The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

63

September 2018

POLICE TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH LIAM JOHN BAILEY

8 September 2018

Manton Police Station

In attendance:

DI Dominic McCoy

DCI Aisha Butt

DI McCoy:Thank you, Liam, for agreeing to talk to us again. I realise you probably think there can’t be anything left to talk about. But there’s been a considerable development today. Very considerable. And we think it would be good just to go over a few details again.

Liam Bailey:OK.

DM:So, your relationship with Scarlett, that was over by the time of the pool party on 16 June 2017.

LB:Yes, we were just friends.

DM:But you have lived at the Jacques residence on occasion over the past few years?

LB:Yes. The last time I lived there was February last year, just for a few weeks.

DM:And that was the time you were meant to be going home, back to your family?

LB:Yes. I was meant to be doing an A-level retake that summer but I changed my mind, decided to drop it and go home. And that was when Scarlett asked me to come to see her. She was having a kind of nervous breakdown and she needed my support. I ended up living there with her. And shortly afterwards Jacinta Croft, the previous head teacher, told me about a job going at the school and I thought, well, maybe it’d be good for me to stick around a bit longer, for Scarlett’s sake. So I took the job and moved back to the school.

DM:And when did Scarlett give you the painting, Liam?

LB:Which painting?

DM:Well, there was the self-portrait, I believe?

LB:Yeah, she gave me that when I moved into my room at Maypole House.

DM:And then there was one of a spiral staircase?

LB:Yup. She gave me that around the same time. They were housewarming gifts.

DM:And what did you know about the painting of the staircase?

LB:Nothing. It was just her favourite part of the house. She loved the sense of history there.

DM:And this – for the recording, I am showing Liam Bailey a detail of the painting in question – this item here in the painting. Do you know what it is?

LB:That metal thing?

DM:Yes.

LB:It’s a knife, isn’t it? Or, like, a cake slice?

DM:So you’ve never seen it in real life? At the Jacques residence?

LB:No. Never.

DM:For the sake of the recording I am now showing Liam Bailey item number DP7694, the metal lever found buried in the flower bed at Maypole House. Liam, have you ever seen this object before?

LB:No.

DM:Do you have any idea what it might be used for?

LB:None whatsoever.

DM:Thank you, Liam, that’ll be all for now.