I’d got the feel of her, I asked casually, ‘Were you close to Phil Thornton?’
She swallowed and looked down, much stiller than before. ‘We were colleagues. Not close as such.’
‘His wife was concerned someone might have been following him. Do you know anything about that?’
She hesitated. I could see her breathing. Raised voices drifted in from in a nearby room. ‘No. Sorry,’ she said.
‘Anything worrying him that you were aware of?’
‘Nothing that would get him killed,’ she said, more abruptly. ‘He was worried about Abbie. And about his wife, I think. She’s a bit odd.’ She made a few swoopy doodles on her pad.
There was a smell in the air, familiar but wrong in this context. I looked up sharply and scrutinised her. Had she been drinking?
‘When was the last time you went to Phil’s house?’
Her eyes widened a fraction. ‘I don’t know. Ages ago.’
‘What was the occasion?’
‘You should be looking at his wife, not me,’ Karen said. ‘He was worried about his wife.’
‘The occasion you went to his house?’
‘They had me and my husband round. I can check the dates and get back to you.’
I glanced at the wedding ring on her hand. ‘Look, you need to be totally honest with me. Nobody’s judging you. But what kind of relationship did you have with Phil?’
‘We were close. Nothing ever happened.’ Jagged lines on the pad, deeper now, solid fingers gripping the pen, her body tense and so different to when she’d been chatting earlier.
‘Karen, I don’t care if you were having an affair, but you need to tell me the truth.’
Her voice shook, as if she was about to cry. ‘We were friends.’
I waited a moment, but she said no more.
‘Have you ever watched those TV murder mysteries where the victim’s friend is always forging Dutch masters or stealing prize orchids or something like that?’ I asked. ‘So they lie to the police, and you’re screaming at the telly saying, “Just tell them about the sodding orchids” because it never turns out well. Have you watched any of those?’
She nodded and licked her lips again, looking on the verge of tears, the skin beneath her eyes beginning to puff up.
‘Where were you on Sunday night?’ I asked.
‘Me? I was at home. You don’t think I did it? I would never . . . ’ She was crying now, gulping and wiping her hand over her nose.
Craig dived in. ‘You see, we have these texts and phone calls on Phil’s phone.’
Karen jumped and looked at him, as if she’d forgotten he was there. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You think I . . . Oh my God.’
‘You went there, didn’t you,’ Craig said. ‘To his house.’
Karen flipped her gaze from me to Craig, and to me again, and shoved herself back in her chair as if wanting to put distance between us. She moved her foot in anxious circles over the dismal grey carpet.
‘You’ve nothing to worry about if you tell us the truth,’ I said. Which wasn’t strictly true.
‘No. I wasn’t there. I phoned him, that’s all. You need to look at Rachel.’ She hunched over her notepad and drew more swoops, then dropped her pen onto the desk. ‘She’s had mental health problems. Who knows what she’d do?’
‘What problems has she had?’ I settled in my chair, as if there was all the time in the world.
‘She had a psychotic episode. She could be dangerous.’
‘What exactly happened?’
‘You know Jess died? Rachel’s daughter?’
‘Yes. Four years ago.’
‘Well, that was . . . ’ Karen picked her pen up again and fiddled with the end of it. ‘Anyway, Rachel had a psychotic episode afterwards.’
‘What were you going to say about Jess? You cut yourself short.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. I don’t know the full details.’
‘Of how Jess died, you mean?’
‘Yes. Phil didn’t like to talk about it.’
‘Just tell me what you know.’
Karen wriggled in her seat. ‘She fell out of a window. In that weird house. Not long after Rachel and Jess moved in.’
‘From a window?’ I was momentarily pitched off course. Why had I thought about dead children at the top window? Maybe I’d seen a news report and then forgotten it.
‘The attic window. The girls weren’t supposed to go up there.’ Karen grabbed her pen and doodled again. Jagged lines this time, like the start of a migraine. There was something she didn’t want to say. Something around Jess’s death. ‘It’s a weird house. Out in the middle of the woods. I remember when he bought it. He got obsessed with it. Had to have it.’
‘Did you know why?’
She relaxed a little with that question. ‘It seemed to be something to do with those weird statues in the woods. He was into art so maybe he liked the idea of owning them. I mean, I suppose they are cool in a creepy sort of way. But he was in a strange state at that time – I think he was in shock about his ex-wife dying.’
‘His ex-wife as in Abbie’s mother?’
‘Yes. She died not long after they separated.’
‘How did she die?’
‘Laura? In a car crash.’
I pondered the statistically improbable amount of death in this family, and made a note to do a check on the car crash, as well as the daughter’s death.
‘Rachel got really overprotective about Abbie,’ Karen said. ‘She adores Abbie, Phil said. As much as if she was her own daughter. And she kept thinking Abbie was ill all the time, even when she wasn’t, because she’d been diagnosed with Phil’s heart condition.’
‘Phil and Abbie had the same condition?’
‘Yes. Phil had a heart transplant a few years ago. I think he had to go abroad for it, actually, to China or somewhere. He’s fine now, but he has to take medication for the rest of his life. So of course they knew all the issues about waiting lists and how Abbie could die before a suitable heart came up. She got the symptoms younger, obviously. Phil was lucky in a way that it didn’t come on till later in life.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So,
