Close to You (ARC)

by Kerry Wilkinson

  I can’t come up with anything, so turn back to the room and head to the fridge, where I pour a glass of water from the filter. It’s cold and smooth and I can feel it clearing my thoughts. I can hardly call the police to report a missing pot – especially not when there’s no sign of anyone having broken in. I finish the first glass, so pour another, enjoying the fuzziness clearing. I’m going to go to the gym and run off a bit of the anxiety. I have some of my best ideas when my body is occupied and my mind is allowed to wander.

  My gym bag is at the bottom of my wardrobe, so I grab that, slip into a tracksuit and then grab my house and car keys from the counter.

  It’s when I get outside that I realise what’s wrong. It should have been obvious when I was looking through the window. The problem wasn’t the collapsed wall; it was what’s supposed to be in front of it. My car should be parked outside my door – except that it isn’t.

  At some point since I arrived home from the hotel three hours ago, it has disappeared.

  Eight

  I head around the corner of the block and look along both sides of the road. I’ll sometimes park my car at the front because it’s easier than trying to reverse between the various bins that people leave out. There are intermittent gaps in the cars from where residents have gone to work, but mine isn’t there. It won’t be – because I know I parked outside my front door.

  Back at the crumbling wall, I look for signs of broken glass, or some other indication that somebody smashed their way into my vehicle. I don’t know if things like hotwiring are possible with modern cars. What I do know is that the keys are in my hand.

  Except there is a second set.

  I hurry back inside, heading to the top drawer of the dresser at the side of my bed. I checked the obvious things – my passport and the cash – but it hadn’t crossed my mind to look for the other things I keep there.

  I take everything out of the drawer, piling my underwear on the bed next to my passport and the money. My chest starts to tighten as I stare at the now empty drawer. I look in the one underneath, but there’s no spare car key there. I know where it was – and I know that it’s gone.

  There’s no doubt now. The Tigger pot was a piece of clay with little monetary value. There was a chance it might have shown up in the coming days and I’d have remembered moving it. My car is another issue entirely.

  I’ve dialled two nines when I stop and query whether a stolen car counts as an emergency. There are those lists every year of people who dialled 999 because they’d lost their umbrellas, or something similar. I call 101 instead and wait on hold for a minute until a handler asks why I’m calling.

  ‘I think my car’s been stolen,’ I say.

  I hear a tap of a keyboard and then she checks my address and the registration plate. My mind instantly turns into an abyss in which I can barely remember any details about the vehicle. The colour, make, model, year and especially the plate number are up for grabs. I find a photo on my phone and describe that.

  When she has the details, the handler moves onto the specifics: ‘Where did you park the car?’ she asks.

  ‘Right outside my house.’

  ‘Is that a road, or…?’

  ‘Sort of a private driveway.’

  ‘OK… and have you checked along the street, just in case…?’

  It’s a fair question. I have visions of people calling the police because they’re on the wrong floor of the Tesco multi-storey – and their car is a level below.

  ‘I’ve looked,’ I reply. ‘It’s nowhere around here. I know where I left it anyway.’

  ‘Are there any signs of breakage around where the vehicle was parked?’

  ‘There’s no glass – but my spare set of keys are missing from my apartment.’

  The handler says, ‘I see’ as I hear the gentle clatter of a keyboard and then she replies with: ‘Are you saying you’ve been burgled – or could someone else have access to the keys?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Like a family member, something like that?’

  ‘I live on my own. The spare keys are kept at the back of one of my drawers. I’ve not checked on them in a while. I’ve not needed to.’

  ‘When did you last know the keys were there?’

  ‘A few weeks ago, maybe? I’m not sure.’

  ‘And does anybody else know where you keep the spare keys?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  There is a final clack of the keyboard and then: ‘OK. An officer can visit you this evening. You—’

  ‘This evening?’

  ‘That’s the earliest I can get anyone to you.’

  ‘I thought someone would come now…?’

  ‘I’m afraid that there’s nobody available.’ She says it with a twinge of a person who’s gone through this before. I’ve heard stories about there being no budgets and no officers. I guess a person only notices when something happens to them directly.

  We arrange for the officer to come around at nine to take a statement and then I hang up.

  I’ve not been entirely truthful. David knew where I kept my spare car keys. He also had a set of keys for the apartment. After I killed him, I didn’t really think to check where he had them. There are far deeper things going on in a person’s mind after an event like that.

  A few days afterwards, when it finally dawned on me, I assumed his keys were in a pocket, or something similar. There seemed little point in getting the locks changed, because it wasn’t as if he was coming back. It might have looked strange to the neighbours, too, if my husband had seemingly disappeared and then I promptly got a locksmith over to make sure he couldn’t get back in.

  Because of that, my next call is to an emergency locksmith. He says he’ll be right over and then I’m left sitting on the front step, staring at the gap where my car used to be. I check the road for a second time, figuring it would be typical if it was outside the front door after all. I’ll have to call the non-emergency number again to make clear that my car is outside my flat after all and that, yes, I will go for an eye exam.

