by S K Sharp
Kat makes a face. ‘It was more than three decades ago. They’ll probably be dead.’ She drags me to a waiting taxi, tells the driver to take us to her flat, then pokes me.
‘What?’
‘I don’t mean to pry but … is there something going on between you and Declan again?’
The question shocks me back to the present. ‘What? No!’
‘I’m just trying to understand why you’re getting so involved in all of this. You guys split up more than two decades ago. I know, for you, it’s still like it was yesterday, but in a way that makes even less sense.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Why are you putting yourself through all this? Why not let it go? Let the police do their thing. If he’s innocent – I mean, it’s been thirty-five years … It would be hard enough to prove he did it even if he did, unless they had a witness. So why?’
‘I …’ Truth is, I’ve been asking myself the same question. I don’t know why I’m playing amateur detective. I could say it’s because I know Declan didn’t do it, but it’s more than that. Maybe Kat thinks it’s because I want him back, but it’s not that, either. I’m not sure it’s even about Declan at all. I can’t seem to let it go. I remember what I saw but I still don’t understand what happened.
‘I don’t know. It feels like … it feels like if I could help him, it would make things right.’
Kat snorts. ‘He was the one having an affair!’
I don’t want to talk about me and Declan. ‘I keep thinking about the man you saw in the park. Whether it really was my dad or whether it was someone else. And if so, who.’
Kat shakes her head. ‘I was so sure. But if it wasn’t your dad …’
I’m sinking into myself, the cold and now the warmth getting the better of me. I feel odd. Numb and sleepy. ‘What is it?’
‘The police are still charging Dec, even after you told them he was with you. I mean, you were with Dec, and I was with Gary, and if Dec did do it …’ She gives me a pointed look. ‘Or Gary or me – or you, for that matter – well, we were all with other people until after midnight. So the police must think it happened later; but if it was after midnight when he died, then where the hell did Arty go for all that time? It was his party, for God’s sake! His moment, his chance to show off all the money he had and everything he’d done and how everyone loved him.’ She wraps an arm round my shoulders. ‘No. Trust me. Arty Robbins had too much of an ego. He wouldn’t have missed all that. Whatever happened, it happened while you were with Dec.’
‘He was looking for you,’ I say.
Kat makes a helpless gesture. ‘Are we saying he wandered around the park for hours in the dark, hoping he’d find me hiding under a bush or something?’
Maybe we are. ‘I don’t know. What if it was Dad you saw? What if Mum isn’t telling me the truth?’
‘Why wouldn’t she?’
I shake my head. I don’t know how to explain that summer. There was something between her and Dave, whatever she says, whatever Chloe Clarke thinks.
‘Anyway, you said it yourself. Whoever killed Arty Robbins went down into that hole to cover him up. And it rained that morning, so they would have been covered in mud. Not just a few streaks on a jacket.’ Kat flashes me a smile like she’s done something clever. ‘Now, we need to get you in a nice hot bath. But,’ and she squeezes my hand, ‘please don’t let anyone else find out about me and Arty, OK?’
She takes me back to her flat and puts me in the bath, and puts my clothes in the washing machine, lends me some of her own and feeds me hot chocolate until I feel better. Then she takes me out to lunch and we talk about her mum and her photographs, and the holidays they had before her dad left. I ask her who she thinks killed Arty Robbins and Kat says we’ll probably never know, but certainly not Declan, and I should tell him she said so. It’s like magic, the way Kat can make everything OK again.
When I get home, there’s a message from Declan waiting on my answerphone, asking me to call. He sounds scared. When I ring, he picks up almost at once.
‘Nix, thank God!’ His voice drops low. ‘I know why they’re charging me. They notified my solicitor this morning. I know what they’ve got.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘That test they cocked up first time around? They found blood under Dad’s fingernails. It’s mine. They’ve got my DNA.’
