I Know What I Saw

by S K Sharp

  The darkness of the cemetery is all around. Dave takes a hesitant step towards me. I see a fresh cut on his face. I retreat, fumbling for my phone. My hands are trembling and I almost drop it. I want to turn and run but somehow I can’t. I can’t look away, either. The moment I do, he’s going to come after me …

  ‘I’m calling the police!’ I stab a finger at my phone.

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ says Dave.

  ‘You broke into my home. You attacked me!’ He keeps walking towards me and I keep backing away, and Mum’s not doing anything. And now I know – I know they were in it together, all along, all of it.

  Dave touches a finger to his face. ‘I could say the same about you.’

  A voice on the other end of the line. ‘Emergency—’

  ‘Police! I’m in the cemetery of Saint Joseph’s church! Wordsworth Park …’

  Dave lunges for me. I hear Mum call something but it’s lost in my own scream. I dive away and bolt into the darkness, yelling at my phone, ‘There’s a man – he’s trying to kill me! David—’

  My foot catches the edge of a grave. I sprawl into the sodden grass, and Dave is on me before I can even start back to my feet. He snatches the phone out of my hand and throws it into the night.

  ‘Stop!’ he snarls. ‘I didn’t kill him. Will you just … listen!’

  ‘David! Get off her.’

  Dave lets me go. He hauls himself to his feet and takes a step away. I stay where I am, lying on the ground, staring at them both. I haven’t got the strength to move.

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ says Dave again, quietly now. ‘But I did bury him.’

  I quiver, forcing myself back to my feet on wobbly legs. ‘You were in my flat.’

  He nods. ‘Chloe’s pictures. I knew she’d thrown out all the ones from the end of the party. But then she gave you the negatives … And last night we went over, and there they were. We went through them, all of us together. No one else noticed, but I knew if you saw them, you’d work it out.’ He shakes his head. ‘I should have taken them all, but then you’d have known they were gone. I thought I’d be clever. Just slip out the ones that mattered and maybe you’d never know. And then you came back.’ He shrugs. ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you.’

  ‘You’re sorry?’ I can hardly hold my voice together. ‘So you and Mum—’

  ‘Your mother had nothing to do with this.’ Dave stares me down.

  But she did. I see that. That was the secret she was keeping from Dad until … until they told him. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’ asks Dave.

  I have to grab hold of a gravestone to stay on my feet. I stare at Mum. She sighs and bows her head.

  ‘Oh, love … You said I never liked Declan. I suppose that’s true. You said you thought it was because of Arty Robbins – because I thought Declan might turn out the same. It wasn’t that, love. It wasn’t that at all. I couldn’t stand having him around because I couldn’t bear the guilt of what I did to the poor boy. It wasn’t David who killed Arty Robbins. It was me.’

  Sirens in the distance …

  Dave stands a few feet away, hands clenched into fists. I don’t know whether it’s fear or fury I see in his face. Mum, though – Mum looks calm.

  ‘I tried calling you last night,’ she says. ‘I was … I was going to tell you everything. After the photographs – I thought you’d have seen them. I was going to …’ She sighs. ‘But then you were out, and I had your key, and Dave said Why don’t I just go and get them? She’ll never know. And I thought … I thought: what’s the harm? I thought you’d be at work.’

  I turn and scream in Dave’s face, ‘He came at me from behind. He threw a robe over my face and pushed me to the fucking bed!’

  Mum looks away. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant – I mean … Oh, love, I don’t know what I mean. No one was supposed to get hurt, but … After you told me someone had broken in … We had a lovely meal tonight, Dave and I. And then, well, I didn’t know what to do, so I came here to sit with your dad for a bit because … I thought this might be the last time I’d get to see him.’

  The sirens are close now.

  ‘I couldn’t keep a secret like that, you see. Not from your dad. And when I told him, he understood. I mean …’ Another long sigh and then a tiny bitter laugh. ‘It took a few days, didn’t it? But that was my fault. By then, he’d got it into his head that it was something else. I should have told him the day after it happened but … I honestly didn’t know how he’d take it.’

