‘Well, I’m going to be asking you about that later. For now, I want to talk to you about the attack on a gentleman by the name of Kenneth Squire. Does that name sound familiar to you?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I say. This is plainly a mistake. ‘Who is he?’
‘He is a person, like you, shall we say, of no fixed abode. If I may show you a photograph? The suspect is now being shown exhibit RB/1, a photograph of the victim. Do you recognise this man?’
I stare at the picture and my blood freezes. It is unmistakeable – it’s the man from the park, the drunk. A shot of his face, with his eyes closed. There’s a long surgical scar running along his throat. But it is him.
‘Er, yes. I. Well. No, I don’t know him as such but I do recognise him,’ I say slowly.
‘From where?’ Blake asks, her voice flat.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Just from around.’
She continues. ‘Mr Squire was found earlier this morning in Hyde Park. He was stabbed in the neck and would have died if he hadn’t been spotted by a runner. Do you have any idea how he might have received that injury?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘That cut on your eye, Mr Shute. How did you get it?’
I put my fingers to it. The stitches lie proud of the surface but I resist the urge to scratch them.
‘I fell,’ I say. They know more than they are saying, but at this moment I cannot fathom what they know or how they know it.
‘Fell where?’ Blake says, her voice even and steady.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘People like me fall. We fall and we get up and we fall again. East Dulwich? Camberwell, maybe. Who can say?’
‘You, Xander, you can say. In fact, you did say – to the police who took you to the hospital – that you fell in Hyde Park.’
My memory of the detail of that conversation is patchy. I could have said that to the officer, I probably did, but I can’t remember.
‘That’s it then,’ I say, hiding my fists beneath the desk.
‘Is there a reason that you didn’t remember? I mean, after all, it only happened today,’ says Conway.
‘Concussion?’ I venture.
‘Concussion?’ says Blake. ‘Not amnesia?’
‘I forgot. What can I tell you? I hurt my head. I was taken to hospital. How am I supposed to remember all these details you’re throwing at me?’ I say.
Conway shifts in his seat. ‘If we were to examine your clothes, would we find any blood belonging to the victim?’
‘No,’ I say and then repeat the answer with more confidence. There can’t be any of his blood on me. ‘No. You won’t. So, do your tests and let me go now please.’
Blake seems relieved by my answer and nods meaningfully at Conway.
‘Okay, so before we terminate the interview, you were saying something about witnessing a murder,’ he says. Whatever fight he had seems to have burned away like morning mist.
My brain is telling me to say nothing because I will end up incriminating myself. All I would do is build their case from nothing. They’ve got nothing. They don’t even know about this woman. They can’t put me at the scene. And then it occurs to me: I assumed they were arresting me for what happened to her. That simple, stupid fact has led me wildly into error. I’ve assumed that she was still alive because they didn’t arrest me for murder. But she could be dead.
If her body is found, then what? What if someone saw me? What if I left a print somewhere? They’ve now got my prints from the arrest and my blood will be everywhere at the scene from this wound – the bleeder – the cut above my eye. They are going to nail me to the wall. I know how this works. I have to say something. Besides, I am committed now. I started my interview telling them about seeing a woman being attacked and I can’t now undo that.
‘Yes,’ I say. And then before I know it, I’m telling them about the murder. I tell them about the Victorian-tiled hall and the Tiffany shades. The silk rug that I lay on. How the couple came in, she with her voice tinkling like glass. How I hid while they drank and then argued. How she looked, afterwards, broken on the carpet. How he ran. How I ran.
‘Murder?’ says Conway at one point. ‘You didn’t say it was murder at the start of the interview.’
‘No. I. I thought this was why I was here. For her. And you said grievous bodily harm and I assumed she was alive still,’ I say, stumbling over every word. ‘I’m still not certain. She could be alive, you have to check.’
‘So, she was dead? Then alive and then dead and now alive again?’ Conway says, looking sceptically at Blake.
‘No. I don’t know. When I left she looked dead, but she could be alive. You have to send an ambulance. Do something.’
‘She looked dead?’ he says.
I glare at him.
‘The address you gave, Farm Street? In Mayfair?’ Blake asks, cutting in.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘42B. Black door.’
It’s only when they have stopped the tape that I realise I am crying. The tears have been silently streaming down my face and ponding on the table, drop by drop – cohesion and adhesion. Suddenly the exhaustion overtakes me and I collapse into the grief. Blake and Conway say nothing for a beat and then finally I hear the scrape of a chair as Conway gets up.
‘Okay, Mr Shute, we are going to continue our investigations into this assault. We’ll be following up some of what you have told us about your whereabouts at the time of Mr Squire’s stabbing and I’m authorising the sending of your items for forensic testing. Till then you’ll be released on police bail. We need a bail address.’
I look at Conway. ‘Bail address?’
‘We could always hold you here in police custody if you’d prefer, sir.’ The eyes have lost whatever kindness I thought I had detected in him.
Blake gives him a look and then softens her eyes for me.
‘Is there anyone at all you could stay with? Temporarily?’ she asks.
I think for a moment, but there’s no one.
‘No,’ I say. I am led quietly back to my cell. As the door shuts I call out to Blake, ‘How long are you going to keep me here?’
The hatch opens with a clunk. ‘Mr Shute. We need an address. If you can’t give us one, we have no way of making sure you’ll turn up when we need you to come in again.’
My heart begins to race. ‘You can’t keep me here,’ I say.
‘No. Not indefinitely. But without an address we might have to hold you and let the magistrates decide bail. And to be honest, Mr Shute, without an address I don’t fancy your chances.’
‘Wait,’ I say, desperate now. ‘If I just don’t have an address, I don’t know what you expect me to do.’
‘Without an address I don’t know what you expect me to do,’ she says, and closes the hatch.
10
Thursday
When I shut my eyes, these walls move silently towards me, to compress me. And then as I flick open my eyes, they move soundlessly back. They won’t be caught out. They are relentless.
This time when I open my eyes, I shall keep them open. The air in here is stale and smells of disinfectant. My stomach turns a little when I absorb this. I have to get out of here. There is air outside, just feet away, clear and crisp and wet and fragrant. Cold February air.
Though a February night is not a night to yearn for. The ice in the air can freeze everything useful on a human in minutes. But when the fingers begin to sting with cold, everything in the world vanishes. That’s a good thing. I need to get out of here. I can’t be here for another hour, let alone a day or more. I wouldn’t last a day.
I close my eyes from tiredness, but when I open them I see the ceiling recede back into place. A second longer and it would have been too late. It would have crushed me.