‘I’m working from home this week.’
‘Well, then.’
‘So,’ said Millicent. ‘You guys don’t need to speak to me, right?’
There was a long pause, and the detectives exchanged a look.
‘Actually, Ms Weitzman, there is something I’d like to discuss with you,’ said the man. Derek.
‘OK.’
‘We can talk about it while my colleague is speaking to your husband.’
Millicent put out her cigarette, put her hand to her face, rubbed the bridge of her nose with her forefinger.
‘Sure.’ She gave a stiff little smile. ‘Shall we speak in the garden?’
‘That would be fine, Ms Weitzman.’
Millicent stood up and opened the back door.
‘Your coffee, Millicent,’ I said.
‘Oh. Sure. Thanks.’ She sent me that same stiff little smile.
I poured her a cup, poured one for myself. Millicent and Derek went out into the garden. She shut the door with great care. She didn’t once look at me.
‘What’s that about?’ I asked.
‘Just something we need to clear up with your wife, Mr Mercer.’
‘Alex.’
‘As you wish.’
‘But what do you have to clear up with Millicent?’
‘Your wife is at liberty to share the content of the discussion with you, Mr Mercer. As of course you are to share the content of this discussion with her. Now, perhaps we should both sit down.’
We sat facing each other across the kitchen table. I felt a sudden urge to apologise for our mess, to make some excuse for the rudeness we had just shown. It’s not you, I wanted to say. We’re all just a little freaked out at the moment.
We’re not bad people.
We’re good parents.
But that would only make me look weak now, and besides, it would change nothing.
‘So, Mr Mercer, you understand why we’re here?’
‘The suicide of our next-door neighbour.’
‘It certainly could be a suicide.’
‘Could be?’
‘We’re keeping an open mind, Mr Mercer. Now, before we go any further, I should say that we are aware that the experience of finding a body can be a traumatic one. We can arrange counselling if you should at any time find it necessary.’
‘It’s my son I’m worried about. This is tough on him.’
A patient smile. ‘I understand. But I’m also required to say that should you at any point require help in regard to what you have experienced, then we can assist you in arranging that help, either without cost or for a nominal fee. These things are tough on adults too.’
Since when were the police all pinstripes and counselling? I looked out of the window, but couldn’t see Millicent and the he-detective. Probably sitting down. On the love seat, I thought, and found the thought darkly funny. Millicent would be suffering spasms of social agony. She hated encounters with authority figures, especially authority figures with English accents.
‘Now then.’ The detective produced a small voice recorder and placed it on the table. ‘May I?’ Yellow-grey eyes, keen and unyielding.
I nodded. She pressed the record button, and told the machine where she was, and who she was talking to. Then she turned to look at me.
‘I should just say here at the start that you are by no means a suspect at the current time.’
‘At the current time? What are you saying?’
‘That you are not a suspect.’
‘You had me worried.’
This time there was more understanding in her smile.
‘We appreciate that the form of wording we use can seem vague. I hope you understand why we have to speak in these terms.’
‘Sure. Sorry.’
‘I need to start by asking you a little about your professional life, Mr Mercer.’
‘I’m a TV producer.’
‘And you work for?’
‘Myself.’
‘And what does that involve?’
‘It used to be said that you employed everyone else on set.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Now I pretty much just do what I’m told,’ I said.
These were her warm-up questions; my answers didn’t matter. She was establishing a pattern of question-and-answer, she was making it clear that she was in control.
‘I interview people on camera, so I know how this bit of your job feels.’ I smiled, but she didn’t smile back. She wasn’t trying to establish a rapport with me.
‘Do you have any imminent travel plans?’
‘I plan the shooting, and the editing. I have responsibility for the budget.’
‘Thank you. Duly noted. Your travel plans?’
‘There’s a whole lot of other stuff too. I also direct.’
‘All right, Mr Mercer,’ she said. ‘And do you plan to work outside the country in the next twelve weeks?’
‘New York. Next week. And Chicago. And LA. And San Francisco.’
‘Hmm. OK.’
‘Series with Dee Effingham. Her twelve favourite men in comedy.’
‘Duly noted.’ If she was impressed, she didn’t show it.
The real questions began. She asked me to tell her about finding the dead neighbour. She was patient and very thorough. She asked open-ended questions, never trying to antici-pate my answer. From time to time she would produce a small notebook from her inside pocket, write single words in block capitals. WATER. CRACK. ERECTION. If I started to interpret what I had seen, she would gently lead me back to the facts. All the while, the voice recorder sat at her side, bearing witness to my testimony.
Twenty minutes into our conversation, Millicent and Derek came in from the garden. Millicent was guarded, on edge. I tried to catch her eye, but she looked away, her attention focused on the detective, who nodded to his colleague but didn’t look at me.
I reached for Millicent’s hand, and she let it rest in mine for a moment. Then she was seeing the detective out of the room and to the front door.
As June and I talked, I heard water running in the bathroom upstairs, heard Millicent’s footfalls on our bedroom floor. Then I heard her coming down the stairs and quietly letting herself out of the house.
‘I’d really like to know what that was about now, please, if you don’t mind.’
‘And I’ve explained to you that I can’t discuss that with you, Mr Mercer. I’m sorry, I really am.’ She meant it, the sorry part. For the first time the professional distance dropped away; I could see something like sympathy in her eyes.
‘Would you mind if I had a cigarette? I could leave the back door open.’ She smiled. ‘And can I make some more coffee?’
‘Of course. I’ll have a cup too, if I may.’
This was worse. I didn’t want her pity, didn’t want there to be