Кара Хантер - In the Dark

VE: We also had our doctor take a look at that bruising on her wrist. The bruising you gave her.

RG: Look, it wasn’t like that. I told you before. I found out that she was trying to pass off someone else’s kid as mine – that she’d been screwing around –

VE: And that gives you licence to hit her?

RG: I didn’t hit her. I told you. I just grabbed hold of her – probably tighter than I realized. If she’s telling you something different then she’s lying.

AF: [ silence ]

I imagine it wouldn’t go down well, would it?

RG: What are you talking about?

AF: With your employers. I don’t imagine they’d be very happy about one of their senior managers being prosecuted for domestic violence.

RG: How many more times. It wasn’t domestic violence. It was a row . There is a difference.

AF: It’s not my place to advise you, of course, but I wouldn’t rely on that by way of defence –

PR: Look, Inspector –

AF: But moving on. When did your relationship with Miss Walker begin?

RG: I’m sorry?

AF: It’s a simple enough question, Mr Gardiner.

RG: What has that got to do with anything?

AF: If you could just answer the question.

RG: There is no relationship. I told you. We only slept together a couple of times. And it was after Hannah disappeared. Months after.

VE: I thought you said it was a one-night stand?

RG: Once, twice, three times – what difference does it make? It wasn’t a relationship. It was just sex.

AF: So any suggestion that you are having an affair that began long before your wife’s death is completely untrue. According to you.

RG: Of course it bloody well is – is that what she’s been saying?

AF: So when did she move into your home? Exactly?

RG: Well, she was staying a bit, on and off. Look, I was all over the place after Hannah disappeared. Wasn’t eating, couldn’t even organize myself to do the washing – and I had Toby to think about. One day Pippa just turned up on the doorstep and said she was worried about me and did I need any help. I was on my way to work and when I got back the place was clean and there was food in the fridge and a meal on. She stayed over on the couch a few times after that, and when she said she was going to have to move out of her bedsit I said she could stay for a few weeks.

VE: So how long ago was that?

RG: I don’t know. Three months. A bit more. She hasn’t been able to find anywhere yet.

VE: I bet she hasn’t.

RG: What’s that supposed to mean?

AF: You should be aware, Mr Gardiner, that as a result of questioning Miss Walker, we have completely revised our previous theory about your wife’s death.

RG: [ looks from one officer to the other but says nothing ]

AF: The broad outlines of the story go like this. By June 2015 you and Pippa have been sleeping together for at least six months. The fact that she is looking after your son gives perfect cover to the relationship. But on Tuesday June 23rd your wife comes home early. Unexpectedly. And what she finds is you and Miss Walker having sex.

RG: Is that what she told you – that we were having sex?

AF: She says there was a furious row, that your wife was hitting you, and you sent Miss Walker away, saying you would ‘deal with it’. She texted you and got no reply, and when she came back again several hours later, you wouldn’t let her in.

RG: Absolutely none of that happened –

AF: We believe that in the course of that row your wife received a heavy blow to the head. Possibly an accident, possibly in self-defence. Whatever the truth of it, you had a serious problem on your hands. You fetched the rug from your wife’s car and wrapped her body in it, securing it with packing tape. Then, once it was dark, you took the body out the back of the building and through the ramshackle fence into William Harper’s garden. A garden you knew – having had a clear view of it from your flat for several months – was almost never used. Looking for something to dig a grave with, you broke into the shed and found there was a trapdoor in the floor. Scarcely able to believe your luck, you stowed the body underneath. No one would ever be any the wiser. Or so you believed. The following morning you faked a message to Pippa Walker using a voicemail you had previously received from your wife. Then you drove to Wittenham, where you left the car and your son in his buggy, thinking – wrongly, as it turned out – that someone was bound to discover him within a few minutes. You then went by bike to Didcot, where you boarded the train to Reading. It was almost the perfect murder. Almost, but not quite.

RG: [ silence ]

PR: Hang on a minute, I thought you were talking about an accident? Self-defence?

AF: The initial blow may have been, but that didn’t kill her, as your client well knows. What happened, Mr Gardiner – did she move? Cry out in pain? Was that when you realized you hadn’t finished the job? Was that when you tied her up? Was that when you caved in her skull?

RG: [ gets up and rushes to side of room to vomit ]

PR: That’s enough, Inspector. For the avoidance of any doubt, Mr Gardiner absolutely and categorically refutes this new version of events. It is a complete fabrication from first to last and you don’t have a shred of evidence to support it, as far as I am aware.

AF: We will be carrying out a full forensic search of Mr Gardiner’s flat –

RG: [ leaning forward ]

Well, you won’t find anything, I can tell you that for nothing -

PR: [ restraining Gardiner ]

You don’t need to say any more, Rob.

[a ddressing Fawley]

My client had nothing to do with his wife’s death, and he was n ot h aving a relationship with Miss Walker at the time his wife disappeared. It’s not my place to advise you, of course, but I venture to suggest that that young lady has some serious explaining to do.

AF: Thank you, Mr Rose, your comments have been noted. Interview terminated at 11.34.

***

BBC News

Monday 8 May 2017 | Last updated at 12:39

BREAKING: Hannah Gardiner’s husband arrested for her murder

The BBC has learned that Robert Gardiner has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife, Hannah, who disappeared in June 2015. Police now believe that Mrs Gardiner died on the evening of 23 June, after an argument at their flat in Crescent Square, Oxford. Mr Gardiner’s son, Toby, is understood to be in the care of Social Services.

Thames Valley Police have confirmed that a 32-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the case, but have declined to release his name. They have also insisted that there is no evidence to link the death of Mrs Gardiner with the discovery of a young woman and a child in the basement of the house where Mrs Gardiner’s body was found, though ‘enquiries are still ongoing’.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

***

‘Fawley? It’s Challow.’

There’s an echo on the line – he sounds like he’s standing in a drain.

‘Where are you?’

‘Crescent Square,’ he says. ‘Gardiner’s place. I think you’d better come.’

*

When I get to the flat, the forensics team is in the kitchen, and Erica Somer’s in the sitting room, checking the drawers, the shelves, behind the books. The kitchen is one of those Shaker jobs. Pale wood in some sort of Farrow Ball off cream. Granite surfaces. Lots of chrome. And clean. Very clean.

‘So what is it? What have you found?’