“Right,” Barker said. “And can you tell us when you last saw this knife?”
Theo took a deep breath. For a moment, he saw himself back in his living room with Irene Barnes, he saw the pictures that Daniel had drawn, the vulgar images of his beautiful wife, the graphic depiction of his little boy’s death, he saw himself rending the pages from the book before throwing them into the fire. He exhaled, slowly. Here we go. “Well,” he said, “it would have been the morning of the tenth.”
“The tenth of March?” Detective Barker gave his colleague the briefest of glances. He leaned forward in his chair. “That would be the morning Daniel Sutherland died?”
Theo rubbed his head with his forefinger. “That’s correct. I threw it away. The knife. Uh . . . I was going to throw it into the canal, but then I . . . I saw someone. I thought I saw someone coming along the path, and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I just threw it into the bushes on the side of the path instead.”
The detectives exchanged another look, longer this time. Detective Barker cocked his head to one side, his lips pressed together. “You threw the knife into the bushes? On the morning of the tenth? So, you’re saying, Mr. Myerson, you’re saying . . .”
“That I went to Daniel’s boat early that morning, while my wife was still asleep. I . . . stabbed him. There was blood, of course, a great deal of blood. . . . I washed it off myself in the boat. Then I left, and I threw the knife into the bushes on the way home. As soon as I got home, I showered. Carla was sleeping. I made coffee for both of us, then I took it to her in bed.”
Detective Barker’s mouth fell open for a moment. He closed it. “Okay.” He looked at his colleague again and Theo thought, though it was quite possible he was imagining things at this point, that he saw Chalmers shake her head, very slightly. “Mr. Myerson, you said earlier that you did not wish to have legal representation here for this interview, but at this point I’m going to ask you again if you’d like to change your mind? If there is someone you would like us to call, we can do that, or alternatively we can arrange for the duty solicitor here at the station to come in.”
Theo shook his head. The last thing he wanted was a lawyer, someone trying to mitigate outcomes, someone overcomplicating what in the end was a simple thing. “I’m quite all right on my own, thank you.”
Barker read the caution then. He pointed out that Theo had come in willingly, that he had refused legal representation, but that in light of what he had just said, it was clear that a formal caution was needed.
“Mr. Myerson.” Detective Barker was struggling to keep his tone even, Theo could tell—this must, after all, be an exciting moment for a detective. “Just to clarify, you are confessing to the killing of Daniel Sutherland, is that right?”
“That’s correct,” Theo said. “That is correct.” He took a sip of water. Took another deep breath. Here we go again. “My sister-in-law,” Theo said, and then stopped speaking. This was the difficult part, the part he was going to struggle with, the part he didn’t want to say out loud.
“Your sister-in-law?” Chalmers prompted, her face an open book now; she was astonished by what she was hearing. “Angela Sutherland? What about Angela Sutherland?”
“Angela told me, before she died, that my wife, my . . . Carla, and Daniel were having a relationship.”
“A . . . relationship?” Chalmers repeated. Theo nodded, squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “What sort of relationship?” she asked.
“Please don’t,” Theo said, and he surprised himself by starting to cry. “I don’t want to say it.”
“You’re saying there was a sexual relationship between Carla and Daniel, is that what you’re telling us?” Barker asked. Theo nodded. Tears dripped from the end of his nose onto his jeans. He hadn’t cried in years, he thought, all of a sudden. He’d not cried when he sat at his son’s graveside on what should have been his eighteenth birthday, and now here he was, in a police station, crying over this. “Angela Sutherland told you about their relationship?”
Theo nodded. “I went to see her, about a week before she passed away.”
“Can you tell us about that, Mr. Myerson? Can you tell us what happened when you went to see her?”
* * *
“I think it’s best if I show you,” Angela said to him. “Would you . . . would you just come upstairs?”