She washed her hands while Lucy waited. Despite being the older and senior woman, Dana felt the more fragile: gauche, awkward, in need of consolation. In need of babbling on, too.
She batted at the soap dispenser which was, not for the first time, too gunged up to live up to its job description.
‘So, talking to Whittler, it’s problematic,’ she continued. ‘Not least, everything I say in that room is courtroom-admissible. So, effectively, it’s public. He wants me to open out, but I still don’t think he fully gets the legal implications.’
She rinsed under the tap. ‘At some point, he’ll lawyer up: he has to get wise to that eventually. Even if he doesn’t, the court will make him take a lawyer at 0600 tomorrow. So I have that in my locker.’
‘What do you mean? Won’t he be harder to talk to, with a lawyer there?’
Dana dried with paper towels. Part of her wanted to rush back into the cubicle and slam it shut. A piece of her always wanted to run, to hide, to cover her face and hope ‘it’ mysteriously went away. The kind of magical thinking she should have left behind long ago. What had she been told by more educated minds than hers? A life script you no longer need, Dana.
‘It’s… it’s not that simple.’
Lucy hefted up on to the counter, swinging her feet like a child on a playground swing. ‘Got as much time as you need.’
Still Dana couldn’t meet her eye; she tousled some items in her handbag and talked to that.
‘Sometimes, no matter where I am, who’s there, what I’m doing, I feel like a total outsider. I don’t understand the people in front of me, what they think, how they think. I don’t get it, and it drains me trying to work it out.’
She paused, subconsciously giving Lucy the chance to judge. Lucy didn’t move.
‘So when I’m interviewing suspects I like it when the lawyer’s there.’ Dana chucked the paper towel at the bin, lipped it and missed. ‘It’s a structure, a framework. I’m supposed to be the outsider.
‘They’re the suspect and the suspect’s lawyer: I’m the only cop in the room. Often the only woman in the room, the only one with access to certain information, the only one with the state lined up behind me.’ She paused, grabbed a breath in an airless room. ‘So when it seems like they’re aliens to me, there’s a certain logic to that. I feel less of a freak for thinking it. If that… you know, makes the slightest sense.’
Lucy narrowed her eyes, stared at the far wall. ‘So… you and Whittler – you don’t have as much to lean on?’ She turned back to Dana. ‘It’s purely you and him and you have to understand him?’
Dana nodded silently. A conversation from the corridor outside rose and subsided. The room still felt blindingly hot. Her blouse was sticking to her: it made her feel ugly and wretched.
Lucy continued. ‘But you do get him. I can see it. Hell, he can see it, and he’s supposed to be… socially maladjusted, or whatever. So it must be shining through: your empathy, your comprehension. It must be so clear even he can see it.’
‘Forgot I asked you to watch body language.’
‘Well, I can tell you he’s shifting. Pretty slow, but he’s changing. Stopped staring at the floor for a good twenty seconds, there.’
‘Ah yes, but I panicked when he did it. It felt unnerving. Came out of the blue. I should have been ready for it.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Ready for it? We all thought he’d thaw out by degrees. That was a major shift, looking straight at you.’
Dana didn’t know what to say. In truth, she’d been embarrassed by the way Nathan had sideswiped her, without seeming to try. It added to her sense that these interviews could veer off course in a second: she was never truly in control. If only Nathan had a plan, he’d be dangerous.
Lucy gave her a way out. ‘Oh, and he’s now fascinated by your knee. We all are.’ Lucy grinned and forced Dana into a watery smile.
‘Hmm, not much to tell. I’ve had it, uh, nearly five years now. Sort of used to it. It’s mainly plastic: a slightly soft plastic that bends a little. It doesn’t like cold, damp weather or sitting in one spot for too long.’
‘I know you have this day off each year.’ Lucy seemed to be circling, not wishing to land in case the runway was a quagmire. ‘I, uh, I think this is a tough day for you. I just want to help.’
Dana blew her nose, mainly to hide her face. She felt the heat of shame, of desperation, of hopeless gratitude and fear. They all mixed to flush through her like fire.
‘Thank you. It’s not the ideal day, and I usually make sure I’m not here. Don’t think I’ve told you why, before.’
Lucy shrugged, her voice softer now. ‘Well… you said a while back that it’s some kind of anniversary. And whatever it is, you’re not over it.’
There was an impact to someone else saying it. Harsher but more honest than when Dana said the same thing in her head; as if her own opinion didn’t count and needed verifying. Talking about it now would undo her, she sensed. She would be remarkable, and then remarked upon. She clenched her fists as though she could retain the truth within.
‘Yes… the double problem. Two different events. But connected. One begat the other.’
She paused. The old-fashioned word felt like a sliver of her mother, creeping through her body and out of her mouth. Words like begat, Jezebel, smite: Dana remained soaked in her mother’s Biblical rage. A malign influence still nestled somewhere deep: capable, planning.
‘Urgh, how to explain it? Jeez, I’ve explained it so many times I’ve forgotten the explanation. Okay, okay, think of it this way. If you’re an alcoholic, you’re always an alcoholic. Always. Every day. Each morning when you wake up, you have to make a conscious decision to fight it that day. There’s no escape, no let up. The disease is always with you, waiting for an opportunity, forever seeking your weakest moment, your laziest thinking. And then it’s in, and hooking its talons so it can stay. You have to damage yourself, to work it loose. So you fear it – you rightly fear it.’
Dana leaned on the sink, terrified to look up at her reflection.
‘That’s what it’s like with this… whatever this is. Depression, post-traumatic things, anxiety. Whatever. It all melts into one. But the dynamic is that every day it hurts, and claws, and wants. So every day I push back, and hang on. But on this date each year I try to change the fight, try to get ahead of it somehow. Except today I can’t, because I’m here instead, and the thing is punishing me for that.
‘This Day, it’s… it’s complicated. I suppose it’s an anniversary. I normally don’t… usually I’m not here for this day. So I’m probably on edge a little more than I would be; not quite myself, in some respects. Anyway. Need to be better. Can’t let a murderer get away because I can’t have some downtime. Uh, so, yes, it’s a long-term thing. I’m trying. Really, I’m trying. Working isn’t really helping, even though I thought it might.’
Lucy was looking at her but not at her. She was clearly paying attention but somehow managing not to stare. Dana couldn’t work out how Lucy was doing that. Or how she knew to do that.
Dana took a deep breath.
‘But, whatever, tell me about caves, Luce.’
Lucy waited a beat then pushed herself off the counter and grabbed at a blue folder. She moved her hands like a fortune teller with a crystal ball. ‘Maps. I have maps from the interweb. Maaany maps, most excellent price. Very reliable, very good, you have fun times. I guarantee big happiness.’
‘So tell me, oh mystical one, where’s the only cave I need to search to find Casa Whittler?’
‘If only it were that simple. So, your caveman – see what I did there? – was right. Limestone in various locations: they’re all shaded blue here. But once you add in the possibility of sand near water – you spooked Whittler with that, so I’m guessing it’s correct – then you come down to A, B, and… C.’ She tapped at three locations on the acetate covering the map.