Untold Story

by Monica Ali

  She picked up the first camera, held it by the strap, and started to spin it around, higher and higher, and she could see it even as she looked out in front of her, a dark shape, darting, flitting, like a bat circling overhead. She let it go. It flew to the center of the river. She hoisted the other camera. The laptop she flung so it went spinning, skimming, a flat white stone across the surface, and when it hit it floated for a few long seconds before succumbing to the suck of the current.

  She was drenched by the time she got back in the car and shivering, although she felt hot, not cold. If she called and left a message for Mrs. Jackson . . . what could she say? Don’t let your lodger in tonight? Get the locks changed, please? She turned on her cell phone. Three messages from Amber. Oh God, she was supposed to have been at her birthday party. Nearly quarter to nine, thirty-five minutes since she’d left him. She’d taken all her things downstairs then gone back up and told him she was going to sit there for half an hour and compose her thoughts, and that if she heard him move an inch she’d shoot him through the door. Then she’d taken her shoes off and tiptoed down the stairs. Without his car it would take him half an hour to walk to the bed-and-breakfast.

  And then what? She had to think rationally. Of course she had to get out of this place, but was an hour going to make any difference? Grabowski would go to the newspapers with his backup copy of the photos, but he’d have to make his story stick. It would be coming out of nowhere. She looked different enough, had been dead long enough, that even the tabloids wouldn’t touch it without asking him a few questions.

  She just wanted to get to the airport. Why risk anything more than she had already? Wasn’t she in this situation now because she had delayed and delayed?

  All she had to do was call Amber and tell her sorry. Then she could go. She pressed the button to return the last call, but before it connected she hung up.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  It was too dark in the closet for him to see his watch. He squatted on his haunches, pushing her shirts aside with his shoulder. How the fuck? How the fuck had he allowed this to happen? Was she really sitting in the bedroom or had she gone? He wouldn’t put anything past her. She was totally insane.

  “Hello,” he said cautiously. She didn’t answer. That didn’t mean anything.

  He stifled a groan. She’d taken his car and she’d be going straight to Mrs. Jackson’s. Then she’d excuse herself to the bathroom and go up to his room. It was all over. Unless, by some miracle, he got to the bed-and-breakfast before her.

  His back was excruciating, his thighs were hurting, his jaw was so tense it had locked and he could hardly swallow. Anger and frustration wetted his eyes. For fuck’s sake. How long had he been squatting in the dark? He leaned over to his left and pressed his ear against the inside of the closet door to see if he could hear anything. “Hello?” he said again. As if from far away he heard a bang, the shirts swung over his face and he swatted blindly, panic flashing through his body, whacking himself on the nose as he flailed. Something clattered and he scrambled to the back of the closet, curling his arms around his head.

  His heart was pounding so loudly it seemed to echo around the sides of the closet. He took deep, slow breaths. Nothing was happening. He was getting claustrophobic. No shots had been fired, she hadn’t called out to him. A hanger had fallen and he’d practically wet himself.

  He stood up and pushed through her clothes and shoved hard on the closet door with both hands. Then he turned sideways and rammed it with his shoulder. He stood back and kicked it twice. Mrs. Jackson was going out this evening, she’d been talking about it for ages, a supper out with her old amateur dramatics associates. Mr. Jackson would be asleep in his chair.

  There was still a chance. He felt his strength returning, he wasn’t spent yet. He clenched his fists and pumped his arms, getting the blood flowing, summoning the rage. With a howl he turned on his left foot, banged his head on the rail as he leaned back, and let fly a karate kick that splintered the wood and broke the lock.

  He started at a run but he was soon out of breath and had a stitch in his side. Unless he’d slept on his feet at any point, he’d been up all night. There was a crunching noise in his head, but he ignored it, he wasn’t going to pass out now. He jogged to the end of the road and stood there under a streetlight, wondering if there was a shortcut he could take. The sidewalk shimmered white. He crouched briefly to the ground and picked up a few grains and watched as they dissolved on his hand.

