“I see. I understand you managed to lose your phone on Monday.”
“I don’t know where I can have left it.”
“Did you actually receive a call?” Elise leaned in. “Think very hard about your answer, Pauline. We’re looking at your call history for Charlie’s number. Will it be there? Or did you make it up to stop us looking for your husband?”
“Someone rang,” Pauline barked, and tensed her shoulder, making her bra strap fall down her arm. “Maybe it was a prank call. People can be very cruel.”
“Yes,” Elise said, “they can. Why did you think your husband had gone off?”
“No idea.”
“Really? Charlie was in serious financial trouble, wasn’t he?”
“How would I know? That was his—”
“Department? Yes, you said. When we discussed the letter from a debt agency threatening to repossess your house.”
Pauline looked at Elise in the silence that followed.
She’s trying to remember exactly what she said that day in the caravan.
“It was just a liquidity problem. Charlie was sorting it out.”
“I see. Did Charlie have life insurance?”
“Everyone does, don’t they?”
“Not everyone. But that’s good news for you.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That your financial difficulties may soon be over, I suppose.”
Mr. Grimes cleared his throat and Elise let the implications rest there.
“Where were you on Friday night, Pauline?”
“Not again! This must be the hundredth time I’ve been through this,” Pauline said quickly, back on firmer ground. “I was in bed.”
“With your lover.”
“Really!” Pauline rolled her eyes at Mr. Grimes. “This is such nonsense.”
“We spoke to Bram O’Dowd this morning.” Elise held Pauline’s gaze. “He’s been very candid.”
“Well, a lady doesn’t tell.” She giggled nervously and glanced at the even pinker Mr. Grimes.
“She does if the police are asking,” Caro said. “Or a lady could be accused of obstructing an investigation.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Charlie and I have an understanding. My husband can’t have sex anymore, so he looks the other way.”
“Looked,” Elise said.
“Yes, yes.”
“So he was happy with the arrangement? It would take a special sort of man to turn a blind eye to regular adultery under his nose. Were there rows?”
Pauline’s lips tightened. “No, it was all very civilized. We didn’t talk about it. Charlie used to take himself out when I was entertaining.”
“Is that what he did on Friday? But did he come home too early?”
Pauline’s eyes flickered.
“I want to ask you again: When did you last see your husband?”
“On Monday, when I had to identify his body.” She shuddered theatrically.
“Where had Charlie been until his death?”
“I have no idea.” Pauline recrossed her legs, banging a knee on the underside of the table.
“Could he have been in your house all that time?”
Pauline’s face hardened. “Well, if he was there, I didn’t know. It’s a very big property—it’s got nine bedrooms—but I never go upstairs. It’s too dangerous.”
“Upstairs? Was he upstairs?”
She flushed. “I don’t know. You’re trying to trip me up.”
“And you didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary? It’s only yards from your caravan.”
“Park home. And no.”
“You were perhaps too busy entertaining Mr. O’Dowd. He was back on Sunday, wasn’t he? When did you arrange that?”
“When he left on Friday night. Charlie had said he was going to see his daughter on Sunday,” Pauline said, avoiding Elise’s eyes.
“What did you and Mr. O’Dowd do on Sunday?”
“Er, we went to bed.”
“And afterward?”
“Nothing. We didn’t do anything.” A red blush crept up from Pauline’s cleavage to her throat and her hand flew up to cover it. “I had nothing to do with Charlie’s death. I’m almost seventy. . . .”
“Oh, I have you as seventy-five.”
Pauline flapped the uncomfortable truth away with her hand. “Look at me—how could you even think I was capable of violence? Of moving his body?”