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‘So you spent evenings together?’ Duckworth asked. ‘Weekends?’
‘Often, yes.’
‘Often?’
‘Matty’s very involved in the crisis centre his office runs.’
The detectives exchanged a glance.
‘There is no crisis centre, Mrs Brennan.’
My stomach dropped to my knees. In my ears a dull ringing.
‘There must be some mistake,’ my mother said, shaking her head. ‘He said he was there only a few weeks ago.’
Jones leaned forward; fingers interlaced against his chest.
‘When was this?’
‘The day the sketch came out,’ I said, finally locating my voice. ‘The witness account.’
Duckworth made a note in his notebook.
‘I wonder if we could run some dates by you, ma’am. See if Matty was with you on any of them.’
My mother said of course, went to fetch her old diaries. When she came back her hands were shaking. Mine were too. I sat on them so no one would see.
Jones reeled off a list of dates I recognised from my clippings. The days women had gone missing. Butchered. Murdered. Dumped like trash.
The room wheeled. There was no blood in my head. My lungs were empty.
‘To be clear, Matty wasn’t with you on any of these nights?’
‘I don’t think so,’ my mother whispered.
Jones was about to say something else when she cut him off; voice suddenly animated, eyes alive. Her hands moving like windmills, rotating madly on their stems.
‘Matty can’t have done it,’ she said, practically tripping over the words in her haste to get them out. ‘He was staying with his parents in Ireland when that poor girl was killed. If he’d done what you say, he’d have had blood on his clothes, wouldn’t he? His parents would have noticed. He wouldn’t have been able to hide it from them. You must have the wrong person. Same as last time,’ she added triumphantly. ‘With that odd-jobs guy.’
Jones moistened his lips, took a breath.
‘They wouldn’t have noticed,’ he said in a gentle voice.
‘Of course, they would. They were staying together.’
‘Matty’s parents wouldn’t have noticed anything because they’re both dead, Mrs Brennan.’
My mother’s eyebrows moved together. She shook her head, stuttered.
‘What? No, that—’
‘His father died in a hunting accident in the seventies. His mother was killed a few years ago in a robbery gone wrong. Her head was bashed in with a hatchet. The culprit was never found.’
‘A hatchet?’ I whispered.
He looked at me sharply.
‘Yes. What about it?’
