She thinks of David Smith, and all the strangers she’s written to. She takes a deep breath and decides to ask. To be brave. To confront, rather than avoid.
‘I ruined your alibi,’ she says to Gabe. ‘They didn’t include my evidence at your trial because I wasn’t certain. But I told the police.’
‘I know,’ he says.
‘How?’
‘Police told me. Later on, via my lawyer, that you hadn’t corroborated it.’
‘I’m sorry, I … I thought he was … he said goodbye to me, a couple of days before, and he drove off in the van.’
‘I know. He didn’t return the van until the first. There was much made of that, at my trial. All sorts of people were called to say some people keep the vans for days after moving to buy new furniture, and some return them as soon as possible … but they couldn’t trace him. They tried so hard, Matt tried so fucking hard, Iz, but David Smith rented the van registered to his Isle of Wight house, and he gave nothing more than his full name. Paid cash. Bum luck, that’s what it was. The whole damn thing.’
‘I’m sorry. I was asked without warning. I was –’
‘You were seventeen,’ he says tightly. ‘It’s fine. It’s just … that was one of the things which began all the suspicion. Sadly.’ He shrugs, saying nothing more.
She fiddles with a loose spindle of wood on the decking, the silence hanging between them.
‘I know, but I spoke too soon, maybe …’
‘Don’t,’ he says, pulling off his shoes and socks, ready to dangle his feet into the water.
‘It’ll be freezing,’ Izzy says.
He ignores her warning.
‘I didn’t know. He was probably just saying goodbye to me in case he didn’t see me again.’
‘Iz, it’s fine,’ her father says, turning his head sideways to her.
His expression is unreadable, and she narrows her eyes, looking at him. The scent of summer is in the air. Lurid smells, flowers that have bloomed too quickly and are now dying in the heat. A kind of fetid greenness. ‘Really,’ he adds. ‘It was bad timing. It all is. Death by a thousand cuts.’
‘A thousand cuts?’
‘A thousand small, innocent things, done at the wrong time, adding up to – well, to this,’ he says. He swishes his feet in the water. ‘I haven’t been submerged in water for twenty years. Do you know how that feels?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ she says.
‘No.’ He says it softly, non-judgementally. ‘Nobody except a prison guard has touched me for years.’
It’s an unusual admission from her usually stoical father. Izzy scoots closer to him, saying nothing.
They look out across the lake, then he gets to his feet. He leaves wet footprints on the decking. A thousand childhood holiday memories assault her. The slap of his feet around a swimming pool as he taught her how to dive. Sitting together, sweating in a sauna, and arguing over their Desert Island Discs – he had included Puff Daddy on his, which she thought was bizarre. That time they had gone jogging together, one Christmas Day, and had spent the entire time laughing so hard their stomach muscles hurt. The way those tanned, elegant feet of his became paint-splattered in his shipping container in the summer as he sat on his stool, perfectly still. Sometimes, she’d go and watch him paint, a spectator sport. Eventually, he kept a second stool there, and got it out whenever she arrived. It had a brown leather top.
She looks out over the calm blue water. It’s a kind of greyish blue, a bland background to the cyan-blue sky and the green leaves on the trees.
‘So that’s everything,’ she says.
‘That’s my side of it, anyway.’
‘Why was your DNA under her fingernails?’
Her father looks across at her, his expression quizzical. He picks up his coat, discarded a few feet away, to sit on. ‘We were husband and wife.’ He gives her a significant look. ‘We loved each other.’
She nods, not saying anything. So here it is. Every memory, laid out. And nothing has changed. What did she expect? Evidence, she supposes. Missed evidence that would exonerate him – a message from David Smith, maybe – or more concrete evidence that would underpin his conviction. What she really wanted, she guesses, was for them to crack the case. For their memories to inform each other and to hit upon something. Something missed. Something significant. But there’s nothing. Her father is right: it’s just a mess.
‘I really thought we might get somewhere,’ Izzy says.
