There’s silence in the room after the recording ends. It sounds bad. It is bad. ‘How can we be sure that is my client?’ Darryl says, rallying first. ‘Has the tape been verified for authenticity? If so, can I see the results? If not, can I ask why you are playing this for us when it hasn’t been substantiated?’
Darryl is strongly defending me while I’m still stuck on how awful that sounds.
‘Is it you?’ DI Brosnin asks. ‘Miss Gillmare, did you leave a message like that on Mr Carlisle’s phone?’
I move my gaze from the recorder, which had just been filling the room with my voice, to the detective across the table. She really does not like me. She doesn’t have to, I suppose. For her, I guess it is better if she doesn’t like most people – less chance of being torn if you have to arrest or investigate someone you quite like.
‘That’s not how it sounded.’
‘So you did leave such a message on Mr Carlisle’s phone?’
‘But it wasn’t how it sounded.’ I take a deep breath, try to sound rational and sane, not the person that recording makes me seem. ‘We used to do this silly thing – well, actually, Logan used to do this silly thing of trying to scare me. I used to hate it but he loved it. He was always jumping out at me. And when he started coming over to the flat when I wasn’t there, I’d come home and he’d jump out at me. It used to terrify me because I was never sure if it was him or someone else. I used to tell him that one day he’d do it and I wouldn’t know it was him and I’d end up—’ That sounds terrible so I stop. ‘That time on the message, I couldn’t find him and I was really scared because I did think this time it was a serial killer who’d broken in. When he jumped out at me from behind the living room door I screamed and totally panicked and pushed the door back, and it hit him in the face.’
‘So you hit him with a door?’
‘Not like that. I was terrified. I thought I was about to be raped or murdered or both and I just slammed the door back on instinct. He was really pissed off and went home. I left the message because I’d been asking him to stop doing it and he wouldn’t and he got hurt as a result of doing something stupid.’
‘So when he doesn’t do something you want, you hit him to get him to comply?’
‘No! Not at all. I’m just explaining how this one incident came about. I didn’t hit him in the sense that you mean. I was, I thought, defending myself from an attacker.’
That story, even though it is true, even though he came back and said he was in the wrong, sounds so made up. Something an abusive person would say to counter an indisputable record of their abuse. That’s the problem with the truth – it is often so simple, so mundane, it sounds like a lie you haven’t made the effort to dress up.
‘Miss Gillmare, how many times did you force yourself on Mr Carlisle?’
‘What? Never!’ I reply. I’ve replied too soon, though. Not until it’s too late do I remember that the police never ask you a question without having some kind of knowledge of the answer – or at least a potential answer. Evidence. Poppy Carlisle mentioned evidence. They have mentioned evidence.
Another cover of a beige-brown cardboard file is opened, and the DI lowers her head as she examines what is on the page in front of her.
‘Mr Carlisle’s sister found a diary of sorts that he had been keeping.’
‘Do I even need to mention the fact we can’t verify this diary’s authenticity?’ Darryl says tiredly.
‘Oh, we’ve done all our checks. They originated from his computer or phone and were added onto the cloud as well as a USB drive, all time-stamped.’ DI Brosnin smiles at me. She has something. Something in those ‘diaries’. What, I don’t know, since there is nothing to tell. ‘Mr Carlisle has written here that on more than one occasion he woke up to find you having sex with him.’
‘No no no no no no no. No! That’s not what happened.’ I raise my hands to make a ‘no’ gesture. ‘He went on and on at me about it. He kept saying it was one of his fantasies – to be woken up with oral or full sex. He went on and on about it. I wasn’t keen because I’ve always been really clear about consent – a sleeping person can’t consent. But Logan kept going on about it. For months. And then, it was his birthday and he said that was the only present he wanted. And I agreed. He was so happy afterwards, and because it made him so happy, whenever he mentioned it the night before, I would . . . I would . . . It was what he wanted.’
‘So you did have sex with him while he was asleep?’
‘Not in the bad way that you’re saying. It was what he wanted.’
‘What about it saying here that you pushed him? You were talking about your mother and her past and you got so enraged about what he said that you shoved him?’
‘No, we were on the verge of an argument and he had his head on mine and I moved his head away so we could talk to each other. I didn’t shove him.’
‘You shouted at him for saying your friend had bad luck with men.’
‘No! I barely raised my voice, let alone shouted. He was trash-talking my friend and I wanted him to stop it.’
‘You gave him the silent treatment because he said your brother shouldn’t be taking drugs in your house.’
‘No! I just said my brother was free to do what he wanted in my place.’
‘Even if it meant breaking the law, when you’re a trainee solicitor, with so much to lose?’
‘This isn’t about that,’ Darryl cuts in.
‘No, no it’s not, but it doesn’t make the general picture we’re building up of your client look good, does it?’
‘Can we just move on?’ he says.
‘Miss Gillmare, I could go through all these incidents, and I’m sure you’d have an “excuse” for every one of them.’
‘They’re not excuses, they’re explanations for what happened. They’re the truth.’
‘Are they? You see, Mr Carlisle seemed to be so concerned about these incidents he made notes of them. They run to pages.’ She lifts up a few pages to emphasise what she is saying. ‘I have to say, they make for very distressing reading. And they make up a pattern of behaviour that would show you to be the abusive one in your relationship.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Miss Gillmare, Verity, what happened? Were you trying to leave him for Howard Scarber? Was Logan Carlisle just too clingy? I mean, we’ve all had men like that, the ones who won’t get the hint. And you have to be cruel to be kind. Is that what happened here? Did you just have to show him your tough side to get him to back off?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘Then what was it, Miss Gillmare? Why would you treat this man in the way that is described in these pages? It’s not all bad, he does say that you used to say you loved him. But why would you do this to him? And what would lead you to trying to kill him?’
‘I didn’t do any of those things,’ I state.
‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ She smiles. ‘Now that Mr Carlisle has confirmed you were not only there at the time of his attack, but the perpetrator, could you tell me again, in your own words, what happened?’