“When did you last see Mr. Perry?” Hugh said quietly, and they looked each other in the eye.
He looked away first and Elise felt she’d taken back a millimeter of control.
“Alive? At the festival on Friday.” She glanced at the bullet points she’d made on a piece of paper just in case her brain clouded over. “In the arena at the back of the Old Vicarage. I got there around nine, just before Pete Diamond’s acid house set began, and I saw Charlie Perry in the crowd at the front of the stage.”
“Are you sure it was him?” Hugh asked his notebook.
“Yes. I’d talked to him a few times in the local shops and he called at my house a couple of weeks ago. He looked like he’d been drinking heavily on Friday night—he was flailing around on the dance floor. And I thought he looked distressed but it was hard to tell under those lights. He appeared to be shouting. Then he disappeared from sight. I didn’t see him again until I found his body yesterday.”
“Right, talk us through that, please,” Caro said. “For the tape.”
Hugh asked a few more questions but nothing Elise would have bothered with.
“How are you getting on with Mrs. Perry?” She couldn’t help herself.
He half smiled to himself and it tore a hole in her heart. She’d loved that secret smile—and the shared joke or thought that prompted it.
“Interesting woman,” he said. “Do you think she made up the phone call?”
“It’ll be easy to check, won’t it, on her mobile?” Well, it would.
“It would but she can’t find it.”
“No way. How convenient. Still, you can get her phone records.”
“Yes, we’re doing that now, thanks.” And the smile faded.
“Have you got Charlie Perry’s phone? Was there DNA on his body?”
“I think you can leave that with us.”
Hugh stood and went to shake her hand—it was muscle memory from the hundreds of witness interviews he’d done—and his arm froze midpoint and dropped awkwardly by his side.
“Thanks for that, Elise,” he said, pretending to tidy his papers. “It’s been really helpful. Our good luck to have a senior murder detective on the scene. Have you got transport home?”
And she wondered for a moment if he was offering to drive her. Of course he isn’t, she snapped at herself. He’s conducting a murder investigation, not running round after his ex-girlfriend.
“Yes, all sorted, thanks.”
As he left, he turned as if he’d forgotten something. “It’s been good to see you,” he said, blinking with the effort.
“And you, Hugh,” she said. It was the first time she’d used his name since she’d walked in and it sat in her throat.
“Hope to see you back at work soon,” he said, and hurried out of the door.
“I’m sorry, Elise,” Caro said as she walked her out. “He insisted.”
“Did he?”
And as she walked off, she found herself smiling.
“What are you so cheerful about?” Ronnie said as she fell in step.
“Nothing.” Elise grinned. “Can I ask a huge favor? Do you mind driving me to HQ to collect my car? No problem if you’ve got other stuff on.”
“What stuff? I’m having a great time. I’ve been talking to a woman who’s been burgled for the third time. Emptied her freezer this time.”
“Right. Well, shall we get going? I shouldn’t have left it for so long.”
“Okay. Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Yep, thanks. I need to get back in the driving seat.”
Thirty-five
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019
Dee
It still stinks of smoke in Millie Diamond’s garden—like a hundred bonfires—and the atmosphere is almost as poisonous in the house. Her stepdaughter, Celeste, is coming out of her room only to get food, according to Millie.
“Still, at least she isn’t up at the statics, shagging the workforce. Pete can’t even look at her at the moment. Did you hear, it was the father of the girl who overdosed who set fire to my gym? They arrested him last night. Apparently he said he hadn’t meant to burn it down. He just wanted to scare us. God I hate it here . . . living with these lowlifes. . . .”
She must know the “lowlifes” hate her and her husband even more.
“We’re talking seriously about putting the house on the market and moving back to London,” Millie carries on, but I don’t react.