I Know What I Saw

by S K Sharp

  It wasn’t the last time I slept alone—

  Focus! Shit! Almost nine and I’m standing outside my front door like a lemon. My keys aren’t in my jacket, they’re in my bag. I let myself in and …

  Straight away, I know something is wrong. The air feels odd. There’s no miaow from Chairman, no pad of paws as he comes to rub against my legs to demand his breakfast. I go to the kitchen and his food bowl is empty. Of course it is, because I didn’t come home last night and so he didn’t have his supper, so he should be all over me, telling me he’s hungry, and please get on with things …

  I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a taxi waiting outside and I need to—

  I hear a chirrup from the lounge. I run in and there Chairman is, curled up on the sofa, stretching. And I can’t put my finger on it but the air still feels wrong. I scan the room. Everything is where it should be. Just a light blinking on the landline phone that I almost never use – a message waiting on the answering machine. I press play but it’s a few seconds of static and then the line goes dead. The call isn’t from a number I recognise, but it was made twenty minutes ago.

  Dec?

  More likely one of those auto-dial marketing calls.

  I don’t have time. I need to get changed and go.

  I hear a noise from the bedroom. The slight creak of a board. I freeze. Did I imagine it? Or is there someone else here? I reach for my phone, finger hovering over the emergency call button as I move back to the lounge doorway and look into the hall. ‘Hello?’

  No. Focus! I’m imagining things and I don’t have time.

  The bedroom door is ajar. It should be open. It’s always open so Chairman can get in and out.

  ‘Is there anyone here?’ The front door was locked when I got back. The windows are closed. There’s nothing out of place. Just a … wrongness in the air. Or maybe I’m bringing things back from my memories. Too many different times and places, all crashing together at once.

  Chairman rubs against my legs and then trots into the kitchen and miaows at me. Breakfast, please!

  I push the bedroom door open. The room beyond is …

  Exactly as it should be.

  Five past nine. I’m jumpy, that’s all. This thing with Dec going missing has me on edge. My work clothes are laid out neatly on the bed, as I left them. I pull off my jeans and climb into a skirt. No time for make-up or anything like that – a dab of lippy in the taxi, that’s all. I yank my T-shirt over my head and tug on my blouse. I’m starting on the buttons when I feel the skin prickle on the back of my neck and feel a whisper of movement behind me and …

  I turn and …

  And there’s a man in my room. Right in front of me, and I can’t see who it is because he’s holding up my dressing gown, coming at me with it. I cry out and lift my arms to cover my face and then he’s on me, the cloth wrapped around my head, smothering me. I stumble back, blind, struggling to breathe, my arms flailing to push him away. I trip on the edge of the bed and then I’m falling. One hand smacks against the bedside table as I try to catch myself. I feel the lamp go flying and hear it shatter on the floor, and then my head bangs against the wall as I crumple, ripping at the cotton wrapped around my face, yelling and screaming. I tear it off, terrified, eyes wide, but there’s no one, and all I hear are fading footsteps.

  I sit for a long, long moment, too stunned to move. When I haul myself up, I’m shaking so much that I almost fall again. It takes a few seconds before I steady myself. I pick up the ruin of the bedside light and clutch it like a club, then shuffle into the hall.

  The front door is wide open.

  I go back to the lounge and look out through the window to the street below, in case I see someone running away.

  Nothing. Just a waiting taxi.

  Back in the hall, I close the front door and lean against it, waiting for my heart to stop racing. In the nook by the door is my little table with its notepad and pen, and its collection of junk-mail waiting for recycling.

  Mail …

  The photographs.

  They should be here: a packet of them lying on the floor by the letterbox.

  But they’re not.

  17

  Wednesday 12th February 2020, 9.10 a.m.

  Do I call the police? What do I say? That someone slipped into my flat and attacked me but I have no idea who it was? That they took something that wasn’t even here before I left? As far as I can see, they didn’t touch anything else. My laptop is on the table beside the bed, where I left it. Everything is exactly where it should be. Everything except the one thing I need.

  I fumble my phone out of my bag and call Kat. It rings and rings and finally goes to voicemail. I hang up and try again and the same thing happens. On the third try, she picks up.

  ‘Nicky! What the hell—’

  ‘Someone broke into my flat,’ I say, which stops her cold.

  ‘What?’

  Words pour out of me as I tell her what happened: how someone was here in the flat and they attacked me and I didn’t see who it was, and now they’ve gone and they took the photographs and I don’t know what to do and it’s all too much, because I’ve been thinking about the curtains in Dec’s room that were open when they should have been closed, and how I don’t think his mum remembers whether he was there, and now he’s gone missing and I just spent the night with him, and of course he didn’t do it but oh God, no one really jumps bail unless they’re guilty, do they?

  I have to stop to breathe.

  ‘Wait … someone attacked you? Jesus Christ, Nicky, are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I’m not fine. ‘They just pushed me over and ran away. I fell, that’s all, and—’ I’m not fine at all. I’m shaking like a leaf.

  ‘Nicky, what you do is call the bloody police. Right now! And get out! Whoever it was, are you sure they’re gone?’

