I was made to go along to the presentation. Afterwards, Dad had promised us, him, a steak at a new South American steakhouse. Later, once the steak had been eaten and he’d been slapped on the shoulder by Dad – later, once we were back at home watching Dad drink whisky and Mum wine – later, once the trophy had been nudged into centre spot on the mantel, Rory, to whom I’d said nothing all evening, walked up to the fireplace and picked up the trophy and placed it at my feet.
‘This is yours,’ he said, avoiding my eye. ‘Dad,’ he said then, still looking at the floor. ‘This is his. It was his answer.’
Dad nodded and took a sip of whisky. ‘It belongs to you both. Not for the science – but because you improve each other.’
I tried to rationalise what he’d done. He was younger. He was allowed to make mistakes like this. I might have done the same in his position. In fact I never reminded myself that I’d cheated him. Or that he’d have won anyway. Instead I sat with the trophy at my feet, ashamed of it and me and him all at once. Hours later, Dad was sleeping in his chair, snoring, his glass balanced on his chest. Mum, watching Dad closely, put down her glass and came to me. She took my face in her hands and then turned to do the same to Rory. Her hair was greying, I noticed, and she had started wearing her glasses permanently then.
‘I won’t leave you,’ she said. ‘Not ever.’
I opened my mouth to say something but the words wouldn’t form.
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she said, smiling sadly.
‘… but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’
I’m here again with a jolt. I nod. I wrap my arms around my body and huddle. If I create enough warmth, it might help with the pain.
‘For the tape,’ he says.
I haven’t seen this officer before. There is something in his eyes that telegraphs dullness. He blinks slowly as if the wheels are moving through sludge. But there’s also something else there, humanity maybe? Suppressed, but there, blistering the skin, waiting to break free but being held back by stupidity. I wait, expecting the bubble to burst so I can be honest with him. But I don’t know if I can just say to him that I did not attack her. That I only watched. That yes, I failed to act, but I did nothing. That that was my crime and I’m prepared to suffer the consequences of that inaction.
‘You have to say it out loud, for the tape.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I understand the caution.’
‘Do you know why you have been arrested?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
The officer looks unsurprised by this. Maybe everybody who is arrested knows why they have been taken.
‘Tell me then. Why do you think you’ve been arrested?’ he says, then looks across at his partner.
I have barely registered her presence. She sits at his side, hair pulled back from her face. I’m not sure what her official title is but it feels as if she is in deference to him, this man who she must know can’t keep up with her. The intelligence in her eyes shows the advantage she has over him.
‘The murder. Or the attempt, however you want to define it. But I didn’t do it,’ I say, looking at my hands. I shrug in my clothes and suddenly, in this confined space, I feel the urge to run. The room is too small for three of us really. It’s tiny, just enough space for the table and chairs. There’s certainly no room to spread.
‘Okay, well, we are here to listen. We aren’t making any judgements, are we, Rochelle? Just tell us what happened from your point of view.’
Rochelle? I wonder. Might that have been her name too? The name brings a rush of familiarity. Perhaps I heard it, that night. Was that the name he had been calling out? Over and over.
‘I didn’t do it. But I was there. I saw it happen,’ I say.
‘You saw what happen?’ she asks. Her eyes narrow and I can see they are processing something I am not included in.
‘The attack. I saw her being attacked. I was in the room.’ I look up then at the faces of the two officers in front of me. They look at one another. Disbelief? No, not that, something else. Confusion.
‘Her? Did you say her?’ she asks, her eyebrows contracting.
I nod. ‘The woman. In the house. I saw her being strangled. By her boyfriend.’
They look at one another again. The silence grows, expanding until it fills every speck of space. He is confused and irritated with himself and with me, because of something he hasn’t understood.
‘This interview is being terminated. The time is 22:22 by my watch,’ he says and presses a button on the machine.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask. They look at one another ominously.
‘We are just going to get the custody sergeant to speak to you again. You might need an appropriate adult,’ the woman says and pushes off from her seat. I have forgotten her name already.
‘An appropriate adult? I’m not a child. Wait. I’m not mad either. I might look odd,’ I say, ‘but there is nothing wrong in here.’ I point to my right temple.
‘It won’t take a moment but it’s best if you don’t speak until he’s seen you.’ She holds the door open and motions for me to leave.
I am ushered back to my cell and left to wait. They are concerned for my mental health. Out there it happens every day. Even as people walk past, covering their mouths and noses, the eyes are there communicating pity, and disgust. But here, I have the power of speech. I have the opportunity to speak and be heard. They have to hear me. When you hear me, you don’t leave thinking I’m crazy I promise you.
I hear the door to my cell clang open.
‘Mr Shute, I’m the custody sergeant.’ I look up and see the officer from before. I stand to speak to him so I won’t be at a disadvantage sitting.
‘Just a few questions,’ he says, rubbing his white stubble self-consciously. I wait for him to run through them and answer them all. No tricks in these questions at all. ‘Are you currently or have you ever had treatment for any mental illness?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever been sectioned under the Mental Health Act?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever attempted suicide or are you feeling suicidal at the moment?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. I don’t think you need an assessing psychiatrist at this time.’
Now I am back in the interview room and this time I listen to their names: Rachel Blake, not Rochelle. And Simon Conway, detective inspectors, both of them. The interview starts again from the top. The initial statements are all the same, as if I am caught in a system glitch: introductions, caution, the right to a solicitor, all explained meticulously once again. I avoid their eyes through it all, concentrating my gaze on my fingers.
‘Just before the break,’ says Rachel Blake, ‘you were telling us about witnessing an attack. On a woman.’
‘Yes,’ I say. I am still puzzled about why they’d decided that I was mentally unwell. Nothing that the custody sergeant asked me gave me any hint.