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‘No,’ my mother said, but she’d answered too quickly. I suspect we were both thinking about those blocked drains.
‘What about his relationships with women?’ Duckworth asked.
They were jumping from topic to topic. I wondered whether they were doing it on purpose. Trying to catch her off guard the way they did on Perry Mason.
‘Misogyny?’ Jones prompted. ‘Trouble relating?’
My mother scoffed.
‘Hardly. He’s the most charming man I’ve ever met.’
‘What about cruelty to animals?’
‘Do you think I’d want anything to do with someone like that?’
‘His camo trousers, are they brown or green?’
‘Why do you keep asking me about camo trousers?’
We didn’t know it then, but a swatch of camouflage material torn from a pair of trousers had been found in the mud near where Niamh Keenan’s body was dumped that matched fibres discovered at Hampstead Road Lock.
The detectives answered my mother with a fresh question of their own. A deflection tactic, one I’ve employed plenty of times myself since.
‘Did he ever store anything here?’
‘No.’
‘Ever asked you to lie for him?’
‘No!’
‘Okay. I wonder if we could show you some photos.’
‘Photos? Of what?’
‘Perhaps we could invite your daughter back in. We’d like her to see these too.’
I came out of my room before they had a chance to call me. Jones grinned knowingly.
‘I’ve got a daughter about your age,’ he said.
I refused to smile back, to form any sort of alliance with this man.
They showed us pictures of several victims. Sheryl North wearing a single earring, gold like the one my mother had found in Matty’s flat, though it was too long ago for me to be sure it was the same. Farah Lawson, fingernails torn from where she’d tried to fight off her attacker. Gemma Nicholls, her arm cut with a hatchet. Do you have any idea how hard it is to cut through bone?
‘I realise these are hard to look at,’ Duckworth said. ‘But if they prompt any memories. . .’
I told him they didn’t before my mother could say anything. Plenty of people have hatchets. The earring could have belonged to anyone. So what, that I’d seen Matty with a scratch on his arm?
They left eventually, each pressing a card into my mother’s hand.
‘We suggest you don’t talk to the media,’ Jones said. ‘They won’t leave you alone otherwise.’
‘Why would they want to talk to us?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer, just said goodnight and advised us to lock our door.
