Wink Murder

by Ali Knight

  I lay the scarf out flat across the kitchen table as if I’m about to perform an autopsy. I get down close to the bloodstain and smell. Funny how the very stuff that courses around our unique and instantly recognisable bodies is indistinguishable when spilled, but only to the human eye, not in a laboratory, not under a microscope where blood groups are isolated and identified; a police laboratory. The scarf smells faintly of beer and enclosed spaces. I lay my face on the table and look along the line of the cloth, light catching the fibres. We shed in spring, I’ve read, like animals, our hair and skin falling from us into plugholes, drifting to the floor beneath the bedroom mirror, clinging to clothes and to Paul’s fashionably hairy scarf. I pull a blonde hair from the fabric. It could be Ava’s. Could be.

  I sit and stare at that scarf as if it might suddenly get up and walk away. The wine bottle is empty, my headache gone. The doorbell rings.

  I know this is Paul. He has a key obviously, he just never uses it. He wants his front door to be opened by his children or me, preferably both, for us to welcome him across the threshold as if he’s just come back from years away at war. I hear Josh running down the stairs, the click of the lock. I fold my arms and stay rooted to the chair, staring at the scarf. Let him come into the kitchen and see this, explain this away. An image of Gerry Bonacorsi being shoved into the back of a police van flashes through my mind. My state of limbo has evaporated, I am ready for the fight.

  ‘Mum! It’s a policeman!’

  I move faster than I have ever moved before, grabbing the scarf and racing to the washing machine. I feel as though nothing in my life has ever been as important as getting this scarf through that round door. ‘Coming.’ I try to sound casual as I slam it shut, heap biological powder into the tray, turn the dial to cold. I’ve left blood on everything, and cleaned blood off everything. That’s what women do, Paul, we clean. I clean for you. Here I am, washing away the danger, obliterating your mistake, your most dreadful error. I am your wife, Paul, I am in it with you. Whatever you’ve done, I stand by you, as I stood shoulder to shoulder with you at the altar all those years ago. ‘I will love him, comfort him, honour and protect him, as long as we both shall live.’ When I make a promise, Paul, I keep it. I will clean up for you, I will lie for you. As I wait for the machine to start, precious seconds draining away, I acknowledge the full extent of my wifely duty. To protect the innocence of my children, your success and my perfect life, perjury seems a small price to pay.

  ‘Coming, coming.’ I pick up my wine glass as I move to the front door. If he thinks I’m a lush, all the better.

  13

  The policeman is actually two women, one much taller than the other. They are standing side by side in the doorway with their shoulders touching. One of them looks down at a notebook before saying, ‘Is Paul Forman here?’

  Josh is staring open-mouthed at them; neither smile. Ava hurries out of the living room and stands behind me, wrapping her arms around my leg. I am very calm.

  ‘No, he’s at work. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Are you his . . .’ she trails off, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

  ‘I’m his wife. Is there a problem?’ I put the wine glass down on the shelf by the door. The shorter woman tracks it with her eyes.

  ‘This is Detective Sergeant Karen White,’ the taller, thinner woman says, ‘and I’m Detective Inspector Anne-Marie O’Shea.’ They hold up their ID badges as I stand aside and insist they come into the house. I see their car parked on the single yellow outside the house, advertising that there’s trouble circling. ‘We need his help with something. Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  ‘I thought that was him then. He always rings the doorbell when he comes home.’ I laugh nervously, filling in the silence. ‘I’m sure he won’t be long, I can phone him if you want?’

  ‘Have you got a gun?’ Josh asks.

  ‘Josh!’

  ‘No, we don’t carry guns,’ O’Shea says. She’s still not smiling. Maybe there’s not much opportunity for it in police-work, a bit like working in a funeral parlour.

