Behind Closed Doors(80)

‘Sometimes,’ I improvise. ‘They weren’t prescribed by a doctor or anything, he just bought them over the counter. They were the same ones that Millie was taking—I remember him asking Mrs Goodrich for the name of them.’

‘The fact that he knew the door to the room in the basement couldn’t be opened from the inside shows that he realised he might not have enough pills but was determined to kill himself,’ she says. She takes a sip of her coffee. ‘The police will almost certainly ask you about the room. You knew about it, didn’t you, because Jack showed it to you?’

‘Yes.’

She fiddles with her spoon. ‘They’ll also want to know what the room was for.’ For the first time, she seems unsure of herself. ‘It seems that it was painted red, even the floor and ceiling, and that the walls were hung with paintings of women who’d been brutally beaten.’

I hear the disbelief in her voice and I wait, I wait for her to tell me what I should say to the police. But she doesn’t, because she has no explanation to offer me, and the silence stretches out between us. So I tell her what I came up with on the plane.

‘Jack used the room as a kind of annexe,’ I say. ‘He showed it to me not long after we moved into the house. He said he found it useful to spend time there before he went to court, going through the files, looking at the photographic evidence. He said it took such an emotional toll on him that he found it difficult to prepare mentally in the house, which was why he had created a separate study in the basement.’

She nods approvingly. ‘And the paintings?’

I feel a surge of panic—I had forgotten all about the portraits Jack had forced me to paint for him. Esther looks steadily at me, forcing me to focus.

‘I didn’t see any paintings. Jack must have hung them later.’

‘I suppose he didn’t show them to you because they were so graphic he didn’t want to distress you.

‘Probably,’ I agree. ‘Jack was wonderfully caring that way.’

‘They might ask if you knew the door couldn’t be opened from the inside.’

‘No. I only went down there once, so it wasn’t something I would have noticed.’ I look at her across the table, needing confirmation that it would be the right thing to say.

‘Don’t worry, Grace, the police are going to go easy on you. Remember, Jack told them you were mentally fragile so they know they have to be careful.’ She pauses. ‘Perhaps you should play on that a little.’

‘How do you know all this—about how Jack died, where his body was found, the portraits, what the police are going to ask me?’

‘Adam told me. It’s going to be all over the papers tomorrow, so he thought you should be prepared.’ She pauses a moment. ‘He wanted to tell you himself but I told him that, as you and I were the last people to see Jack alive, I felt it should be me who came to get you at the airport.’

I stare at her. ‘The last people to see Jack alive?’ I falter.

‘Yes. You know, last Friday, when I picked you up to take you to the airport. He waved goodbye to us after we’d put your case in the boot. He was at the study window, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ I say slowly. ‘He was.’

‘And, if I remember rightly, you told me that he didn’t come out to the gate to wait with you because he wanted to get straight down to work. But what I can’t remember is whether he was wearing his jacket or not.’

‘No—no, he wasn’t. He wasn’t wearing his tie either, he’d taken it off when he came back from court.’

‘He waved us goodbye, and then he blew you a kiss.’

‘Yes, yes he did.’ The enormity of what she’s doing, of what she’s offering to do, hits me and I feel myself starting to shake. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

She reaches across the table and covers my hands with hers. ‘It’ll be all right, Grace, I promise.’

Tears well up from deep inside me. ‘I don’t understand—did Millie say something to you?’ I mumble, aware that even if she had, even if Millie had told Esther that Jack had pushed her down the stairs, it wouldn’t be reason enough for her to lie for me.

‘Only that she didn’t like George Clooney,’ she smiles.

I look at her in bewilderment. ‘Then why?’

She looks steadily back at me. ‘What colour was Millie’s room, Grace?’

I can barely get the word out. ‘Red,’ I tell her, my voice breaking. ‘Millie’s room was red.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ she says softly.