Cath Staincliffe - Bleed Like Me

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Can you tell me what happened, Mr Cottam?’

He swung his head, closed his eyes.

‘When did you last see your wife Pamela?’ Janet said.

His eyes remained shut.

Janet said, ‘Please – open your eyes.’

He complied.

‘When police entered the premises, Pamela was found, fatally injured, dead in bed. What can you tell me about that?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, with little inflection.

‘Do you know how she died?’

He shook his head, touched the tips of his fingers to his moustache and pressed.

‘Can you answer out loud?’ Janet said. ‘We need it for the recording.’

He let his hands fall. ‘Don’t know,’ he said, a weak response but not an outright denial.

‘Penny was in her bedroom. She was dead, too. How did that happen?’

‘Don’t know,’ he said again, strain twisting his features.

‘A knife was recovered from a third bedroom, Michael’s bedroom. A knife consistent with the weapon used on the victims. This knife carried traces of blood from Michael and both Penny and Pamela. And this knife had your fingerprints on it. Can you explain that to me?’

‘No,’ he said tightly. Janet could hear that his breathing had altered, the pattern faster and ragged. He’d begun to sweat, a sheen on his forehead, and a drop ran down the side of his face, past his ear and under his chin. The sharp smell of him was rancid in the room.

‘Mr Cottam, your clothes were taken for examination on your admission to hospital. We have found traces of blood from Penny and Michael on them. How did that blood get on to your clothing?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘That evidence suggests that you were present at the scene when the murders were committed or afterwards. How do you account for that?’

He was silent. He lifted his head to the ceiling, the pulse in his neck jumping again and again. Sweat, in rivulets now, snaked down his face. He made a noise in his throat, a hitching sound.

‘Pamela and Penny and Michael,’ Janet said. ‘Tell me what happened.’

He raised his hands and rubbed at his face, at his hair, like someone emerging from a pool or a shower. His breath was choppy, uneven.

‘Did Pamela know what you planned to do? You’d been together eighteen years, married, working together. Three children. Through thick and thin. What changed?’ Janet watched and waited. After a few moments she spoke again. ‘Penny had just started high school. She was doing well – she’d made friends, joined the netball team.’

Something moved in his cheek, a tic he couldn’t suppress.

‘What did you do, Mr Cottam? The early hours of Monday morning? We have film of you drinking whisky. We have very persuasive evidence that tells us you were there, that you handled the weapon. Tell me your side of things.’

He sat there on the chair and touched his knuckles together, sniffed loudly a couple of times. He had resisted appeals to his better nature and seemed almost oblivious of the evidence presented. He really didn’t care, Janet understood. He still wanted to die and nothing else mattered any more. All along Janet had played the game, pandering to his world view, never challenging his actions. She had nothing to lose now.

‘You can refuse to cooperate,’ she said, ‘and we will question you for as long as the law allows and then we will, in all likelihood, charge you with murder and attempted murder. After that you will be asked to plead. If you continue to withhold information you will have to plead not guilty and that means there will be a public trial. Witnesses will be called to give evidence, not just experts but people close to you and Pamela and the children. You will be in the dock and your family will be the subject of intense debate and speculation. Your life, your actions, will be picked apart in full public view. You’re entitled to a trial. Is that what you want?’

He twisted his head to the side, as though the paper suit was too tight at the neck.

‘I don’t think you did discuss it with Pamela. She’d never have agreed in a million years. They didn’t stand a chance, did they? Fast asleep, defenceless. Are you ashamed of what you did?’

He shuddered. She felt she was getting to him, piercing that shell of pretend indifference.

‘You failed,’ she said. ‘We saved the boys. You’ve lost your whole family but you’re still here. Are you ashamed? Is that why you won’t talk to me?’

‘No,’ he said, eyes blazing, fists hitting his knees. ‘No! I did what I had to.’

‘What was that?’

‘I killed them,’ he said softly, and every hair on Janet’s skin stood up. Ice ran through her spine. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes.

‘You killed them,’ she echoed, hoping to prompt more from him.

‘Yes,’ he said, and rubbed at his forehead.

‘Tell me, from closing up the bar, everything you can remember after that.’

His eyes met hers then and for the first time she saw vulnerability there, distress and fear. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said, his voice hollow.

‘It’s difficult,’ she agreed. ‘A step at a time. You cashed up, then what?’

‘Went upstairs. The others went to bed.’

‘The others?’

‘Pamela, Michael.’ He coughed.

‘And the children?’

‘They were already asleep.’

Janet nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘I went down, had a few drinks.’ His fingertips were tapping together, a tattoo, a dance of dread. ‘Then I got the knife.’ He screwed up his face, gave a sharp exhalation. He hadn’t mentioned the dog yet but Janet didn’t want to interrupt him. She could ask questions later.

‘You got the knife from where?’

‘The kitchen. The sharp knife, that’s what we always called it.’

Janet nodded. Every household had something like that, didn’t they? The only knife that cut bread properly or sliced through meat like butter. She and Ade had one, a wedding gift. The handle was burnt on one side but they never considered throwing it out. ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘I, erm… I had some more to drink and then I went into our room.’ He bowed forward, pressing his lips together. ‘I stabbed Pamela,’ he said quickly. ‘She barely made a sound.’ He looked at Janet intently. ‘Like she understood? Then Penny, with the knife. And Michael…’ He swallowed, fingers curled, clenched now, something in that memory appearing to distress him more. His mouth worked. ‘He… I stabbed Michael… the sound… he woke up…’ Cottam stuttered and gasped. She saw tears in his eyes. At last. Had he wept since? As he drove frantically up and down the motorway, those noises fresh in his ears? In the car park by the lake during the long, cold night with his sons, his plans in tatters? Or when he woke in hospital after crashing the Hyundai to find himself very much alive and remembered all that he had done? Or was he the sort of man who never cried?

‘What happened next?’ Janet said. All the cross-checking, all the elaboration – how many times did you use the knife, where on the body, where did you stand – still to come.

‘Someone was at the door. It was this woman, Tessa, with the dog. I’d let the dog out.’ He shook his head, Janet wasn’t sure whether at his own folly for letting the dog out or at the woman’s action in returning her. ‘And she said the farmer had called the police. So I got the boys and we went.’

Tessa’s comment had just been a warning, but in the midst of the murders Cottam interpreted it as a much more definite and imminent threat. If he hadn’t thought the police were about to arrive might he have gone on killing undeterred?

‘If she hadn’t come with the dog, what did you intend doing?’

‘Kill the boys, then myself.’ His voice was close to breaking.