by cass green
‘Why are you here, Angel?’ says Nina and Angel fancies something has softened in her.
‘Can I have a drink of water?’ says Angel, seizing on this. Nina hesitates and then sighs.
‘Go on,’ she says gesturing towards the table, ‘you may as well sit down but you need to drink it and then go.’
She pours Angel a glass of water and places it in front of her. Angel takes it, hoping Nina won’t notice the slight tremor in her hand, and takes a long draught. Nina stares down at her own hands spread before her on the wooden surface, as though grounding herself in some way.
‘So,’ says Angel after a few moments. ‘I know I’m risking everything by coming to you like this, but I wanted to say, first off, that I’m really sorry about what we did.’
Nina looks up sharply. This is evidently a surprise and it pisses Angel off a little. Of course she’s sorry. What did Nina think? That Angel and Lucas were scumbags who did that kind of shit all the time? That this wasn’t a big deal for them too?
She makes herself take a breath and tries to focus again on what she has come here for.
‘I was only trying to keep my brother safe,’ she says. ‘But it was all wrong. I know that now. We both messed things up really badly and none of it was your fault. You were just unlucky enough to get caught up in it all.’
Nina meets her eyes and then gives a small incline of her head. It may be an acceptance of the apology, or it may just be a gesture encouraging her to go on, she’s not sure.
‘The thing, is,’ Angel continues, leaning forward earnestly, ‘he has completely given up now. He’s not even bothering to fight back.’ She takes in a breath, audibly. How can she explain this? She should have practised.
When she was little and getting wound up about something, unable to get her raging emotions into words, her mother would sometimes tell her to say the words in her head first; to put them in order before letting them out into the world. It was advice she seldom took but now wishes she had prepared a little better.
She presses on, anyway.
‘Look, Nina,’ she says, ‘I think I know what happened. I really do. But I have no way of even telling him that it’s OK, I understand, that it really isn’t his fault.’
Her voice cracks at this. Angel’s nose fizzes and her vision blurs. ‘Shit,’ she says and produces a grubby bit of kitchen towel from her handbag. She was determined to be calm and in control. This woman already thinks she is a fucking fruitcake. Angel swipes angrily at her nose.
‘What happened then?’ says Nina, her voice steady.
Angel is still for a moment before she speaks. It’s so important to get this right. To make her understand.
‘You have to understand first how frightened Lucas was of Quinn,’ she says. ‘I mean,’ she pauses, ‘I was too, don’t get me wrong, but with me it was more … about anger. I’ve always been a stroppy bitch, you’ll be dead surprised to know.’ She barks a short laugh at this and it helps her onwards. ‘One time, a few months before …’ she swallows, ‘… before we were sent to boarding school, Lucas actually wet himself because Quinn started shouting at our mother. Right there at the kitchen table.’
Nina lowers her eyes and toys with a mug of something, surely cold now, in front of her.
‘My brother really is a gentle person,’ Angel presses on. ‘I think he wanted to be the tough guy who would protect Alice, but when it came down to it, he was just too fucking frightened. And he thinks I don’t know. That I haven’t guessed. He thinks the absolutely last person in the world who is there for him will … turn away.’
It’s no good, a ridiculous quantity of tears is now cascading down her face and she can’t scrub the wetness away fast enough. Angel can’t bring herself to tell Nina about the row, about the awful thing she’d said to Lucas a few months back, the last time she’d seen him until that night.
They’d gone for a drink. She’d been angry with Leon over something, she can’t even remember what now. Lucas didn’t have anything in common with Leon but had defended him, saying something about him being ‘decent’ and how maybe he was good for Angel. He hadn’t seemed all that interested and was distracted all evening. She knew why now.
It had enraged her, anyway. So she’d mumbled something under her breath and when pushed, as she’d known she would be, she’d said, ‘I don’t know why I always have such weak men in my life.’
Lucas had looked as though she’d slapped him. She’d tried to make it up, but he left the pub without another word and didn’t speak to her again until the night everything kicked off and his life depended on it.
Nina gets up from her seat now and a moment later Angel feels a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she sees that Nina is offering her a box of tissues. She murmurs her thanks and takes several, blowing her nose loudly.
They sit there for several minutes, the only sounds in the room the ticking of the clock and Angel’s snuffling. She feels hope quickening that she may be getting through to Nina. After all, she hasn’t thrown her out yet, has she?
‘But Angel,’ says Nina now and Angel is conscious of the careful tone. ‘What is it that you expect me to do about this?’ She gives a small, mirthless laugh. ‘I mean,’ she says, ‘I’m not going to lie in court about what happened, am I? I’m going to answer all their questions as they come. What do you want from me exactly? I can’t do anything, can I?’
Angel looks at the other woman. She is genuinely confused, her brow creased.
She doesn’t get it at all. Yes, that’s exactly what Angel wants.
She wants Nina to change the whole narrative of that evening. To say that Lucas told them everything straight away, and that the whole gun thing and not letting Nina go was only because they were scared. That Nina knew all along Lucas wasn’t a murderer.
These are all the things she wants her to say.
