I cried out. The next thing I knew, Kirsty,’ she inclines her head in my direction, ‘comes down. ‘Then Kirsty ran back upstairs and got my daughter-in-law, Julia. She’s a doctor. Anyway, she came and assessed her and said she was still breathing.’
DS Middleton frowns. ‘When did you call the ambulance?’
Mum scratches her neck. ‘I think it was before Julia came down.’ She looks to me for confirmation and I nod. ‘Yes. It was before.’
‘And you told the operator you thought Selena was dead?’
Mum nods. ‘Well, yes. Because I thought she was. And then Julia said she felt a pulse.’
‘And you think she slipped and fell?’ DS Middleton pauses from his notes and looks up.
Mum looks puzzled. ‘Yes. Of course. What other explanation could there be?’
Nathan returns with a pot of tea. He offers to pour some for Middleton, who nods a yes.
‘And where is her husband?’ he continues, in that same droning voice.
‘They’re estranged … She said she left him because he was violent.’
‘In what way?’
Mum looks at me. ‘Well, I – I don’t know. Selena never told me.’
‘But she did tell me,’ I pipe up.
DS Middleton turns to me and I sidle into the seat next to Mum. ‘She didn’t go into details.’ I remember the look on her face when I told her about the dead flowers. I explain it all to DS Middleton. ‘She thought the flowers were from him. A threat. And that he had found her. But it was obvious she was terrified of him.’
He averts his eyes to scribble in his little black book.
Mum leans forwards, her face earnest. ‘You do think it was an accident, don’t you?’
‘We can’t rule anything out at this stage.’ He changes tack suddenly, like a car swerving at the last minute to take a different road. ‘I understand this is a guesthouse.’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘I might need to come back and speak to everyone who was here. It depends, of course.’
