She put it straight on and beamed at me as I breathed out relief.
She wore it then, every day.
Until she didn’t.
And then there were the gifts from Ariel. Little nothings, really. Cheap trinkets from China Town: yin and yang notepaper, joss sticks, badges with Buddhist symbols on them. The truth was that I wouldn’t have been so jealous if I hadn’t met him. He was sylph-like and moved as if dancing every step. And there was I, cumbersome, big, static. Still, I think I could have got over it had I not seen how he looked at her, like prey. And more than that, how she didn’t see it. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t know about men who preyed.
Our argument came with a smiling face. A small jade Buddha. It had been a Christmas present (Grace didn’t even see how facile that was, a Buddhist statue at Christmas). She had unwrapped the tissue in front of me and pulled the little figure into the morning light and gazed at it a second too long. Stroked the smooth head a little too delicately.
‘So thoughtful of him,’ she’d said and placed it carefully on the mantel.
A day or two later I accidentally knocked it off. It was a common-or-garden dusting accident.
‘Xander!’ she said when she saw the chip. ‘You did that deliberately!’
‘It was an accident!’ I said, laughing. The laughter went down badly, so in the end to prove it was an accident I agreed that Grace could have it in the bedroom. We only had one bedside table, so there it stayed, in benign splendour, next to me.
The smiling green man made my stomach turn every time I saw it. So one night, as I turned out the light, I winked at the statue and rolled into bed. Later, when it was dark and Grace was fully entombed in sleep, the Lord Buddha suffered another terrible accident. This time, he shattered into a thousand glistening lives.
In the morning, Grace left. Left me.
It was a Saturday and she packed a bag and strode darkly out of the house.
‘Where are you going? It was an accident.’
She said nothing except what she signalled by slamming the front door as she left.
I was so angry that she had ruined our only day off together that I spent the time doing the things we’d usually do together on a Saturday. First, a trip to the Horniman grounds. I rooted around before heading to our bench and sitting there for a while, gazing out over the views of London. Then I went home for brunch, and ate croissants over the papers. I kept expecting to see her come in through the doors with an apology, but she never did. By the time the phone rang I had swung back and forth so many times between annoyance and rage that I couldn’t settle. It was just a bloody cheap toy you could pick up anywhere. Why all this drama? Unless it meant more to her than she’d admitted.
So when the phone rang that night, I answered it with a wash of gratitude and relief. I knew I was always going to forgive her. Of course I was.
‘Hi, Mabel,’ I said.
‘Hi, Xander. It’s Seb. Grace is with us.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘When is she coming back?’
‘That depends on you,’ he said and then sighed over the line. The phone changed hands and then Grace was on.
‘Meet me at our bench if you want to,’ she said plainly and then hung up.
It was here that I came – where I am now – to this very spot, and I apologised to her. The expanse of green and its open air gave me, and gives me now, a sense of freedom. It makes me feel as if there is room for my mind to sift and reason. Back then I reasoned that Grace loved me. She knew me, she knew I loved her. Ariel was nothing, a distraction. And my jealousy was just proof of how much I loved her.
But now the process of thinking makes me quiver. Every cell in my head that is occupied by this murder makes my head throb. I breathe until the facts become clear: this man must have killed the woman. He arranged for people to move the body. There was clear evidence of that: a van and two men booked specifically for the purpose.
I pull my coat more tightly around myself in order to encourage some warmth from it. I need to move. I need to get going on this before time spins away and he escapes again. I stride through the grounds until I am on the main road, and it’s not long before I’m back in Paddington – Purple Zone. The headache is now in full flow, but this is too important. I push through the glass doors of Paddington Green Police Station. As I step through the doorway, I make sure my hair is still tied neatly away. Then at the desk I ask for Blake or Conway.
‘Just on their way now, sir,’ the officer says and indicates a place where I can sit.
He calls me sir. It’s not lost on me, the power of these clothes. Then a few minutes later a young man comes and ushers me to a room to wait. A second later Conway and Blake enter, their faces cold. I stand.
‘I need to speak to you about the murder at 42B.’
The two of them exchange looks.
‘Shall we get this done now?’ he says to her.
She looks straight at me and nods. ‘Come on. Let’s get an interview suite.’
I am escorted into a room similar to the one I was interviewed in twice before. Blake and Conway are wearing the faces of strangers and sit me down without looking at me. Once they have settled themselves and the tapes are unsealed, Conway laces his fingers together.
‘Xander Shute, we are arresting you on suspicion of wasting police time. I won’t repeat the caution but so’s you understand, the caution still applies. You don’t have to say anything but it could harm your defence if you don’t mention something you later say in court.’
I nod. And then, remembering, I say it out loud, ‘Yes.’
‘On the last occasion you were here, do you recall you made an allegation to me that there had been a murder? And that you witnessed that murder? Of a woman?’
‘Yes,’ I say slowly.
‘First of all, do you agree that that is what you said to me?’ Conway says seriously.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘And you went on to describe the attacker as being a white male in his late twenties–early thirties?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you gave an address of 42B Farm Street in Mayfair in London?’
‘Yes. You know all this.’
‘And you gave a description of the interior of the premises where you alleged the murder took place?’
‘Yes.’
‘And do you stand by those details that you gave?’ he says, crossing his arms. I notice one cuff of his blue shirt is frayed on the fold.
‘Yes, I do. Where’s this going?’ I say, confusion growing.
‘Then just remind me please how you described the inside of the premises.’
I know I am pulling an expression of puzzlement as I speak but I can’t fight it.
‘Well, there’s a black front door down the side of the main steps. With a number 42B on it.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding, tugging at an earlobe.
‘There’s a hallway once you go through,’ I say, closing my eyes to let the detail come flooding through. ‘Victorian tiles on the floor. Black on white. There’s a Tiffany lampshade on the light. A large gilt mirror – ornate. Cream walls I think. And then at the far end of the corridor, there’s another door and when you open that there’s a kind of double room. As if it’s been knocked through. A fireplace ahead and to the left. Two leather chesterfield sofas opposite one another. Bookcases along the walls. A dining table and six chairs in the other half of the room. Mahogany. Silk patterned rug on the floor. Do you need me to go on?’
‘No, thank you. That accords roughly with our note of what you said last time,’ he says.
‘And are you maintaining this account, Xander?’ Blake asks.
‘Yes, of course I am,’ I say, still confused by what is coming. I know something is coming, the questions are setting it up. I just don’t know what it can be.