‘I’ve only been in the loft once since the day we moved in and that was on Wednesday.’
‘You knew,’ she pressed.
Silence. Then a sigh, followed by a dull nod.
‘How?’
‘I saw that box for the first time this week,’ he muttered.
‘On Wednesday?’ Jessie asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’ Marilyn cut in.
‘In Carolynn’s bedroom cupboard, right at the back, hidden behind her shoe rack.’
‘What were you doing in her cupboard?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Humour me.’
‘We … Carolynn, kept a shoebox of Zoe’s things. Photographs, her favourite teddy bear, her first sleepsuit, first shoes. With the anniversary of her … her death the following day, I wanted to have a look through the shoebox.’ His gaze dipped. ‘Wallow, I suppose you’d call it.’
‘And you found the box with the doll in it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it you or Carolynn who moved the box to the loft?’
‘Me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s repulsive. Creepy and repulsive. I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that an identical doll to the one found by my daughter’s body was in my bedroom.’
‘Did you challenge Carolynn as to why she had it?’ Jessie demanded. ‘Where it came from?’
‘Not when I found it. But I thought that when she realized I’d found and moved the doll, she’d speak to me. I wanted her to talk about it … to tell me why she had it. But she never mentioned it and I didn’t want to press her.’
‘Because the issue was too delicate, particularly given the time of year, the anniversary?’
His gaze locked to the doll in the box, Reynolds nodded.
‘So your wife bought it. Is that what you’re saying?’ Marilyn asked.
‘I’ve never seen it before is what I’m saying. All I’m saying.’
‘Why were you in the loft this morning?’ Marilyn asked.
‘I felt dust, grit, on the landing carpet this morning under my bare feet. The only place it could have come from was the loft hatch. I wanted to know why Carolynn had opened it.’
Marilyn eyeballed him. ‘And why had she opened it?’
From his stance and tone, Jessie knew his hackles were rising, tried to catch his eye, warn him to keep the conversation civil. Reynolds was cooperating; confrontation was liable to make him clam up. But Marilyn wasn’t looking at her – deliberately?
‘I don’t know,’ Reynolds muttered.
‘To collect a suitcase?’
‘I said, I don’t know.’
‘There’s a rectangular imprint against the brick chimney breast in the loft that is dust free. Below is a stack of suitcases. The imprint says to me that the top suitcase is missing.’
‘Does it?’ Reynolds lifted his shoulders in studied nonchalance. ‘I was only up there for a minute, and then came down because you rang the doorbell. I didn’t get as far as the chimney breast.’
Marilyn switched tack. ‘Mr Reynolds, you have told us repeatedly that no one apart from you and Carolynn has entered this house since you moved in nine months ago.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Though the look of studied indifference was still fixed to his face, his body language was as deflated as a week-old party balloon that most of the air – the fight – had leaked from. ‘But you’re telling me that Jodie Trigg was probably here.’
Marilyn nodded. ‘Most of the surfaces downstairs, those that people routinely touch, have been recently wiped clean, including all the door handles, the surfaces of the doors, the downstairs toilet, kitchen worktops, cupboard doors and the kitchen table and chairs.’
‘I like things tidy …’ Reynolds said, hastily adding, ‘We both like things tidy.’
Marilyn raised an eyebrow. ‘However, we have found a child’s fingerprints on the hall floor.’ He held out his hands horizontally, miming placing them on a flat surface. ‘Our CSI thinks the prints were left when the child was sitting on the floor, perhaps putting his or her shoes back on.’
‘Are they Jodie Trigg’s prints?’ Roger asked dully.
‘We’ll need to compare them to those we’ve taken from Jodie before I can answer that question. We found another set on the kitchen windowsill, just the left hand. The child must have been standing at the window for some reason and rested her left hand on the sill.’
‘The cat sleeps on the kitchen windowsill because it catches the sun, the only place in this godforsaken house that does. The kid probably stood by the window and stroked the cat.’
Marilyn nodded. ‘Thank you, Mr Reynolds,’ he said. ‘We also found two sets of footprints in the loft. A pair of your wife’s shoes match the smaller prints. The larger prints were barefoot, size 11. I assume they were yours from this morning?’
‘Probably.’
‘We’ll have to confirm that.’
‘I’d expect nothing less, DI Simmons. Dot the i’s, cross the t’s and miss the big fucking picture altogether.’
Marilyn ignored the goad. ‘My CSI, Tony Burrows, is waiting in the loft, if you’d be so kind as to go up now and assist him.’
‘Where is the cat?’ Jessie asked, as Reynolds stood. ‘Where is Oddie?’
‘I haven’t seen him today.’
‘Do you usually see him every day?’
Reynolds nodded. ‘He’s a homebody. The furthest he ever ventures is the garden wall, to court attention from people passing by. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.’ His dull gaze met hers. ‘You can have the cat, Dr Flynn, when he returns, if you want him. There’s no love for him here any more and he does so enjoy being loved.’
56
Carolynn pulled off the A3 at the next junction, took a couple of turnings until she found a quiet country lane and cut the engine. Winding down her window, she hurled the bacon sandwich into the bushes. Tears of frustrated anger were sitting right behind her eyes and in the constriction of her throat. But she wasn’t going to cry. She had learnt at an early age that crying was pointless.
No.
She could sit here and cry impotent tears or she could take control. She’d had enough of being a victim, enough of letting life get the better of her and it stopped now.
She desperately wanted her old, perfect life
