Blame

by Nicole Trope

  Even when she thinks she is coping, she is not. Anna wipes her face quickly.

  She reaches into her bag and touches her phone but instantly withdraws her hand. She cannot call Caro now. She cannot call Caro ever again but, oh, how she wants to. More than anything, she wants to call Caro on her phone and say, ‘You won’t believe this but . . .’

  Detective Anderson is sitting in an office with the door open. He is reading something on a computer screen when the policewoman knocks on the door. ‘Detective Anderson, Anna McAllen is here for her interview,’ she says.

  ‘Ah, Anna,’ he says, standing up. ‘Good of you to come.’

  Anna nods at him, maintaining the charade that she is doing him a favour. ‘Thanks, Missy,’ he says to the policewoman, and she nods and leaves. He leans back a little and braces his hands against his back, and Anna is struck, as she was when she met him two weeks ago, at how tall and broad he is. He towers over her, and when Keith stood next to him, her husband looked like a boy in comparison.

  ‘Follow me; we’ll pick up Cynthia along the way. Are you okay?’

  Anna wipes her cheeks again and nods. ‘Just fine.’

  Detective Anderson grimaces a little, in recognition of the outright lie.

  She follows him down a corridor, waiting while he knocks quickly on a closed door and then moves off without saying anything. Behind her, she hears the door open and knows that Cynthia, whoever she is, is walking behind her now.

  Once all three of them are seated in a small room with a table, three chairs and little else, Anna feels a shift in Detective Anderson’s demeanour. He sets up a camera, and then sits down and looks at it.

  ‘It is eleven am and this is the West Hallston police station. Attending are Detective Sergeant Walter Anderson and Detective Sergeant Cynthia Moreno.

  ‘To begin with, Mrs McAllen, I want to make sure that you understand we are going to ask you some questions but you do not have to say or do anything that you don’t want to. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Anna softly.

  ‘I also want to let you know that we will be recording this interview. Are you happy to let us record it?’

  Anna looks at the camera, ‘What happens if I say no,’ she asks.

  ‘Then we can use a tape recorder or we can type up our questions and your answers as we go,’ says the detective.

  ‘No, no it’s fine, you can record it.’

  ‘Okay, and one more thing, Mrs McAllen. I just want to let you know that you don’t have to say anything but if, for some reason, this ends up in court then there may be a problem if you bring up something that you have not mentioned in this interview. And anything you do say may be used as evidence in this case. Do you understand that?’

  Anna nods.

  ‘Can you answer that verbally please Mrs McAllen.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that, and please call me Anna.’

  ‘And lastly,’ continues Detective Anderson, as though he hasn’t heard her, ‘you have the right to let a friend or relative know where you are and you have the right to talk to a lawyer.’

  ‘A lawyer?’

  ‘Yes—would you like to speak to a lawyer?’

  ‘Do I need to speak to a lawyer . . . I mean, I don’t know; I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m just . . .’ Anna feels a light sweat of humiliation break out all over her body as she scrabbles in her bag for her last remaining tissue.

  ‘Control yourself,’ she thinks.

  ‘That’s okay, Anna,’ says Detective Anderson and is then silent, giving her time to finish blowing her nose.

  Anna has never been one to cry in front of other people. She feels humiliated any time she does it. She has always thought of herself as being made of stronger stuff but is aware that tears are the expected reaction to what has happened, especially in front of the police, especially in front of family; otherwise, how will anyone know that she is grieving?

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says again, and Anna takes a deep breath and looks straight at him. In addition to his height, he has thick black hair and green eyes. There is a light stubble on his chin, and Anna clutches her tissue tightly to prevent her hand from reaching out to touch him. ‘What kind of a person are you to be noticing his looks?’ she thinks.

  ‘I just need to ask you these questions and I need to let you know again that this is being recorded,’ he says. His tone has softened and Anna sees the man she met two weeks ago but, having had a glimpse of his professional demeanour, she reminds herself that she is in a police station and that anything she says, as he has just explained, may be used against her.