  ‘As sure as I can be.’ What if they are still here, lurking, hiding under the bed or something? What if the open front door was a trick? I hadn’t thought of that – and it’s stupid, I know it is, but what if they’re just waiting for me to hang up before they spring out again and …

  ‘Are you sure?’ Kat sounds as scared as I feel. ‘Because if you’re not, then you should get out and call the police straight away.’

  Chairman walks in a circle around me. He looks at me, curious, and butts his head against my hand. Somehow that makes me feel a little better.

  ‘Nicky! Just get out and call the police. You can come here, if you want to. Or … no, find a café that’s close. Somewhere that’s public. I’ll meet you there. You shouldn’t be on your own.’

  ‘No. No, I … I think I’d better stay here.’ She’s right, I should call the police. But it feels so stupid.

  I don’t want to be scared like this.

  ‘Do you want me to come over?’

  I won’t be scared like this.

  ‘Just … Kat, stay on the phone while I look round, OK?’

  I check the front door. It was locked when I got home from Dec’s place and there’s no sign of damage. I check the windows and find them locked, too, like they always are. I go back into the bedroom and open the wardrobe and leap back in case there’s someone lurking inside. There isn’t, of course, and I feel a fool.

  A soft thump makes me jump almost out of my skin, but it’s only Chairman, leaping off a windowsill. He watches me as I look under the bed, and I feel even more stupid than I did when I checked the wardrobe. I peer into the bathroom. It’s all empty.

  ‘OK,’ I say into the phone, ‘I’ve been scared witless by my own cat but there’s no one here.’

  Chairman follows me around, rubbing himself against my legs. He wants to know what I’m doing. He still wants his breakfast.

  ‘Good,’ says Kat. ‘Now call the police!’

  I stand in the middle of the bedroom, looking around. ‘I don’t understand. How did they get in?’

  ‘Nicky, are you sure you don’t want me to come over? It’s not a problem at a
ll – I’ve got the day off.’

  ‘You want to stay with the break-in victim while she waits for the police?’ I try to make it sound like it’s nothing. ‘It’s not much of a self-care day, is it?’

  ‘You’re my friend and I’ll stay with you for as long as you need me. I could call Gary, too, see if he could come over.’

  ‘He’s not with you?’

  ‘No, he’s working. When isn’t he? He was supposed to take the day off too, but …’ I hear her sigh.

  Gary. I keep coming back to that night; to the venom in him while he was talking to Kat when he thought they were alone. You tell me who he is! Tell me and I’ll fucking kill him!

  But Gary was with Kat that night. She said so.

  ‘You were with your mum yesterday evening? Looking at the photographs from the Shelley?’ Unless it all happened after they went back …

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Was Gary with you?’ But then where did Arty Robbins go for those missing two hours? Besides, Kat never told Gary about her and Arty Robbins …

  ‘No. Just your mum and—’

  ‘But you told Gary about them when you got home, right?’ Unless …

  Kat may never have told him about her and Arty Robbins, but perhaps he knew all the same. Gary definitely had something against Arty. I saw it in the way he looked at Kat that Sunday when she told him Arty was dead.

  ‘Nicky, where are you going with this?’

  ‘That night: were you with Gary the whole time, after Dec and I left?’ I keep looking for who was missing for long enough to hide a body, but what if someone pushed Arty Robbins into that pit and then left him there, and only later went back to hide what they’d done?

  ‘I …’ Kat pauses. I can almost hear the realisation hitting her down the line. ‘Until past midnight. After that, I went home. Nicky, you’re not suggesting—’

  ‘Kat!’ I snap. ‘My front door was locked. The windows are locked. You and Mum are the only ones with a spare key.’

  There’s a long pause from the other end of the line as I hear Kat move through her flat and rummage through a drawer. ‘It’s still here.’ I hear the edge to her voice. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?’

  ‘No, no, it’s—’ I stop, trying to control the thoughts racing through me. ‘Sorry. Thanks for … You’re right. I’m being stupid. I’m going to call the police now.’ The idea that it was Gary is still prowling around my mind. He’s been here before. He knows where I live. He knows where Kat keeps my spare key. He could have made a copy. And he’s the only one, apart from Kat, who had a reason to kill Arty Robbins.

  My hands are shaking. I need to collect myself before I call the police. I hang up and sit on the bed and stroke Chairman and go back to 1985, to the night of the party, to watching Mum have it out with Arty Robbins. I see her as she was, furious as a tiger. Her anger is outrage and a primal disgust. I see her stab at his chest with her finger …

  Dave Crane at the bar, watching like a hawk …

  Was Kat close enough to hear what Mum was saying? She must have been terrified, but she couldn’t let it show.

  And Gary, watching Kat with that same intensity … I’ll fucking kill him!

  I check the door and the windows one more time. There’s no sign anyone forced their way in, and lock-picks and snap-gun gadgets are for CSI shows, not for real life. Nobody broke into this flat. Someone let themselves in.

  It’s gone nine. It’s a weekday. I should be at work. I should be there right now, at that stupid meeting with HR. The flat should have been empty. It should have been easy for him, whoever it was: slip in, find the photographs, slip away again. If I hadn’t come home when I did, I might never have known. Lost in the post. Just one of those things.

