‘How did that make you feel, when your husband lost his job?’
The woman recoiled. ‘I didn’t say he was my husband.’
‘No, but he is, isn’t he?’
‘It’s all Mr Whittaker’s fault.’ The woman pouted. ‘We’d never be in this mess if he ran his business properly.’
‘You have a knack for eavesdropping don’t you, Mrs Jamieson?’
The woman dropped her hand to the table, the tissue scrunched up in her fist. ‘Whatever do you mean by that?’
‘You have a tendency to hover at closed doors, hoping to hear gossip,’ said Kay. ‘When my colleagues and I have visited the Whittakers at home, you’ve been close by, listening in, haven’t you?’
The woman’s cheeks coloured and she jutted her chin at Kay. ‘It’s a housekeeper’s business to know what’s going on in the household.’
‘When did you find out about Mrs Whittaker’s arrangement with Blake Hamilton?’
‘It was a good arrangement.’
‘Answer the question.’
The woman glared at her, then lowered her gaze and plucked an imaginary piece of fluff from the thin gold band of her wristwatch.
‘He came to the house when Mr Whittaker was out at a meeting with his bank,’ she said eventually. ‘Lady Griffith met with him in the conservatory and they spoke about the purity pledge then. Sophie had already mentioned it to her parents, and Lady Griffith knew she’d taken a shine to Josh, so she proposed the arrangement to Mr Hamilton and he agreed. It suited them both very well.’
‘How did you find out Sophie was pregnant?’
The woman sneered. ‘She always looked down her nose at me. The years I’ve tidied up after her, ironed her clothes, cooked for her. She was insolent, disrespectful. She ignored me most of the time unless she wanted me to do something for her. I was invisible to her. She and that trollop of a friend of hers were talking on the terrace outside the dining room after breakfast the day of her engagement party – it was easy to hear what they were saying. I was shocked to hear she was pregnant. I didn’t take her for the type.’
Kay pushed her chair back at a knock on the interview room door.
Carys stood in the corridor, and handed a plastic evidence bag to Kay. Kay thanked her, and closed the door before returning to the desk and placing the evidence bag on it.
‘While you were waiting for us to speak with you, one of my colleagues has been speaking to our crime scene investigators.’ Kay pushed the bag towards Jamieson. ‘Luckily, on the night of Sophie’s murder the first responders at the scene had the sense to smother the flames of the braziers around the terrace. The remains are all that are left of a rolling pin.’
Jamieson paled, and lifted a shaking hand to her mouth.
‘The reason why old rolling pins like this are passed down through families is because they’re made of a hard wood,’ said Kay. ‘It makes them difficult to destroy.’
‘I-I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You were expecting caterers the morning of the party. While they were busy working in the kitchen, you took the rolling pin from the kitchen drawer and hid it amongst the rhododendron bushes beyond the terrace. That’s how you got scratches on your arms. You heard Sophie talking to Eva Shepparton earlier that day. You heard her tell Eva she was pregnant and who she thought the father was. As far as you were concerned, it ruined your plans to help Mrs Whittaker keep her ancestral home, and put your position in the household at risk. There’s not much of a requirement for housekeepers these days, is there?’
Jamieson made a small noise at the back of her throat.
Kay ignored her and continued. ‘Later that day, after the speeches finished and the disco started, you lured Sophie into the darkness beyond the terrace and you struck her so hard with the rolling pin, she was killed instantly. You must have been covered in blood.’
Jamieson whimpered.
‘You removed the cardigan you were wearing, wrapped the rolling pin in it, and on your way back up to the terrace you threw the two items into the first brazier you came to. The problem was, unknown to you, the wind had picked up and the brazier wasn’t burning as hot as it could have been. It was blowing mostly smoke at that point, stinking out the disco.’ Kay pointed at the burnt remains in the plastic evidence bag. ‘We have another one of those bags with the remains of your cardigan in.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You’ve been employed by Mrs Whittaker all your adult life, haven’t you Mrs Jamieson?’
‘Yes, and I’ve been proud to serve Lady Griffith.’
‘Except of late, you’ve had to stand and watch as, one by one, all the other staff have been made redundant, ending with your husband, George Jamieson.’
The woman glared at Kay. ‘If that stupid runt of a child of hers hadn’t got herself pregnant by that godawful priest, then none of this would have happened,’ she snapped. ‘She ruined everything.’
‘No, Mrs Jamieson, you did. You killed Sophie Whittaker, and you killed the baby she was carrying at the time. A baby whose father was Josh Hamilton.’
Kay sat back in her chair, her palms on the table and watched as a look of absolute horror stole across the woman’s features.
‘No – no, that’s not right. Josh isn’t the father. It’s the priest. Or that Evans fellow. Not – not Josh.’
‘We’ve received the paternity results a moment ago,’ said Kay. ‘And that’s why you could hear Mrs Whittaker. One of our colleagues broke the news to her while we came to speak with you.’
Jamieson’s eyes widened as realisation sunk in.
‘Grace Jamieson, we are now going to seek authority from the Crown Prosecution Service to