Her father shrugs and sits down next to her, putting his feet into the water again. ‘You can’t prove a negative.’ He crosses his legs at the ankles. She can see only his shins, disappearing to a blurred nothing in the murky water. ‘That’s the thing. That’s been the thing this whole damn time. Once you’re accused, that’s it. You can only try to tear down their suspicions. Tell them, again and again, that you don’t know where she went. That you don’t know who might’ve seen her. And hope that you can chip away at their evidence. But you can’t ever disprove it. And you can’t ever stop them thinking it. Because they make their minds up, and then everything – absolutely everything – you do looks guilty. If you stay put, you look guilty. If you go out and look for her, you’re covering your tracks. If you don’t check the shipping container, it’s because you knew where she was. If you do check it, it’s to get in before the police and dispose of evidence. It’s endless. The skewed perspective. I was guilty from day one.’
‘Yes,’ Izzy says, thinking of the men – and women – she sometimes sees on the news. Parents accused of murdering their children. Outliers of society accused because they looked weird, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lynch mobs forming, based on nothing – on conjecture, on judgement, on gossip. Even when they’re exonerated by DNA or cast-iron alibis or the real perpetrator having been caught, they are ruined. What do they do, these people, in the afterworld? The world that exists after such a serious allegation? What can they do?
‘Who visited you?’ she asks.
‘Inside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Paul. My parents. That’s it.’
‘Wow.’
‘To be honest, nobody visited much.’
‘Why not?’
He lets out a sigh; a sad, melancholy sound like a pipe being let down. ‘That’s lifers for you. I may as well have emigrated. People move on. They have to move on. I would never encourage them not to. I told them to.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yeah. They can’t wait around for twenty years. Especially not for a waste of space.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Izzy says, her hand fluttering to her chest. ‘No, you’re not a waste of space.’
‘Oh, but I am,’ he says, looking at her, eyes dark in the shadow of the sun. ‘Anyway,’ he swings his feet out of the lake, showering them both with cool water droplets, ‘I was going to take a walk to one of the nice estates. You want to come? Deliver some flyers?’
‘It’s a nice day for it.’
Her father looks up, as though noticing for the first time. He puts his trainers on, then hands her half of the flyers, crumpled from his coat pocket.
‘There’s no name on it. Just a number,’ she says, studying one.
His expression stops her saying anything further. Of course. Of course he hasn’t put his name on them.
They walk out of the farm and turn left down a long, wide street. The grass verges on either side have been highlighted by the sun, their strands a honeyed yellow. The trees are in full bloom, shaggy and green like it’s July, and even in the dappled shade it isn’t cool.
‘Are you just going to post a flyer through each letter box?’
‘I guess,’ he says.
They stand at the bottom of a bungalow’s long driveway. The walls are white, the sky a Persian blue behind it.
‘Know what this reminds me of?’ he says, looking up at the house.
‘What?’
‘Your paper round.’
She smiles. She’d taken on
a paper round when she was fourteen. She’d thought she’d enjoy the early mornings, the sun on her shoulders, walking around the neighbourhood. Sleeping houses, dogs at letter boxes. A glorified walk, and more money to spend on ballet shoes. But she hadn’t. The bag had made her arm ache. It had taken hours, for hardly any money, in all weathers. In the end, her father had come with her, before her mother got up. He held the bag for her, and they’d chatted.
She supposes there aren’t paper rounds any more.
‘That one has scaffolding,’ Gabe says, pointing down the road.
‘Go, ring the doorbell. It’s worth a shot,’ she says. She gives him an encouraging smile, just the way he did to her when she was delivering her papers.
‘No, they … I don’t know. They won’t want to be disturbed.’
They begin walking slowly towards the house.
‘Go and give them your leaflet,’ she says. ‘They’re beautiful.’
‘Okay,’ he says. He takes a steadying breath and walks up the driveway which bends and curves out of view.