  ‘Words can be weapons,’ her mother always told her.

  ‘Our local weapons expert,’ was how Peter and Anna used to refer to her when they were teenagers, because no one was more devastatingly accurate than their mother.

  ‘Yes, yes, I can see that,’ says Anna, gesturing to the camera. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but can I get another tissue?’ She is feeling flustered and wishes that Keith were sitting next to her.

  ‘Here you go, Anna,’ says Detective Anderson, sliding a box of tissues across the table. ‘Just relax. I know this is a really difficult time. We can leave it for another week.’

  ‘She’ll still be . . . be gone in a week, Detective. I just want to get this over with.’ Anna tries to say the word ‘dead’ every day but simply can’t. She remembers that only a couple of weeks ago, she would, as most people do, say she was ‘dead tired,’ or that she’d ‘rather be dead than wear a bikini again’ or that ‘the stores were dead today’. Now, she cannot say the word, but she thinks it all the time, repeating it in her head until it momentarily loses its meaning, making her think that she has conquered it, but then she opens her mouth to say it and cannot even get the first syllable out. ‘My daughter is d . . . My daughter is de . . . My daughter is . . .’ she will stutter and then just give up.

  ‘I understand,’ says Detective Anderson. ‘Why don’t you take a few deep breaths? Cynthia and I have as much time as you need.’

  She does take a few deep breaths, and uses the time to look at Cynthia—as he has called her. She is about the same height as Anna, with curly brown hair tied in a messy bun. Her breasts strain a little at the blouse she is wearing, drawing Anna’s eyes to them. ‘She looks too young to be in here, too young to be a detective,’ she thinks. There are no lines on her face, only a few freckles. Pretty. Too pretty. Look how pretty my detectives are.

  This morning, in the mirror, Anna had seen how the grey circles under her eyes have become more obvious because she is so pale and her face is so much thinner. Her skin is now dry and flaky. She cannot seem to moisturise it enough.

  Detective Anderson clears his throat.

  ‘I can’t seem to stop crying,’ says Anna. She has no idea why she has said this because it is not strictly true. She has moments when she is not crying, moments when she is not even sad; moments when she feels nothing. But those moments are overwhelmed by all the other ones where she finds herself in the grip of violent, debilitating emotion, and looking at Detective Anderson, she does feel as though he might understand such a thing.

  ‘I keep thinking that eventually I’ll get it together or . . . I don’t know . . . dehydrate or something, but that’s not happening. Do you think I’ll ever stop crying?’

  Chapter Two

  Caro is running late. Geoff offered to drop her off but she didn’t even bother answering when he first made the suggestion. She didn’t when he suggested it twice more either.

  ‘I don’t think you should be driving,’ he stage whispered to her in a final attempt to convince her to accept his offer of a ride.

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Geoff,’ she said in reply while unloading the dishwasher this morning.

  He had sighed because Lex was in the room and he never swore in front of her, and then he had taken his briefcase and Lex had taken her school bag and the two of them had slunk out of the kitchen, their heads bowed under what Caro assumed was the collective wei
ght of their disappointment in her.

  She had smashed a mug after they’d left. It was the last thing she had removed from the dishwasher, coinciding with the sound of the garage door closing, letting Caro know that she was now truly alone. She had watched, fascinated, as the mug exploded into shards. It had not been as cathartic as she’d thought it would be.

  She had smashed it into the sink because she knew that she would have to clean it up afterwards. Only as she was picking up the pieces had she realised that the mug was an old favourite, large enough for a generous cup of coffee, with a silly picture of a dog decorating the outside. It had been a gift from a great-aunt who was no longer living and Caro had always treasured it.

  ‘Sorry, Gertie,’ she had said, looking up at the ceiling, then muttered, ‘Just fuck, fuck, fuck,’ as she picked the pieces out of the sink.