  A car was approaching and he tried to flag it down. It didn’t stop and he swore beneath his breath. He set off at a jog again.

  Thank God he’d kept his key for the bed-and-breakfast separately from his car key, and she hadn’t thought to ask for it. Not as clever as she thought she was. A dog barked from behind a fence, a television glowed in a window, a woman passing in the other direction gave him a wide berth. He probably looked a bit of a state. The stitch was agony and he held his side and willed himself to run faster.

  He saw the flashing light reflected blue off the scattered hail before he heard the siren. The police car pulled ahead of him and stopped. Two officers got out and stood in front of him with their hands on their hips.

  “Can I see some ID please, sir?”

  He had to play it cool. He ran a hand through his hair, as if that would make him appear any less disheveled, as if it would help. “Of course,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “Is there some problem?”

  The cop, the short one, barely glanced at the driver’s license. “Mind if I ask you a couple of questions, sir?”

  Grabowski felt the wind on his thigh where his trousers were ripped. It blew on his face, and he hoped it was enough to cool the anger that was rising. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, Officer, is there any way we could do this later?”

  The silence with which his question was greeted was maddening. He looked from one to the other. The short guy was tapping Grabowski’s driver’s license against his leg. His partner, a pencil in a uniform, a gingersnap, still had his hands on his hips.

  “Afraid not, sir,” said the short one. “Can you tell us where you’ve been this evening, sir?”

  There was no way he could explain. And he had to get to the bed-and-breakfast before Mrs. Jackson got home and gave away the crown jewels. “I’ve been for a walk,” he said. “I’ve been for a walk and now I’m going back to Fairfax, to the bed-and-breakfast where I’m staying.”

  “We’d like you to come down to the sheriff ’s office, sir.”

  “Why? Can’t a man walk down the street anymore?” For a wild moment he considered making a run for it. He imagined sprinting, outrunning the squad car, dodging bullets, leaping fences, scrambling, bloodied but not beaten, to victory.

  The tall cop spoke for the first time. “There’s been a break-in reported. You fit the description.” He picked between his front teeth with his thumbnail. “Be a good boy, let’s go.”

  “I can explain,” said Grabowski, panic rising, gabbling, “but later. Or you could come with me now and I’ll show you something that explains everything.”

  “That’s funny,” said the tall one. He slapped his partner on the back. “We want him to come with us, and he wants us to go with him. Which way should it be?”

  “Let’s get you in the car now, sir.”

  The way the little squirt kept calling him sir was calculatedly infuriating. But he wasn’t going to lose his temper.

  “Time,” he said, “is very, very precious.” He groaned inwardly. Why the hell did he say that?

  “I’ll arrest you here if I have to, sir.”

  This was too fucking much. He’d had it. These two fucking jokers. “If you don’t stop saying sir at the end of every sentence . . .”

  “Yes? If I don’t stop, what happens then, sir?”

  “Look,” he said, choking on his ire. “Look, I’m sorry, this is very, very complicated. If I could just collect something from the bed-and-breakfast on the way to the sheriff ’s office . . .”


  “Cuff him,” said the tall one. “He’s not cooperating.”

  “I haven’t done anything,” yelled Grabowski. “You can’t arrest me for walking down the street.”

  The lanky bastard was in his face faster than a ferret. “How about I arrest you for resisting arrest,” he said. “Sir.”

  “Fuck you,” shouted Grabowski. The cop was practically standing on his toes. He was asking for it. Even as he was telling himself not to do it, Grabowski could feel his hand form into a fist, and as it connected with that snub and satisfied nose he experienced, for a fraction of a second, a sense of pure unadulterated bliss.

  The interview room at the county sheriff ’s office in Roehampton was so hot that as Grabowski looked across at his lawyer he imagined the plastic chair beneath him melt and fuse to his backside.

