Authors: Clare Donoghue
‘Of course,’ Victor said. His hands were clasped together in his lap.
‘Do you know if Maggie had any problems with her other classes?’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not as far as I know. If she was behind in any of her other classes, her tutors certainly didn’t say anything to me.’
‘You said on the telephone that she was dating one of the PhD students,’ she said, opening her notepad again. ‘Terry Mort. Is that right?’
‘Yes. Yes,’ he said. He sat up straight in his chair and leaned towards Jane. She caught the faintest scent of his aftershave. It was familiar. ‘I am one of Terry’s supervisors for his PhD. He and Maggie dated last year. I don’t know for how long.’
‘And how do you know they dated?’ she asked.
‘Maggie told me,’ he said.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why would she tell you?’
‘It’s not like with degree students,’ he said, sighing. ‘They barely listen in class. They care far more about the drinks in the student union. They’re kids, but my MA classes are different. They’re adults. I get on well with them, talk to them, go to the pub with them sometimes. So, naturally, we talk. I get to know my students as individuals.’ He seemed to be proud of this differentiation. Jane found it a bit sad, as if he was trying to validate his existence by saying that his students liked him.
‘And why did you feel the need to come forward with Mort’s name?’
‘Terry’s a good student, or he was. I mean, he still is. He’s a bright guy, but I don’t think . . . I’m not sure he treated Maggie all that well.’ Victor was wringing his hands in his lap. His biscuit skin had paled. His blue eyes seemed to be pleading with her, like entities in their own right. ‘Believe me,’ they were saying, ‘believe me.’
‘Did Maggie tell you about any specific problems in their relationship?’
‘No. Nothing specific. It was just an impression I got. I don’t know . . . ’ He looked over Jane’s shoulder at the door. ‘Maybe I was wrong to say anything. I just thought, you know: a girl is murdered, you check out the boyfriend. That’s how it works, isn’t it?’ There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but she couldn’t decipher whether his anger was about Maggie’s murder or the way the police handled death.
‘What was your relationship with Maggie?’ she asked. They had danced around the topic long enough. If he was going to admit it, which Jane had a feeling he would, then they might as well get it over with.
‘I was her tutor. Her friend,’ he said. ‘I was her tutor, first and foremost.’
‘Okay. Did your relationship ever go beyond the boundaries of friendship?’
Victor’s hand was on his head in seconds. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. There was no conviction in his words.
‘Well, as you said, Victor, when a woman is murdered – as a police officer – my first port of call would generally be to question her sexual partner, husband or boyfriend.’
‘Of course,’ he said. He was looking over her shoulder again.
‘Do you fall into any one of those categories, Victor?’ She knew the answer. She had known the answer as soon as she walked into the room. But as she looked at him, she found herself hoping that he would say No. She didn’t want the man in front of her to be Maggie’s lover. She didn’t want to have to stop the interview, advise him of his rights and start again – on the record, this time.
He looked straight at Jane. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. I do.’
No one is coming. I know that now.
When I woke up I felt different, changed in some way. I can hear music. It surrounds me; Snow Patrol – ‘Chasing Cars’, Cascada – ‘What Hurts the Most’, Mark Ronson – ‘Valerie’. It’s like an iPod on permanent shuffle in my head. I hum along. It’s comforting to hear the sound of my voice mingled with theirs. I was never any good at singing. I tried teaching myself the guitar once. I mastered the introduction to ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles. I would play it on a loop. That was the extent of my talents. There were other things I was good at. Less creative things. Anything to do with science fascinated me. Even as a child playing with my first chemistry set, I realized I understood things my parents didn’t. My father would sit with me, watching me play. ‘How do you know what to add?’ he would ask me, as I poured one liquid on top of another, making the mixture in the tube turn blue. ‘I just do,’ I would answer. I always did. There were rules. This plus that equals X. It made sense to me. I have never enjoyed variables. I have always been more exacting in my work and my life. Give me a rule and I will follow it to the letter. You can’t go wrong, if you follow the rules. So why is this happening to me? How have I managed to venture so far off-course?
