‘Hi, Ruby. I’m Detective Inspector Caroline Hills. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Dexter Antoine. We understand you wanted to speak to us with regards to the investigation into the death of Russell Speakman, is that right?’
Ruby dug her fingernails into the back of her hand. ‘Yes. Christ, I don’t even know where to begin. I was a girlfriend of Russell’s. One of many. I… I was round at his that evening. We had an argument, because I’d found out he’d been cheating on me. My friend, Layla, had seen him kissing another girl in town. It… God, it sounds so bad saying it like this. It was Amie Murray who she saw him with, so when I heard the police had been on to her and brought her in, I thought, Good. Let her have it. I thought she deserved to suffer for what she’d done. Obviously now I know that’s not really a rational thing to think, but by the time things had died down there was no way I could just call the police and admit what happened. And then the more time that passes… it just becomes impossible.’
‘Okay. Can you talk us through what happened?’ Caroline asked.
‘I can try. There are bits I remember like it was yesterday, but other things are just blank.’
‘Do your best.’
Ruby thought for a moment, and seemed to be composing herself. Caroline watched her adam’s apple bob as she swallowed, then spoke. As she did, she stared at the floor in the corner of the room, visions and memories playing in her mind.
‘He invited me over. Fairly last minute. I think he’d probably had an argument with another girl of his and I was the only one who was free. I wanted to bring it up with him — what my friend had seen — but I didn’t know what to say. And eventually I told him. I told him what Layla saw. He said I was crazy. He’d gone upstairs. He always tried running away from problems. Never wanted to face up to them. I told him to look me in the eye and tell me it wasn’t true, but he couldn’t. His phone was charging in his bedroom, and I knew there’d be texts on it from his other girls. He was always so secretive with it. So I went to go into his room and get it, to prove what he’d been up to, and he grabbed me. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I’ve played this moment over in my head so many times over the years. So many times. Maybe I thought he was going to hit me. Maybe I wanted to… I don’t know. But I swung my arm round and hit him. I don’t know if it was just the angle, or where it caught him, or what, but he lost his balance. He was at the top of the stairs and he lost his balance. It all seemed to happen so slowly, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I can still hear the sound of him falling. By the time I realised what was happening it was too late. I could tell, just by looking at him. You can sort of tell, can’t you? When someone’s dead. You can tell.’
The silence in the room was heavy. Caroline and Dexter could feel the weight of the secret Ruby had been carrying with her for fifteen years. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to tell her Russell had still been alive at that point.
‘Ruby. I know this is a difficult question, and one that’s probably impossible to answer, but do you think hitting Russell knocked him down the stairs?’
Ruby shook her head slightly. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know. I wasn’t facing him. But I didn’t think it was that hard. I think he tried to swerve it, but went too far and slipped. I didn’t even mean to hit him. Not really. It was just an instinctive reaction. I thought he was going to hurt me. I keep telling myself that. That it was self-defence. An accident. I believe that. I really do. It keeps it at bay, too, for a bit. Sometimes it flares up again and I panic. I melt down. And now, when I heard you were looking into what happened again, it got too much. I had to say something. I needed the truth to be out there.’
Caroline looked at Dexter, and they exchanged a knowing glance. Would there be any benefit in charging Ruby with anything? What good would it do? She certainly wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. She probably hadn’t even killed Russell Speakman. Not directly. Although Caroline had always valued justice over everything else, she had to question whether that would be just in any sense of the word.
But it did help. They now knew what had happened to Russell Speakman. And they knew for certain that the Tanners hadn’t had any involvement. In Caroline’s eyes, that drastically lowered their chances of having been involved in the murder of Martin Forbes, too. It was all a highly unfortunate set of coincidences. But that didn’t leave them any closer to finding their killer. Far from it.
43
After interviewing Ruby, Dexter and Caroline stepped outside into the car park for some much-needed fresh air.
‘Not hard to see she was telling the truth there,’ Dexter said. ‘You could see how difficult it was for her.’
‘I know,’ Caroline replied. ‘Problem is it opens up a whole can of worms now. By rights, that should go through CPS and the courts. It’d be overturning the coroner’s verdict.’
‘That said accidental death, didn’t it? I don’t see how this was anything other than accidental. Slightly different circumstances, but same outcome. In any case, it’s up to us to pass it on to the CPS if we think a charge is necessary. If we’re
