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I remove my notebook from my bag and flick through the pages to remind myself of the conversation we had when he appeared at the station two days ago. ‘Mr Michael alleges that on October fourth, you broke into the property inherited by him from his late wife’s estate and threatened him.’
‘He said I didwhat?’
‘And then again, on October twenty-eighth, you let yourself into the same house to search through his belongings.’
‘They weren’t his, they were Gwen’s.’
‘Finally, on November fourth, you illegally entered his mother’s house in Oxfordshire and again, went through his private property.’ I reach into my bag and remove a brown envelope containing a dozen A4 colour printouts. Each photocopy features an image of Connie in both houses on three separate dates. I pass them to her. ‘They were all taken from security footage installed inside both homes, which I’ve viewed myself. They are dated and time-stamped. Can I ask what you were doing?’
Connie’s cheeks turn a beetroot red before she clears her throat. ‘I was searching for proof that Paul is a killer and I found it,’ she announces. ‘Before he killed Gwen, he murdered three other women in similar ways and he knows I’m on to him, which is why he’s contacted you. He’s trying to deflect the attention away from him.’
She waits for me to react. I think I’m about to disappoint her.
‘I am aware of the allegations you’ve made against Mr Michael,’ I reply.
‘What? He’s told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And are you investigating him?’
‘No.’
‘Why? He’s a killer.’
‘Connie, Mr Michael said that when he began work at Mrs Wright’s property back in May, you made it clear you were interested in him in a romantic capacity, engineering time to be alone with him and inviting him to dinner.’
‘We had conversations, yes, but they weren’t “engineered”,’ she huffs.
‘He also agreed to go out with you for dinner, where he insists he made it clear that he wasn’t interested in you in that way, despite, and I quote, “your repeated attempts to seduce him”.’
‘Seduce?’ She lets out a sharp laugh. ‘He’s making this up!’
‘And then, when you discovered that he and Mrs Wright were in a relationship, you turned against him and attempted to split them up out of jealousy.’
Connie shakes her head vigorously. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Mr Michael told me that he agreed to meet with you recently, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘At this meeting, did you try to blackmail him and threaten to accuse him of killing his late wife and others if he didn’t sign her estate over to you?’
‘No, no, no, it wasn’t like that at all, he’s twisting what happened.’
‘So that conversation categorically didn’t happen? You didn’t try and extort money from him?’
‘Well, yes, but not extort exactly, but ... look, Krisha, I just want what’s rightfully mine.’
‘And just to clarify, when you say, “what’s rightfully mine”, you are referring to the estate of a woman whom you had only met a year or so earlier and whom you told everyone, including me, was your mother?’
Her cheeks puff and I can tell she wants to argue the point but knows she can’t. ‘Once Paul signed Gwen’s estate over to me, I was going to give you the evidence I’d found that proves what he did.’
‘Ah yes, evidence. I assume it’s the same evidence that Mr Michael mentioned has disappeared from his mother’s house?’
‘Yes. Did he tell you what I took?’
‘He mentioned they were items of a personal nature.’