15
Saturday 8th to Tuesday 11th February 2020
I never told anyone what happened that night when Arty Robbins burst into Declan’s room and didn’t know I was there too, hiding under the bed. After a couple of days, when it turned out that Arty had gone missing, it didn’t seem to matter – I was simply glad he’d gone. For a long time, I used to imagine that Declan and I were the only ones who knew the truth, that no one else knew what his dad was really like; but, of course, we weren’t. Anne Robbins certainly knew, even if she pretended that she didn’t. I think Mum and Dad knew, too – Dad with his good riddance to bad rubbish. Maybe everyone knew, and it was just that no one ever said anything. Maybe that’s what you got for buying the school a new minibus.
Declan asked me, years later, if I could imagine what it was like having that as the last memory of his dad. The last memory I have of my own dad, hollowed out by cancer, isn’t much better, but at the time it made me think of Kat, who has no memories of her real dad at all.
And for a moment I’m back with Detective Scott asking, Was Daniel Robbins there that night?
‘Nix? Nix! Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘I don’t know who else to talk to. My solicitor called. I have to go back to court next week. Wednesday. They’re going to revoke my bail. They’re going to lock me up, Nix. Nix, I didn’t do it. I don’t really remember what happened that night after you left, but I swear I didn’t kill him. I’d remember that! I know I would.’
All those years living together and not a whisper of suspicion? No. And I don’t care how long ago it was – you don’t forget a murder. ‘Declan, it’s just a mistake, OK? It’s all going to be—’
‘Don’t! Don’t tell me it’s going to be OK. Because it’s not going to be OK.’
‘Declan, you didn’t—’
‘Nix, you’re not listening!’ I can almost hear him tearing at his hair – what’s left of it. ‘This is what they’ve been waiting for. I’m done! They found blood under Dad’s fingernails. My blood. They’re not going to drop the charges; they’re going to put me on trial!’
On the phone, as Declan tells me how he’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison, I try to talk him down. I go through it all again – everything I remember from that evening. I tell him he needs to inform the police about the fight with his dad and that he should call me as soon as he hears anything. And then I let him go, and I call the police station myself and ask to speak to Detective Scott. I’m going to tell him how the blood under Arty Robbins’ fingernails was from Declan’s smashed nose, and about the bloody hand-print on Declan’s shirt. He probably won’t believe me – not after I’ve already given a statement and told them how perfectly I remember things and yet somehow never mentioned this – but I’ll stand up and say it all again in court, if I have to. I’m not going to let this happen. I’m not going to let Declan go to jail when I know he didn’t do it.
It’s already dark outside but Detective Scott is still at work. I tell him about the fight, about the blood. He asks me to come in next Tuesday after lunch to make another formal statement. He asks why I didn’t mention all of this before. I tell him the truth: that I thought I was doing the right thing; that he didn’t ask and I didn’t see the point when I knew that Arty Robbins was already missing by the time I left Declan’s house; that I thought it would only make things more complicated. He isn’t happy but I don’t care. When I’m done, I feel almost … elated. It’s silly, perhaps, but I finally know what it is they’ve got on Declan, and I know how to fight it.
I call Declan again.
/> ‘They’re going to think we made it up,’ he says when I tell him about giving a second statement. ‘Now we know what they’ve got, they’re going to say it’s all lies.’ I can hear it in him – how he’s all but given up.
‘Not if we can show them.’ I tell him about Chloe Clarke’s photographs. ‘They’ll be here in a couple of days. I can bring them over. We can go through them together.’
‘Sure.’ He sounds beaten.
‘You might be in one of them. If they can see that you had a black eye, or swollen nose, or bruised cheek, or busted lip, it’ll prove we’re telling the truth.’
‘And what if I’m not in any of them?’
‘You said you went back to the Shelley after midnight.’
‘Doesn’t mean I’m in any of Chloe’s photographs.’
‘We’ll know who was still there. I’ll remember their names, and your solicitor can call them; and we’ll find a witness who remembers you looking like you’d been punched in the face. It’s going to be fine.’
‘What if there isn’t anyone who remembers?’