I am lying on my side, my knees drawn up to my chest, my hands shoved between my thighs, like an inward prayer. I haven’t been able to move. The strength in my legs is fading. I no longer feel thirsty or hungry. When I really think about it – which I have had plenty of time to do – food is such a waste of time. You ingest, you process, you excrete. What’s the point? Lying here, I can imagine myself in some Buddhist retreat, finding myself through starvation. Of course I know I am not starving to death. That would take weeks – maybe a month. Water is a bit trickier. I’m certain I’m on my reserve tanks for that. The 80 per cent that my body had has dried up. I know because my skin feels like paper, like the tissue that comes wrapped around a new pair of shoes. My tongue no longer aches. It just sits in my mouth, redundant.
I start to rock my head to the rhythm of a new song that has just started playing. It’s not my kind of music, but the iPod selection in my mind doesn’t seem to have learned my specific tastes. I thought I felt the door before. I would say ‘yesterday’, because that is how long ago it feels, but I am sleeping so much now I really can’t be sure. It felt like wood beneath my fingers. Even now my heart begins thumping harder in my chest at the memory. I hadn’t wanted to move my hands, in case when I returned them to the spot the door had gone. I held on for as long as I could before my arms tired. I slept right there, sitting up. Or rather I think I did. There was no door when I awoke. Was there ever one to begin with? I can honestly say I don’t know any more.
At least 50 per cent of my body has no feeling. The numbness, once a marker of time, is now more erratic. My lower legs went an inch at a time. My thighs and stomach seemed to go together. My arms are holding on. So is my heart. I don’t think I can describe the sensation of becoming paralysed one muscle at a time. It is impossible. I think I would have preferred to have gone from mobile to paralysed in one step. If I had been running one day and lying in bed the next, I think I could have coped with that, adapted somehow. But to feel your body freezing, going limp in slow motion – it is the most acute agony. Cruel.
I see my mother’s face. I can hear her words in my ear. ‘It’s almost time to go, honey. Get yourself ready. I’ll wait for you.’ The colours of my parents’ house blind me. I can smell my mother’s cooking: roast lamb, mint sauce, apple charlotte, custard. For a moment I can taste the rich gravy on my tongue. ‘Are you ready yet?’ I hear my mother call out to me.
‘Almost,’ I reply.
29th April – Tuesday
‘It’ll just take a few more minutes, Victor,’ Jane said as she passed him a cup of coffee, took her seat and began sipping at her tea. Technical difficulties with the recorder meant they had been sitting staring at each other for the last ten minutes. She blew on her coffee and tried to focus on the file before her, stealing occasional glances at the man in front of her. He appeared calm, relaxed even.
As soon as he had confirmed his personal relationship with Maggie, Jane had stopped him and advised him that the rest of their conversation would need to be taped. He said he didn’t think it was necessary, but he hadn’t refused. His behaviour didn’t make sense. She couldn’t decide if he was being foolhardy or just naive. Not more than an hour ago he had told her that he knew ‘checking out the boyfriend’ was standard procedure. Did he think he was any different from Terry Mort? Did he think his age or status as a lecturer gave him more credibility? No matter what he thought, she wanted everything on tape, going forward. For his benefit as much as her own. She didn’t believe Lebowski was a killer. She knew it was ridiculous to make a judgement at this stage, but the more she talked to him, the more convinced she became. He had admitted dating Maggie, yes. Moreover, from what he had already told her, he was the last person to see Maggie alive. One of these factors alone would have made him a person of interest. Two made him a prime suspect. She couldn’t remember the exact figures, but something like 40 or 50 per cent of female murder victims were killed by a spouse or intimate partner. He was the obvious choice.
She pushed her fringe off her face, static tickling her forehead. She could feel him watching her. ‘I’m sure it won’t be much—’ Before she could finish her sentence, the door opened and a young PC poked his head into the room.
‘All set, Ma’am,’ he said.