  ‘Mum, please,’ I beg, ‘just tell me what happened.’

  The sirens stop.

  ‘There’s nothing much to say. Your dad went looking for Arthur. Dave and I went outside, and I told Dave about Kat. We walked around the park for a bit. We were up near the building site when Arthur found us. He was like an animal. He came right at me. He had blood on his hands. Dave tried to stop him and I ran away, shouting for help, but Arty kept coming and then suddenly … Oh, I didn’t know where I was and it was dark, and all of a sudden there was this pit in front of me, and Arthur – I thought he was going to kill me. Dave tackled him and they started fighting. I should have gone for help or called the police but instead I stood there like an idiot. And then Arthur had Dave on the ground and he was kicking him and kicking him, and there was a shovel lying there, propped up against a pile of wood, so I took it and I ran up behind him and …’

  Tyres crunch on the gravel track up to the church. Mum’s voice cracks.

  ‘I didn’t think about it. I hit Arthur on the head with it. He fell into the pit. And then he didn’t move.’

  I hear the bang of a car door from the far side of the church and then the crackle of a radio, a quiet voice and footsteps, full of purpose. Mum pulls out a hanky from her sleeve and blows her nose.

  ‘I thought that was it. Twenty years in Wormwood Scrubs, or whatever. I thought you’d be a mum yourself by the time I saw you again. And then Dave took the shovel out of my hands and made it all go away. Your dad found me while Dave was still at it. He was worried sick. I told him I’d slipped and fallen. That was how he got mud on his jacket – from me. Your dad took me home while Dave was still in the hole, hiding what I’d done.’

  The police come round the corner of the church, dazzling their torches in our eyes.

  ‘I had to tell him in the end. I had to.’ Mum smiles. ‘Do you know what he said? “Good riddance to—”’

  ‘“—bad rubbish”,’ I say and nod, because yes, I do. I remember perfectly.

  She holds out her hands, waiting for the cuffs.

  23

  Friday 14th February 2020

  The taxi stops at the top of the driveway into Harris Lodge. I pay the driver and watch him pull away, then walk down the drive. I wonder for a moment if I’m ready for this, then decide that I am and knock on the door. When no one answers, I knock again. This time I see a twinge of movement at the corner of a lace curtain upstairs. I hear footsteps inside and then the door opens.

  ‘Nix?’ Dec looks terrible, like he hasn’t slept for days. He certainly hasn’t shaved. ‘How did you—’

  I step up, take his face in my hands and kiss him. It’s a long kiss, the way I used to kiss him thirty-five years ago. I don’t let him go until I feel the tension shimmer out of him and turn into something else.

  ‘If you bothered to turn on your phone,’ I tell him, ‘you’d know that your solicitor has been trying to reach you. So have I. So have the police.’

  He closes his eyes and nods. ‘I know, I know. It was stupid. I should … They were going to lock me up. I saw the message on your phone and … and I heard you talking to Mum. I knew you must think I’d been lying all this time, that maybe I had done it. I couldn’t stand it, the thought of losing you again, so soon after … But Mum kept saying that she’d seen Uncle Daniel, and I didn’t remember; and it was like no one else saw him, so I thought she was wrong until you told me about Kat. And then I thought: what if he was there? What if he knew
? Kat was his daughter. What if he came back for her and discovered that his own brother …?’ He shivers. ‘Well, you know. And Mum told the police, and they weren’t even bothering to look and …’ He trails off. ‘Daniel lived up here. Near here, anyway. He’s still got family in these parts. I thought I might find something.’

  ‘And did you?’

  He shakes his head. ‘He was never there. Mum made it up.’

  I touch a hand to his cheek to silence him. ‘I have a message for you from your solicitor. She’s asking the CPS to drop the charges. She’s confident they’ll agree.’

  The look on Dec’s face is delicious. His mouth hangs open. Eventually he’ll find his words and start asking who and what, and how and why, so I kiss him again before he has the chance. I can’t be doing with all those questions right now.

