“People will always speculate, Emilia—you know that.” Helen refused to play the game by somebody else’s rules. “If anything changes, I’ll let you know, but it’s not an active line of—”
“What did they fall out over? Love? Money? Were they gay?”
Helen pushed past.
“You’re wasting my time, Emilia. And the last time I checked thatwasa criminal offense.”
Helen and Mark climbed into the unmarked car. Mark pointedly started the engine, staring daggers at Emilia. She looked down her nose at him, then slowly walked back to her car. Helen was relieved and pleased that Anna and Marie hadn’t featured in their discussion. It had been put out as natural causes and no one seemed to be challenging that—yet.
As they drove away, Helen glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure she wasn’t following them. For once, Emilia had decided discretion was the better part of valor and had given up the chase. Helen breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way she could have an audience for what she was about to do.
45
Hannah Mickery was in the middle of preparing a dinner party when Helen arrived on her doorstep. She was every bit as respectable and attractive as she looked on her Web site. A good example of what money can do for you. The bottles of Clos Vougeot that had been decanted in anticipation of her guests’ arrival reinforced the overall feeling of wealth.
She had so much and Helen would have thought she was extremely eligible. Yet she lived alone. This was the first curious thing that struck Helen. Later, in the interrogation room, Hannah Mickery insisted it was because of her work. That she gave so much to her clients that she seldom had time for socializing or dating. The dinner party that Helen had ruined had already been postponed twice because of her unpredictable job. The feeling of resentment toward Helen for the intrusion snapped sharp in the room.
She had her lawyer flanking her. He was expensive too. Mickery always waited for him to intervene and only if he didn’t would she answer the question. They made a strong, considered, credible team. They’d be hard to discredit if they ever got this to trial.
She insisted that she’d been at the site of Peter’s demise only because of her link with Ben. She was a therapist who had spent time with Ben after the horrendous events of his childhood. Murder was the worst type of case, worse even than suicide—that at least has a tragic dimension in its sheer futility and desperation. But how do you coach a young man through his father’s destruction of their family? How do you deal with the fact that someone you loved has ripped your life apart and left you all alone in the world?
Hannah felt she’d made progress with the young Ben—or James, as he was then. And when he’d stopped visiting her three years later, he was kind of back on his feet. Functioning.
“Did you stay in touch?”Helen interjected, already irritated by the fond tone of Hannah’s recollections.
“No, but I kept up to speed with his life. Through Facebook and the like.”
“Why?”
“Because I liked him. I wanted him to survive. I was thrilled when I heard he was getting married.”
“And how did you feel when you ‘discovered’ that he’d been murdered?”
“I was devastated. Obviously.”
Said without feeling, Helen felt.
“And when I heard from a friend that his killer had committed suicide, I... well, I couldn’t believe it.”
“So you had to see it with your own eyes.”
“Yes, I suppose so. It’s not very nice, not very laudable, but I did want to see.”
“Is it true that you’d offered your services to Peter Brightston after his escape from captivity?”
There was a pause. A sideways glance at her lawyer, and then a yes.
“Despite the fact that he’d killed your friend Ben?”
“Peter was clearly in a bad way. And he’d been released without char—”
“How did you know he was in a bad way? Did you see him after his release?”
A longer pause this time. A really long one, then:
“I went to his house once. I rang the bell and asked to see him. I offered my services but he wasn’t interested.”
“How did you know where he lived?”