  “I’m not sure I’ve got this clear,” said the lawyer.

  “Christ, I’ve been over it three times already.” Last night, on the metal rack that supposedly passed as a bed, he’d scarcely got any sleep at all. His clothes, which he was now wearing for the third day in a row, were stinking. “And you’ve hardly made a single note.”

  The lawyer had pimples on his neck, he was fresh out of school, and his mouth, for the last hour, had twitched and twitched. “Let me see,” he said, pretending to consult his pad. “You’re a British photojournalist, on vacation in Kensington, and yesterday afternoon you broke into a private residence at forty-five Cedar Road, where you were taken hostage by . . . a woman whom you believe . . .” His mouth twitched again. “A woman whom you believe to be living under an assumed identity. Her true identity you are not, at this moment, prepared to divulge. But you also believe that when you are able to prove this true identity at some undefined point in the future, the charges against you will be dropped.” He flipped his pen between his fingers. “Mr. Grabowski, the charges against you are assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. And I’m not entirely clear what you propose the mitigating circumstances to be.” His lips finally gave way to a smirk.

  Grabber wanted to reach over and squeeze that spotty neck until his head oozed and burst. “Listen,” he said. “Listen, I told you—I haven’t been here on some fucking holiday.”

  “I’m sorry, yes, you did. You’ve been in the States for . . . two months, working. Do you have a work visa?”

  Grabowski laced his hands together and squeezed until his knuckles turned white. It was so hot in here he could barely breathe. “No, I do not have a work visa.”

  “Well,” said the lawyer, “that’s the least of your problems now.”

  The arrogant little fuck was in a suit and tie, hadn’t even taken off his jacket, but he didn’t seem to be perspiring at all.

  “Why do they keep it so hot in here?” said Grabowski. “Is there something wrong with the heating? Somebody ought to complain.”

  “It’s a little warm. Mr. Grabowski, I’m not sure you appreciate exactly how much trouble you’re in.”

  He didn’t know why he’d even bothered trying to tell this jerk what had happened. It was worth one more try. If he couldn’t persuade his own defense attorney, he’d never convince anyone of the truth. “I know this is hard to follow,” he said, in what he hoped was a mollifying tone. “The reason they were trying to arrest me was because I’d broken into her house, that’s how it began, and we got in a scuffle because I was trying to get back to my room to pick up a vital piece of evidence.”

  The lawyer scratched his scrawny neck with his pen. “So here’s where you start to lose me. There’s nothing on the charge sheet about any break-in. No one’s said anything about that. Officer . . . let’s see . . . Johnson and Officer Nugent say they were on routine patrol on Montrachet Street at approximately nine fifteen last night when they saw a man, possibly a vagrant, staggering and possibly intoxicated.”

  “That’s a lie,” said Grabowski.

  “The sidewalk was in a treacherous condition due to the hailstorm that had just passed, and they decided to see if they could be of any assistance. That’s when you attacked . . . Officer Johnson. Were you, at that time, under the influence of either drink or drugs?”

  “It’s all lies,” shouted Grabowski. “Are you ever going to listen to me?”

  The lawyer—Grabowski couldn’t remember his name, but he probably answered to Asshole—left a prim little pause before he spoke. “I understand that you’re upset,” he said. “But you have to understand that I’m doing my job here, the best I can. What I’m doing is trying to help you. Now, are you intending to bring a complaint against this . . . the lady in question? Or have you done so already? I didn’t see anything in the file.”

  Grabber shook his head. “She’s already gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The guy nodded, as if this were the first sensible thing Grabowski had said. “And what about this . . . er . . . vital evidence? Has it been—secured?”

  “She took it,” said Grabber. “It’s gone too.” Last night, by the time they’d taken him in, processed and fingerprinted him and filled in the forms, chewing on their pieces of straw, it was well after midnight and all hope had disappeared. If they’d let him have his one phone call first he might have been able to sweet-talk Mrs. Jackson into barring the door.