  ‘They’re too busy to answer your questions, Josh, why don’t you go and play upstairs?’ That’s the lamest thing Josh has ever heard; he stands transfixed by the police-speak coming through the radio.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ I implore, leading them into the living room. I sit in the chair, meaning they must take the sofa and see our selection of perfect family photographs on the bureau. There is one of Paul trying to surf in Cornwall, several action shots of the kids in sun-drenched locations, and the one I am most proud of, a black-and-white picture of Paul and the kids in a stylish mess of sheets, just enough but not too much of his healthy chest on display, his long arms and strong shoulders protecting them. ‘Is this to do with Melody?’

  DS White has a face that falls naturally into a frown. She looks at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Yes . . . I’m so sorry, can I get you a drink, something to eat?’ They shake their heads.

  ‘We want to establish where Paul was on Monday night. To eliminate him from the inquiry,’ O’Shea says.

  ‘I thought you’d arrested Gerry Bonacorsi. I saw that on the news earlier.’

  ‘We’re talking to lots of people at the moment, that was a leak that really shouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘But the white rope, that seems pretty damning, no?’

  The two women give each other a look I can’t decipher. ‘If you can just think back to Monday,’ O’Shea persists.

  ‘Monday . . .’ I make a show of trying to remember the beginning of the week. ‘Today’s Friday . . .’ I shake my head. ‘He was probably here with me. What was on telly on Monday?’ I ask the room. Silence replies.

  ‘Are you going to take Mum to jail?’ Josh asks.

  DS White inhales loudly.

  ‘Josh, can you take Ava into the kitchen, I need to have a talk to the police officers.’ Ava starts whining. ‘Go on, there are some sweets in the cupboard.’ I give O’Shea a conspiratorial roll of my eyes and get a wan smile back. I’m winning her over, but it’s work. ‘Sweets, sweets.’ I wave my hand and they trail uncertainly from the room. ‘That’s better, I can’t think straight when they’re around.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ says White.

  ‘How do you proceed with an investigation like this? Are you questioning everyone at Forwood?’

  O’Shea gives me a disinterested smile. ‘We’re working through.’ She’s giving nothing away and I know that if I played her at poker I’d be saying goodbye to fifty quid.

  I nod. ‘It’s so terrible.’

  ‘We’re trying to build a picture of her life.’

  ‘She was just twenty-six. Her whole life ahead of her,’ I shake my head and rub my tired eyes.

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ says White.

  ‘So young,’ says O’Shea hunching forward, elbows on knees to stretch her long back. We are silent for a moment. The two of them are over forty, beginning to grey and creak. I’d guess White has kids, probably grown; O’Shea wears a ring but has a tight look of disappointment set around her lips. We are united for a moment in contemplation of the chances we never seized, the things we never did, how far away from youth we have travelled.

  ‘How well did you know her?’ asks O’Shea.

  ‘Not well. I only met her once for about five minutes at a party. She worked on Inside-Out, which I also worked on, though we never met there. I’m now a researcher on Crime Time, which was her programme.’

  ‘So you worked with Gerry Bonacorsi?’ White asks and the tone in her voice makes O’Shea look at her sharply. Despite everything she’s seen and heard, White is impressed; despite knowing what he did thirty years ago and might have repeated this week, Gerry is a celebrity, a name, he’s someone and she and O’Shea and I are nobodies. She can’t get the inflection of admiration out of her voice, double murderer or not. She’s drawn to the warmth of that celebrity glow as surely as a moth to a candle.

/>   I pause. She’s waiting for an anecdote about Gerry. She wants me to sing for my supper, give her something she can repeat to friends and family that makes her job seem more colourful. For a minute I think of making one up. It would be so easy, because I have seen hours of footage of Gerry, singing old Irish ballads in his cell, good-naturedly taking the Houdini jokes from fellow inmates in the washrooms (the magician who could escape from anywhere, except here!), eating prison slop while reciting his grandmother’s tea-bread recipe, smoothing his snowy grey hair as he waits for psychologists and therapists and the prison library trolley, just like White has, and I feel I know him, really, really know him. ‘I never met him, if that’s what you mean.’

