It was always important to get the details down while they were still fresh in the mind, not least because a defence team could quite reasonably try to poke holes in the police’s account had it been written down days later, once the details had become fuzzy and the officers’ recollections turned hazier.
It was sod’s law that these sorts of investigations never came to a head mid-morning or just after lunch. It certainly would’ve made them easier to write up, without having to work into the early hours just to protect her own backside.
‘How’s he doing?’ she said to Dexter, who’d just come back upstairs from the custody suite.
Dexter shrugged. ‘Hard to tell. He’s not really saying much. I think he got it all out of his system at the woods.’
‘Yeah, tell me about it,’ she replied, looking down at the paper in front of her.
‘I think he’ll be co-operative. Especially if he thinks Amie’s going to be waiting for him at the other end.’
‘How long before he realises that’s not going to happen, though? We’ll need to get that confession down in an official statement pretty sharpish.’
‘Already on it,’ Dexter replied, smiling. ‘It’s being done as we speak.’
‘Brilliant, thanks Dex.’
‘You look knackered.’
‘Again, thanks Dex. Must be the thought of having to see the Chief Super first thing.’
Dexter smiled. ‘Enough to put anyone off their breakfast. Head home and get some kip. Everything looks brighter in the morning. I’ll get the paperwork sorted.’
‘You sure? You’ll be here hours.’
‘Nah, won’t take that long. Maybe at your age, but I’ll fly through it. I’m having tomorrow off, though, yeah?’
‘What, despite all your youthful energy and vigour?’ Caroline replied, smirking. ‘Let’s compromise. You can come in at midday.’
Dexter shrugged. ‘Suits me. Miss the rush hour at least.’
Caroline stood and stretched, feeling the vertebrae in her spine clicking. ‘Right. Well, in that case I’m off to pop my teeth into a glass of water and make myself a mug of Ovaltine.’
‘Mind you don’t spill any on your stairlift.’
‘Yeah, alright Dex,’ Caroline called from the doorway. ‘Mind you don’t trip down the stairs on your way out.’
53
When Caroline finally arrived home, she was surprised to find the living room light on. Mark was usually in bed long before now, and she hoped this didn’t signify another argument was on the cards.
She switched off the engine on her Volvo, opened the door and stepped out onto the driveway. It was a clear night; bitterly cold, but beautiful in its own way, with the stars clearly visible in the night sky. She walked up to the front door and tentatively put her key in the lock, opening the door as quietly as she could. Even though Mark was still up, the boys would be asleep, and her house had a terrible habit of transferring sounds through the walls.
As she stepped into the living room, she saw Mark. He wasn’t fully dressed; instead, he was huddled in his dressing gown, his hair askew. It was clear he hadn’t waited up, but had been asleep and got up again. There was an old western on TV — a film she didn’t recognise, with horses galloping through the dusty desert.
‘Mark? Are you okay?’
He turned towards her, and she noticed his eyes were red raw. In the look he gave her, she could see he wasn’t upset or angry at her, but at something else entirely. The pleading in his eyes told her he needed her.
‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ she asked, sitting down beside him on the sofa. ‘What’s happened?’
Mark sniffed, and it was clear to her he’d been crying for some time. ‘It’s Mum,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘She’s gone.’
Caroline’s heart sank, and in those two words she realised her family had changed forever. Mark had already lost his father and brother to cancer in a short space of time.
‘What happened?’
‘Joan, her neighbour, called. Apparently Mum was getting into bed tonight and she started to get chest pains. She managed to get to the phone to call the ambulance, but when they got there she’d already gone. They think it was a heart attack.’
Caroline took Mark in her arms. ‘Oh no. Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.’
As she held him, she realised just how much she meant those words. She was sorry. She was dreadfully sorry; guilt-ridden at having moved the family from London to Rutland, knowing his mum had only recently lost her husband and a son. Although it had been a joint decision, and one Mark’s mum had wholeheartedly endorsed, she felt awful.
‘Why didn’t she call me, Caz?’ he asked, his eyes pleading again. ‘I didn’t even get to speak to her.’
Caroline put Mark’s head on her shoulder and rubbed his back. ‘She probably knew. If the ambulance didn’t even get there on time with the blues and twos going, there was no way you were going to.’
‘But if we were closer.’
‘No, you can’t think like that,’ she replied, for her own benefit as much as his. ‘Even in London, it would’ve taken us far longer to get to hers than an ambulance would.’
‘But she might have called me instead.’
‘I know. But what good would that have done? You’d have got there later, still found her gone and been left wondering if things might have been different had she only called an ambulance. Or you’d be feeling guilty that you didn’t call one for her before leaving. At least this way you know there was nothing anybody could have done. And you get to remember her the way she was her whole life, rather than having that image plaguing you for the rest of yours.’
Mark nodded. She knew he still had the same memories of his dad and brother in their final weeks, their bodies withering away in front of them, as if decomposing before death.
‘I need to be there,’ he said. ‘I… I want to see her, I think. I don’t know. Maybe I just need to be in
