The Things You Didn't See(65)

Her inclination was that he wasn’t cold-hearted, yet for him to shoot his wife while sleepwalking seemed bizarre and – frankly – unbelievable. ‘What’s your gut feeling, Clive? Do you believe Hector was asleep when he shot Maya?’

He breathed out, slowly, and ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, probably the nearest it had come to being brushed today. He was like a scruffy hound, one that was so loyal its ragged looks only made you love it more.

‘It’s not about gut feelings, Holly. It’s about evidence and scientific analysis.’

Clive was saying the right things, but she knew that he was holding back on her. His battered leather case was half-open on his lap and he began to sift through his notes as if they might hold the answers.

‘But the opinion of a consultant psychiatrist like yourself counts hugely, doesn’t it? Especially when the main suspect says he was asleep when he shot his wife. The jury will struggle with it.’

Clive abandoned his case notes and sat back in the passenger seat. The road before them wound around villages, with flat fields in-between. The A140 was notorious for being slow, and heaven help any driver stuck behind a tractor.

‘I think you’re confusing my expertise with that of a psychic. I can’t say if Hector was asleep or awake.’

Holly stared ahead at the crooked road, the fenland’s marshy scent in her sinuses, its dusty taste in her mouth. Norfolk’s wide-open spaces dizzied her senses.

‘What if Hector was fully awake and he’s trying to get away with this?’ Holly said. ‘Do we know for certain that Hector even has a history of sleepwalking, apart from what he and Janet have told us?’

‘It will only be documented if he’s seen his doctor about it. And Hector doesn’t strike me as the sort who’d make much use of his local surgery,’ Clive agreed. ‘Luckily, we have the facilities to run sleep tests on him, so long as he gets bail.’

‘And would they be conclusive?’ Holly asked.

‘The EEG will analyse his brain waves. We’ll be looking for unusual activity during the non-REM phase, and trying to establish if the part in his brain that should disable movement while he dreams is faulty.’

‘You make him sound like a car, the brain like an engine.’

Clive liked that and chuckled. They had reached the outskirts of Norwich quickly, the roads being fairly empty, and were just minutes away from the prison. ‘I suppose, to me, that’s how it is. What about you, Holly? What does your synaesthesia tell you about Hector?’

‘That’s not an exact science either.’

‘Still,’ he said, smiling, ‘I’d like to know.’

Holly thought about Hector when she saw him last. His stubble, his grey eyes, his battered skin. And she pictured an ancient tree with twisted branches, standing alone on a desolate plain. She could sense its proud roots under the earth, and she could hear the movement, the life, hidden between the branches, the wild creatures who sought sanctuary there, to whom the tree, ugly and gnarled though it was, offered protection.

‘Okay, I’ll tell you: I sense that he loves his wife and that he didn’t shoot her. But that he knows who did.’

When the prison officer brought Hector Hawke to the windowless interview booth, he looked a haunted man, with hunched posture and bloodshot eyes. He tried not to falter as he took the empty seat, but Holly felt him weakening, like a tree swaying in a storm, vulnerable to any harsh gust. Grief had taken him over.

‘The police have got my confession. What more do you people want from me?’

Clive slid a jotter and pen from the briefcase. ‘I’m here at the request of your own solicitor, Hector. Holly is a trainee paramedic, and is simply here to observe me. Unless you’d prefer she didn’t?’

Hector shrugged, looked at her. ‘Can’t see what difference it makes. She was there at the beginning of all this – she might as well stay.’

‘Thank you,’ Holly said. ‘I’m so sorry about Maya.’ She took the seat furthest back from the desk in the small room, and waited as Clive placed his briefcase on the floor and sat down directly opposite Hector, the small table between them.

‘Okay, Hector, so I’m going to be preparing the psychiatric evaluation. Shall we begin?’

Despite Hector’s weather-beaten face, his rolled-up sleeves revealed thick arms and he had a neck like a bulldog. ‘Psychiatrists are for mental folk. Is Jackson makin’ out I’m mad?’ He looked towards Holly and she could see he was agitated, and his bloodshot eyes looked damp. He was an old man and beaten by all that had happened, he’d lost his wife, but he was still fighting.

Clive clicked the end of his pen, scribbled on the jotter to make the ink flow. ‘That’s a good question, Mr Hawke. Sleep disorders are indicators of mental illnesses in some cases, although not in every case. The last time I met you, you claimed to know nothing of how or why Maya was shot. I understand that you’re now saying you shot her in your sleep?’

The old man pushed his damaged right hand so that it was held fast in the other. He looked at Clive closely, as if measuring his weight. ‘Yup.’

‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to say more than that, if I’m to write this report.’

‘What’s in it for me? I’ve lost everythin’ now she’s gone.’ He lowered his head.