  It’s almost a relief when it’s nowhere to be seen.

  Almost.

  The locksmith arrives twenty minutes later and pulls onto the spot where my car should be. He has brawny shoulders, a bit of a belly, dirty fingernails and hairy arms. The type of bloke who looks like he could probably install a bit of drywall.

  There is minimal fuss as he gets on with the job. I wait on the kerb outside as he drills out the old locks and then hammers in a new one with measured brutality. I spy some of the neighbours’ curtains flickering and don’t blame them, though it might be helpful if a couple of them were being nosey when my car was being stolen. I fiddle with my phone, zooming in on Jane’s photo and then swiping away to skim through my Twitter feed. It’s hard to remember what people used to do before phones came along. Sit alone on benches and kerbs like complete lunatics?

  ‘That’s it, love,’ the locksmith says after a while.

  I head back to my door as he clears away the debris with a handheld vacuum. He hands me three shiny keys and then presses onto the bonnet of his van as he scribbles out an invoice. I can hardly complain – and I’m certain he’s not ripping me off – but the price is up there with motorway service stations for relation to the real world.

  He must see it in my face: ‘You did say you wanted it as an emergency,’ he says.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I reply, ‘I’ll do a bank transfer by the end of the day. I’d pay cash but…’ I tail off and pat my pockets as if to indicate something he probably hears most days. I always feel bad about homeless people. They sit around asking for change but who carries around coins nowadays? It’s all tap-tap-tap, with either phones or cards.

  I wait in the doorway as the locksmith heads off and then try all three of the new keys. The lock is smoother than the previous one and, when I get inside, I do another lap of the flat, checking for either my car keys, or the pot from the counter. By the time I’m back where
I’m started, it’s at the point where I am struggling to deny what’s in front of me any longer. Aside from David being back, what other explanation is there? He was in the photo. Someone got into my flat – and it was only he who had keys.

  I’m in the living room, gazing aimlessly out towards the spot where my car should be parked, when a police vehicle pulls in. An officer clambers out from either side and they put their hats on in unison. One is a good head taller than the other, as if they’ve been paired together purely for someone else’s amusement.

  I get to the front door before they do and the taller of the two jolts back with alarm when I open it a moment before he was about to knock.

  ‘I thought you were coming over tonight?’ I say.

  The officer blinks and glances to his colleague before turning back to me. ‘Sorry?’

  There’s that horrible moment in which it feels like everyone in an awkward situation is looking to everyone else. It’s quickly apparent to all of us that they’re here for a different reason.

  ‘Are you Morgan Persephone?’ he asks, rhyming my name with ‘telephone’.

  ‘Per-sef-oh-knee,’ I say.

  ‘Morgan Per-sef-oh-knee…?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And you drive a black Volkswagen Golf…?’

  ‘Yes. Have you found it?’

  They exchange another momentary glance and I know in that half-second that something terrible has happened.

  ‘We have found it,’ the officer says. ‘It was involved in a collision with a pedestrian.’

  My stomach gurgles noisily; a clingy child desperately wanting attention. It feels like everything’s stopped and I find myself parroting along.

  ‘A pedestrian?’

  The officer clamps his lips together grimly. ‘I think it might be better if you come to the station.’

  ‘The station?’

  His expression doesn’t move and it takes a good two or three seconds for me to figure it out. When I do, it seems so obvious.

  ‘You think I was driving…?’

  Nine

  I’ve never been breathalysed before. It’s one of those things I’ve seen on TV; something that could only ever happen to somebody else.

  I’m still outside my flat when the officer asks whether I’ve recently cleaned my teeth or used mouthwash. When I say I haven’t, he removes a plastic tube from a sealed bag and inserts it into a small black box. He talks me through the process, as if I’ve never figured out how to breathe before, and then I end up blowing into the tube until there’s nothing left in my lungs. He pulls the device away and stares at the front. I know I only had one drink early in the evening at the awards last night and yet there’s still a part of me that is terrified I’ll somehow test positive. It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when having a few drinks and then driving home was the norm.

  ‘Does it matter that I’ve not eaten?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’

  The officer is offering his best poker face. If there’s some sort of error, I’ll be tarnished, regardless of my innocence. What would be the point in arguing with science?

  It feels like an age until he peers up and says, ‘All clear.’

  I start to sigh with relief and only catch myself afterwards when I realise it could seem like I was pleased to be getting away with something.

  * * *

  Police interview rooms on television always seem so much brighter and bigger than the one in which I am now sitting. I was expecting that at least one of the walls would be a mirror with someone on the other side, but there’s none of that. Instead, it’s four concrete walls, a heavy door and a pair of cameras fixed to the wall. The lighting is like something from a grungy 70s movie, leaving everything with a browny hue, as if I’m living in a sepia photograph.

