Free The Loving Husband by Christobel Kent Page A

pub?’ When Hall just stared at him, he said, ‘Going out for a—’
    ‘I know what urinate means,’ she told him.
    ‘It’s a territorial thing,’ said Ali, thinking, He won’t like that. ‘Like dogs. Some men do it.’
    ‘Maybe round here they do,’ said Fran Hall, white-faced, and Gerard shifted in his chair. If he was in any doubt as to whether to dislike her, thought Ali, it’s gone. Hates a smart mouth on a woman. Ali didn’t think it had even been meant that way.
    ‘Are you saying he might have been … there might have been…’
    ‘No evidence of anything sexual,’ said Doug Gerard, with that smile he probably practised in the mirror, full of himself. ‘No other evidence, I should say. At present we’re looking at it as an explanation as to why he was out there, in the middle of the night.’
    Fran Hall sat very still, and he put on his soft voice. Showing that he cared. It did work with plenty of suspects, give him that, as well as in a chat-up situation.
    ‘Timing. I need to go over that again with you.’
    ‘Timing?’ Fran Hall pressed herself back into the seat, arms straight, hands under her thighs. On the other side of the table Gerard crossed his legs, easy, one ankle resting on a knee, black socks, a bit of ankle. Ali reached into her pocket for her notebook and there was a flicker in Gerard’s face, of irritation. She took out a pen from the other pocket.
    ‘You said,’ Gerard pulled out his own notebook to consult it, ‘your husband came in at around midnight, maybe after midnight. You woke up around two hours later and he was gone.’
    ‘Two oh seven,’ said Fran Hall, so quiet you almost couldn’t hear it.
    ‘But you couldn’t put an exact time on when your husband first came in?’ The room was silent: number four always felt to Ali like a padded cell. There’d be psychology in them building in an interview room this much like a dungeon, but she didn’t fancy looking too closely at it.
    ‘I didn’t look at the clock,’ Fran said, and Ali saw her swallow. ‘I heard him, the change in his pockets. He’d turned the light off in the corridor, I don’t know why.’ She sounded choked. ‘I looked at the clock, I was … I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep, really, it was just red lights, I didn’t register…’ As Ali watched she turned her head, as if she was looking round her own bedroom in the dark.
    ‘It couldn’t have been earlier? Around, ten, say?’
    Fran Hall shook her head, pale. ‘I’d have only just gone to bed by ten. I read for a bit. I got up, I went … to the bathroom.’ Her eyes slid sideways to Ali, then back. ‘Anyway. I didn’t go to sleep till close to eleven. When he came in I’d say I’d been asleep for at least an hour. Deep sleep, whenever that comes.’
    ‘So you feel it was after midnight.’ Ali bent her head over her notebook, writing it all down, there might not be time to listen to the tapes. They might not make it easy. ‘He woke you.’
    ‘Yes. He did. Well. Not fully.’ Ali raised her head, shot a glance at the men. They didn’t seem to have heard what she had heard.
    ‘Did he say anything?’
    Fran Hall shook her head, still looking at him like she was half hypnotised. ‘No,’ she said slowly, blinking. ‘Why?’
    Gerard going all poker face. ‘We’re working out timing. Time of death.’ She stared. ‘It’s to do with the forensic people, input from you goes into the equation.’
    Ali scented bullshit – plus he wouldn’t catch her eye. They went over the timing again, and then another time. She didn’t write it down after a bit, just watching, trying to work it out. Fran Hall’s hand was back on the handle of her child’s baby seat; the wedding ring was loose on it, nails cut short but kept nice. The trainers, muddy but not the kind you bought round here, not the kind you wore. Gold chain round her neck, good highlights but grown down almost to the end, months, maybe a year since Fran Hall had had her