‘My left hand.’ Her voice is brittle with emotion. ‘I’m left-handed.’
This tallies up with what Vic Leyton had initially surmised at the crime scene. Only Tilly Ward isn’t denying that she stabbed Milo Harrison, whether it be with her left hand or right. She’s admitted to inflicting the fatal wound. This is about intent – and motive.
‘Samantha is left-handed too, coincidentally.’
My eyebrows instinctively rise.
‘Is she?’
‘We don’t have much in common,’ she sniffs. Her face is a melted mess of tears and mucus – someone offer the poor girl a tissue, for goodness’ sake! ‘But that’s one thing we do share.’
Davis leans in a touch across the table.
‘We’ve done some initial investigations, Tilly, and some of the information you have given us doesn’t appear to be correct.’
She looks at once both shocked and confused.
‘I’m… I’m sorry? What isn’t correct?’
‘The information you gave us about Samantha living at Stockwell Gardens with Milo Harrison.’
Her eyes dart between them both.
‘I don’t understand. Sorry, what do you mean, “isn’t correct”?’
‘No one called Samantha Valentine lives at that address, Tilly.’
‘Yes, she does,’ she says, with a degree of conviction beneath the confusion. ‘She lives at Stockwell Gardens. I pick her up and drop her off there all the time.’
‘Have you ever been inside the apartment before, Tilly, prior to yesterday, I mean?’
‘Actually, no, I haven’t. Usually I’ll wait around the corner for her whenever I pick her up and I always drop her a little distance away so that he, Milo, won’t see us. To be honest, after everything she told me about him, I was frightened of him myself.’
‘But she told you that’s where she lived, apartment 31, Stockwell Gardens?’
‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that?’ She taps the hearing aid again. ‘Sometimes this thing plays up a bit.’
‘It’s OK, Tilly. Take your time. You say you knew Samantha lived at 31 Stockwell Gardens, that’s where she told you she lived…’
‘Why do you keep asking me about her address?’ Her growing frustration is evident. ‘I’m sorry,’ she immediately apologises. ‘But… doesn’t she live there then? Is that what you’re trying to say…?’
‘Ah, there you are, Riley!’
I swing round from the computer as my boss, Superintendent Gwendoline Archer, enters the room with something of an uncharacteristic flourish.
‘So, are we any closer to a charge yet?’ She sidles up next to me and leans in to watch the screen. ‘What’s it going to be, murder, or manslaughter with diminished? She’s admitted to fatally stabbing the victim, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes, ma’am, she has. This isn’t a case of if she did it, it’swhyshe did it. The account she’s given us so far seems genuine, minus this all-important elusive witness, Samantha Valentine, who apparently can corroborate everything.’
‘… Elusive?’ Archer says without diverting her eyes.
‘… Well, as yet we can’t locate her, ma’am, if indeed she exists at all.’
She pulls back from me a touch.
‘What do you mean, if she even exists at all? She either does or she doesn’t.’
‘Well, no one by that name lives or has ever lived at the address of the deceased, ma’am.’
