by cass green
I’m desperate to ask why. But I have to be careful. My ‘Oh yes?’ is met only by a cool nod.
‘I’m so dreadfully sorry about your daughter,’ I say, glancing up at the wedding photo again.
Jennifer follows my gaze and I see a quick frown pass across her face; almost a wince. I presume it is the sight of her daughter’s face on what must have been one of her happiest days. But maybe there is something else? Her eyes linger there for a moment before coming back to rest wearily on mine.
‘I’m glad I got to meet you,’ she says, with a small, tight smile. ‘I know that Zach was clean and well looked after that …’ she swallows, ‘that night. The police told me that you went to great lengths to care for him.’
I return her smile, gently. ‘I only did what anyone would,’ I say and she frowns again.
She lifts her glass of water to take a sip and her hand shakes a little.
‘I’m not so sure,’ she says when she has drunk and replaced the glass back on the table. ‘It doesn’t sound as though much was done by those …’ I can hear the quickening of her breath even from here, ‘by those other two.’
I’m not sure how to respond to this. It is, after all, the truth. But I’m beginning to think there may have been more complex factors at play.
‘He’s a beautiful little boy,’ I say pointlessly and, just for a moment, her face lights up with a proper smile.
‘He is,’ she says. ‘He really is. And probably too young to understand what he has lost.’ She says this with admirable control. Her eyes are dry and it’s only the deep grooves at the sides of her mouth that give away the grief etched into her.
I decide to be bold. I can’t sit here all afternoon.
‘And how is,’ I pause, nervously, ‘his dad? Mr Quinn? How is he doing with it all?’
Jennifer lifts the water and takes another birdlike sip, avoiding my eyes. I can’t tell if I have imagined the slight stiffening in her shoulders.
‘It’s rather hard to tell,’ she says, with a false, bright tone. ‘We have barely seen him since it happened.’
‘Oh,’ I say, wrongfooted by her sudden openness. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I add carefully. ‘Where is he now?’
Jennifer looks at me sharply then and my stomach clenches. I hope she doesn’t think I am here because of Quinn’s fame; wanting to grab a little bit of the dim limelight surrounding a celebrity tragedy.
‘I wish I could tell you,’ she says. ‘The BBC seem to have required his services out of the country almost constantly since my daughter was killed.’
I don’t know what to say to this. It sort of thuds onto the floor in front of us. She suddenly looks weary, and draws her cardigan around her shoulders before getting to her feet.
‘Now I really must get on,’ she says. ‘I hope you won’t think me rude. I do want to have lunch and then beat the traffic.’
‘Oh, of course, of course,’ I say, getting hurriedly to my feet. But now I’ve got this far, I’m reluctant to leave.
‘It must be hard for,’ I pause, ‘Mr Quinn. He’s lucky to have you to help with Zach.’
Jennifer frowns at me and is about to say something when, on cue, Zach begins to cry in the kitchen. She rises and I follow her out of the room.
Damn. I feel like she was on the verge of saying something important then.
I am thinking of how I can coax more information from her without directly discussing the trial as I follow her through to the kitchen, when I see her swipe at her eyes. A bolt of hot guilt goes through me. I’m only upsetting her, being here. Reminding her of the night her own child was stabbed to death.
‘Let me take him,’ she says to Nooria, ‘and you can show Nina out.’
The message is clear. I’ve overstayed my welcome and need to go.
Nooria looks at me with the same frank assessment as before. There’s something oddly defiant in her eyes that I don’t understand. The little girl now playing on the floor looks up, as though automatically connected to her mother’s movements.
‘It was good to meet you, Nina,’ says Jennifer, rocking Zach in her arms and managing a thin smile. ‘And I do appreciate all that you did for Zach.’
I don’t know how to respond, other than to say, ‘Take care, Jennifer,’ and then I touch Zach’s hot little back for a moment and say, ‘Bye Zach. Be good for your grandma.’
I can hear Jennifer singing in a low voice to Zach as we reach the front door. Nooria is about to close the front door on me without saying a single word so just before the door closes, I hiss, ‘Wait!’
She pauses, suspicion tightening her brow.
‘What do you really want?’ she says in a low voice.
‘I want,’ I pause, trying to think how to frame my thoughts. ‘I want to know whether you think Lucas did this.’
Her eyes flare wide for a moment, melting her otherwise haughty expression.
She gives the slightest shake of her head and my heart seems to jerk inside my chest. Then she says, ‘I can’t …’ and, ‘I’m sorry. I have Asefa to think of.’ She begins to close the door.
‘Wait!’ I say, too loud. ‘I just want to—’
‘I said no!’ The strength of her reply makes me flinch and when I go to respond I find I’m talking to a closed door.
48
Nina
I walk slowly down the driveway, my thoughts seeming to knock against each other like snooker balls, crashing and swerving in new directions.
What have I gained from this?
I’m so lost in thought, I almost bump into the swarthy man coming the other way. He looks Arabic, with thick black hair and a neat beard that looks fashionable rather than religious. We both apologize and then he disappears up the Quinn driveway. Delivery man, perhaps.
I give him no more thought as I try and analyse that moment with Nooria.
