S White - Hermit

‘I can’t answer that. Ongoing investigation.’

Although he had no doubt she’d soon be ringing and leaving increasingly belligerent messages on Spence’s voicemail. Mike would need to have a listen when he got back to the station.

‘But this, uh, divorce trickiness thing, Megan. It offers motive, as I’m sure you can see. A cynical detective might conclude that the easiest way to solve the dilemma would be if Lou wasn’t around.’

He expected some outrage, some anger. But she’d regained her balance after finding out Spence had gone freelance. Back in control. What Mike got was an appealing tilt of the head and an intelligence he was now regarding as feline.

‘I think your quiet little colleague thought the same thing. That I killed Lou. That I didn’t love Lou. Fair enough: she’s a smart cookie. I guess if you all see life through dark glass, it always looks black. Let me guess: Lou looked older than me, I’m the one having the affair, I’m the one wants out. So either I went to the store and killed him or I sent Spence to do it. How’m I doing?’

‘Not bad, Megan. We try to look at everything.’

Megan’s frown and clenched hands displayed a hint of annoyance. Maybe impatience. Maybe insulted dignity. Possibly, Mike continued to think, she was annoyed that he wasn’t swallowing everything she said.

‘Well, for the record, I loved Lou, even though we weren’t getting along. I married him because I loved him; because he was sweet and strong and because he had a moral compass I could only dream about. And no; I’d have kept paying his loans. He bailed me out plenty since we met, in every way. So don’t think I didn’t care just because I’m not all tears and snot now. Don’t think I hated him because I met Spence. Sometimes life isn’t fair, or reasonable, and the good ones get the crappy end of the stick. Doesn’t make it anyone’s fault.’

Whenever he heard an outburst like this, Mike thought of two things. First, was it authentic? Did they run words together because they couldn’t tumble them out fast enough? Did they look hot inside, flustered and emotional? Did they repeat themselves? Heartfelt emotion could be inarticulate, repetitive. And second, in all those words, what were they refusing to answer? What was it that their invective might be hiding? What were they dissembling?

The answers he wrote – for now – were yes; and maybe nothing.

Dana had discussed the physical conditions of Interview One with Bill. She wanted to turn up the heat: figuratively and literally. They had perhaps three hours of interview left before a lawyer became compulsory: they kept having to provide breaks and refreshments to avoid later accusations of bullying or pressurising. This time, she aimed for quicker answers and less thinking time. She needed Nathan off balance slightly: it would help if another bottle of water seemed benevolent, felt like a reward. When Nathan was taken for a toilet break Bill authorised the new temperature and the lighting dialled up a notch. Nathan would assume, on his return, that nothing had changed and he’d simply forgotten how warm it was compared to the corridor. Bill had the prisoner log updated to show Dana requesting a warmer environment because of her kneecap.

Nathan was sitting upright this time, a measure more alert, more involved. Dana was about to demolish part of his faith in her: she might have to begin anew with him. She hoped it was one step back to take two paces forward, but she had no real way of knowing.

He hunched down again as she entered the room. It was an attempt to hide his engagement with proceedings, an affected air of relative disinterest. She could see when she put her notes on the table that he attempted to read them upside down.

Dana wondered what kind of impression she was giving: whether her new-found knowledge was palpable. She did the preliminaries, gave her kneecap a tweak and started the tapes.

‘Mr Whittler, I know you’re not one for small talk. So I’ll cut to the chase. About an hour ago, one of our search team found your home.’

She watched him very closely. There was a quiver, a shuttering around the eyes, as he looked at the floor. His breathing became louder, but not faster. She thought she detected a slight blush around his neck, though it could have been a trick of the light. As she’d anticipated, there was no immediate ranting, only a nascent fury simmering near the surface.

‘I wish to reassure you, Mr Whittler,’ she continued. ‘Only one person has set foot in your home and, apart from maybe me, only one person will. The scene has been sealed off. That person will conduct any searching inside the cave that needs to be done.’

‘Too. Late.’

It was a whisper, the cautious murmuring he’d first used this morning. A solid indicator that Dana had lost much of the ground she’d gained.

‘Excuse me?’

It flitted through her mind that perhaps some incriminating morsel had long since been removed; that they’d find nothing of evidential value. She knew that wasn’t the case with the burglaries – maybe it was true of the killing.

‘Too. Late. Detective Russo.’ His voice grew sturdier, steelier. ‘Your attempts to mollify me, to suggest no harm has been done. Too late. The place is ruined: poisoned , the moment your colleague entered it.’ He gave a dismissive flap of an arm and turned away.

Dana understood this. The emotional importance of his home was something she had comprehended long before they found the place. Nathan’s sanctuary – his perceived safety – was now compromised. It also meant, she’d realised, that he could never go back to it. Since it was sullied and tainted, the discovery meant a burning of the bridges: a blunt end to the life he’d been living for fifteen years. She’d taken away his peace when she took away his concealment. She’d done that: her mind, her insight. He was right to blame her personally.

‘I have some awareness of what this place means to you, Mr Whittler. We’ve videotaped footage that shows us the layout, and only one person is allowed in there, or to touch anything. We don’t wish to cause—’

‘What? Unnecessary suffering? Trauma?’ He was shouting now, wagging a finger at his own foot. ‘ If you really cared , Detective Russo, you wouldn’t have touched it in the first place. You wouldn’t even have gone looking. The moment you decided to do that, we were always in a messy compromise.’

Dana decided to sit for a moment. Her sense was that Nathan was so unpractised, so unused to argument, that he really couldn’t do it. Little flares of temper might come and go quickly but he didn’t understand how to fan the flames. He seemingly had no template, no memory, to draw upon. It struck her that perhaps he hadn’t argued as a child either. Perhaps this was another extension of his suppressed boyhood self, a stretching of adolescent emotion.

It also came to her that, for the first time, he had used the word ‘we’. Somewhere in his psyche, Nathan now accepted that he and Dana were joined together in an endeavour: maybe not quite as adversaries or buddies, but as two people doomed to be on the same trajectory. Which must signal that, on some level, he understood why Dana had to have the cave.

‘You’re an intelligent man, Mr Whittler. You appreciate why you’re here; what we found at Jensen’s. We must understand the past few years of your life if we’re to unravel what might have happened in the store.’

He suffered silently. Twice he opened his mouth then realised he had nothing to say, or maybe no way to say it. He grabbed handfuls of his jumpsuit and sat quietly, sinking in the chair. Dana could see the cords of his clenched jaw. Eventually, words squeezed through and into the room.