‘Shut up, Mark.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
The master bedroom was more of a suite; bigger than the whole of the ground floor of Dixon’s cottage. A walk-in wardrobe and dressing room, marble tiled wet room, a vast bed.
‘That’s one of those sleigh beds,’ said Sarah. She had been following Dixon, so quietly that he hadn’t known she was there. ‘I’ve always fancied one of those.’
The dressing room turned out to be a treasure trove of family photographs, lined up in small frames on a shelf under her mirror. He saw it in the mirror first, on the wall behind him, spinning round to look at it closely.
A white box frame with a black and white photograph of a baby boy, and a handprint. ‘Welcome to the world, Jos Blake Hope-Bruce, aged 2 weeks, born 2nd June, 6lb 13oz.’
Dixon lifted the frame off the hook and placed it in an evidence bag being held open for him by Sarah.
‘We’ll be able to match the prints, won’t we, Sir?’
‘If I’m right, then we won’t. The baby who made that handprint is long dead, sadly.’ He sighed. ‘Not much of a welcome to the world.’
‘Bravo, Nick.’ Charlesworth and Potter were standing on the landing, outside the canteen. ‘We’re in meeting room two, if you’ve got a minute?’
‘I haven’t really, Sir,’ replied Dixon. ‘The custody clock’s ticking and we haven’t interviewed her yet.’
‘No, of course. So, you’ve found the woman in the red coat?’
‘She’s downstairs now, with her solicitor.’
‘She must be prime suspect for the murders too,’ said Potter. ‘It can’t be a coincidence that the killings started when the baby’s remains were found, can it?’
‘No, it can’t.’
‘They gave a DNA sample when Torquay did their testing, though, surely?’ asked Charlesworth. ‘Failure to provide a sample would’ve been a red flag.’
‘The son provided the sample,’ replied Dixon, trying to edge past them in the corridor. ‘But then he’s not part of the Hope-Bruce family, is he, so there was no match. He’s Patrick Hudson.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘We’ll be doing a fresh DNA test to make sure, Sir. The sample he gave at the time was destroyed at his request.’
‘How on earth did she ever think she’d get away with it?’
‘Well, she has done for over twenty years,’ replied Dixon. ‘But I suspect the truth is far simpler. She never thought about it. She was a bereaved mother, out of her mind with grief, and she just snatched Patrick without thinking about the consequences at all.’
‘She’ll bloody well have to think about them now.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Did she kill her own son?’ Charlesworth curled his lip. ‘That’s the next question, isn’t it?’
‘I’ll be running it past Roger Poland, but the Torquay pathologist couldn’t come up with a cause of death from the few bones that are left, so it’s unlikely we’ll be able to prove that one way or the other. She may have shaken him, or smothered him, or it may have been a sudden infant death. Unless she tells us, we’ll never know.’
‘Have you told the boy’s father?’
‘Not yet, Sir. I want to be sure before we do that.’
‘You’d best get on with it then, hadn’t you.’
Dixon managed to squeeze past the crowd in the corridor, jostling for position in the video suite. Two screens, both showing the interview room, a woman sitting next to a man in a suit. Diana Hope-Bruce, the mysterious woman in the red coat, had drawn a crowd, most of them Devon and Cornwall officers shuffling silently into the back of the room, as if Charlesworth and Potter didn’t know what was going on behind them.
It was something of a departure for Dixon, opting for interview room one, where suspect and interviewing officer sat side by side, the digital recorder on a table in front of them. His style was confrontational, he’d been told that enough times in the past, and a table between him and the suspect was usually a welcome buffer. Not this time.
This time was different.
It was about a woman and her dead baby, and the desperate act that followed.
At least to begin with.
The interview room layout was still designed by an idiot, one who had never conducted a police interview, almost certainly, but this time it might have its uses.
Louise dealt with the formalities.
‘This interview is being audio and visually recorded on to a secure digital hard drive. Identify yourself for the recording, please.’
The elbow in Dixon’s ribs meant it must be his turn.
A solicitor he didn’t recognise, but then he’d driven up from Torquay, so that was hardly surprising. A privately paying client and all that.
