Kind of Cruel by Sophie Hannah Page B

so sure there is one?’
    ‘You know the flats in the Corn Exchange building? Katharine had one of those. A duplex – top floor and second floor down. She had part of the dome for her bedroom.’ Gibbs swung his legs round, put his feet up on the table. ‘I’m not sure I’d like to live right in the centre of town,’ he said. ‘Might be noisy.’
    ‘I doubt it. Haven’t they rolled out a nine o’clock bedtime across all of Spilling and Silsford and the villages in between? Or is that just what those of us who live in Rawndesley like to think?’
    ‘The reason I mention Katharine’s bedroom, in the dome, is because that’s where she was killed. Multiple blows to the back of the head. With this.’ Gibbs pushed another photograph across the table.
    Seeing that a response was expected, Amber said flatly, ‘It’s a metal pole.’
    ‘Katharine used it to open and close her bedroom window. It was too high to reach. The pole hung from a hook on the wall.’
    Amber swallowed a yawn, allowed her eyes to close for a second.
    ‘Sorry if I’m boring you.’ Gibbs shoved another photograph at her, one he’d taken care to conceal until now. ‘Someone took the pole off its hook when Katharine had her back turned, came up behind Katharine, and attacked her with it. Savagely. This is what Katharine’s head looked like afterwards. She was hit more than twenty times.’
    Amber recoiled. ‘Do I need to know all this? Or see that ? Can you put it away?’ Her skin looked paler, blotchy. She covered her mouth with her hand.
    ‘I was starting to wonder if murder’s maybe no big deal to you,’ said Gibbs.
    ‘Why?’ she said angrily. ‘Because I’m tired? Because I’m not crying, like sensitive women are supposed to? I haven’t slept properly for eighteen months. I’m likely to fall asleep at any time, unless I’m in bed with hours of night stretching out in front of me, in which case I’m guaranteed to stay awake. And, yes, the murder of a woman I don’t know is less of a big deal to me than the murder of someone I know and care about would be. And, just so’s you know, you can say the name “Katharine” five hundred times if you want to, but it’s not going to make me feel any closer to her than I would if you called her “Ms Allen” or “the victim”.’
    ‘She was known as Kat,’ said Gibbs. ‘That’s what her mates called her, and her colleagues.’
    Amber took a deep breath, closed her eyes again. ‘Obviously I care that a woman’s been murdered, in the abstract way that people care about the deaths of strangers. Obviously I think it’s not ideal that there’s someone out there who thinks it’s okay to . . . do that to somebody else’s head.’
    ‘I don’t expect you to cry,’ said Gibbs. ‘I expect you to be scared. Most people, guilty or innocent, would be scared to be threatened with arrest in connection with a murder.’
    Amber looked at him as if he was an idiot. ‘Why would I be scared? I had nothing to do with it and I know nothing about it.’
    ‘Sometimes, if the police think a witness is lying, that person ends up facing charges.’
    ‘Usually only if they are lying. Or if it’s the seventies and they’re Irish.’
    The fear had to be there, under the bravado. ‘I can tell you one thing for nothing,’ said Gibbs. ‘If the press find out we’re even talking to you, unless you make some adjustments to your manner and your attitude, the whole country’s going to decide you’re guilty before it gets as far as formal charges – even if it never does. You’re the sort of woman public opinion loves to hate.’
    She laughed at this. ‘What – skinny, gobby and defensive? With a difference, though, you’ve got to admit.’ What was this? Was she flirting with him? Still smiling, she said, ‘I have an irresistible abrasive charm that wins people over pretty much whenever I want it to. The only reason you don’t like me is because I don’t care whether you like me or not.