truly destroyed by the new design, featuring gaudy pillars, and full size statues of Hobbs in action. We’re led into the entrance hall, which in actual fact is more like a ballroom. The floor is polished white marble and the walls are bright white. The only hint of colour in the room comes from the numerous photographs hung on the walls. Most are again, shots of Hobbs playing for his team. He walks among us, like he is playing the proud host rather than a man on trial for murder.
We spend the next half hour or so going through each of the many rooms in turn. The decor sticks to the same white theme throughout, giving the house an oddly sterile feeling. There are also photographs of Marina everywhere. If I were being cynical, I might suggest that Hobbs has installed them especially for this purpose, to present himself as a grieving widower rather than a drunken wife beater.
He’s left Marina’s wardrobe as per the photographs we have in our bundle. It looks as though when the clothes were taken and put in the suitcases, Marina was in one heck of a hurry.
I look around at the rails of clothes and racks of shoes and feel a pang of sadness that her life was cut short so soon. Garments sit on their hangers still bearing their original tags, bought by Marina no doubt envisioning their debut at some glitzy occasion. Now they just sit here gathering dust.
The two suitcases contained an odd mix of outfits, skiwear, nightclothes, stilettos, boots, cocktail dresses and sweaters. When Marina packed them, then I’d say she was a lady whose head was all over the place. Perhaps unsurprising given her husband had not only been revealed to have cheated on her, but betrayed her in a truly terrible way.
Our guided tour takes us to the cellar and I feel a tingle of excitement. The room is much cooler than the rest of the house and I try to suppress a shiver. We’re not going to have much time in this room, as it doesn’t feature heavily in the case. Yet. I cast my eyes around the various racks of bottles looking for where he keeps the champagne.
To my amazement, the majority of the contents appears to have been stocked from the ‘3 bottles for £10’ section of his local supermarket; I can’t see anything of any real value in here at all. I spy a rack of foil-topped bottles and surreptitiously edge over to get a better look. There are about twenty bottles in all and I note with amusement that there are a few bottles of Asti among them. The rest are of a similar caliber and there is definitely no bottle of Krug Clos Du Mesnil 1995 in this room, or anything like it. I make a note of the labels I can see and tuck my pad into my handbag before running up the stairs out of the room to catch the others.
To end the tour, we are taken outside to the pool. The people that were chatting between themselves stop as we survey the area. It’s a sunny September day and the pool looks a gorgeous shade of aqua blue. That being said, there is no way in a million years I would ever get into it, knowing what happened there.
From what I understand of the evidence from the previous trials, Hobbs has stated he still swims in there every day. He’s just wandered over to an outbuilding and produced a large pole with a net on the end and is fishing out some stray leaves that have fallen in. I turn away; I don’t want to have to look at this for any longer than I have to. It appears the jury feel the same way as I can hear restless murmurs coming from the group.
“I think that’s enough,” says the Judge. “If you could all now return to the coach, we will make our way back to court.”
We arrive in good time to start the afternoon session at two. I’m surprised when Corr suggests that we grab some food before we return. We go for lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant. I grab a table near to the window and we take our seats. Corr drums his fingers on the red tablecloth as a waitress comes over to take our orders. I ask for a tuna melt and a Diet Coke and Corr has a rare beef sandwich and