The Perfect Girl

TESSA

When it’s my turn to sit down with the detectives my hands shake. The adrenalin that got me through the last few hours has crashed and I sit with my hands under the table, on my lap, where they keep up their involuntary motion. It occurs to me that this is what it must be like for Richard.

On the mantelpiece behind the detectives I notice a drooping vase of flowers, which I’ve forgotten to refresh. They were given to me by a grateful family at the surgery, but now they’ve become carcasses, with papery petals and shrunken stalks. Beside them hangs a watercolour that Richard and I brought back from Hong Kong, and have always cherished. Elegant and simple swathes of colour describe two pears on a branch and a small bird. The serenity of the scene is a world away from the mess we’re in.

The first thing the detective says to me is something kind: ‘We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs Downing,’ and so then they have to wait until I stop crying. It’s usually me doing this in the surgery, waiting for the grief of others to subside after I’ve offered them a kind word in a horrible situation, so it feels strange that the tables have turned. It embarrasses me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Please,’ says the detective who first spoke, ‘take your time.’

They stare at their notepads while I wipe my tears away and, after a decent interval, when I’ve stopped snivelling loudly, they ask if I’m ready.

‘How was she killed?’ I ask them.

‘Ah, so, at this time it’s hard for us to say for sure, but your sister’s body has been taken into the care of the coroner for tests so we can establish exactly what happened,’ the slightly shorter detective replies. He has kind eyes.

‘In due course,’ adds his partner, as if I might be unreasonably expecting a fast-track service.

Of course I’m thinking then of the morgue, of shiny stainless steel, of bodies in drawers, of the clank of surgical instruments on a metal tray and the bloodless cut of a post-mortem incision. My sister is too beautiful for such treatment. I always had a protective instinct towards her, however much she resisted it, and even when she chose her own, fiercely independent path through life. I felt that instinct every day of my life, until today, when she’s managed to elude me with absolute finality.

‘Could you give us your account of what happened last night?’

‘From when?’

‘From whenever you feel you’d like to start.’ They’re exuding patience, and they’re purposely not leading my answers. This, I can tell. The account I give is up to me.

‘I went to Zoe’s concert,’ I say. ‘It started at seven-thirty but I got there at about six forty-five to learn how to use the video camera because it was my job to record the children’s performances.’

‘And did you go alone?’

I nod, hoping he won’t ask me why, and am relieved when all he does is make a note. The other man has his arms folded and his head slightly cocked to one side. He’s just listening and watching and I find that unnerving. Sam flits briefly through my mind because it occurs to me that this is his world, and I’ve never glimpsed it before.

‘Can you tell us about the concert?’ says the detective who’s writing.

Memories come to me vividly, and in sharp focus. I tell all. From the detectives’ responses I can hear that they already know about Zoe’s past conviction, and I think that either they’ve run background checks on us very quickly, or Chris has told them, and I reckon it’s more likely to be the latter.

More note-taking, then they ask me to continue talking them through the evening.

My words flow until I get to the part when we’re all back at Chris and Maria’s house, because this is private territory, and I am, just like Maria, a private person. The invasion of our family’s privacy was one of the hardest things to bear, for all of us, after Zoe’s accident.

‘Will the press report what happened?’ I ask the detectives.

‘They will report that there’s been a death,’ the listening one answers, ‘and they’ll report the progress of the investigation.’

‘What about Zoe?’

‘We won’t be broadcasting Zoe’s history.’

‘Can they?’

The answer is in the expression in his eyes: it tells me that there’s a point beyond which he has no control over what the press do.

‘We’ll do our best to make sure it doesn’t happen if it could prejudice a trial,’ he says eventually and the other man gives him a sharp look and says, ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

‘What?’ I don’t understand at first, and it’s a thump in the gut when I realise that what they mean is that Zoe could be a suspect.

‘Let’s move on. Can you tell us about when you first arrived at the house?’

So I try, but my natural instinct to remain private means that I falter over my words and descriptions. I feel guilty when they ask me to pause while they take time to note down my words about my conversation with Tom Barlow. When they ask me why I followed him I also feel guilty when I say, ‘Because I didn’t know what he was going to do,’ and then the guilt is compounded further when I think of him at the doorway to his home, with his wife and child.

The things I’m saying about him go against my instincts that he is a good and loving man, but they also feed a suspicion that I know Chris shares: that Tom Barlow could have hurt Maria. I wonder if she met him outside the house and tried to persuade him not to publicise Zoe’s actions? Did she provoke a rage in him that he couldn’t contain after a long, hot night of despair and frustration? That is surely the version of events that looks most likely right now.

I also feel as if I need to defend my sister – old habits die hard – and so to an extent I gloss over Maria’s poolside scene by saying that she began to feel under the weather after a glass of wine, that she was tired from being up with the baby, and she never coped well with the heat, and I tell the police that I went home after Maria came out of the pool.

‘And how did things seem with the family at this point, when you left?’

‘I think everybody was tired, and a little upset. The concert, and the revelation, had been upsetting for them all. It was a complicated night.’

‘Do you think her husband was angry with her?’

I think about this one before I answer, mostly because I’m not sure. ‘I think he was upset, but he loves her, you know.’

I remember Chris wrapping his arms around her, enveloping her in a towel. I remember her burying her head into his chest.

‘He loved her,’ I say.

‘OK.’ He notes something down, but, as he does, I wonder whether I’m sure of that.

‘Do you have something to add?’ The detective watching me notices something in my expression.

‘No.’

My sister had a good life, I’m sure of it. It’s what we all wanted for her, after everything, it’s what she deserved.

‘Just one more thing,’ he says. ‘We’re asking everybody who was at the house if they would mind letting us have their phones. Just to help us crack on with ruling things out; speeds up our inquiries. Would that be OK?’

I think of all the texts between Sam and I on my phone, and all the emails too, but I try not to let those thoughts show because the officer is watching me.

‘No, that’s fine,’ I say and I get my phone out of my pocket and pass it to him.

He hands it to his colleague, who puts it in a bag, and writes my name on the outside of it. I see they already have Zoe’s.

‘Have you arrested Tom Barlow?’ I ask them, because I feel as though they should be more interested in what he did.

The detective looks at me as if he’s assessing me in some way. Then he says, ‘Mr Barlow has been interviewed, but he has a solid alibi. He did not murder your sister.’