Page 17 of No Safe Place

Wednesday | Evening

Field

Field pulled up at the Moores’ house a little after six, after a detour through a McDonald’s drive-thru for a large fries. She was running on fumes.

She’d phoned Simon Dawes on the way, but he was still at the hospital. Field wondered if he was avoiding her.

Penny answered the door, still looking dry-eyed and composed. Her hair was pulled back into a small ponytail, and she’d taken off her make-up. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted pink.

Field noted that she wore her watch on her right wrist.

‘I’m sorry to turn up again so soon,’ Field said. ‘I have a few more questions.’

Penny led Field through to the garden. She’d have preferred to have Ayres with her. It helped a family to bond to the FLO, when they were there throughout the process, and usually families clung to their liaison for far longer than the officer was supposed to stay.

Field let out a soft “oh” at the patio doors.

The walled garden was small but bursting with colour.

Around the edge of the cobbled patio were raised beds, planted with poppies, wildflowers and luscious green shrubbery.

Ivy and jasmine climbed the walls – the latter giving the garden its heavy perfume.

‘This was David’s pride and joy,’ Penny said, flatly.

Penny took a seat at the wrought-iron table in the centre of the garden. She was still wearing the same floaty summer dress, and it clashed with her shock.

Field took a seat opposite Penny, steeling herself for the questions she needed to ask. ‘Firstly. Are you sure there’s no one who can confirm you were home last night, Penny?’

Penny shook her head. She was spaced out, like she’d taken something. A beta blocker, or maybe diazepam. Field would ask Zara to have a discreet look in the bathroom cabinets next time she was at the house.

‘And are you sure you’re okay to be on your own? Simon Dawes said he could come and stay with you.’

Penny reached out and pulled a dead flowerhead from its stem, with her left hand.

‘Well, it would be good, if he could come over,’ Field said, keen to press the idea. Penny’s ambivalence was hard to read. ‘Now – I know this is the last thing you want to talk about, but I’d like to ask you about your relationship with David. When did you separate?’

Penny’s voice was flat. ‘Six months ago. He stayed in the spare room for a few weeks, before he found his flat and left.’

A long pause.

‘We haven’t spoken for a while,’ Penny said. ‘He thought – we thought it would be easier. Clean break, for now.’

David’s phone download was back from Digital Forensics already. Field had checked it herself before she left the station – it had been three months since their last contact.

Field filed the word estranged away for later.

Penny was coming across as cold, possibly uncaring. But was that just shock? Was she just the buttoned-up repressed type who found it hard to process things?

Field gave a supportive smile. ‘Do you mind telling me why you split up?’

Penny gave a jerky shake of the head. ‘No. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘I know,’ Field urged. ‘I’m divorced myself, and I know it’s awful. But it might help us.’

Penny nodded and covered her eyes with her palm. ‘I was jealous.’

Field waited.

Penny shook her head behind her hand, then pushed her hair away from her face.

‘I was jealous of his work, his obsession with his work. Jealous of his patients , even.’ Her voice was clipped, and she turned her head slightly, not meeting Field’s eye.

‘He kept up his NHS clinics, still lectured long after all his colleagues stopped. Private patients in the evenings, even weekends sometimes.’

‘That must have been hard for you,’ Field said, shifting forward in her chair, to avoid a ray of sun that kept blinding her. ‘Had you tried to resolve it?’

‘I gave up work a few years ago – with stress .’ Penny said the last word like it was a source of great shame. ‘He didn’t mind but that made it worse, just sitting around all day.’

Penny straightened in her chair, sitting straight-backed and rigid.

Field could sense her distress beneath the stoicism. ‘What did you do, Penny?’

‘Community work. A nurse, for the British Heart Foundation.’

‘Okay, thank you. Sorry, you were saying—’

Penny sniffed. ‘I told David to take a sabbatical. He was nearly fifty – he needed a break. We could finally spend time together, do some work on the house—’

Field took a second to process what Penny was saying. She had been awake for almost twenty-four hours and the warm, scented air wasn’t helping her focus. ‘And David said no?’