This is hopeless. Nina looks as likely to agree to this as to jump off a tall building. It’s an impossible thing; literally not an option in her universe.
It all seemed like a good idea this morning. When she had been lying, sleepless since five am, mind churning with it all, the idea of speaking to Nina felt like a bolt of clarity amid the fog and muddle.
But Nina isn’t the sort of person to stand up in a court of law and tell a lie.
She is the sort of person who has never stolen anything, even as a child; the sort who would hand in a twenty-pound note she found on the floor.
Angel has to at least try, though. Doesn’t she owe Lucas that?
‘You could,’ she says in a tiny voice. ‘You could lie.’
There’s a sharp intake of breath.
Hopelessness bears down around Angel like a rapid change in air pressure and her heart begins to thump.
Nina can’t, won’t save them.
No one can.
‘I’d never have really hurt that baby,’ she says in a tiny voice.
42
Nina
I had no need to worry that Angel would outstay her welcome.
After she had made her extraordinary request, which I’m still struggling to comprehend, and I told her emphatically what I thought of it, she left quickly.
Just before she went, she wrote down her number on a scrappy piece of paper and shoved it onto the table in the hall. I eyed it warily and then opened the door. I said nothing as I watched her dark bowed head moving away, shoulders slumped, and the raw, blistered heels slipping in and out of her crumpled shoes.
I then spent a jumpy evening convinced the police were going to come to my door at any moment. It would be much the way it happened before, I was sure. With drama and violence.
I’m not even completely sure that I’ve done anything wrong, having not invited Angel. But I did let her over the threshold. I once read about a woman going to prison for contempt of court after speaking on Facebook about a trial when she was a juror. There are strict rules about trials. As a major witness for the prosecution I should not have allowed Angel into my home.
<
br /> There’s a lesson I don’t seem to learn.
I contemplate telling the police … for about five seconds. Then I decide that nothing will be served by it. Angel is already in enough trouble.
I manage to doze from midnight until two am but am only skimming the edges of sleep. I have an earworm of a song from a television advert circling in my mind and I keep thinking my heels are bleeding and that I need plasters.
Now I’m staring up at the occasional light sweeping across my ceiling and marvelling again that Angel had the nerve to come here and ask me to lie. In court.
Why would she think I’d agree? Waves of outrage keep breaking over me, heating me up from the inside.
Angel and Lucas are responsible for one of the most frightening experiences I’ve ever had. We are not on the same side here. How can she be so deluded as to think we are?
I keep turning it all over in my mind.
Her talk about ‘giving up’ sounds as though Lucas is going to plead guilty. I want to know more, but didn’t want to press her and encourage the conversation any further.
Maybe Lucas really did murder Alice Quinn. I think about what he looked like when he arrived. The wild, almost unfocused eyes. The animal smell of fear and the blood literally on his hands.
Shivering despite the heat, I pull the duvet up around my chin, eyes darting about the silent bedroom.
I hate being here alone. I’m longing for Sam to be home again and for some sort of normal life to resume. It feels like everything is still turning in slow circles since that night, and it might not stop until it begins to spin out of control.
My thoughts are yanked back, inevitably, to Angel’s visit.
‘My brother really is a gentle person,’ she’d said. Women are forever defending violent men; claiming them misunderstood. I have no real reason for believing a word that comes out of her mouth.
But I can’t stop thinking about the images she has planted in my mind. I wish I could shake them loose and out of me.
Nick Quinn beating Angel and Lucas’s mother and driving her to suicide.
The guinea pig.
The small, skinny boy sitting in a pool of urine because he is in mortal dread of an adult …
‘Bugger it.’ I violently throw the duvet off myself. There is no way I’m going to sleep.
I owe it to Zach anyway. I need to know he’s safe with that man.
I’m in the study, turning on the desktop computer, before I even decide to do it. My eyes are too tired and sore for the iPad.
The trial hasn’t started – I’m told it will probably be in the autumn – so there’s no harm in looking now, is there? I have to do something, find some way of funnelling this nervous energy outwards, instead of inwards.
As the computer comes to life, I wonder why I haven’t done this beyond the most cursory glance before. I think I was trying to move on. But how can I, really?
I ignore the news stories in the aftermath. I’ve already seen them.
But I’d somehow missed a press conference that was held during the breakfast news, while it was all still happening here.
The two police officers from that night are there, along with Nick Quinn, who looks terrible. His eyes are puffy and his cheeks are grey-stubbled. He keeps wiping his hand across his face and then looking around, as though he can’t quite believe what is happening to him.
So strange to think that he has yet to open Twitter on his phone and to find my message waiting there. The police told me, after, this was how they found Zach.
I shiver and pull my cardigan around my shoulders as I watch the female officer begin to speak.
‘Around eleven pm last night, a twenty-eight-year-old woman was stabbed to death. Her six-week-old baby, Zachary, was stolen. We want to appeal to whoever has the child to come forward so we can make sure he is safe and well. I am now going to hand over to Zachary’s father, Nicholas Quinn.’