  It’s as if a light has been switched off. White can’t hide her disappointment.

  O’Shea grabs the wheel of this runaway interview. ‘Monday night . . .’

  ‘Monday night, Paul was here with me. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘What time did he come home?’

  I shrug. ‘A normal time I guess. Seven-thirty maybe, maybe later as Monday is often busy. It could have been as late as nine or nine-thirty.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’ asks O’Shea.

  I’m unprepared for their drilling down in such detail. Indecision creeps along my spine as I see her writing my words down in her notebook. The door opens and Josh appears, his jaw crushing Chewits. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to state an actual time as I could be wrong.’ This way I reckon I’ve covered him after his drink with Lex and seem vague in a way that shows I’m unconcerned.

  ‘Can I have a go with your radio?’ Josh asks.

  ‘Josh! They’re working.’

  White hands it to him as it crackles to life.

  ‘That is soo cool,’ he says, turning it over and touching the aerial.

  O’Shea stands up. She hands me a business card. ‘We need a statement from your husband.’

  ‘Of course, he’ll be happy to help.’ I stand and head for the hall, looking at her name on the card.

  ‘What car does your husband drive?’ asks O’Shea. I give her the make and the licence plate number and the Prestige Blue colour. ‘Did he take the car on Monday?’

  I pause, caught off guard. This is probably important and I haven’t thought it through. ‘He doesn’t usually drive to work, so I think not. It sits in our drive most of the time.’ She reaches out to unlock the door. ‘Do you think it’s a copycat killer?’ I ask quietly.

  O’Shea regards me with cold, clear eyes. I very much doubt that in her Friends Reunited entry she’s remembered as ‘warm, funny . . . GSOH’. ‘I don’t think anything. I let the evidence speak for itself.’

  I swallow. From the kitchen I hear a faint hum of the washing machine doing its work.

  14

  I have woken up on the sofa with an empty bottle of Baileys. It is 11.30 p.m. I can’t remember how many times I phoned and texted Paul once the police left. I have forgotten what I felt once I heard their car pull away. I stagger to the toilet, bashing my hip against a doorknob, and heave into the bowl, shaking and cold. I don’t even like Baileys. I splash cold water on my face to try to regain some composure. Paul is not here, I can sense it; the rooms feel colder, colours duller without him. The events earlier today have an air of unreality. I have just lied to the police in front of my children. I simply cannot believe I did that. I’ve taken a step far beyond where I thought I could ever go. A trickle of cold water runs down between my breasts, producing a shiver. And it was easy. Paul must surely be equally capable of the profoundest deceptions, what else can he do? One stab wound to the heart.

  Tears begin to course down my cheeks as I struggle to find some aspirin and attempt to pull myself together. I pick up my mobile; Paul has not called or replied to my messages. Being drunk makes me clingy and maudlin and despite the treacheries of the day, in spite of them, I am desperate to see him, to be folded into his musky embrace, rocked on his knee and consoled like a child for my lie. The mobile jumps in my hand and through blurred vision I answer it, ready to howl and blub anew at Paul. But it’s Jessie, calling from a bar.

  ‘You’re still awake! Fan-fucking-tastic. I’ve been phoning all night! Listen, listen, I’ve been given a one-man show in Shoreditch! How great is that?’ I nod at the phone, but cannot speak. ‘Kate? Can you hear me?’ There are roars of drunken voices behind her.

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘You remember that agent I told you about who came to the last show? Well now he wants to “take me to the next level”.’ She says this last bit in an American accent.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘The important thing is the gallery is in with some really high-profile buyers, and some guy who owns half of Sainsbury’s wants to buy two paintings for starters – “for starters”! How mad is that? Oh I’m so happy! Hello? Is everything OK?’ I am crying down the phone, unable to stop. ‘Kate, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing. Really, I’m so pleased for you.’ I cannot puncture her happiness with the sordid details of the hole I am in.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Some music pulsates in the background. ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘No, no, I’ve got a cold.’ My lies are tripping over themselves in their haste to get out of my mouth.