Jane nodded. The PC disappeared, closing the door behind him. She leaned forward and pressed the button on the digital recording device, cleared her throat, stated the date and time and who was present. She debated again whether she should have one of the team in with her, but it seemed like overkill at this stage. Without looking up at Victor, she explained his rights, the reason for the interview and the overall objective. He said he understood and was happy to continue.
‘Can you tell me about your relationship with Margaret Hungerford? When it began, the nature of it, and where and how often you saw or met her,’ she said, jotting down each point to keep her on-track once the interview began.
‘Okay,’ Victor said. He was leaning towards the recorder as if he was keen not to be misheard. ‘Can I call her Maggie?’
She looked up at him. ‘Yes, of course.’
He sat back in his chair, crossed his legs and looked up at the ceiling. ‘I first met Maggie in February 2011.’
His chin was tipped up and to the right. Jane had read a ton of literature on body language: physical behaviour that indicated when someone was lying. None of it was proven, but she found herself trying to remember the drawings detailing the probable part of the brain being accessed, judged by the direction of the individual’s eyes. Victor was looking up and to the right. She was pretty sure that meant he was accessing the visual cortex.
‘Me and Professor Edward Cresswell, the head of our psychology department, interviewed her for a place on the psychology MA.’ She wondered if he was picturing Maggie sitting across from him in the psychology offices. She would have been nervous, keen to make a good impression. ‘She interviewed very well,’ he said, bringing his focus back to Jane. ‘She had a first in her degree and had done a huge amount of voluntary work and research into the field she was interested in. Both Edward and I were impressed. Psychology is a complicated discipline, Detective,’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Most of my students, even at MA level, struggle to decide where best to focus their attentions.’ There was admiration in his voice – genuine, as far as Jane could tell. ‘Maggie was accepted on the basis of her application and interview.’
‘Who made the decision to accept her?’ she asked, pen poised over her notepad. It felt like a silly question to ask – leading even. What was he going to say? ‘It was my decision. I accepted her onto the course because I thought she was hot. I was going to get her to choose my modules, seduce her and then leave her to die in an underground tomb, which I just happened to have ready. Oh, and I watched the whole thing on CCTV. Do you want to read me my rights now or later?’ She resisted the urge to shake her head.
‘Professor Cresswell and I discussed it, and we both agreed she was an ideal candidate for the course. Our decision was handed down to Admissions, and they would have written to Maggie to confirm her place.’
‘Did you speak to her in private at this time, or after the interview?’ she asked.
‘No. As far as I can remember, we had several candidates that day. I would have to check my diary but, as I recall, her interview didn’t last very long.’
‘And you didn’t see her on campus after the interviews were done?’
‘No,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Not that I can recall. The next time we met was in September 2011, during the induction weekend.’
‘Induction weekend?’ she asked, glancing up at the clock.
‘Yes. We like to have an informal weekend away before the course starts. It allows the students to get to know each other and their tutors and, of course, it helps them to decide on their modules for the second semester.’ He was looking straight ahead, but not at her.
‘What do you do on these weekends?’ she asked.
‘We have exercises – little role-plays to demonstrate different aspects of psychology and its applications in the real world,’ he said. ‘Attendance isn’t compulsory, but we always have a good number of the students.’
‘Did you speak to Maggie that weekend? Spend any time alone with her?’
He nodded. ‘A little. I was trying – and failing – to give up smoking at the time. Maggie used to smoke, and let me nick a couple of her fags.’ He smiled.
Jane could picture them now, bonding over a habit that was no longer socially acceptable. ‘Do you recall what you talked about?’ she asked.
‘I honestly can’t remember,’ he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘We just chatted about psychology – aspects that interested her, I think.’
‘Did you talk about the modules that you teach?’
‘We may have,’ he said, looking down at his hands. ‘It was a long time ago.’
For the first time Jane had the feeling he was lying. ‘Okay,’ she said, looking up again at the clock on the wall behind Victor’s ahead. ‘Let’s move on.’ If he ended up being a person of interest in the case, these details – every second he spent with Maggie – would be gone over and over. She wanted to get to the meat of the interview. ‘When did your relationship with Maggie change and move away from being purely professional?’