That said, she followed him into one of the vulnerable witness rooms that were designed to be comfortable and homely for those that needed it most – children and victims of rape and trauma. Tomek gestured for Rose to sit on the sofa while he perched himself on the edge of an uncomfortable wooden chair that bruised his coccyx as soon as he sat on it.
‘Drink?’ he asked.
She declined with the shake of her head and then set her handbag on the sofa, finally relinquishing control of it in an environment she clearly felt safe in.
‘First time in a police station?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’ She scanned the room with equal amazement and concern, like she was viewing it through augmented reality. ‘Sorry, it’s just… weird, you know. Gives me the creeps.’
Tomek chuckled. ‘It’s fine. We get that a lot. It’s an unfamiliar and uncomfortable environment for ninety-nine per cent of the population. I think you’d be weird if you didn’t get weirded out by being here.’
An awkward laugh. ‘You’re probably right.’
Tomek moved the conversation on. For this he didn’t need a notebook or the notes app on his phone. He wanted to use the best app available: the one between his ears. He just hoped the lack of sleep over the past few days hadn’t messed with its circuitry.
‘Forgive me if this is an imposition,’ he started, ‘but I’m sensing some hostility between you and your husband.’
She scoffed. ‘You can say that again. Can you believe that bastard lied to me, lied to all of us?’
Tomek said nothing. Waited for her to continue.
‘That little rat wasn’t in Dublin the night Angelica went missing,’ she said.
His ears perked up.
‘No, that little shitbag was sleeping with another fucking woman. Some Irish bitch he met at a conference one night a few months back. They’ve been having an affair ever since. So every time he says he’s going to Dublin for work, he’s just been shagging this woman instead. Except this time, they decided to change things up. Do you know how? That poor excuse of a human being booked an Airbnb along Southend seafront. Fucking one mile away from our house! Not only was he shagging her behind my back, but he was also doing it right under my fucking nose. He might as well have done it in our own one!’
‘“Our own one” what?’ Tomek asked, confused.
‘Above the shop,’ she explained, ‘there’s a flat that we recently bought. We plan on turning it into an Airbnb, a cute little place for people to stay on the Broadway. It’s handy because I’m right beneath it, so anytime guests arrive I can check them in and check them out without any of the faff. We’re renovating it at the moment. Well, I say we, it’s me doing all the work, mind. It’s my name on the agreement, my name on the mortgage. I wake up, go to the shop, spend all day working in there, then in the evenings I go upstairs and do some of the cleaning, the plastering, the drilling, the sawing, the lot. Meanwhile, he’s shagging Miss Potato Head over there.’
Tomek had heard all he needed to on that. He didn’t want to upset her any more, and he didn’t want to pry more into what was clearly a raw and open wound for her (even though the gossip in him was intrigued), so he turned the focus of the conversation onto Angelica and her brother. As soon as the focus switched to her sister-in-law, Rose’s shoulders relaxed, her body decompressed, and the veins in her arms and temples quickly disappeared.
‘Tell me about them as siblings,’ Tomek said. ‘I’m keen to know what they’re like. Do they get on? Do they argue?’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Because I got the impression he was a protective older brother, that he liked to look out for her.’
‘Yeah. I guess you could say that. He always liked to keep an eye on her in a big brother kind of way. But don’t get me wrong, they also argued and bickered a lot, usually about nonsense – just like siblings do, I guess – but there were a couple of times that he flew off the handle with her.’
‘Like when?’
‘When he found out that she’d been sleeping with her ex, and that she’d been inviting guys over to her house all the time. He told her to have some respect for herself, to behave better.’ She pushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear and brushed the underside of her nose with her hand. ‘Personally, I didn’t have a problem with it. It’s her body. She can do what she wants with it, so long as she’s being careful.’
‘But she wasn’t, though, was she?’
Tomek was referring to her pregnancy, and he wondered if Rose knew about it.
‘Well, no… No, I guess she wasn’t.’
So she did know.
‘When did Angelica tell you?’
‘She didn’t have to. The warning signs were there. I mean, Johnny and I have never tried for children – thank fuck, not after what he’s just done – but I know what to look out for. She tried to hide the morning sickness as much as she could, but I eventually cottoned on to the fact something was wrong. I mean, I’ve worked with her every day for the past six or seven months, so there was no hiding it. She tried to fight it, bless her, to deny it, but in the end, I convinced her to go for her scans. I was more than happy to go along with her. But she begged me not to say anything to anyone.’
‘Johnny wasn’t the only one keeping secrets in the marriage then.’
The words had slipped out of his mouth before he realised. Yet Rose’s reaction wasn’t what he’d expected.
‘They’re hardly the same,’ she said calmly. ‘He was sleeping with someone behind my back while I was looking out for his sister. They’re completely different.’
Tomek nodded. ‘You did what you had to do. Did you know that she’d told Roy as well?’
Rose nodded. ‘She’s always been much closer to her dad than her mum. That’s just the way it seems to work, isn’t it? I mean, me, I was never close to mine, but they were really close. And I’ve often thought of Roy as a father figure. He’s kind, considerate. But he has a temper on him as well. He lost the plot when she told him. And I mean lost it. You thought Johnny was bad the other day? You should have seen him.’ She turned to face the green carpet, lost in a sudden thought. ‘I wonder what he told Daphne happened to the vase in the end.’
Tomek thought of the former airline pilot for a moment. On the two occasions Tomek had seen him, the man had come across as even tempered and well mannered, not the aggressive individual Rose had just described.
‘Has he ever hit Daphne at all, or have you ever heard of any abuse in their relationship?’
Rose pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘Johnny’s never mentioned it.’
‘Have you ever seen him lose his temper in any other instance?’
Rose lowered her gaze to her lap and began picking at her hot pink nails. A few moments passed before she spoke. Tomek allowed her the time and space to feel comfortable.
‘I guess you could say he’s been aggressive towards me,’ she said. ‘Not at me. Towards me. Indirectly. Shouting and arguing with Johnny about me. At the start of the relationship, Johnny told them I wasn’t very devout, but neither are Johnny and Angelica, which is a truth they’re not willing to hear, and Roy didn’t like that, said Johnny needed to be with someone of the same faith, someone who had the same values and believed the same things as they did. It caused a lot of arguments between them, and I thought there was a time where we might have to break up, it got that serious. But throughout it all, I had Angelica.’ A tear began to form as Rose thought of her sister-in-law. ‘She was there for me when I was new to the family. She helped me come to terms with my new life, with my new mother- and father-in-law. She was my rock. Every time we went to a family function where I didn’t know anyone, she was always by my side, doing the job my husband should have been doing – introducing me. Instead, he was off getting pissed with his cousins and flirting with his second cousins once removed or whoever the fuck they were.’ She caught a tear with her finger, but it was useless against the heavy stream of them coming down her face. Tomek reached for the box of tissues on the table and passed it to her. ‘In those moments, I really felt alone, and when I needed my husband most, he was elsewhere. But I had Angelica by my side. That was the type of person she was. Compassionate, loving, heartfelt, without a bad bone in her body. It’s just… it’s just such a shame she went through what she went through.’
