Chapter 27

Clapham Police Station, South London

Wednesday, August 14, 1991; 10:00

Next morning, Mick and Colin joined us in the bleachers, pre-interview, to take a good one-way look at Peter through the two-way mirror. He sat slumped and unmoved, still fumbling with his fingers, still wearing his wedding ring.

He’d made an effort, wearing a freshly pressed blue striped shirt tucked into a pair of beige chinos. I wondered if Mother-in-Law Mary had ironed them for him this morning. On his belt sat a bright blue pager, standard-issue in any hospital or care home. They would have seized his cash, keys, belt, any potential makeshift weapon. Why hadn’t they seized his pager?

‘Who the fuck let him in with that?’ barked Shep, his contemptuous squint peeled on Peter.

‘It’s work-issue,’ sighed Mick, ‘the rule is they have to be contactable at all times.’

Shep growled. ‘Look at that narcissistic prick,’ he sneered through an upturned punk lip, ‘I want you boys to give this fucker a real good going over. Let’s face it, his pursuit of a bit on the side is the reason Marion is in the morgue. No matter who wielded the knife, it’s Peter who killed her. Since day one, he’s lied through his teeth. We’ve had to drag every last piece of information out of him. Today he finally tells us the truth.’

Peter’s face shot up as the door burst open. Mick and Colin strutted in, chests out, fists clenched, flexing their clamped-shut jaws. If Karen had been a sardine can that needed peeling, Peter was a coconut begging for a hammer.

There was no ceremonial organising of papers, no, ‘so Peter, tell us about …’

Colin read the tape recorder its rights. Mick read the most damning revelations from Karen’s interview. Peter looked on, wide-eyed and bewildered. By the end, his face had twisted into the grotesque grimace of a hooked fish.

‘Karen has told us all about your sexual relationship. We’d now like to hear all about it from you. And don’t leave anything out,’ said Mick.

Peter took his time, obviously treading carefully. He’d got to know Karen soon after he started working at the Pines.

‘I didn’t consider her any more than a work colleague,’ he said.

The boys made it clear they weren’t here for an am-dram production of Brief Encounter.

‘Did you fancy her, Pete? Did you want to sleep with her?’

‘I found her to be pleasant, outgoing, friendly, but not pretty. Not like Marion, who was beautiful.’

Peter started to crack, which earned him no respite.

‘How did your sexual relationship develop?’

‘I became responsible for stocking the nurses’ quarters and that brought me into more contact with Karen. We spoke about twice a day.’

‘Don’t stop,’ barked Colin.

Peter winced and carried on. ‘Around the end of 1988, Karen had to have an operation on her knee and was recovering in her room. I went to visit her a couple of times a day. Then I attended her twenty-second birthday party at her family home in Lee, in the spring of 1989. I met her mum, dad, her sisters Laura and Stacey.’

‘Did you bring Marion along?’

‘No.’

‘Karen tells us she introduced you as her boyfriend.’

‘I don’t remember her ever calling me her boyfriend, to anyone.’

‘She said that at weightlifting and aerobics classes, you told everyone she was your girlfriend.’

‘That’s not true. Go and ask them yourselves. I never introduced Karen as my girlfriend. She never was my girlfriend. She was just … casual.’

‘Your bit on the side. Yes we understand, Peter. When did you start having sex with Karen?’

‘It was around that time.’

‘So you’d been going out with Marion for over two years by now. You started sleeping with Karen in the spring of ’89, a few months before you got engaged to Marion.’

Peter nodded, shame rising through him like red sap.

‘And how did it happen with Karen, that first time?’

‘I can’t remember the details.’

‘What do you mean, you can’t remember the details? You can’t remember the first time you gave one to your mistress?’

Peter’s eyes flinched.

‘Did it mean that little to you? I bet Karen remembers every detail.’

‘We did it in my room at the Pines one evening. I honestly can’t remember how it came about.’

‘So you don’t remember who initiated it?’

He shook his head.

‘You have to speak,’ screamed Colin, making everyone jump.

‘No,’ whined Peter.

‘And what were your feelings for Karen?’

‘I thought it was just casual. Nothing serious.’

‘And did you tell Karen the news, that you saw her as a piece of meat? That in the meantime you’d got engaged to Marion?’

‘I didn’t tell her,’ said Peter.

‘But she must have found out?’

Peter nodded, too quickly, too often, flushing, cracking under the pressure again.

‘How did she find out?’

‘The matron threw an engagement party for us. Karen was there.’

‘How did she react?’

‘She didn’t make a scene or anything. She cooled it for a while.’

‘When did you resume your sexual relations with Karen?’

‘She moved into a room in the home around May of last year. We started sleeping together again.’

‘Let me get this straight: a month before your wedding to Marion in June of last year, Karen moved into the staff accommodation at the Pines residential care home?’

Peter nodded. ‘I advised her to move.’

‘Oh I bet you did, Peter. You could have sex on tap then, couldn’t you, with your unsuspecting fiancée and your 24/7 fuck buddy.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ groaned Peter, ‘she needed to get away from her family.’

‘And why was that, Peter?’

He blinked twice, then let his head drop, resigned to giving away a confidence: ‘Her dad, Terry, when he gets drunk he picks fights with them. He was hitting her, hitting all of them. He’s been doing it for years. She stayed to protect her sisters, but I told her they were old enough to look after themselves now.’

‘So while she was looking for a shoulder to cry on, you provided a bed for her to lie on. What a gentleman you are, Peter. How many days did it take you to get your end away with poor old vulnerable Karen in her new accommodation?’

‘I … we … look, she wouldn’t leave me alone. I told her to meet someone else, but she was always there.’

‘And did Marion know Karen during this time?’

‘I thought they were quite friendly, but after a while Marion started to make certain comments like “we know what she’s after”. But as the wedding got closer they seemed to get friendly again. It was Marion’s idea to invite her over for it.’

‘Tell me about that, Peter,’ said Mick, ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like having your mistress at your wedding.’

‘She came over to Ireland with us, in the hire car.’

He broke down and sobbed.

‘Gives a whole new meaning to Hertz,’ cackled Shep to me behind the one-way mirror, ‘and Budget rental. That’s all Karen was to him, a Budget rental fuck. And what a masochist she is. Karen kept taking this punishment until she snapped. He’s spilling his guts because it’s all clicking together in his thick fucking skull, at last. Karen was obsessed with him. He’s finally realising that he drove Karen to it. What I want to know is: did he know she was going to kill Marion?’

I couldn’t believe that for one second. He’d been crushed on the night he found her. He was broken now.

‘Did you spend any time alone with Karen on your wedding weekend?’ asked Mick.

‘The night before the wedding, she came into my hotel room. There were two single beds. She lay on one and fell asleep. She woke up and went back to her room. We didn’t have sex.’

‘Denying yourself pre-marital sex until the bitter end, Peter, wow, how very Catholic,’ chirped Colin.

Peter was now on a confessional slide.