Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen (book club books txt) 📗

‘Did you always meet there?’

Giles twisted his fingers together. He hadn’t thought he could regret his cowardice any more but as the detective forced him to think about Len, talk about him, he did. ‘Yes.’

‘Isn’t it a bit…’ She turned the pen over in her fingers. ‘Basic?’

‘I didn’t want to go to his house,’ Giles mumbled. ‘And he couldn’t come to mine. I’m married. People know me. Even in Appleby. They talk. My career.’ The lies. The deceit. That was the only thing they’d fallen out about. Can’t you be honest with people, Len had demanded, and they’d always ended by laughing. ‘We chatted for a bit. We made love. And then I drove away.’

‘What time was that?’

‘I remember it exactly, because I put on the radio to hear the football. It was Liverpool-Spurs. It was just kicking off. So it would have been two o’clock.’

‘You didn’t see anything around there?’ prompted the sergeant. ‘Anybody? Any cars?’

‘I wasn’t looking. I was concerned about getting back home. I’d spent longer with him than I’d intended and I was in a hurry to get away. I’d told my wife I was playing golf.’ He flicked miserably at his top lip. He’d always known he’d be found out, but he’d deluded himself into thinking he’d have the courage to tell her before it happened. Now time had run out on him and his confession was forced.

‘You went to a good deal of effort to cover your tracks,’ she said. ‘Was that entirely necessary?’

‘My wife. My patients.’ Giles shifted in his seat again. ‘It’s all going to come out now, isn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid it’ll have to, when the case goes to court. It was courageous of you to come forward. You did exactly the right thing.’

Something about her made him want to confide. ‘I wish to God it had never happened the way it did. If I’d admitted to myself I might be gay a bit earlier I’d never have got married, but I never did. God knows, sometimes I think I wasn’t gay when I was married. There have been studies that suggest—’ He pulled himself up. Poor Janice. What a deception. Had she ever sighed in private about the absence of that passionate something from their lovemaking? ‘Never mind. I only realised for sure about ten years ago. There I was. Wonderful wife. Terrific career. I was working in the kind of place where being a doctor means something, where you still have a bit more respect in the community. Very traditional. Everybody was very happy. Except me.’

‘Is your wife happy?’ she asked.

A strange question. Perhaps a lot of crimes took place behind just such a curtain of perfection, dramas playing out in the heart while the window on the world was one of false happiness. ‘I don’t know.’ He’d never asked her. Maybe she’d guessed and played her own part in his drama, pretending for the sake of the children, or the neighbours, or her own self-respect.

The woman gave a wry smile, as if she was reviewing her own mistakes. ‘And then you met Len.’

Belatedly, Giles realised what she was up to, taking him back over the story to check for inconsistencies, looking for things he’d wish he hadn’t said. The questioning was innocuous but the path it led him down was full of traps waiting to be sprung and a false step would mean a murder charge. ‘I never went looking for a partner. He just walked into my life. But he was my friend.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Everything.’ They’d talked about football and politics and work, about the changes in the seasons, about food and holidays and music, about everything except the discomfort of the lives they lived.

‘Did he tell you much about his private life?’

‘I don’t think he had a private life, if I’m honest. He lived on his own, he didn’t go out much. He spent a lot of time baking. He loved baking. He made all the cakes for the shop his sister ran.’ Giles’s voice was wistful. ‘I gave him money for the tea shop, once. For new crockery. It was a loan. Interest free. Because we were friends. I always said I’d call in there and try the baking, have a look at my investment, but I never did.’ And never would.

The woman wrote it down as if it wasn’t at all unusual. ‘Can you think of anyone who disliked him?’

‘None. I can see he might have ticked a few people off by being abrupt with them, but that’s not a crime. And to be honest I don't think he interacted with anyone enough to make an enemy of them.’

Silence bred between them. ‘Thank you very much for your help, Dr Butler. It’s been invaluable. There are a number of steps we’ll have to take to check out your story, of course.’

‘I expect you’ll want to take my car.’ Giles got to his feet, the imminence of disaster closing in on him. ‘I don’t know how I’ll explain that to my wife.’

He got no sympathy from the chief inspector. ‘You can tell her it was impounded because the tyres were illegal.’ The man pushed back his chair. ‘I take it you’ll be happy for us to be in touch at a later stage. I’ve no doubt there will be other questions we want to ask as the investigation progresses. With your permission I’d like to take fingerprints and a DNA sample. In the meantime, if you could read over this witness statement and sign it as a true report of what you’ve told us…’

‘I appreciate your courage in coming to talk to us,’ the sergeant said as he scanned his own words, reproaching him in black and white. She must have decided that he’d earned a little soft