She hears the doorbell ring out into the afternoon. She turns away, looking back down the street, her lower back sweating, her arms warmed by the sun. She hears nothing for a moment, then his footsteps, his light tread, on the driveway.
‘Let’s go,’ he says, appearing on the pavement next to her.
‘Go?’
‘I can’t do this,’ he says, and she sees his hands are shaking. He thrusts the flyers into her hands.
‘What – what happened?’
‘Nothing, nothing,’ he says, ushering her down the street. ‘Shit, come on. They’ve probably answered by now.’
‘You didn’t wait?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh … I just can’t. I just can’t do this. I … I’d have to buy the equipment.’
‘I can buy the equipment.’
They are walking back to her car. He continues as though she hasn’t spoken.
‘I’d have to be there on time and bring a … bring a lunch? I haven’t made a lunch for eighteen years. I’d be alone and … How do I paint a wall again? I don’t know how. I’d have to pay my taxes and National Insurance. Do they still have that? And buy a car and … I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.’
‘It’s fine, it’s fine, let’s just …’ Izzy looks at her father. He’s breathing shallowly, his eyes darting around. Anxiety, she guesses. ‘Let’s just … sit,’ she says, leading him a little way down the road and sitting down on the kerb. It’s a quiet road, and his breathing seems to slow in the silence.
‘Let’s take it one step at a time,’ she says. ‘You remember how to paint – you do the sugar soap, the masking tape.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he says. His head is in his hands, little white strands of hair curling around his fingers. ‘It’s not just that,’ he says. ‘It’s everything.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can you speak to your probation officer?’
‘Maybe I should. I just don’t know where to start.’ He swallows, and she sees his eyes are wet again. He reaches down and begins pulling at the straw-like grass. ‘Why do you think people go to prison, Izzy?’
‘Because they have done bad things,’ Izzy says, picking up a tiny hot stone with squared-off edges from beside the kerb and rolling it between her forefinger and thumb.
‘To protect the public. To punish the person. To deter other members of the public from committing crimes. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘So inside, they make my meals for me. They lock me up. They stop me voting for my MP. They socialize me with people who have done similar things to me. They stop me working. They don’t give me access to normal people. They parent me. Mobile phones aren’t allowed. My own clothes aren’t allowed. They don’t let me have access to a television unless I behave in an exemplary way. If I’m really, really good, I can earn points to play on a PlayStation – old games, non-violent games. And they seriously think, they seriously fucking think, that people don’t mind giving up everything. That they’d knowingly choose to trade it all – seeing their wife, their kids – because they get a PlayStation inside. An easy life. That it isn’t a punishment.’
‘Yes. Some people do think that.’
‘So,’ her father leans back on his hands, looking at her, squinting in that way of his, in the sunshine, ‘at the end of it. When it’s all been done. The public are protected from me. I am punished. People are deterred, right?’
‘Right.’
‘But what about me?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, what do I know how to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Izzy says quietly. There is something belligerent about her father’s tone, like he is giving a drunken political speech at a dinner party where nobody has asked for his opinion.
‘I’ll tell you what I know how to do: I know how to smuggle heroin into prison using drones and dead pigeons. I know how to start and stop a fight. I know how to make a knife out of a broken razor blade and refrigerated toothpaste. And what do I not know how to do?’
‘What?’
‘Well, vote in an election. Pay my taxes. Rent a house. Trust that my neighbours aren’t plotting to kill me. Catch a bus. Send an email on these flat things you have that you call tablets that look like kids’ toys to me. Cook a meal not in a kettle. Attend an interview. Be a part of society.’
‘So … but you can learn. You know you can.’
‘I can’t, Izzy. It’s not that I don’t know how to do these tasks. It’s that I don’t know how to organize my life. The system has gobbled me up and spat me out. I’ve served my purpose. I’ve deterred people. And now they’ve disposed of me.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘Do you remember our postman?’
‘Er … not really,’ Izzy says, confused.