Quinn has been sitting with his head down and there is a delay before he looks up, as though he might have missed his cue. He blinks several times, then swipes the back of his hand across his eyes. His hand, I notice, is trembling visibly. I find myself softening, despite myself. There is something very vulnerable about a big man with shaky hands, I always think.
‘I, uh …’ he starts to say and then breaks off to cough. I find myself leaning closer to stare at the monitor. ‘I am devastated about the death of my beautiful … my beautiful wife.’ His voice cracks and he looks down, before wiping his eyes again. ‘But,’ he continues, shakily. ‘But, I just want to say to whoever has my little boy, please, please don’t hurt him. He’s all I have now and I just want to know he is safe.’
He pauses and then his final words seem to be squeezed out of him. ‘He’s so very tiny.’ It is barely a whisper. Then he hangs his head and covers his face with one hand. His shoulders begin to shake and the press conference comes to an end.
My own hands are shaking now. I don’t know what to think.
I have known a few liars in my time, and, whatever part he may or may not have played in all this, that was a genuinely devastated man. I think about the strange energy from him when he was outside this house, when the police came. I’d thought he seemed cool and together. But perhaps what I was looking at was a sort of numb exhaustion?
I try to imagine what it would be like to spend a whole night wondering whether Sam had been harmed. Hours and hours of corrosive terror. It almost makes me want to throw up.
None of this sheds light on whether Lucas is really guilty of murder.
With a big sigh, I sit back in my chair.
I need to know more. I’m not going to be able to rest until I have further perspective on what happened within these walls that night.
I go to make a cup of tea and bring it back to the desk. The steam rising from it feels comforting and, combined with the warm glow from the lamps, I feel enclosed in a small, safe place. For the first time, it seems, in ages.
There are loads of clips of Nick Quinn on YouTube. He seems to have been in every war zone and troubled place in the world over a period of twenty-five years.
But the most recent clip is of him on The Graham Norton Show, promoting his book. I lean in, studying him closely. Now that I am seeing him in happier times, I can see that he’s an attractive man; there is no denying this. The weather-beaten face, crinkly blue eyes and thick curly hair add up to someone who wears middle age with style. He has authority but smiles a lot too. He looks like someone you would trust in a crisis.
Easily over six foot, he has a powerful build. I think of Lucas’s slight frame; his slim fingers. Again, I wonder. If it had been anyone but Angel who told me that awful story …
Clicking play again, I find myself staring at Quinn’s large, strong hands as he uses them to emphasize a point he is making. I try to picture them smashing into a woman’s face, or striking a child. I can’t seem to do it. I think of his shoulders shaking at the press conference; the terrible distress on his face.
The next most recent is a story about the kidnap of schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Nigeria. There’s little from Iraq and Syria. I suppose that’s because he was taking time to write that book. I zone out much of what he’s actually saying. I want to get a sense of him; what he’s like as a person. But it’s very hard to tell. He just seems professional, intelligent and sober.
I think of Angel and the wild energy that seems to crackle off her. About how far she can really be trusted. But that guinea pig story; it feels too horrible and bizarre to be fabricated.
With a sigh, I go to Google Images next and look at the many pictures of him there. In the field in flak jacket and fatigues; suited and bow-tied at various events, sometimes collecting awards … he looks like a man who understands how the world works.
Like someone who is never frightened, even when someone actively wants to kill him.
The printer makes a whirring sound as it comes to life in the still room. I find it easier to think on paper. I start printing ou
t pages: the Wikipedia on Quinn, an interview with him in the Guardian from a few years ago, and other bits and pieces. And photos, several photos.
Lost in my research, it’s only when I start to shiver that I realize I’ve been sitting like this for over an hour. I feel … easier. It has been good to focus my energy on something, even if I would struggle to explain it to another person.
I go to the kitchen where I open the fridge and find the uneaten Portuguese custard tarts from earlier. I eat them both, quickly, standing. Then put my plate in the sink.
When I go back to the study I stare at the print-outs I’ve scattered across half the floor. I have a wobbly moment of wondering if this way madness lies.
The thought of going back to bed is appalling, though. So, I turn back to the screen, and begin reading about Quinn accepting a National Journalism Award in 2009.
Described as ‘the Pulitzer Prize of UK journalism’ it sounds like a prestigious event. I quickly find it on YouTube. There’s an interview, conducted by a television presenter I vaguely recognize but can’t name.
‘So, you’ve been on our screens for many years,’ says the presenter, ‘reporting from some of the most dangerous places in the world. How does it feel to accept the award for Best Foreign Reporting tonight?’
Quinn’s cheeks are flushed and he looks slightly drunk as he gives a slow smile in return.
‘Well, I work as part of a team, always,’ he says in that honeyed voice. ‘And even when I am out there in the field, I’m conscious of all the people who have helped me get there.’ He looks distracted for a moment and then says, ‘… And not least my team of producers, such as this amazing lady, Marina Goldman.’
Quinn grabs the arm of a thin, dark-haired woman who is passing and pulls her in to the frame. She blinks and looks uncomfortable for a moment. Then smiles and pushes a strand of hair away from her face.