‘Meet me in Wordsworth Park on Tuesday, after I’ve talked to the police,’ I say. ‘Mid-afternoon, by the entrance from the station. There’s a bench there. You know the one.’ Of course he does.
‘You know I’m back in court on Wednesday?’
‘I’ll tell you how it went, what questions they asked. We’ll go and have coffee in that café next to the playground. It’s really good.’ I have no idea if it’s any good or not, but right now it’s the only positive thing I can think of to say. ‘We can go and talk to your solicitor, if you want; tell them about the photographs and everything. Their office is in Wordsworth Park, isn’t it? I should have the photographs by Wednesday morning. We can go through them and find out who the people are, and then we can start calling them. I’ll … I’ll take Wednesday off work.’
‘OK.’ It’s a dull, mechanical assent, like he can’t think of a good enough reason to say no.
‘Declan, when you said you saw Gary in the Shelley later that night … what time was that? You said he looked rough.’ Kat says that Gary was with her, but he can’t have been, not for the whole night.
‘Christ, I don’t know. Look, sorry. I’ve … There’s something I’m looking into about Uncle Dan.’
‘Kat’s dad? The police asked about him, too. What’s he—’
‘Mum says she saw him there that night. I don’t see how, but … Sorry. I’ve got to go.’ He hangs up.
Dried blood from thirty-five years ago. Hard to believe, but when I can’t sleep at half-past three in the morning and google it, I find they’ve used DNA to solve cases going back further still: fifty years and more.
After a lazy, disjointed Sunday spent dozing, watching telly and fretting, I get nothing done at work on Monday. Ed flutters around my desk more often than usual, until I lose my temper and snap at him to stop harassing me, saying that I can’t concentrate. I storm out, memories looping through my head, over and over. Wednesday night with Declan. Gary, thirty-five years ago, skulking in the corner shadows of the Shelley, not watching Mum losing her temper with Arty Robbins but watching Kat … And then outside: Tell me and I’ll fucking kill him! Kat says she never told Gary about her and Arty Robbins, but I remember the way he looked at her a week ago when she told him that Arty was dead. He was looking at her to see how he should react. He knew. He knew.
I head home from the library and wander aimlessly into a café. Anywhere to sit down. The memories are coming like waves, over and over, the same scenes. Kat and Gary in the car park of the Shelley. Kat watching Mum laying into Arty Robbins. The way Gary looked at Kat last weekend. The more I relive those moments, the surer I am.
Gary.
Gary and Kat left the Shelley right after me and Dec. If I had to guess, I’d say Gary took her to his stupid van in the Secret Car Park. They must have been there for quite a while. Detective Scott would laugh at me if I told him, but what if Gary did know? Maybe Kat never told him, but what if he figured it out?
If I could find out who it was they saw heading into the park – if they’re still alive, if they can remember something …
If, if, if. And yet something still doesn’t add up.
I take a taxi home. Safer than taking a bus and having to pay attention to where I am. When I get back, there’s a message on my answerphone. Someone I’ve never met or heard of before called Emily, calling from the HR department at the library. Apparently, there was some incident at work this morning. It takes an age before I realise that she’s calling about me storming out. I don’t call back because I don’t know what to say.
Tuesday rolls round after an agony of waiting. I wake up to find an email: my photographs have been dispatched. Delivery expected this afternoon. I call work and leave a message to say I’m taking the day off because I’m not feeling well, and almost at once I get a call back. The same Emily who left yesterday’s message. She asks if I’ll be back in tomorrow and, if I am, could I drop in at nine-thirty to discuss the issues I’m having. I tell her yes, of course, and that I’m sorry about what happened. I’m not, but that’s what she wants to hear, and it’ll make her go away.
