‘Yes. I didn’t see anything,’ he said, ‘just her, seeing her like that… That’s all I remember.’ His voice was shaky.
‘I asked you yesterday if you had removed anything from the flat and you said you hadn’t. I’m going to ask you that question again now: did you remove anything from the flat?’
‘I didn’t,’ he said, ‘I didn’t take anything.’ Blinking.
‘Lisa came back from town with five bags of shopping and her mobile phone. When you called us to the flat, those items were missing. That makes me think that they are of significance to this inquiry.’ Or you wanted to make some easy money robbing the dead. ‘Can tell me anything about that?’
‘No, I don’t know,’ he said.
‘We need your help to find out who did this to Lisa.’
‘I’d tell you if I could. Course I would.’
He was becoming alarmed, so Janet lowered her voice, deliberately relaxing her posture before she went on: ‘In your statement you said that you arrived at the flat at three thirty and found Lisa, and covered her with a duvet. Then rang the police. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you absolutely certain it was that time when you got there?’
‘About then.’
‘Can you think of anyone who saw you on your way there who could confirm that for us?’
‘No. No one I knew, like. The school, you could ask them,’ he said.
‘How long does it take to walk to Lisa’s from your house?’
‘Five minutes.’
‘You covered Lisa with the duvet then; please describe to me what you did next.’
‘I called the police.’ His face looked drawn, his hands clamped together.
‘That call didn’t come into us until five past four. That means there was a period of thirty-five minutes between you finding Lisa and summoning help.’ Janet kept her eyes on his face. ‘How do you account for that?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘Can you describe to me what you were doing during that time?’
‘Can’t remember,’ he said. A weak response.
‘Did you leave the flat between half past three and four o’clock?’
‘No.’
‘You live five minutes away. Did you go home and return to the flat and then ring us?’ Change your clothes, Janet thought, get rid of the shopping and the phone, hide the knife.
‘No.’
‘Sean, is there anything in your statement you would like to change?’
‘No.’ He bit at his thumb again, an almost childish gesture.
‘You see, I’m having a problem seeing how these things fit together. That makes me think that perhaps events weren’t exactly how you describe them.’
He sat silently, though his face flickered with emotion.
