Chapter 59 Rosie – Day 12
The door to the interview room flies open and a harassed-looking middle-aged man tumbles in, followed by Giovanni. The stranger, who comes to Giovanni’s shoulders and smells of heavy cologne, says something in Italian to the scowling police officer who hasn’t taken his eyes off Rosie.
The officer dips his head as if he’s been told off.
‘Hello, hi, I’m Lucian Silvestri, your solicitor,’ he introduces himself to Rosie in perfect English and flashes a crooked smile.
He has round, wire glasses that magnify the wrinkles around his brown eyes.
He has the look of a man who has been woken from a deep sleep.
There’s a white tide of toothpaste on his left cheek.
He makes sure she’s ok before he begins, nodding to the officer to explain what evidence they have against Rosie. Her stomach is tied in knots. The police officer launches into fast Italian as Giovanni silently observes.
Her solicitor translates, ‘Theo Fraser died because of blunt force trauma to the back of his head. The injury is specific and unusual. They believe you hit him with this portafilter.’
She is shown a coloured printout of a kitchen item. The murder weapon is the deep and heavy silver arm of a coffee machine, one used to filter ground coffee. Made of solid steel.
This is how Theo died? She swallows the burn of bile in her throat.
‘They think I hit him with this?’ She gasps. ‘No. No, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t . . .’ Black splodges creep in at the corner of her eyes. Stay focused.
‘You have no alibi and an eyewitness saw you headed towards the lake house after him. You have a motive,’ Giovanni says in English.
She blinks. She thought he was on her side. As if reading her mind, he breaks eye contact.
‘What motive?’ she yells, slamming her hands on the table.
Immediately she wishes she hadn’t. She can’t come across as unpredictable.
Quick-tempered. Of course, she’s angry; in the past few hours her loving fiancé admitted to being involved in the disappearance that ruined her father’s life.
Now that same man is dead. But she can’t let them see her emotion.
‘We know that Jonathan Mills is your father. You came to Laprezia for revenge,’ Lucian translates what the police officer is saying.
‘Revenge? What? No. I came to find out the truth. My fiancé, Theo Fraser, knows what happened to Danielle Dixon. He confessed to me in the lake house.’
‘And then you killed him,’ Lucian says matter-of-factly, with an alarming level of calm in his voice, translating the police officer’s exact words.
She’s trapped in a nightmare. Before she can deny this accusation another photo printout is shown to her. It’s her engagement ring, covered in blood.
‘This was discovered at the scene, along with your mobile phone, your shoes, and two glasses of red wine. One smashed near the body,’ Lucian explains.
‘I took my ring off and it rolled away. I threw my glass at him because he was scaring me.’ Rosie gasps for breath.
‘I found a box of medicine that belongs to Carla.’ She stares at Giovanni.
‘How the hell would that end up there? He’s been going on these daily runs .
. . He knows where she is.’ She’s talking about him in the present tense.
It’s not lost on her. ‘Knew,’ she corrects herself.
Lucian leans over. ‘I advise you to stay calm.’
She shuts her eyes and tries to get her breathing under control.
Giovanni asks her to recount what happened last night.
‘There was a party to celebrate our engagement. Marianne Fraser, Theo’s mum, broke some terrible news to the family about her health.
Theo was upset. He went for a walk to clear his head, and I followed him to see if he was ok.
’ She sucks in air, still in disbelief at how everything uncurled from that moment on.
‘When we got to the lake house I realised Danielle Dixon had been there on the night she vanished. There was a photograph that proved it. I found it at the Frasers’ house, in Marianne’s belongings. ’
She waits as Lucian translates for the other officer’s benefit. He makes scribbled notes.
‘And where is this photo now?’ Giovanni asks.
Her stomach swoops at the memory. ‘Theo burnt it in front of me.’ She realises how convenient this sounds. ‘I’m not lying.’
The officer purses his lips and says something to Giovanni.
‘They want you to talk about drugs found in the bedroom . . . And the signs of a struggle,’ Lucian says.
‘A struggle? What? We never went into the bedroom.’
The officers speak to one another in Italian. She watches their expressions to see if she can glean what they’re talking about. They are giving nothing away.
‘What are they saying?’ she asks her solicitor.
Lucian takes his glasses off and wearily rubs his eyes. ‘It doesn’t look good for you, Rosie,’ he says. ‘We have eyewitnesses who place you there. We have your shoes and phone recovered from the scene, and your engagement ring covered in Mr Fraser’s blood.’
‘I didn’t kill Theo.’ She racks her exhausted brain. Who at the party has a reason to murder her fiancé?
‘Every guest has an alibi.’
‘Then one of them is lying.’
A shiver tears through her. Someone at the party knows the truth and it might cost her her freedom. What if she’s being stitched up? Like her dad was? Is someone framing me?
‘They’re going to keep you here for another night,’ Lucian explains.
‘No.’ She goes dizzy at the thought.
‘It’s standard procedure in a murder investigation. They’ve got ninety-six hours to discover and present enough evidence to a judge that you committed the crime.’
That word again: murder.
Her breath catches in her chest. They can keep her here for four days?
‘Is there anyone you want to call?’ he asks, filling her shocked silence.
Her mum is thousands of miles away and almost always uncontactable. And even if she could reach her, how will she begin to explain the situation she’s in? She shakes her head.
‘I didn’t kill Theo.’ She rubs her eyes roughly, stemming the tears that threaten to arrive. ‘I loved him.’
Theo can’t be dead. He can’t be.
‘My client needs a moment,’ Lucian says.
The police officers grudgingly push their chairs back and file out of the room. Giovanni throws her a confused glance but says nothing.
She is grateful for a moment of peace. The adrenaline that has been coursing through her wears off. She could lay her head on this grubby tabletop and sleep for a week.
Once they are alone, Lucian turns to face her.
‘Miss Riley,’ he says, pulling her back from the edge of exhaustion, ‘if you didn’t kill him, who did?’
She chokes on a sob. ‘I honestly don’t know.’