Nicci French - The Memory Game

‘None at all. There is still lots of her writing in trunks at home if you want to check it.’

‘Good. You say that Alan Martello found you there. What happened?’

I described the squalid scene as calmly as I could, the hands on my neck, the collapse, the guilty guilty guilty.

‘Why did you search Alan Martello’s study, Mrs Martello?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘On the face of it, it seems odd to suspect one’s father-in-law of murdering his daughter. Why did you suspect him?’

I took a deep breath. This was the bit I had been dreading. Now I told the full story of the therapy with Alex, my cheeks burning hot. I had expected the officers to smile and exchange glances but Wilks’s frown of concentration never faltered and he remained silent except when he asked two or three questions about the circumstances of the therapy – how often it was conducted, where, in what way. When I had finished, there was a silence. Wilks broke it.

‘So, Mrs Martello, let us get this straight. You are claiming to have witnessed the murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you willing to make an official statement to that effect?’

‘Yes.’

‘With the possibility of appearing in court as a prosecution witness.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

Wilks stood up and put his hands in his pockets. I looked around at the three officers.

‘I was afraid you might laugh at me,’ I said.

‘Why should we do that?’ asked Wilks.

‘I thought you might not believe that I had regained the memory of seeing Alan.’

‘You obviously had some doubts about it yourself.’

‘What do you mean?’

Wilks shrugged. ‘You didn’t come and see us with your suspicions. Instead, you undertook a personal investigation, in the course of which material evidence seems to have been handled both by you and Alan Martello.’

‘That’s not very grateful.’

‘I don’t want to seem ungracious but it might have been better if you’d come straight to us. You might have been hurt as well.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘If you’re willing, and I hope you are, DS Braswell and DC Turnbull here will take a detailed statement from you, which will probably take a couple of hours. I should add that you are fully entitled to have the advice of a lawyer before making any statement. We can supply a name or two if you want.’

‘That’s all right. And what will you do then? Will you bring Alan in for questioning?’

‘No.’

‘Why on earth not?’

Wilks gave a smile, beneath which was just the smallest trace of puzzlement.

‘Because he’s already here.’

‘How on earth did you get him so quickly?’

‘He came by himself. He said he wanted to make a statement. He was clocked into the station at 09.12 and twenty-five minutes later, Alan Edward Dugdale Martello confessed, unprompted, to the murder of his daughter, Natalie.’

‘What?’

‘He’s currently in a cell in the basement pending the preparation of charges.’

I was stunned.

‘Has he…? Did he say, well, why and how he did it?’

‘No. He said nothing else.’

‘Are you going to charge him?’

‘False confessions are always a possibility. Some wicked cynics have even accused the police of encouraging them. However, off the record,’ Wilks raised an eyebrow at me, ‘having heard what you have to say and seen the diary and the letter, I now feel disposed to prefer charges. But let’s wait until we have your statement, shall we? Guy and Stuart will sort out any problems you may have. See you later.’

DC Turnbull rummaged in a cardboard box at his feet and produced a bulky cassette recorder with two sets of spools. While Turnbull noisily searched through some cassette cases, DS Braswell was slipping a carbon between a thick pad of forms. He caught my eye and smiled.

‘You thought you’d done the hard bit. You haven’t seen the forms you’ve got to go through.’

At nine o’clock in the evening of the day after Alan’s confession, I was phoned at home by a reporter from the Daily Mail. What he described as ‘a source’ had told the newspaper that Alan Martello was about to be charged with the murder of his pregnant daughter, twenty-five years after the event, because I had suddenly remembered having witnessed it. Would I be prepared to give the newspaper an interview? I was so shocked that I had to sit down before I could speak, but I managed to control my voice. I said that, as far as I understood, if Alan was charged, it would be because of his own confession. The man seemed sure of his ground. He asked me if it was true that I had witnessed the murder.

For a moment my mind was blank. Should I lie? Would it be best to co-operate? I thought of my last venture into the public realm, with my doomed attempt to defend my hostel to the local community that it was designed to benefit. That settled it. I told the reporter that it would be best to deal directly with the police. Then an idea occurred to me. I said that, since a charge was probably imminent, the matter was now sub judice. The man seemed dissatisfied but he let me get off the line.

I phoned Alex Dermot-Brown immediately and told him what had happened. I expected him to be sympathetic and shocked but he laughed.

‘Really?’ was his only reaction.

‘It’s terrible, isn’t it?’ I said.

Alex didn’t seem to think it was all that terrible. He said it was only to be expected and it was what I had taken on when I decided to do something about Alan. I felt dissatisfied, somehow. He resumed in a cheerful tone.

‘I’m glad you rang, because I was going to get in touch with you. Are you doing anything tomorrow afternoon?’

‘Nothing especially urgent. What is it? Do you want me to come for an extra session?’

‘No, I want to take you somewhere. I’ll pick you up at about eleven thirty.’

‘What’s all this about?’

‘I’ll tell you on the way. Bye.’

I was tempted to ring Alex back and tell him I was busy, but I couldn’t be bothered and, anyway, I was curious.

It took a couple of pills to get me to sleep, which meant that I awoke with a headache. I had a few aspirin with my black coffee and grapefruit. I showered and, since I didn’t know where I was going, dressed in clothes selected for neutrality. Dark, longish skirt, grey sweater, discreet necklace, a touch of lipstick and eye-liner, flat shoes. If I looked like a mental patient, then at least it was one who could safely be released back into the community. When I was ready, it was only ten thirty, so I fidgeted for an hour, smoking, listening to music, inattentively reading a novel. I should have gone out and worked in the garden, planted some bulbs, but I thought I might not hear the front door. The electric bell wasn’t working.

Finally, there was a knock at the door. Alex was wearing a most improbable suit. He had shaved. His hair was neatly brushed.

‘You look smart,’ I said. ‘This isn’t a date, is it?’

‘At eleven thirty in the morning? You look smart too. Come on.’

Alex drove a Volvo. There was a baby seat in the back and every surface was strewn with crisp packets and cassettes and empty cassette cases. He swept some of them off the passenger seat and onto the floor to make space for me. A flashing light instructed me to put my seat belt on and we were off, south, down Kentish Town Road.

‘So where are we going?’

Alex switched on the cassette player. The car was filled with some Vivaldiesque music. For months I’d been curious about any stray details of Alex’s private life that I could garner, and now, here I was in his car, with his tapes, Miles Davis and Albinoni, Blur and the Beach Boys, written in his own handwriting. For me it was as improbable as if I were to find myself in a car being driven by, I don’t know, someone like Neil Young, with the added feeling that there was something forbidden, incestuous about it.