Death on High (The Lakeland Murders) (24 page)

‘Cheers boss. I just thought it’d look more natural to see them running about in the middle of the night. I’ll make sure our guys aren’t spotted.’

‘And are you looking forward to your night under the stars?’

‘Under the drizzle more like. Have you seen the forecast?’

Hall shook his head. ‘Have you told your wife what you’re up to?’

‘Aye, and she’s none too pleased. Says I’m too old for that kind of carry-on.’

‘Maybe she’s right.’

‘Don’t you start. I sailed though my last medical.’

‘Paddled through more like’ said Hall, ‘and had to have a sit down after. Still, I’ll say this for you Ray, you’re always a healthy colour.’

Dixon smiled, and his teeth did look very white against his tan, which did seem to have deepened another shade overnight.

‘Like I’ve been telling everyone for days, you need to top up a bit before you go skiing, to protect the skin, that’s all. So you’re seeing Vicky Harrison this morning?’

‘Yep, and Lillian Hill too.’

‘You expecting one of them to ‘fess up?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘And you’re still willing to risk the wrath of the Super. That’s not like you boss.’

‘Maybe I’ve changed.’

‘No-one ever changes boss, not really, not deep down. We both know that. I’ve seen the same faces in those interview rooms for twenty odd years, and if I had a quid for every one who said they’d change I’d have enough money to move to the bloody Alps. But they always keep coming back.’

Hall smiled. ‘So fundamentally we’re all recidivists then, are we Ray?’

‘If you say so boss. If you say so.’

Hall had emailed Robinson when he knew the time that Lillian Hill was coming in, and asked if he wanted to sit in on the interview. Robinson had sent a curt ‘no’ back. But as Hall walked past the observation room, next door to the main interview room, he knew exactly who was behind that door. And it didn’t bother him one bit.

Lillian Hill’s solicitor was a woman called Marion Smith, and although she sounded local Hall hadn’t come across her before, so the atmosphere in the interview room was especially chilly. But Hall introduced Jane and thanked Lillian for coming with his usual courtesy.

Hall spent half an hour going through the events of the day of the fall, and everything that Lillian said tallied with her initial statement. She’d seen the couple pass as she was having her lunch, and she’d last seen Mrs. Harrison at the ambulance.

‘Have you seen or spoken to Vicky Harrison since?’

‘No. Why should I?”

‘Not even to check how she was keeping?’

‘No. I hardly know her.’

‘But you did go to the funeral?’

‘Yes, Tony was a member of the congregation. There was a big turn-out, but there always is when it’s one of our own.’

‘And did you speak to Vicky then?’

‘At the funeral? I might have shaken her hand, but I didn’t go back to the house afterwards, or anything like that.’

‘When we spoke before you didn’t mention that you already knew Vicky and Tony. Why was that?’

‘I know a lot of people slightly. There must be several hundred from St Jim’s alone. It just didn’t seem important.’

‘So you weren’t trying to conceal the fact from us?’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

Hall nodded and looked at his notes.

‘Would you describe yourself as a caring sort of person, Lillian?’

‘I’m a Christian, so yes, of course I would.’

‘And yet you didn’t contact Vicky in any way, or even pop round to see her, after Tony’s death?’

‘Inspector, my client has already satisfied you fully on that point.’

Hall nodded.

‘And are you aware why we’ve asked you to come in, for a formal interview under caution?’

‘My client can’t answer as to the thought processes of Cumbria Constabulary.’

Hall smiled. He wasn’t sure that he could either. ‘We are treating Tony Harrison’s death as suspicious, which means that we think it might not have been an accident. And the things that you’ve told us, or more accurately haven’t told us, are among the reasons for our investigation. You didn’t tell us that you already knew the Harrisons, which we think is odd at the very least, but you didn’t mention something else that’s even more important than that.’

Lillian Hill knew exactly what Hall was referring to. ‘I’ve already told you, I was not having a relationship with Tony.’

‘We have evidence to the contrary, both that he was having an affair, and that he was a very frequent visitor at your house in the weeks before his death.’

‘Inspector, that is an entirely erroneous conclusion. Please do not insult either myself or my client by pursuing this line of questioning further.’

‘So you still deny that you were having a sexual relationship?’

‘Yes.’

Hall looked at Lillian for a long moment. ‘And you do understand that, as part of this investigation, we will investigate that assertion fully. We will look at both of your lives in great detail, talk to your friends and workmates, look at CCTV and other electronic records. Do you really think that you’ll be able to maintain your stated position, and have you thought about the implications if you can’t?’

‘Inspector, this borderline bullying of my client. I must ask you to desist.’

‘That’s not the intention, Ms. Smith. We’re aware that your client isn’t known to us and so may well be unaware of the thoroughness of our investigative procedures and processes. I thought it would be in her best interests to understand that a denial today will not prevent us from pursuing our investigation, no matter what indication to the contrary she might have received from other sources.’ Hall glanced across at the observation window as he finished. A second later he thought he heard a door slam, but he might have imagined it. He hoped he hadn’t.

‘I understand. I wasn’t having an affair with Tony. Do what you like.’

Hall opened his file, selected two pictures showing Tony Harrison’s head injuries, and slid them across the table towards Lillian. Marion Smith glanced at them, then looked sharply across the table at Hall. ‘Inspector, you’d better have a very good reason for showing my client such disturbing images.’

‘I am showing Ms. Hill two photographs, exhibits P7 and P9’ said Hall calmly. ‘You can see the horrific extent of the injuries, and you probably know that Mr. Harrison did not die immediately as a result of them. So if this was anything other than an accident we are looking at a charge of manslaughter, at a minimum. So I have to ask you Ms. Hill, and I must remind you that you are under caution, if you were involved in any way in the death of Tony Harrison?’