  Her thoughts had turned to Gertie’s funeral. Keith had been away on business, so Anna had come with her. They had sat together in church, and Anna had kept her arm around her friend’s shoulders the whole way through as Caro sobbed messily and embarrassed her mother. Afterwards, as they were making their way back to Anna’s car, two women from Gertie’s nursing home had stopped them and enquired if they were lesbians. Caro and Anna had howled with laughter the whole way home. Then Anna had joined Caro for a gin and tonic, so they could toast Gertie, who always said that her longevity was due to the gin and tonic she had every day at exactly five o’ clock. ‘If I were a lesbian,’ Anna had said, ‘you would definitely be my first choice.’

  ‘No I wouldn’t,’ said Caro. ‘I don’t think I’m anyone’s first choice anymore. I’m so fat.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Anna had said. ‘You’re gorgeous and I would do you in a second.’

  ‘Anna McAllen, what would your mother say?’

  ‘She’d say . . . oh, who cares what she’d say.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Caro, ‘who cares what anyone says. Let’s run away together to an island where they serve wine and tea and all we’re required to do is read books and be lesbians.’

  ‘God,’ said Anna, ‘I’ll take that any day of the week.’

  Caro picked the last piece of the mug out of the sink, pressed the sharp sliver against her thumb and wondered how much pressure it would take to draw blood, but hadn’t been brave enough to try to actually hurt herself.

  After that, she’d had a cup of coffee and then another cup of coffee, and then she had given into her craving and had a vodka and orange. ‘Look at me celebrating,’ she said as she raised the glass to the empty kitchen. She had wanted one more but knew that she had to drive. ‘Too little too late,’ she thought as she forced herself to return the vodka to the freezer. The orange juice was just for colour.

  The alcohol stopped her hands shaking, and allowed her to shower and dress. ‘On a bender’ is a phrase she has heard for years but never really paid attention to. But, as she finished her drink, she had acknowledged to herself that she was, indeed, on a bender. It was a phrase that conjured up out-of-control celebrities, giving it an edge of glamour. The edge wore off quickly after the first lot of vomit that didn’t quite make the toilet.

  Two weeks and counting. She has become attached to her breakfast drink remarkably quickly. Before this, she had been quite capable of making it to midmorning most days.

  ‘I think you should have a lawyer with you,’ Geoff had said to her last night.

  ‘I’m only helping them with their enquiries,’ she said. ‘If I take a lawyer with me, it looks like I’m guilty.’

  Geoff had looked at her and slowly raised one eyebrow in a move she’s pretty convinced he practises in the mirror. It’s a lot more effective now that he’s bald, but also makes her want to laugh at him, which, she imagines, is probably better than spitting at him.

  ‘I know,’ she had said in response, ‘I know you think I’m guilty and I just don’t give a fuck, Geoff. I’ve tried to explain what happened and you don’t want to hear it. That’s fine, but you don’t get to judge me, because you weren’t there! You’ve already made up your mind because you always make up your mind against me.’

  ‘I’m just trying to protect you, Caro—I don’t want you to go to jail.’

  ‘You are not,’ she had said slowly, ‘doing anything of the sort. You want me to walk in there with my lawyer so I look like I have something to hide. Having me in jail would solve all of your problems.’

  Geoff sighed. ‘How much have you already had to drink, Caro?’ he asked. She’d opened her mouth but no answer had come out. In the last two weeks, she has spent a lot of time not answering him, believing silence was better than an argument. Instead, she left him sitting in the living room and locked herself in their bedroom. This time, it had taken everything she had to remain upright as she walked away from him, the room tilting from side to side. Once she was in the bedroom, she managed a shower and a night of black sleep, untouched by bad dreams. She had woken at dawn to throw up, much as she had woken the day before, and the day before that.

  In the police station, a small group of people are standing in front of the counter. They seem to be protesting about something because Caro hears one man say, ‘It’s a bloody disgrace that it’s allowed to go on,’ and then the rest of the group murmurs, ‘Yes, yes . . . bloody disgrace.’ To Caro, they all look about five hundred years old, and she seethes at how long they are going to take now they have the attention of the policewoman behind the counter. Caro has parked half a block away, so that she can create the illusion she walked or was dropped off. She had hurried along in the heat and now feels sticky and irritated; even more irritated than she was this morning. She doesn’t think they’ll want to breath test her but isn’t sure. It’s not like she’s ever been in a situation like this before. Caro watches the disgruntled group, thinking, ‘So, this is your life, Caroline—what do you think of that?’