On the stroke of midday, I head to Wordsworth Park. I grab a sandwich and get to the police station and ask for Detective Scott, but Detective Scott has been called out and no one seems quite sure what to do with me. I wait and wait, tight as a drum, until eventually a policewoman I’ve never seen before comes to take my statement. She doesn’t know me, doesn’t know the case. I tell her about the night with Dec and about Arty Robbins bursting in on us and what he did. I don’t say anything about Kat or about Dad’s jacket or Chloe’s photographs. When it comes to all that, to be honest, I wouldn’t know where to start. She records it all and doesn’t ask any questions, and suddenly it’s over and I’m free to go, and it all feels like a crushing anticlimax. Half an hour later, I’m sitting beside Declan on the bench by the entrance to Wordsworth Park, tugging on my vaporiser. Declan is silent and far away, like he really doesn’t want to be here. I’ve told him everything. Telling him about his dad abusing Kat was horrible, like I’ve betrayed a friend; which I suppose I have, but I had to tell him, because how else will he understand why I think that maybe it was his friend, Gary Barclay, who killed his dad?
‘We could still go for coffee,’ I say, ‘if you like.’ I’m wandering through memories of the evening after the Shelley: the two of us sitting against the tyre-swing tree, no one else around, knowing I’ll be grounded for the rest of my life as soon as I get home, knowing that Dec is going to go away and that it might all be over …
He taps the police tracker on his ankle. ‘My solicitor says it’s a bad idea for us to talk.’ He looks at me, waiting for some sort of reply. Huffs, when he doesn’t get one. ‘Mum’s back in the flat now. I don’t like to leave her on her own for too long, if I don’t have to.’
‘If you want any help with your mum,’ I start, but he shakes his head.
‘Can’t lay that on you,’ he says. ‘Besides, she can mostly look after herself. It’s just …’
It’s just that if they put Declan on trial for murder and he’s found guilty, they’ll lock him up for twenty years, and his mum will be dead before he gets out.
‘I’ll bring her to see you,’ I say. ‘I promise.’
‘Thanks, but …’
A different but. She hates me? She’d refuse to see her own son?
He knows about the photographs. He knows Gary and Kat saw someone in the park before midnight; and if Dad was alive then I’d simply ask him if it really was him, and why he was there and whether he saw anything. But he isn’t, and that means asking Mum, and I already did that, and she said that she and Dad were together; and I know she was lying, and I thought she was lying because she was with Dave, but Dave said it was only for five minutes, but what if it wasn’t, and how do I find a way to get Mum to tell me the truth, and oh God, I don’t want any of this, I just want …
I don’t think Mum will ever tell me what really happened that night between her and Dad and Dave, no matter how softly I tread. Then again, if it’s not going to help me save Declan, does it even matter?
‘The thing is,’ Declan starts, and then crumples into himself and begins to shake, and it’s a moment before I see that he’s crying.
‘There’s still the photographs,’ I say. ‘They should show up this afternoon.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m not going to be in them. I did go out into the park. I don’t really remember it but … But I know that I did go out, and it feels like I was gone for a long time. I’m not going to be in any photographs; and the police reckon Dad was still alive near midnight because some witness back then told that policeman of yours they saw him.’ He shrugs, seeing the question in my face. ‘I don’t know. It’s what my solicitor says.’ Another shrug. ‘They’re going to say I did it after you left. And they’ve got a motive now, if they didn’t have one already. Telling them what really happened … I think it’s made things worse.’ He looks so desperate.
‘It’s reasonable doubt, Declan.’
‘Is it? After I left you, Mum’s the only alibi I’ve got. She’s been telling them I was at the Shelley the whole night, and they know that’s not right. She’s been telling them Uncle Daniel was there, too, which is just … I’d remember that, surely! Christ, Nix, I don’t think she remembers it at all.’
‘If there’s a trial, I’m going to go up there and tell the world what happened – what your dad did to you.’
He makes a sort of high-pitched hoot of anguish. ‘You and your magic memory against the whole London Metropolitan Police?’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t even remember half of it, not the way you tell it. You’d think I would, really, wouldn’t you? You’re not – you know – making it up, right?’
‘Jesus! No.’
He takes my hand and squeezes it. ‘It’s what they’ll say, though. You know that, right?’
‘I think it might have been Gary Barclay.’