The Memory Game

Thirty-One

I didn’t want to meet anybody. I crept down the stairs and out of the back door. I slipped the notebook safely into the inside pocket of my thick coat and strode away from the house. I chose one of the walks I knew best, one of the longest, most exposed and one of the most familiar, which I knew I could manage without any thought. I walked through woods and then up hills with winds so strong they almost blew me over and, on this cold, blustery day, such a view that I could have sworn that I could see all the way to the Beacons in Wales.

I went on and on, never turning for home. When it was getting dark I reached a pub and I phoned the Stead and told Claud not to expect me back for supper and I’d explain everything later. I ate a lasagne with some warm frothy beer, followed by an astringent rhubarb crumble with custard and black coffee. The woman behind the bar showed me a map and I was able to walk back to the Stead along the road under the illumination of the fullest of moons. By the time I heard my boots crunching on the drive, all the lights were out. I went straight to my room and fell heavily asleep, the diary under my pillow.

By the time I came down in the morning it was after nine. I could see Fred and Lynn outside, loading the car. Claud was fixing a shelf in the kitchen. I asked him where Alan was and he told me that Alan and Theo had driven into town. Shopping, he supposed. He gestured to the oven. Inside was a pan with eggs, tomatoes, bacon. I devoured them with tea and orange juice. Would it be all right if I borrowed Claud’s car for the morning? Yes. He asked if I had anything to tell him. Not yet, I said. I swallowed the last of the tea, took his keys and went to the car, hugging Fred and Lynn on the way.

At the front desk of Kirklow police station, I asked for Helen Auster. She was away.

‘Can I see whoever’s standing in for her, then?’

I looked at the posters until a thickset young man appeared and introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Braswell. I showed him the diary and Natalie’s note and in a few sentences explained where I had found it. He looked startled and led me through the station to the office of Kirklow CID, pleasingly modern and industrial in design. A hum of conversation stopped as I entered and several people looked at me in curiosity. Braswell led me through them and out to an interview room. He asked if he could take the diary for a moment. Within a very short time he returned with two more men, the younger of them carrying a blue plastic moulded chair which he placed in a corner. The other, obviously the senior officer, was a slight man, with a florid face and dull brown hair, combed flat with obvious effort. He stepped forward and shook my hand.

‘I’m Detective Superintendent Wilks. I’m in charge of this inquiry,’ he said. ‘And I think you’ve met Detective Constable Turnbull before.’

I nodded at the young man hovering in the corner. We all sat as Wilks continued.

‘DS Braswell, assisted by DC Turnbull, will do any interviewing that is necessary. I just wanted to sit in for a preliminary chat, if that’s agreeable to you. First, is there anything we can get you? Tea? Coffee?’

Turnbull was dispatched to get four teas.

‘Where’s Detective Sergeant Auster?’ I asked.

‘On leave,’ Wilks said.

‘In the middle of the case?’

‘DS Auster is no longer on the case,’ said Wilks. ‘At her own request.’

‘Oh.’

‘Now, Mrs Martello, can you tell us about this diary?’

I described in detail how I had searched Alan’s study and found it and the note inside.

‘Yes,’ said Wilks, lifting up the note which was now encased in a plastic folder. ‘There is no doubt that that is the handwriting of Natalie Martello?’

‘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.’