‘But how can that be? Aren’t they relying on that for their case? I mean, to prove I was there. DNA, prints and all that?’
Nasreen laces her fingers together so the red polished ends are aligned.
‘No, Mr Shute. That is not what they are doing at all. Their evidence of your presence at the scene comes entirely from your admissions in the interviews. If, and I mean if, they still have any of the items from the room, they might be able to do a fingerprint lift but DNA is out of the question. If they didn’t do it at the time – and frankly, they wouldn’t have even for most murders back then – any DNA would have degraded by now. And that’s if they preserved it properly.’
‘So why are we asking for things they probably don’t have?’
‘Because you never know. And the sleeve they could well have,’ she says.
They then begin to draw the interview to a close. Nasreen puts her pens and her notebook into a neat stack.
‘Wait. There’s this. You have to read this,’ I say, finally finding the space to show them the letter. ‘It’s from Grace.’
‘Grace?’
‘He means Michelle. She didn’t like “Michelle”,’ Jan says.
I hand the letter to Nasreen. By the time she finishes reading it, her brows are crossed and she slides it across the table to Jan who skims through it.
‘This is good, Xander,’ Jan says, stabbing the letter with her finger. ‘She’d given you the money anyway, so that won’t hold as a motive.’
‘It definitely helps,’ Nasreen adds. ‘I mean, the Crown doesn’t have to prove motive in this country, Mr Shute, but if they have one it never hurts.’
‘So, what now?’ I say.
‘I’d still like to know what happened to it,’ Nasreen says, in a way that implies that she doesn’t expect an immediate answer.
‘You need to be ready to enter your plea at the next hearing,’ she continues. ‘I take it from you that is not guilty. We are not arguing diminished responsibility or insanity. Just a straight not guilty. Then we get some directions from the judge and wait for trial. In the meantime, the prosecution will serve whatever evidence they want to rely on, and once we have it we send them a document telling them what your defence is and then we can get some disclosure.’
‘Disclosure?’ I say.
‘Yes. If they have anything which could help your case, they have to give it to us, disclose it. And, of course, we wait to hear about whether they have the record or the sleeve that we will have asked for and if they do, what the fingerprint tests show.’
‘What are we hoping for?’ I say.
‘Well, best ways, there are prints on it that don’t belong to you or the deceased but a third party, our alternative candidate. And even better if the Police National Computer turns up an identity for our man. Worst ways, we get nothing, but lose nothing. I’m assuming you didn’t touch it, Mr Shute? Where you saw it and where it is on the photograph, is that where they left it? The deceased or her murderer?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ I say, but the truth is that whatever I do remember dwindles to almost nothing when I am scrabbling about, desperate to remember. I don’t know what I touched.
‘Then we are all good,’ she says, and stands to shake my hand.
I offer mine but withdraw it when I see her face. She smiles at me instead and opens the door to show us out.
Jan leaves the building with me and we walk to Temple Station a few minutes away. ‘That letter is good,’ she says, once we get there. ‘Same paper, same handwriting as the others the police have. And Nasreen. She’s my first choice for your case.’
I manage a smile.
‘But we still need to know where the money is. They could put you through the mill for that.’
I wipe a hand across my face and watch as she turns and disappears through the barriers and down the stairs, deep underground. Once she has gone I walk the other way towards the river. Now this is done, I have to speak to Seb. I don’t want to, but he has left me no choice.
44
Tuesday
When I manage sleep, the memories begin to gather. They are liquid, like blood, pooling in places, coagulating in others. There is a kind of repair going on where the gaping patches are slowly, haphazardly, being stitched together. Since all of this began, I’ve started waking up sometimes with my fingers at the edge of something important, delicate. There are, for instance, cold ponds of recollection: long nights in squats. Fights over sleeping bags or sticky, collapsed mattresses. Fights over drugs. I couldn’t function there in that world. The rules had all to be relearned. Hierarchies I had known were no longer recognisable.
And then the memories jolt forwards and backwards years at a time. But through it, that song is there like a shard in my brain.
And after meeting Nasreen, I know why. That record connects me to her life and death and I can’t let it go. The image jabs, again and again. A broken record. The bench. There in the museum grounds. We sat on it together, Grace and I. Our bench. But when the images of those days collide, it’s not the sunshine that filters through, it’s the mud. I am clawing away at the wet earth, sinking my fingers deep into the mud, and I am desperate. There is an urgency in the memory or the dream, whichever it is. I am on all fours, digging, digging as if trying to uncover a dead body. And in my dream I pull the body out, wrapped in paper, only to discover it’s not Grace. Or it is her, but a fractured version of her.
I haven’t roamed as freely as I used to. Back then I’d go from night to night, shedding all the excess that I was carrying; now, instead, it just builds. Whatever is in here, in my head, feels like it has the time at last to multiply and colonise. It is as if I am the host for a disease. But I am tired of being in my head. I have to climb out. I bring myself to my surroundings and am relieved to find that I am in Seb’s house, in ‘my’ room. The key he gave me sits on the bedside table. I leave it there when I go down to the kitchen so that it doesn’t feel as if I’ve taken ownership of it.
I make a pot of coffee and take an extra mug into the living room for when Seb wakes up. As I walk in I hear a grunt and look to see Seb there, slouching on the sofa and staring into the ceiling. He flinches when I walk in but otherwise doesn’t react. He’s dressed for work but there’s growth across his cheeks.
‘You’re up,’ I say and pour him a steaming cup. He gets up to take the coffee.
‘Yeah, well, couldn’t sleep,’ he says.
I sit in the matching chair and put the cafetière at my feet.
‘Listen, Seb,’ I say. ‘I need to ask you something.’ My heart is beating but I don’t think the tremor reaches my voice.
He sits up so that he can better look at me.
‘Ariel didn’t take the money, did he?’ I say.
He half-smiles at the question before he realises that I’m serious. ‘I have no idea, Xand. That was your theory, wasn’t it?’
‘It was to begin with. Until—’
‘Until what?’