Davian raises his hand. ‘Let me explain.’
I knock the mug over and it flies straight on the floor.
‘Anthony,’ Davian says.
His voice is calm, but I can detect something else: worry.
‘Explain!’ I shout from the top of my lungs.
Davian is on his feet and there is a moment of silence before he slumps down on the chair.
‘That night of my exhibition a year ago, after the party, Lottie came to pick up a fight. Giselle was there and she took us to the office, to this vacant room. We argued, things got heated then she started crying and... and...’
At least his side of the story agrees with hers.
‘You had sex with her?’
He hesitates. ‘Yes... I regretted it right away. I don’t know what got into me, she was there, crying. She was wearing this dress and she looked beautiful. I wanted her to stop crying. I wanted to comfort her and...’ He pauses, takes a sip of coffee. I take a deep breath. He did comfort her all right, and sank himself further into a bottomless hole.
‘I confronted her a few days after. I took her out for dinner to explain it couldn’t happen again,’ Davian added.
Davian fired a cigarette and tilted his head back as he inhaled, watching the smoke dance in the air.
‘And started an affair?’ I asked.
‘No, I didn’t. I wasn’t interested. I felt bad enough for what I did, let alone start an affair. Lottie didn’t take it very well. She thought we would end up together or something. She left the restaurant.’
My brain ticks like a bomb about to explode but in the clip, she said... Was it all a lie?
‘I tried to avoid going to the office as much as I could. When I did go, I stayed in my office. But each time I left, she was there lingering.’
‘So, you’re saying after you had sex with her, she started making stuff up about you?’
‘Anthony, I know she was your friend and this is a delicate matter. I didn’t mean to... have sex with her. It was all too intense,’ he says with a slight tremor in his voice. ‘It’s like she wanted... me, but not me.’ He puffs on the cigarette. ‘I don’t know how to explain it... she had this idea in her head. An idea of her and me.’
‘Did Melissa know?’
‘Of course, Melissa didn’t know,’ he said, incredulous.
‘So, Lottie threatened you. She’d tell Melissa if you didn’t accept her... advances?’
‘That came later.’
‘Later?’
‘It was twisted.’
If he lied to me about having sex with her, he could be lying to me now. Davian isn’t the most reliable of sources by the looks of it.
‘She was playing this sick game with me. A game I wanted no part of. She couldn’t take a hint.’
‘Davian, be frank with me. Giselle told me you were bringing Lottie to her apartment for sex. Is it true?’
‘No, I told you it’s not true. That’s bullshit; the police checked all CCTV. They questioned the doormen who work there. There is no record of her ever being there. Lottie has never been in that apartment. Who do you think I am, anyway?’
I paced down the room. ‘At the moment? I don’t know.’
How did Lottie find out Giselle let Davian use one of her apartments? Did she follow him? In her clips, she sounded convincing. How she described the interior of the hallway and the apartment. The whole dialogue, all of it sounds real.
‘Giselle asked her to help me with a photoshoot I was doing in a house in Croydon. It’s an abandoned thing. I found it by accident and wanted to capture it. I suspect that Lottie told her something. I tried to explain to Giselle that I didn’t need Lottie with me and I knew what I was doing.’
‘So you never told Giselle what Lottie was doing to you because you feared Melissa would find out?’ I reasoned.
‘Pretty much.’
‘Giselle was your boss. She would have handled the situation with decorum. It’s not like she was going to gossip about it,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m sure she would have dealt with it.’
‘I thought I could handle it. What sort of man would I be if I went hiding behind my boss’s skirt?’
Of course, his ego got the best of him. Look where it got him now: a suspect in a murder case, and his life is practically ruined.
‘Besides, it would be embarrassing exposing myself like that. It’s not like I was innocent, given I was the one who seduced Lottie.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I confronted Lottie and told her to stop what she was doing. What happened between us was a mistake and to accept it.’
‘But you went to the house with her?’
‘Well, I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter since Giselle said so.’
‘You could have said no. I mean, you were Giselle’s star. She would have taken your side.’
He glares at me.
‘So you took her to the house, then what?’
‘I took pictures. She watched.’
Was it true? Did he take a picture of her? I can’t ask because he would ask me how I would know and I would be exposing myself. I wasn’t going to tell him I had a possession of Lottie’s, a very important one. Crucial to the case.
‘So that’s all you did, took the pictures? You have copies to prove that you did go to this house?’
‘Yes, I do. The police have them. They might be in an evidence bag at the police station.’
‘And went back to the office?’ I say.
There was a long silence. He lowers his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
It was all clear what it meant.
‘You idiot! She was infatuated by you; you wouldn’t have sex with her again. My God, Davian, you were leading her on.’
His eyes start to water. ‘I thought if I gave her what she wanted, she’d leave me alone.’
Lottie was telling half-truths. All the parts of the apartment were made up, at least that’s what Davian is saying, but the part about the house is true. The memory flashed before my eyes, how Davian and I had met. It was in secondary school. He was the shy boy, always sitting in the back scribbling in his notebook. I too sat in the back, not paying attention to the lesson. I used to fall asleep or draw. One afternoon, I saw about four boys from my class whose names I can’t remember ganging up on Davian. One of them took the notebook from his hand, began tearing out pages, and threw it across the yard. I couldn’t sit by and watch; I had to do something. I walked up to them.
‘Four against one, seriously?’ I said.
‘Shut up,’ one of them said.
I told them to take a walk. One of them pointed his finger in my face and said it wasn’t over. I collected Davian’s notebook; there were drawings and good ones. He didn’t look me straight in the eye. I told him to stick with me and we’d never looked back since.
‘Did you tell the police what you just told me?’ I asked, returning to the present.
‘I have.’
‘And?’
‘There isn’t enough evidence to charge me with her murder.’
‘What if they do find evidence to charge you?’
Now he looks afraid. ‘I don’t know what she was doing, but Lottie held grudges, or at least with me she did because I didn’t... want her.’