‘Well, I do. He was called Ray. You know, I saw him most mornings. I thought nothing of it. We used to talk about football – he was a Newport fan.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, anyway. I avoid my postman now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t deal with it. For eighteen years, every single one of my relationships has been divided into two things: officer or fellow inmate. I don’t know how to talk to him. I don’t know how to have normal relationships.’
‘You’re managing with me.’
He looks sideways at her. Even now, in the sun, in the middle of the longest heatwave for years, he looks sallow. He says nothing. Doesn’t need to, perhaps.
‘It’s just life, Iz. I’ve not cooked a meal or posted a letter or worked for a non-prison employer or taken a walk or set my own bedtime or driven myself somewhere or been really, truly alone for nearly twenty years. I don’t know how to do life. I’m so fucking angry about that.’
‘It’s okay to be angry,’ Izzy says softly, speaking before she’s even thought about what she’s saying. But it is. It is okay to be angry. She’s been so phobic about it for all these years, and with no reason. She’s not a monster. She is good. And maybe he is, too.
He sits on the pavement, puts his head in his hands, and cries. The sobs echo in the quiet street.
After a while, he pulls his deck of cards out of his pocket. They play pontoon, wordlessly, father and daughter, by the side of the road in the sun. It helps them to forget.
She loses herself in it.
It is only on her way home, in her car, that she truly lets herself think of it. So he knows. He knows about the alibi. Where previously she’d thought there would be a dramatic moment, a confession, a showdown when he found out she’d ruined his alibi, here, there was nothing. Just a quiet admission that he already knew.
And that he wasn’t angry.
Or was he?
She replays the set of his jaw when they were talking about David Smith. He had looked angry. He looked irritated, to her. She is sure of it. She thinks again of her mother�
�s debt, her alleged affair and thinks: this is a man who bears a grudge, and it is only when she’s alone that she can fathom it. When she is with him, all she can see is him, like he is the sun, and everything else is left in shadow, starved of light.
Izzy stops for petrol on the way home. A familiar figure is filling his car up in front of her as she queues. She wonders why she recognizes the set of this man’s shoulders, his fluid movements. For a second, she wonders if it’s Pip, but it’s not: it’s Steve, his stepfather.
She stares at him as he fills up, her eyes roving over him, willing him to see her and to ignore her, all at once. She’s amazed she hasn’t seen him before: the island is so small she sees people from her childhood all the time, but never him, until now.
There’s a movement in the passenger seat. She leans forward, squinting. She can just about make out a blond head. Pip. It’s Pip.
Steve opens the passenger door and he and Pip go into the shop together, laughing at some newspaper headline or other. Izzy’s eyes burn as she looks at them in the queue. Pip is still slender, his shoulders tapering to a neat waist. He still has the same walk, too, a kind of cheerful gait. He’s dressed youthfully, in faded jeans and a grey hoody. Izzy is surprised to feel a lurch of desire as she looks at and remembers his body.
Steve smiles and claps Pip on the shoulder right before they pay, and Pip selects a bag of Maltesers at the last minute. Yes, that’s right. He liked the same sort of foods as her. Cheap chocolate.
As they approach their car, Steve seems to sense Izzy’s eyes on him, and he turns to look at her. She raises her eyebrows, her hand in a wave, but he turns away from her. He says something to Pip, who keeps his eyes downcast in the exact way people do when they’re told not to look. As they drive off, Pip’s eyes meet hers, just briefly, just once, through his window. There’s an expression on his face she can’t read.
Pity, she realizes as she pays for her petrol. It was pity.
She must have been looking at them too intently. Contacting them. Looking for families. The island leper.
Nick is waiting for Izzy when she gets home. If he is wondering where she has been, he doesn’t say. He keeps it inside; a metaphorical evidence file of her misdemeanours, this man that she loves. He looks over his shoulder at her as she arrives in their kitchen. Something about the expression on his face, or maybe the dim lamplight, takes her back to the night they moved in.
The Evidence Against You Page 26