I don’t know whether she was agreeing with my statement or it was more of a ‘I can’t believe your lack of tact’ sort of head shake. I mean, I don’t know. But I do strongly suspect that she was saying that, no, Lucas wasn’t capable of murdering Alice Quinn.
It feels like some kind of evidence.
And where was Nick Quinn? Alice’s mother was far too well-brought-up and controlled to badmouth him but I could tell there was something dark there; a frisson of bad feeling when she talked about his absence.
But what does it all mean?
I’m on the pavement now and I emit a small shriek of frustration, before looking around wildly to see if anyone is looking at me. A car with blacked-out windows is coming along the street and I find myself watching as it pulls up outside the house opposite the Quinns’. The rich really are a different species.
Large gates open slowly to let it in and I notice the swivelling eye of a CCTV camera on the corner of the gate.
As the car disappears behind the grandiose gates, it strikes me that whoever lives there is very concerned with their privacy. It’s unlikely that it would be able to monitor the front of the Quinn house because the driveway is hidden behind hedges. But maybe it’s something to go on?
A light rain begins to patter about me, lifting a warm scent from the pavement.
I feel a bit sick when I see the red-brick building of the police station. I’ve parked in the multi-storey and walked here, hoping to prepare myself as much as I can on the way.
Rehearsing what I’m going to say in my mind for the tenth time, I walk inside and go to the main desk there. I can feel myself shrinking a little, remembering that queasy early morning when I came here to make a statement.
I’m asked what I want and for a moment I get in such a flap that the name of the relevant officers goes right out of my head.
The young police officer, his face studded with acne, looks at me with a tired expression until one of the names comes to me.
‘Can I speak to Detective, er, Gilbey please?’ I say. I’m sure that was his name, the big man with the curly grey hair.
‘What’s it regarding?’
I make myself stand a little straighter.
‘The murder of Alice Quinn,’ I say in a clear voice and he frowns, then tells me to take a seat on one of the broken plastic bucket chairs opposite.
I don’t know how much time passes, but let’s say it is long enough for me to need both a wee and a drink of water, and for my coccyx to start to throb from the unforgiving seat.
Various people come and go; mainly police officers with bursts of static from their radios, and the occasional member of the public coming in to have earnest conversations with the policeman on the desk, most of which he parries with the same efficient but deeply world-weary air.
When the doors to my left swing open for what seems like the millionth time, I look over to see the red-haired policewoman who was part of the raid on my house. I remember thinking that she had an extraordinary physical confidence for someone who must barely reach five feet four.
Her eyes are like bright chocolate buttons in her face as she regards me.
‘Nina,’ she says. ‘What can I do for you?’ Her voice isn’t unfriendly, but there is a sense of forbearance in her tone. As if whatever I have come to say is only adding to an annoying day.
A few minutes later we’re at her desk in a busy office. There’s a Game of Thrones mug that’s spiky with pens and a place mat that reads: I’m no good at advice … can I interest you in a sarcastic comment? Her screen saver is of a little girl; clearly her child judging by the red curls tumbling around the impish face.
She offers me tea or coffee (‘To be fair, they look and taste much the same here’) and I decline.
As she regards me with her quick, sharp eyes, I feel myself liking her. I decide she isn’t the sort of person to muck about. So I don’t either.
‘I’m concerned that Lucas is innocent of Alice’s murder,’ I say, clenching my fists discreetly so she can’t see the tremor that has begun in my hands.
Her expression doesn’t change as she reaches for a pad of paper and a pen on her desk.
‘And why’s that?’ she says in an even tone. Not dismissive. But not intrigued either.
I pause for a moment. I am determined not to come across like a fruitcake.
‘Well,’ I lean forward a little for emphasis, ‘I keep thinking about what I was told that night about Nick Quinn. What Angel told me.’
Gilbey frowns. ‘Yes, that was all part of your statement, I believe.’
‘I know that,’ I say, carefully. ‘But I have been looking into him a bit and I think there’s definitely something that’s not right.’
She’s really giving me the dead eye now, and gently tapping her pen against the pad. She hasn’t written down a single word yet.
‘When you say you’ve been looking into him,’ she says, ‘what does that mean exactly?’
It’s impossible not to squirm. I feel like I am fourteen and in the headmistress’s office or something. I force myself to stop being so pathetic and meet her look with a stern one of my own. I have good reason for being here.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘I know how this works.’ She manages to raise a single eyebrow at this, quite impressively. I go on regardless. ‘You’ve got very little resources these days and it appears that this case is straightforward. I wish it was. Believe me when I say I don’t want to be having this conversation either.’
Something shifts in her expression and it encourages me, even though I can’t read what she is thinking.
‘But what I’m saying,’ I continue, ‘is that I know for a fact Quinn has a history of domestic violence and you ought to at least check him out a bit more thoroughly before assuming that someone as damaged and vulnerable as Lucas is the person who should be in prison.’
She’s silent for a few minutes and then says, ‘How do you know for a fact about this supposed violence?’
To my irritation I feel a slight heat in my own cheeks then. I maybe stretched that a little bit.