  But the photographs, if they were here, should have been on the floor by the front door. The man who attacked me was in my bedroom. Why didn’t he just take them? Was he after something else? But if so, what?

  I pick up the phone to call the police and then stop. I’m going to sound stupid. No one broke in. They came in with a key. They didn’t take anything – not that I can prove.

  I wasn’t supposed to be here. I only came back because I needed to change.

  A nasty thought creeps into the edges of my mind. I don’t want to look at it but it won’t go away. What if Kat’s lying? What if they were in it together?

  No. Not my best friend.

  I try calling Dec, for the umpteenth time. Dear God, why did he have to run away? Why today? Because he was afraid they’d lock him up until he went to trial? They certainly will now!

  His number goes straight to voicemail, as it has all morning. I leave another message: Dec, it’s me. We need to talk. You need to come back. I think I know who killed your dad.

  Gary. Maybe Kat was telling the truth; maybe she never did tell him about Arty Robbins, but that doesn’t mean Gary didn’t work it out. Maybe he overheard Mum telling Dave after Arty attacked her. Maybe it was just the way Kat looked when Mum accused Arty in the Shelley. Maybe she said something later, when they were alone together. Kat says they were together until after midnight, but her mum said she was back before then; and Kat also says she went back into the Shelley on her own, checking that the coast was clear, only to discover that everyone was looking for us. Did Gary wait outside, like she says, or did he go back across the park to his van? Did he see Arty Robbins and follow him? Did he lure him to the building site with threats and blackmail? Or did he do it earlier, while he was waiting out in the park for Kat? Did he go back again later and bury the body in the middle of the night? Did he kill Arty Robbins on purpose, or was it an accident?

  Chairman climbs onto my lap, purring like an engine as I stroke his head and scratch his chin. Gary was in the park. He had a reason. He had a temper. I remember him sitting in his van, Adam Ant singing ‘Stand and Deliver’ while four policemen forced their way into some stranger’s house. A search warrant, so the rumours went. Drugs. And Gary was into his weed back then …

  And now he’s on the brink of some big property deal in Docklands.

  I go back to the lounge and play the message on the answering machine a second time. Still nothing. Was that Gary, calling ahead to see whether the flat was empty? I check the number against the number I have in my phone for Gary Barclay, but he’s too clever for that. I google it, on the off-chance, but nothing comes up. I play the message again, and then again, listening hard, but all I hear is a subdued roar of traffic in the background.

  I call the number from my landline. It rings twice and then goes dead. I get my coat. Outside, the taxi is still waiting, impatient, meter still running. I ask the driver if he saw anyone come out of my building and he says no, but I see he has one of those dashboard cameras. I tell him I’ve just been attacked and that the police might want to look at the recordings. I pay him what I owe and add a fat tip. I don’t ask for his number and I don’t write it down. I’ve already got all that in my head.

  I settle into a café that has a couple of spare seats. It’s gone half-past nine. I call work and ask for Emily in HR. She doesn’t pick up, so I leave a message on her answering service and tell her I was attacked on my way to work this morning and that I won’t be in because I have to deal with the police. Then I buy myself a sandwich and call Detective Scott. I start to tell him that Dec is missing, but he already knows.

  ‘I was just attacked in my flat,’ I say. I tell him what happened. He takes a few details and checks to make sure I’m somewhere safe, then tells me to stay where I am.

  ‘I’ll have a uniformed officer come to take a full statement.’

  ‘It was about Arty Robbins’ murder,’ I say. ‘The only thing they stole was a copy of the photographs Chloe Clarke took that night. You’ve got copies, too. I need to see them.’

  ‘I’ll think about that. I do have some questions about the statement you gave yesterday.’ He asks if I could come to the station.

  ‘There’s something else.’ None of thi
s makes any sense unless you know about Kat and Arty. I have to tell him.

  I can hear him waiting. Deep breaths, Nicola.

  ‘Arty Robbins was sexually abusing my best friend. Katherine Clarke. She was fifteen at the time.’ I’m sorry, Kat. ‘She was fifteen.’

  ‘You’re telling me Robbins was sleeping with a schoolgirl?’ I can hear him trying to put the pieces together in his head; and that he knows a can of worms opening when he hears it. ‘Anyone going to back that up?’

  ‘Kat, obviously.’ I can’t decide whether he’s taking me seriously.

  ‘She’ll talk, if I ask her to come in and give a statement?’

  ‘Do you have to?’

  ‘This is a murder investigation, Ms Walker.’

  ‘My mum knew about it. That was what the fight was about, between her and Arty. I think my dad knew, too. And Kat’s boyfriend – husband, now. Gary Barclay.’

  I tell him I’m happy to talk to him in person but I won’t go on the record about Kat unless Kat says it’s OK. As soon as he hangs up, I call Mum.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Nicola!’

  ‘You called last night. What’s up?’

  ‘Called? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I got two messages saying you tried to call. Last night.’

  ‘Oh. Did I?’ Mum sounds confused. ‘I was next door with Chloe—’

  ‘And Kat. Yes, I know. The photographs.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t.