He said to her, “She was murdered? When the hell were you planning to share that detail?”
“Who gave you the information?” she asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Since it’s a murder, yeah, it does.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, Sergeant . . . What was your name again?”
“Havers.”
“Sergeant Havers. Why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on? Teo was in hospital. She was—”
“—in a coma after a blow to her head.”
That stopped him for a moment. Then, “A blow to her head? A bloody blow to her head?” He glanced at his mobile but it seemed the look was inadvertent.
“Who was on the phone?”
“Teo’s sister. Rosalba. She said the police had called in and had given them the news. Why wasn’t I told? Because we’re estranged? Because you think I did something to her? Is this what you were leading up to? You listen to me, eh? I let myself into her flat. I found her on the floor in the loo. She’d been sick into the toilet. She said she’d been nauseous and dizzy. I wanted to take her to A and E, but she wouldn’t have it. She said she just needed a lie-down, so I helped her to bed.”
“Documents indicate she was in her night gear. Is that how you found her when she was in the loo?”
He swigged down more lager. He said, “No. I . . . Look, I undressed her, but it’s not what you think.”
“What do I think?”
“That this was some kind of sexual thing. My taking advantage of her. It wasn’t. That was over. That was how she wanted it. But I cared for her, so I got her into her night things. I fished two paracetamol from the medicine cabinet, gave them to her, and put her into bed.”
“And then you left? You were never able to learn from her why she wanted to see you?”
“No.”
“Which is it? No, you didn’t leave, or no, you weren’t able to learn why she wanted to see you?”
“She never told me what it was she’d wanted to talk about.”
“And once she was tucked up in bed, you left?”
“I didn’t. I spent some of the night with her.”
“You spent some of the night with your estranged wife.”
“I didn’t want to leave her alone, so I put her to bed, I lay next to her, and I fell asleep. I didn’t intend to but that’s what happened. When I woke, it was . . . I don’t know . . . round half past three? She was asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her. I put her mobile next to the bed, and I left.”
“Why didn’t you try to wake her?”
“Why would I? Like I said, she was asleep. It was the middle of the night and I had no reason to wake her.”
“Not even to speak about whatever it was that she had you dashing to Streatham to hear? Weren’t you curious? Seems to me that you’d’ve been curious.”
As she spoke, Barbara observed the line of damp at his hairline. It was hot enough in the room to make an iguana sweat, so he certainly had an excuse for the dampness on his forehead. But this seemed more the product of anxiety than the product of the ambient temperature.
He said, “If I’d not fallen asleep . . . if I’d insisted on taking her to A and E like I wanted . . . ,” and then after a moment and quite as if she hadn’t been pressing him about his lack of curiosity regarding his wife’s desire to speak with him, “You said it was a blow to the head. What sort?”
“A fracture-your-skull sort. She was hit with something heavy. D’you know what a epidural haematoma is?” And when he nodded, “That’s what killed her.”
He looked at her directly. “It wasn’t me. There’s no way in hell, on earth, or anyplace else that I would have struck Teo. I loved her. I wanted her back.”
“How did you learn she’d been taken to hospital?”
“From her parents. They rang me. They said she’d been brought to hospital, that she’d be having a scan. When I got there, she’d been moved to Critical Care—”
“Did they ask you to come, her parents?”
“What? Ask me? No. But I had to go. I needed to be there. I couldn’t understand how a simple fall might lead to brain scans, a coma, and . . . and all the rest.”
“All the rest being her death.”
“And everything leading up to it: a ventilator, monitors, heart machines, life support.”
“And brain death,” Barbara added bluntly, trying to read him as she said the words. She wanted them as bald as she could get them, and she wanted to dig for what he knew. He seemed genuine but so did most psychopaths. Projecting normal was their speciality.