  “And could you share with me, Mr. Grabowski, who this woman really is? As you believe it’s of great importance to your case.”

  Grabber pressed his fingers to his temples. He gave them a little massage. If he came out and said it . . . could he make the guy listen seriously? He knew the answer to that. All it would earn him, if he tried to explain, was the possibility of a psych report. “Forget about her. She’s not relevant, nothing happened, forget what I said before.”

  The suit kept on nodding, as though to say that they were finally getting somewhere, as if the entire matter had been cleared up at last. “Certainly, if those are your instructions, Mr. Grabowski,” he said. “And how do you intend to plead?”

  “Not guilty,” he said. “Now, how fast can you get me out of here?”

  “You’ll be able to post bail after the arraignment.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Court’s a little backed up. I’d say you’re looking at Monday or Tuesday, possibly next Wednesday.”

  “I’m not staying in here for a week,” said Grabowski.

  The lawyer scratched under his chin with his pen. “You can pay bail with a credit card or I can arrange a bail bond, let me know and I’ll do what’s necessary. Let’s hope it’s not a whole week, look on the bright side, could be a day or two sooner than that.”

  For the next hour he paced his cell, frying with indignation. What had happened to the breaking and entering allegation? Now he looked like a crazy person, someone who attacked the police at random in the street. She must have called it in hoping he’d get picked up, and then called back and said it was all a mistake. It wasn’t as though she would ever want to face him in court.

  This wasn’t justice, this was a travesty. It was an outrage. His human rights were being abused and there was nothing he could do about it, there was nobody who would listen. And she’d toyed with him, trapped him, cornered him like an animal. A person had a right to go about his business without interference from anyone, a person had a right to walk the street free from . . .

  The door swung open. The desk sergeant who had taken his fingerprints filled the frame. “Someone up there likes you,” he said.

  “What?” said Grabowski. “Are you transferring me now?” He knew he’d be going to the county jail until the day of the first court hearing.

  “Said someone up there likes you,” the sergeant repeated. “Or you are just one lucky motherfucker.”

  The Pontiac was parked outside the bed-and-breakfast and the taxi pulled up behind it. Grabowski paid and stepped onto the sidewalk. He used his front door key. Mr. Jackson was in his chair but didn’t stir as Grabowski crept up the stairs. He w
anted to get out of there without having to chat to his landlady about where he’d been for the last two nights.

  He went straight to the desk and opened the left drawer. Of course it wasn’t there. He’d known it wouldn’t be. Even so, it didn’t prevent the crash of disappointment. She’d beaten him hands down. He changed his clothes and packed up. The car key was on the desk. Perhaps he should think himself lucky, like the sergeant had said. Officers Johnson and Nugent had withdrawn the charges and he was free to go. They’d filled in the paperwork incorrectly, that pair of knuckle-draggers, and when the trial came up it would have got thrown out on a technicality. “I was you,” said the sergeant, “I’d try to avoid running into those two. They ain’t gonna be happy, they ever see your face again.”

  “Yeah?” Grabowski had said. “How happy they going to be when I sue?”

  He wasn’t going to do that, there were better things he could do with his life than spend it with lawyers. In any case, he had actually hit the cop, and if you hit a cop you got arrested, it was inevitable.

  He put some cash in an envelope for the nights that he owed, left it on the bottom stair, and snuck out.

  There were two cars in the drive, no sign of the Sport Trac. He couldn’t leave without checking that she’d actually gone. He walked up to the house. A woman was coming out of the front door that stood open. She was writing something down on a clipboard as she walked and it took a moment for her to look up and notice him.

  “Hi, can I help you?” she said.

  “I’m looking for Lydia.”

  “I’m Lydia’s Realtor, Tevis Trower. I’m afraid she’s not here.”

  “Oh, right,” said Grabowski casually. “She putting this place on the market, then?”