  I’ve already been through my story once, but I don’t need to be a detective to understand why they have issues. I assumed the officers who came out to breathalyse me would be doing the interviewing, but I’ve not seen them since they brought me here.

  Sergeant Kidman does most of the speaking. She’s a little older than me, though not by much. She’s got one of those faces as if she lost an argument with a wall at some point: a cross between a dumpling and an axe. I can easily imagine her arguing with a supermarket cashier over an out-of-date coupon.

  ‘I don’t think I understand why you left the hotel in the middle of the night,’ she says.

  There’s a table between us, so at least TV police shows don’t lie about everything.

  ‘Is the victim all right?’ I ask.

  Sergeant Kidman looks to the officer next to her. I can’t remember his rank but his last name is Robinson. He’s barely said a word.

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ Kidman says.

  ‘Are they… um…?’ I tail off, not quite able to put it into words. I’ve not been told whether the pedestrian hit by my car was a man or woman. I know almost nothing about what happened.

  ‘Are they what?’ Kidman asks.

  ‘Dead.’

  She pauses, letting me squirm, though I try to sit still.

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ she adds.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about what happened?’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll come to that, Ms Persephone. For now, I’d like to talk about everything that led up to it.’

  She pronounces my name right, which almost nobody does, and I wonder how much she knows about me. After David supposedly disappeared, I had little option other than to go along with the appeals for his return. Plenty has been written about me in the past couple of years and it’s not like I’ve got one of those names that can be confused with some physicist who lives in Durban. If people Google my name, it is me who shows up.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ I ask.

  ‘Why did you leave the hotel in the middle of the night?’

  ‘The bed was uncomfortable,’ I reply.

  ‘Did you mention this to anyone at the hotel?’

  ‘No. I just left.’

  ‘It seems strange that you’d pay for a hotel and then leave at half past two in the morning.’

  ‘That’s what happened. I thought I’d sleep better at home.’

  ‘You’re saying that, at sometime between two and half past two this morning, you decided a hotel bed was too uncomfortable and drove two and a half hours home to get some sleep?’

  She makes it sound as if I’d decided to pop to the Moon to buy a KitKat.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say.

  I’m trying to sound confident because it’s all I have. I can hardly tell her that I was spooked because I thought I saw my former husband in a photograph. My dead former husband.

  It’s as if she can read my mind when she replies with: ‘Was there any other reason you left the hotel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me for pushing the point, it’s just that not many people check out of a hotel they’ve paid for at two-thirty in the morning.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what other people do…’

  There’s a tiny amount of satisfaction as she leans back in her seat and I get the sense that she knows she’s getting nothing more from me on this.

  One of the things I came to learn in the weeks after I killed David was that I’m an incredible liar. I suppose everyone has their talents – perhaps acting or singing; playing football, or the ability to wear Burberry and not look like stained wallpaper. One of mine is that I can look a person dead in the eye and come out with the most outlandish nonsense while not flinching. Confidence is everything. I’ve wondered since what that makes me; whether there’s something wrong. About a year ago, I read that, if a true psychopath has the ability to question if they’re a psycho, then they are definitely not. I’ll take that, I suppose – but I’m still one hell of a liar.

  ‘Were you with anyone?’ Kidman asks.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you checked out of the hotel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about in t
he car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘At home?’

  ‘After the awards, I went to bed and I was by myself until the locksmith turned up at my flat.’

  Kidman makes a point of turning to her colleague and muttering, ‘We can get CCTV from the hotel to check that.’

  If I was lying about that part then I might have reason to worry – but that side of my story will check out.

  ‘Did you drive straight home?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which route did you take?’

  It’s a simple question, but I end up stumbling over it, getting the name of the A-road wrong and then correcting myself. I might be a good liar, but I don’t pay attention to road signs. Kidman seems uninterested by these details in any case.

  ‘How much did you drink at the awards dinner?’ she asks.

  ‘I passed the breathalyser test.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘I had a small glass of wine at the very beginning. It was a welcome drink that everyone got when they walked in.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Perhaps seven o’clock?’

  Kidman makes a note of this on a pad and then leaves a gap. It took me a while to realise how often police do this. They create an uncomfortable silence which the person they’re speaking to feels obliged to fill. At first, I’d keep talking, but then I learned to shut up and wait for whatever was next. On this occasion, I don’t mind playing a little dumber than I am.

  ‘I’m not very good with alcohol,’ I add. ‘I’ve never been a big drinker.’

  Kidman nods along, though doesn’t write anything. She’s twiddles a pen between her thumb and forefinger – and perhaps it’s that which sends me back to my living room after what happened with David. That was the last time I was interviewed properly by the police. It was far less formal then, with an officer named Sparks asking the questions. He was an old, grey-haired guy and I got the sense he was winding down to retirement. It was as I was making tea on the exact spot that David died when I convinced myself that I could get through it all.