  I don’t know what the police were expecting when they reached the cemetery that night, but probably not what they found. Right there and then, I have to say, I was a bit disappointed they didn’t Taser Dave. When they didn’t, I was about to tell them everything – starting with how he’d attacked me – but the look on Mum’s face brought me up short. I saw despair and resignation and love. I saw the way she glanced past me at Dad’s grave. And I saw how Dave looked, too. He wasn’t angry or threatening; just an old man who’d once done something wrong to protect someone he loved.

  I told the police that some youth had tried to snatch my bag, but that he was disturbed when Mum and Dave showed up, then I gave them a perfect description of Gary Barclay, back when he was eighteen. Mum and Dave backed me up. I still don’t like Gary, even if he didn’t kill anyone. I still don’t like Dave, either, but maybe I need to rethink that.

  The police searched the graveyard. They found my phone for me, which was nice, but of course they didn’t find my phantom mugger because my phantom mugger never existed. They weren’t happy about that – there isn’t really a way out of the graveyard except past the church and the way they came in. Eventually they took a statement and went away. Typical hysterical woman – probably imagined it. I could almost hear them thinking it.

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Mum when they were gone.

  We went back to Byron Road. Mum and Dave told me how Dad knew that something was up and how, in the end, it was Mum who put her foot down and insisted they told him the truth. She took him to see Dave and told Dad what she’d done, and how Dave had buried the body because they were both angry and afraid; and when she was done, she told Dad she’d go to the police and admit the truth, if that was what he wanted, and so would Dave. They would have done it, too. It took Dad three days to think about it – those three days he walked out on us in early August that year, but in the end he decided he was OK with Arty Robbins being dead, thank you very much.

  Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  By the time Mum and Dave finished talking, I just wanted to go to sleep. We turned in: Dave in the guest bedroom, Mum in her own bed, and me on an air-mattress on the floor beside her. And of course neither of us could sleep a wink, even if we were exhausted, because everything was horrible; and tomorrow Mum would be going to the police and I might never see her again outside of a prison. She promised to tell them everything, to make sure they dropped the charges against Dec. Dave told her she should say it was an accident: that Arty fell. For once, I agreed with him. The police wouldn’t be able to prove Mum was lying and it would be enough to get Dec off the hook. Not Mum and Dave off the hook, because she never reported it and someone was dead and they’d covered it up; and the police wouldn’t let that slide, not even after so many years, but at least it wasn’t murder.

  It was three o’clock in the morning when I saw the way to save them both.

  Dad.

  Mum was still awake, so I told her about Gary and Kat seeing Dad in the park, looking for her; the mud I’d seen on Dad’s jacket, and how I’d already told Detective Scott; how it was all there for the police to put together, because Dad was the only one who didn’t have an alibi, even if he had nothing to do with it.

  ‘You could say it was Dad,’ I said.

  Of course, Mum looked properly horrified, because how could I suggest such a thing? And I know, it is horrible; but I was thinking, you see, that Dad made a choice that summer. He’d heard the truth and chose not to say anything because he loved us – all three of us – Mum and Dave and me. He protected us with his silence; and, as I remember him and how he was in the days afterwards, I know he made his peace with that choice.

  Keep the family together, love. Don’t mind me. I’m dead. Doesn’t matter to me what they say.

  His last gift to his family. Something like that.

  I don’t want to lie to Dec. If I’m honest, I just want to go back to being sixteen … well, maybe not quite that far. Say, twenty. I want to be that version of myself again. I want us to be that us; but I suppose there’s no getting away from all the years that have passed, so I’ll settle for a fresh start. I pull out the bottle of wine I brought, pour us each a glass and tell Dec how Dave and Mum went out into the park, and how Dad went looking for them. I tell him how Arty went looking for Kat. I tell him about Kat seeing Dad, and about the mud on Dad’s jacket the next morning. I tell him how everyone’s best guess now is that Dec’s father and mine got into a scuffle, which somehow ended with Arty at the bottom of that pit with a broken neck. I don’t tell him how Dad became the judge of his father’s life; or how Mum told me later that, actually, it wasn’t so bad a secret to live with – how it made her love Dad even more, knowing that he knew.