She nodded, hands clenched in her lap. ‘That’s when I told him I wanted a divorce. He wanted to be their doctor more than he wanted to be married to me.’

Penny had given David an ultimatum and she’d ended up with the unfavourable outcome – but he was still wearing his wedding ring when he was attacked. He hadn’t let go of the marriage yet.

‘You said you had to give up work with stress, Penny. Did that contribute to the situation, do you think?’

Penny gave her a puzzled look, as though trying to gauge the relevance of this question.

Finally, she responded, in a low voice. ‘I supported David through everything. I met him when I was young and spent the best part of two decades supporting him. But when I needed support?’ Penny lifted a hand to her forehead and rubbed at it, like she was getting a headache.

The thought seemed to trail off. A lawnmower started up in the distance.

Field moved on, raising her voice to be heard. ‘Penny, this next question may seem confusing, but it’s our job to investigate all possibilities. Our attention has been drawn to a paper David published in 2010—’

It was a clumsy, abrupt shift in topic – but there was no natural way to bring up David’s study.

Penny blinked, slowly. ‘That was fifteen years ago.’

‘I know—’ Field hesitated. ‘And I know it seems strange, me asking about it. Do you remember that paper, by any chance?’

‘I – yes, of course. It kick-started his career.’

‘Okay, great,’ Field said. ‘And, could you tell me your impression of the study? What it meant for David at the time? Anything you think is relevant – I’d love to hear it.’

Penny folded her arms. ‘It takes years to become a psychologist. After his master’s, while he was an associate psych, he worked on a mixed inpatient ward – adults and teenagers. CAMHS wasn’t really a thing everywhere yet—’

‘CAMHS?’ Field asked.

‘Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services,’ Penny replied, automatically. ‘He was only on that mixed ward for a year, but after that he wanted to work with teenagers.’

A nectar-drunk bee passed by Penny’s shoulder, but she didn’t notice it.

‘And of the five patients David worked with for that pilot study – they were all teenagers with OCD, is that right?’ Field prompted, nudging them back on topic.

‘Yes, although most of them didn’t know it.

Misdiagnosed – until David.’ Penny leaned forward.

‘He just seemed to get them. And David, he threw everything at those kids, and that study. Got buy-in from the Maudsley, met with their GPs, drew up new treatment plans – he worked himself half to death. Two years, that trial went on.’

Field waited and shifted uncomfortably on her iron chair.

Five teenage patients who had been the foundation of Moore’s career. He got them better and they got him attention. Together they must have changed countless lives.

Talk about intense relationships.

She’d been on a course, recently, about transference. Some prick of a DI at another station got too friendly with a victim and she declared her love for him, so they packed the whole borough off on an away day.

It was a train of thought for another time.

‘I know this seems odd, but we really do need to contact those five patients, from the study,’ Field ventured again.

Penny was twitching one foot under the table, her stare fixed on a point above Field’s head. Back to the spaced-out expression she’d had at the start of their conversation.

Finally, she shrugged. ‘I don’t know their names.’

Penny knew a lot about the trial, and Field found it hard to believe they’d never once discussed the individuals involved.

‘Did he ever speak about them? Even anonymously—’

‘I don’t know their names,’ Penny said again, and her voice rose in pitch. ‘All of this, David – it’s nothing to do with me.’

She looked flushed, her cheeks red.

Field couldn’t be sure she was telling the truth.

But for now, she had what she needed, and what Penny needed was rest. ‘Okay. I’ll leave you to it.’

Field closed her notebook. When she looked up and stood to leave, Penny was studying her intently.

Penny followed closely behind her, all the way to the front door, as if scared Field was about to duck into one of the rooms and start poking around.

Field hesitated on the doorstep.

Penny had downplayed having to give up work, but whatever had led to it must have been pretty severe. Field wanted her to open up, let the cold exterior drop and admit she was scared for her husband.

But Penny was chewing the inside of her cheek, distracted – and Field was tired. She could come back tomorrow and try again then.