  ‘Hang on a sec.’ The music fades, she’s outside now. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, everything’s fine. That’s such amazing news.’

  ‘I know. They’re one of the biggest galleries in the East End. They’re giving me a retainer, can you believe it? No more of that cadging-money-for-canvas rubbish.’

  I should be laughing with her, feeling her excitement infecting me, this is what she’s dreamed about and worked tirelessly towards for more than twenty years, served up a million vodka cranberries for, wiped stale beer off tables for. She stands on the brink of ambition realised, and I have wanted this moment for her for more than fifteen years. But I am choking in despair. ‘I’m so pleased for you, Jessie, I really am.’ I start blubbing again.

  ‘You are crying!’

  ‘Yes, I am, it’s overwhelming. All those years of struggle are paying off.’

  She starts giggling. ‘This is the happiest day of my life.’ She tails off and her voice begins to break. I guess she’s welling up. ‘You know, you always believed in me, Kate, you kept me going. I want to thank you for that.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me. I knew you could do it. You’ve worked so hard, nobody deserves it more.’ And then we are both sobbing down the line.

  ‘Guess what else happened today, Mr Married said he loved me! He was here celebrating with us – well, he’s just left . . .’ She talks on as I digest her news. I am happy for Jessie, really I am, but there is a terror inside me. All her most exciting moments are still to come; I fear that mine are behind me and I cannot see where fresh ones will come from. She has something entirely her own, work and a career sown by her alone, and she reaps all the subsequent glory. My achievements are only reflections of me, brief flashes in my children or when I stand arm in arm with Paul at a work function or wedding. I always thought I’d hitched my wagon to the white and shining steed, comforted in the knowledge that I could do no better. Jessie’s right, I do believe in her, through all of the disappointments and false starts I believed she had what it took. But what about me? Is everything I thought good and true a lie? Have I bought into a fiction of the profoundest kind, built my life and happiness on deceit?

  Sometimes when I feel low or simply when I am bored I play back in my mind how I got together with Paul. My own story is a great comfort to me. Its twists and turns and the breath-catching drama of our eventual union still has the power to bring me up short.

  Our second meeting was not like our first; I simply bumped into him in the pub one night when I was out with Pug and Jessie, but the joyful unexpectedness of it flipped my heart. I remember tracking a long and muscular arm as it reached over the bar for change, watched the shrug of his shoulder as he pocketed the coins. H
e did a double take when he saw me, took a second or two to remember, and then hit me with me that cheeky, full-beam smile. He’d filled out a bit, which suited him; he was still tanned, his clothes telegraphed success. At that moment I cursed over and over again because I’d come to meet Jessie straight from a softball league that I played in with some people from work (I think it’s not bragging to say I was their best hitter, not because I was the strongest but because I could place my hits farthest away from the fielders, or angle them towards women hanging around in the outfield, which meant that I could bring home three runners on the bases and myself with one thwack) and I was wearing jogging bottoms and had no make-up on. I didn’t look or feel attractive. ‘If it isn’t the girl with the bike! You’ve changed.’ He looked me up and down appreciatively nonetheless. He’d become bolder, more self-assured. Success was already working its magic.

  ‘The man with the white van! I see you haven’t changed. I thought you’d greet me with the V-sign.’ I flicked two fingers at him and he laughed as Pug and Jessie gawped.

  ‘Katy, isn’t it?’ He touched my arm with the back of his hand. He had remembered my name. After eight years he had remembered. My grin was so wide.

  I tutted and shook my head, looking mock-offended. ‘No. It’s Kate.’

  He sat down next to me and we related the story of how we met to our friends, as if we were already a couple.