‘No, I was not.’

‘And do you have any knowledge, beyond what you’ve told us today, of the circumstances of his death?’

‘I do not.’

Hall and Jane Francis returned to his office for ten minutes before Vicky Harrison arrived. Hall half expected Robinson to be waiting, or at the very least an email to be sitting in his inbox, but neither proved to be the case. It was slightly unnerving, but Hall guessed the Super was keeping his powder dry. No point sticking his head above the political parapet if it turned out that the investigation was going nowhere. And that was certainly how it looked at the moment.

Vicky Harrison’s solicitor was called Jenkins, a man who Hall knew to be both very expensive and highly competent, a far from universal combination in Hall’s experience. Once again Hall took Vicky slowly and methodically through all of the events of the day, before and after the accident, despite the almost continuous interruptions from Jenkins. But if these irritated Hall there was no outward sign of it.

‘Lillian Hill has told us that she saw you and your husband earlier that morning. Did you see her?’

‘No. Where did she see us?’

‘Not long before Tony fell, she said you passed her while she was having her lunch.’

‘No, I didn’t notice. The visibility was very bad as I said. I hardly saw anyone once we were up on the tops.’

‘When we first spoke you didn’t mention that you knew Lillian.’

‘Is that a question or a statement Inspector?’ said Jenkins.

‘I’m asking your client to confirm or deny.’

‘That’s right, I didn’t mention it. She isn’t a close acquaintance, just someone I knew very slightly from church. It was just a co-incidence.’

‘And not much of one at that Inspector’ added Jenkins quickly, ‘as I’m quite sure you will agree. It isn’t as if they met half way up a Himalayan peak, now is it?’

‘But that isn’t the only co-incidence, because we now have reason to believe that your husband was having an affair with Ms. Hill.’

‘So you say’ said Vicky.

‘But you still don’t believe it?’

‘I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter now, does it?’

‘So, at the time of your husband’s fall, you had no knowledge that he might have been involved with Lillian Hill?’

‘No, I didn’t know that he was having an affair with anyone.’

Hall nodded and looked down at his notes.

‘Since the accident you’ve had no contact with Ms. Hill.’ Hall glanced across at Jenkins, and beat him to it. ‘Is that the case?’

‘That’s right. She may have been at the funeral, but I’m not sure. She probably was though. There were hundreds of people from that bloody church. They love giving their own a good send off.’

‘Doesn’t it surprise you that she hasn’t been in touch? If I’d been with someone immediately after a horrific incident, especially if I already knew them slightly, then I’d certainly want to check up on them later.’

‘Well maybe we’re not all as nice as you’ said Vicky, and Hall and Jane both heard the edge in her voice. Jenkins must have heard it too. ‘Inspector, please. You’re just inviting my client to speculate with you now. And I’m afraid it has to stop, it really does.’

Once again Hall opened the file, and pushed two photos across the table. Jane found that she was holding her breath. Vicky Harrison looked at both without flinching, and to Jane’s surprise Jenkins didn’t intervene.

‘Did you push Tony over that cliff edge?’

‘No, of course not.’

Hall took his time, and he left the pictures on the table between them.

‘People would understand you know. More to the point the courts would understand.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We have a pretty good idea what your husband was like. And we think his behaviour had been getting worse in the weeks leading up to his death. Much worse.’

Vicky Harrison said nothing. She was still looking at the pictures, so Hall picked them up and put them back into his folder.

‘Do I have to spell it out Mrs. Harrison? Your husband was abusive, and we know that you called a domestic violence helpline in the weeks before his death.’

‘Inspector, please’ said Jenkins. ‘You can’t possibly have any knowledge of the content of that call.’ But Vicky held up her hand, and Jenkins didn’t continue. She looked up at Hall.

‘I very much doubt that Tony would ever have been convicted of any offence, whatever I’d done or said. He never once hit me, he barely even raised his voice, not in over twenty years. But Tony controlled every aspect of my life. He even decided which God I should worship, for Christ’s sake. But I didn’t kill Tony, I didn’t want to and I didn’t need to. I’m not some poor housewife who depends on her husband for everything, I have a career. In fact I bring in far more money than my husband ever did, especially in the last few years.’

‘And he resented that?’

‘Yes, he did, and I admit that did make things worse, especially in the last few months. The less he earned, the less busy he was, the worse it got, especially when Peter went away to university.’

‘So you did call that helpline?’

‘Oh, that. I’d been drinking, I was feeling sorry for myself I suppose. But I didn’t kill my husband.’

‘Did you love him?’

‘No’ Vicky replied before Jenkins could intervene. ‘But if not loving your husband was a crime your cells would be full to bursting with middle aged women. I’ve come to believe that people only really love each other when they’re very young and very old. In between it’s just kids and work.’

Hall nodded.

‘So you weren’t planning to leave your husband?’

‘No. Do all the digging you want, but I wasn’t. I’m not sure what I would have done if things hadn’t got better. Nothing probably.’

‘Had you talked to him about his behaviour?’

Vicky laughed briefly. ‘No I hadn’t. But then we never talked about anything that mattered, not for years at least. Everything was all about Tony anyway, and as he ran out of ideas, dreams I suppose, then he talked to me less. And towards the end I don’t think he liked me very much at all.’

‘Can I suggest we call a halt to this interview, and I use the term loosely, at this point Inspector?’ said Jenkins. ‘I’m not qualified to judge, but I very much doubt that you have a bright future in the world of counseling. But what I am entitled to say is this. I do not expect to see either my esteemed client or yourself again, unless or until you have some real evidence that any crime has been committed here, and further that my client was in some way involved. Do I make myself quite clear? This is a fishing expedition of the very worst kind. If I make speak metaphorically for a moment, you appear to lack not only bait but also a fishing rod.’