‘I spoke to an ex-girlfriend,’ I said. ‘And she basically said Quinn ruined her life for a while. And that he was dangerous.’
Gilbey pulls the pad closer. ‘So, she’ll go on the record with that? What’s her name?’
I give a frustrated sigh. ‘Well, no, I’m certain she won’t. She’s moved on, you see, and told me she wouldn’t talk about it again.’
I can almost feel the energy seeping out of the policewoman in front of me.
She puts the pen down and uncrosses her legs.
‘Look,’ she says, ‘Nina … I’m grateful to you for trying to do the right thing here, but sometimes … when someone has … gone through an event like the one you did, there’s a strange sort of kinship that develops with the people who have all the power.’
I look back into her eyes, which are kind. Irritatingly so.
‘Are you suggesting I have Stockholm Syndrome?’ I say, barely able to contain my disgust. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!’
‘Please, don’t raise your voice,’ she says reasonably. I wasn’t even aware I had and the chastisement gives me a cold jolt in my stomach. The pause is useful though because I was just about to mention Nooria and who knows what trouble I might be in, if they find out I have been to the Quinn house today.
‘Look,’ I say, trying to smile in what I hope is a reasonable, not-mad way. ‘Can I just say one more thing? Make a suggestion?’
She nods her assent, then wipes a hand wearily across her face.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘have you checked whether Quinn was at the house at any other time that evening? If he only arrived back and found his wife dead, then he wouldn’t be seen on any CCTV cameras just after the murder happened, would he?’
I can’t stop myself from beaming with excitement as I say this. I feel so clever. Unstoppable, actually.
‘Right,’ says Gilbey in a reasonable tone, ‘so you’re suggesting that in a murder enquiry, we haven’t already checked all the relevant CCTV, is that it?’
I can feel the slow creep of a horrible embarrassment for the second time this afternoon.
‘No,’ I say, blushing. ‘But I just wanted to be sure, you know.’
Gilbey switches on a bright smile and stands up, clearly signifying I’ve wasted enough of her time.
‘Right, well thank you for coming in, Nina,’ she says, as I stand up miserably. ‘I’ll certainly take your thoughts into account. Now let me show you back to reception.’
We start to walk back down the narrow corridor and I feel so defeated I can barely drag myself along.
As we reach the doors to reception again, I turn to her.
‘Please,’ I say desperately. ‘I think he’s one of those men who gets away with it. I think he might be the kind who stays under the radar for years and destroys women’s lives.’
For a moment, I think there is some spark of interest in her eyes and then she holds out her hand and thanks me for coming in again.
That’s it. There’s nothing more I can do. I just have to trust the criminal justice system now and try to pick up the pieces of my life.
49
Angel
Angel stares down at the red droplets dotting the toilet paper and then wipes a little harder. There is only a little bit. Hardly anything, really.
She’s almost as surprised to see that her hand is shaking as at the sight of blood. Leaning over and opening the bathroom cupboard, she rummages for the package of sanitary towels at the back. Better to be safe than sorry. Humiliating enough to have to go and report to the police station in the first place without worrying about bleeding everywhere.
Plus, she has to work later.
Ron-the-creep had pretended he needed persuading to have her back; going on about criminal elements and how he reads the news like everyone else. But she had made sad eyes at him and even touched his fat arm as she assured him she was going to be a ‘really good girl’. He’d almost come in his pants as he pretended to reluctantly agree to a temporary contract.
Leon is getting up in the b
edroom next door and she hears his loud yawn and then humming as he looks for his running gear.
She hasn’t told him yet. Maybe she won’t even have to now.
Breakfast is swift.
She still doesn’t feel sick exactly, but most food feels a bit alien in her mouth. There are so many textures and smells in food that she hasn’t noticed before. She is particularly off the various forms of meat that Leon favours for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Angel has mainly been living on Coco Pops and plain crisps.
Outside, the world feels oppressed by the thick, white cloud encasing the sky and the air is unpleasantly sticky. Angel realizes she has come out without an umbrella – again – and grimaces as she makes her way to the bus stop, hoping it’s not going to piss down.
She has to take two buses to get to the police station, which is at the opposite end of town to the restaurant. As she strap-hangs on the first bus she looks down at a woman about her own age who has a baby in a sling against her chest. The baby is one of those unattractive ones with a big, bald head that’s laced with something yellow and crusty. But the woman keeps looking down at it as though there has never been a more beautiful creation.
Angel can’t stop watching her. She wonders if the woman is having to work at this love, like making sure you get your five-a-day or flossing your teeth. Or maybe it really is coming naturally to her. Then she thinks about her own mother – something she allows herself to do only in small, swift curtain-lifts in her brain – and concludes that, for some, love is easy.
Too easy, perhaps, when you think where it got her.
She has a two-hour slot to do the business at the police station and is in no hurry. It always makes her feel like some scumbag, the whole process. Like someone who belongs among the drunks and thieves and prozzies traipsing in and out all day.
Plus, it only highlights the fact that she is free; to an extent. And Lucas is in prison going through stuff she is too frightened to think about.
She’s asked her solicitor to find out how he is but not heard anything back yet. She decides she will chase him later.