  ‘And I’ll tell you something else . . .’ says a man dressed in a crisp three piece suit, stabbing his finger on the counter, ‘we’re not going to . . .’

  ‘Excuse me,’ says Caro loudly and the group falls silent as they all turn to look at her. A few of them would give Geoff’s raised eyebrow a run for its money.

  ‘I’m here for my interview,’ she says quickly.‘I’m Caroline Harman.’

  The request to come into the police station had finally come yesterday from a woman named Isabel Dillon who’d identified herself as, ‘the case manager’. Caro had no idea what that meant, but she’d been waiting for a visit from the police for two weeks. Now that it was here she was terrified and strangely relieved as well.

  The policewoman smiles politely at the group in front of her, checks her computer and says, ‘If you’d just give me a moment. This way, Mrs Harman,’ she continues, indicating that Caro should follow her through a door to the back of the police station. As she walks past the group, Caro hears one of them mutter, ‘Well, I never,’ and she also thinks she hears the words, ‘Wasn’t she . . .?’

  She lifts her chin higher as she feels their eyes burn her between her shoulder blades. ‘They don’t know me,’ she thinks, although she knows that it is very possible they know of her. The accident was two weeks ago and had been reported on television and the internet. There were no pictures of her, but Caro knows that her name was out there for everyone to see. What she had assumed would be old news by now is still fodder for the media. ‘Screw you all,’ she thinks as she follows the policewoman, ‘don’t you dare fucking judge me!’ She would like the story to be old news by now, to feel that the whole country has moved on from this particular tragedy but it doesn’t feel possible.

  She and Anna haven’t moved on, and at odd moments in the day, Caro catches herself realising that she will never, ever, move on. She is as trapped as if she were already in prison.

  ‘Do I have to come in?’ Caro had asked Isabel Dillon.

  ‘No,’ she had replied, ‘but it would be better if you did. We can only ask that you come in to help us sort out what
happened. You are free to wait until you are charged with an offence.’

  ‘What offence?’

  ‘Mrs Harman, I am sure that the detectives who will be interviewing you will be able to explain everything. Shall I tell them to expect you?’

  ‘Are you going to be interviewing Anna as well?’

  ‘That’s not your concern right now.’

  ‘So, yes,’ said Caro. Isabel Dillon was silent. ‘I’ll be there,’ Caro had said as she made her way to the freezer, ‘I’ll be there.’

  Caro follows the policewoman along a corridor until she gets to a room at the end. ‘They’re waiting for you,’ she says, and then opens the door, turns and walks away. ‘Thanks so much,’ Caro replies to the policewoman’s back.

  A man and a woman are sitting in the small room that has a table and three chairs. There are no windows and, almost instantly, she can feel herself getting edgy and claustrophobic, although she knows that may be from the vodka wearing off.

  ‘Mrs Harman, thank you for coming in. I’m Detective Sergeant Susan Sappington and this is Detective Sergeant Brian Ng.’

  The woman stands up and holds her hand out for Caro to shake. Caro surreptitiously wipes her own hand against the leg of her jeans before she takes the detective’s, which is as cool and dry as Caro had known it would be. Detective Sappington is dressed in a grey pantsuit, which would lie perfectly against her thin body if not for the gun holstered at her side. Caro smooths her hair, pushing behind her ears the pieces that are escaping. She wonders if the detectives can see the grey in her black hair. She’s very overdue for a colour. She pulls her shirt down a little, wishing she’d thought to wear something loose and cool instead of her slightly too tight black T-shirt. She didn’t know what people were supposed to wear to be interviewed by the police but, in the end, she’d just chosen clothes that fitted.