‘Oh, I don’t know. I can’t remember now. Just a noise. Like a chair scraping on tiles or something.’ She interlaced her fingers in her lap. ‘Anyway, when he didn’t respond I went to take a look, which is when a man lunged at me out of the darkness.’
‘Did you get a look at him?’
‘Not then, no. As I said, it was dark. He was just a shadow coming out of nowhere. He was wearing gloves, though. I knew that because one of his hands was in my face and I could feel and smell the leather.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s strange the things you’re aware of in moments of stress.’ Now it was she who broke eye contact, and her gaze seemed to drift off into the middle distance as if she were trying to reconstruct the moment. ‘I screamed and punched and kicked, and he tried to pin my arms to my side. But we fell over a chair and landed on one of the tables. Glass. It just gave way beneath us and shattered on the floor. I think I must have landed on top of him because for a moment he seemed incapable of moving. Winded, I guess. And then I saw the blade of his knife catch a reflection from the light in the living room. And I was on my feet and running for my life. Up the steps into the living room, screaming for James.’
Her breathing increased with the pace of the storytelling, and he noticed how the colour rose on her cheeks and around her eyes as she turned them back on him.
‘I could hear him right behind me. And then felt the force of his shoulder in the back of my thighs. I went down like a ton of bricks. Hit the floor with such a force it knocked all the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t catch a breath, couldn’t scream. There were lights flashing in my eyes. I tried to wriggle free, get on to my back so I could see him. And then I did. He was on his knees above me.’
‘Your first good look at him.’
She nodded. ‘Not that I can tell you much. He wore jeans, I think. And a dark jacket of some kind. And a black ski mask pulled over his head. But, really, Mr Mackenzie, my whole focus was on the knife in his right hand. It was raised high and just about to plunge down into me. In that moment I was sure I was going to die. And everything suddenly became clear, like I was watching an HD movie in slow-motion. I could see every reflected surface of the room along the length of that blade. The stitched leather fingers around the haft. A strange intensity in the eyes behind the slits.’
‘Colour?’
‘His eyes?’
Sime nodded.
‘I suppose I should remember. They just seemed dark. Black. Like maybe the pupils were fully dilated.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘And then James was there behind him, both hands around the wrist of the knife hand, pulling it back, dragging him away from me. I saw him try to pull off the mask, and the man swung a fist into his face, and they both staggered off across the floor. Then they went over with a terrible crash, and the other man was on top.’
‘What did you do?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing that made much sense. I ran across the room and jumped on the man’s back. Like I had the strength to stop him! I was punching and kicking and screaming, and I could feel James bucking beneath us both. Then an elbow or a fist, or something, came back and caught me full on the side of the head.’ She raised a hand to pass fingertips delicately over her right temple. ‘I’ve heard of people seeing stars. Well, I saw stars, Mr Mackenzie. My head was filled with the light of them. And it stole all the strength from my arms and legs. I went over on my back and thought I was going to be sick. I was completely helpless. I heard James shouting, and then a terrible gasp, and a thudding like punches, and then the man ran past me, back down the steps and out through the conservatory.’
Sime watched her closely. From an initially detached retelling of a traumatic event, she had become fully, emotionally, involved. He saw fear and apprehension in her eyes. She was wringing her hands in her lap. ‘And then?’
It was some moments before she responded, as if dragging herself back from her memory to the present, and something about her whole body went limp. ‘I managed to get to my knees, and I saw him lying on his side, all curled up, almost in the foetal position. He had his back to me, and it wasn’t until I got to him that I saw the blood pooling on the floor. He was still alive, clutching his chest like he was trying to stop the bleeding. But I could see it pulsing through his fingers with every fading heartbeat. I tried to get to the kitchen for a towel to staunch it myself, but I slid on his blood with my bare feet and fell. It was like the floor turned to glass beneath me and I was slithering and sliding about like an idiot. Panic, I guess.’
She closed her eyes, and behind her flickering lids he imagined her visualising the moment. Reliving it. Or making it up. He was not yet sure which. But he knew already that he wanted her story to be true.
‘By the time I got back to him, he was going. I could hear it in his breathing. Rapid and shallow. His eyes were open, and I could see the light going out of them, like watching the sun set. I knelt in his blood and pushed him over on to his back. I really didn’t know what was the right thing to do, so I shoved the rolled-up towel into his chest to try to stop the blood from coming out of it. But there was so much of it already on the floor. And then there was this long breath that came out of his open mouth. Like a sigh. And he was gone.’
‘You told the neighbours you tried to revive him with CPR.’ She nodded. ‘I’ve seen it done on TV. But I’d no real idea what to do. So I just pressed with both hands on his chest, again and again, as hard as I could. Anything to try to restart his heart.’ Now she shook her head. ‘But there was nothing. No sign of life. I must have pumped his chest for two minutes, maybe more. It seemed like a lifetime. Then I gave up and tried mouth to mouth. I pulled his jaw down and held his nose and blew air into his mouth from mine.’
She looked at Sime, tears gathering in her eyes from the memory. ‘I could taste his blood. It was on my lips and in my mouth. But I knew in my heart it was no good. He was gone, and there would be no bringing him back.’
‘And that’s when you ran to the neighbours’ house?’
‘Yes. I think I must have been pretty hysterical. Cut my feet on broken glass on the way out. Couldn’t tell which was his blood or mine. I think I scared the McLeans half to death.’
The tears in her eyes spilled as she blinked, and rolled down her face in the tracks of their predecessors. And she sat staring at Sime as if waiting for the next question, or perhaps daring him to contradict her. But he simply returned her stare, half lost in the visualisation of her account, part of him in conflict with the scepticism his experience and training as a policeman engendered, part of him lost in human empathy. And still he was gripped by the compelling and discomposing sense of knowing her. He had no idea for how long they sat in silence.
‘Am I disturbing something here, Simon?’ Marie-Ange’s voice dispelled the moment, and Sime turned, startled, towards the door. ‘I mean, is the interview over, or what?’ She spoke in English, standing with the screen door half open and looking at him curiously.
Sime got to his feet. He felt disorientated, confused, as if he had somehow lost consciousness for a moment. His eye was drawn by a movement in the hallway beyond the stairs, and he saw Thomas Blanc standing there, an odd look in his eyes. He nodded mutely, and Sime said, ‘Yes, we’re finished for now.’
‘Good.’ Marie-Ange turned toward Kirsty Cowell. ‘I want you to come with me to the medical centre. We’ll take some photographs, the nurse will conduct a physical examination, and then you can get cleaned up.’ She looked at Sime, but he avoided her eye and she turned back to the widow. ‘I’ll wait for you outside.’ She let the door swing closed and was gone. Sime glanced towards the hallway, but Blanc had returned to the bedroom.