  Dec looks at me, unconvinced. ‘So … after all this, they’re saying it was an accident?’

  I raise my glass and take a sip, then look at him over the top of it, long and hard, and shrug. He doesn’t believe it. I can’t say I blame him. What I want to ask is Do you really want to know? but there’s only one answer to a question like that, and usually it’s the wrong way to go, and some things it’s best not to know; because knowing something is one thing, but understanding it is something else entirely; and when it comes to that understanding, I’m in the same murky water as everyone else. Do I want to know more about Dec and the woman he was with, on the day Dad was dying? I remember what I saw with perfect clarity, like I remember everything, but I don’t know what it meant, not really; just like Dad saw Mum and Dave and thought it meant one thing when actually it meant another. Dec says it was nothing. I’m not sure I believe him. But I do know it was half a lifetime ago, so maybe it shouldn’t matter any more.

  ‘Dad knew he was down in that pit,’ I say. ‘I don’t think there’s much doubt about that. As for the rest? You should call your solicitor.’

  I build a fire in the fireplace. Dec turns on his phone. I don’t know what Angela Watson of Lainton Legal Associates says, but Dec looks happier when he’s done. He calls Detective Scott and his happiness turns to sheepish embarrassment. Running away was stupid, and I can’t imagine Detective Scott pulling his punches about that. Dec’s embarrassed, but not scared.

  ‘Is it over?’ I ask.

  Dec closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, long and slow. ‘They haven’t dropped the charges yet but … yes. I think so.’

  Not the end – not yet – but maybe it’s the beginning of it.

  ‘You always told me you stayed the night in the Shelley,’ I say. ‘Did you really?’

  Dec smiles and shakes his head. ‘I honestly don’t know. I did go out into the park and wander around. I don’t know how long for. I was supposed to be looking for Dad, but I was thinking about you. That’s what I remember. You, and how I didn’t want to leave for bloody Clapham.’ He chuckles, as if amazed at himself. ‘I remember I couldn’t sleep. I remember going home early, and looking up at your window and wondering if you were awake. Then going inside, scared in case Dad was there. But he wasn’t. So I got changed for school, and left.’

  And that, I suppose, is when he opened the curtains? But when I ask, he only shrugs. He doesn’t remember
. ‘Probably,’ he says.

  We order in some food, and drink the rest of the bottle of wine. We talk about old times, happy times. It gets dark and the fire burns low, and Dec suggests we should turn in; and I say yes, but that he should go first, because I need a few minutes to be alone. He doesn’t ask why. He was always good that way.

  I sit in front of the fire in Harris Lodge and let myself go back there. To hiding under Dec’s bed, listening as Dec took a beating from his dad; to the bruises on Anne Robbins’ face; to the fear in Kat’s eyes as she talked about her ‘boyfriend’ who wouldn’t let go; to the marks on Mum’s neck after the party. I bring the memories back, one by one, and then carefully put them away. And when I’m done, I take the pictures of Dave from the party – the ones that prove he was the one who buried Arty Robbins – and I throw them into the flames.

  I watch them burn.

  As long as they drop the charges against Dec, Mum can tell whatever story she likes. As I sit here, I don’t know what she’ll do. When I left, I don’t think she knew, either, but I’m happy that she gets to choose. I’ll call her tomorrow and find out. Then I guess I’ll call Gary and tell him I’m sorry for accusing him of murder and assault. I still don’t like him, but I owe him that.

  That’s for tomorrow. For tonight, I have one more thing to do.

  Kat doesn’t answer when I call, so I leave a message telling her how much she means to me. I talk about our friendship: the times she covered for me when I started seeing Dec, the times she picked me up when I was down. The words of kindness when Dec and I were falling apart, and that insane trip out to America, which just might have saved my life. Waiting for me at the airport when I came back; and how there are a hundred other things, and another hundred behind those, and that I remember every single one. I tell her that I love her and hope she’ll forgive me, but that even if she doesn’t, I’ll still be grateful, because she’s the best person in the world and it’s been a privilege to be her friend.