To Kill a Man - Maggie Costello Series 05 (2020)

by Bourne, Sam

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Zing.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Harrison said, stepping back from the lectern. ‘That was a compliment.’

  ‘But you saw how she came back at you. It sounded like you were patronizing her.’

  ‘She’s a lawyer who was in college until five minutes ago, and I’m saying she’s tough enough to head the US military. You don’t think that’s a compliment?’ With upturned palms and by way of an appeal, he looked towards the women at the back, clustered between Doug and the pollster. ‘Right?’

  None would meet his eye; two were looking at Doug, as if waiting for his cue. Written on their faces was the uncertainty that always bedevilled the mid-ranking employee of a political campaign: who exactly was their boss? Was it their day-to-day superior, the campaign manager who hired them and who gave them the small boosts and opportunities that might shape their careers? Or was it the candidate they were paid to get elected? It was rare for those two to come into conflict but, when they did, the result was usually paralysis.

  ‘What if I try something else?’ the senator said. ‘Something warmer, more personal. What if I make this a human moment?’

  With that, he stepped out from behind his lectern and approached Ellen. ‘Natasha, I want to say, from the bottom of my heart, how sorry I am – and how sorry all Americans should be—’

  ‘No, no, no. No way.’

  There was a chorus from the women at the back. The voices merged, but Greg picked out ‘creepy’, ‘stalker’ and ‘invading personal space’. Greg watched the senator retreat to his place. He imagined what the video would look like: old man, young woman. Optics: horrific.

  In the silence that followed, and even though he’d have been the first to say that they needed to be guided by the expert voices of women in this area, Greg decided to weigh in. He was reluctant and not just because of his gender. If it were up to him, they’d all keep quiet until afterwards. Let Harrison do his thing, then analyze it later, watching the video. But Doug was in charge and patience was not quite his style.

  ‘Look,’ Greg said, ‘the senator has to praise her. If he doesn’t, he looks churlish. Maybe even a bit rattled. She’s being hailed everywhere as a hero, including by moderates. They’re his people; he needs to signal that he gets it. Maybe not with the Defense Secretary thing, but somehow.’

  ‘All right,’ Harrison said. ‘What would you suggest?’

  Now one of the women at the back spoke. Kara, number two in the comms team. ‘Ideally, you praise her but you do it in such a way that it plants doubts.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like, maybe she’s a hothead. You know, her temper’s out of control.’

  ‘OK,’ said Doug. ‘Let’s try that.’

  Greg began asking his question again, but the senator silenced him with a wave of the hand, preferring to plunge straight into his new answer.

  ‘What you did was tough. But in this job, when you’re President of the United States, sometimes toughness is not enough. Sometimes, you have to show restraint. Sometimes, you have to know when to hold back.’

  ‘Are you suggesting I should have held back and let that man rape me, Senator?’

  Harrison stepped away from the podium again. ‘Jesus Christ, I can’t win against this woman. Whatever I say to her, it’s wrong. She’ll kill me up there.’

  ‘Maybe literally.’ It was the pollster.

  Only Doug dared laugh, before regrouping. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I think we can see there is a Dukakis-sized hole in the ground here, which we are being invited to walk right into.’

  Greg, who had turned around, could see a couple of blank faces among his younger colleagues. Now Doug clocked them too.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s not that long ago. And if you don’t remember it, go watch it on fucking YouTube. “Governor Dukakis: if you saw your wife Kitty raped and killed before your eyes, would you still oppose the death penalty for her killer?” Dukakis gives some wonk answer about recidivism rates or some shit, whereas—’

  ‘Whereas, the right answer,’ said Harrison with a smile, taking the baton from Doug and, better yet, now glimpsing the finish line that he was to aim for, ‘the right answer was: “If I saw my wife raped and killed in front of me, I’d grab the man responsible and I’d rip his throat out with my bare hands. I’d hang him by his ankles and then I’d slice an artery and watch him bleed to death, as slowly and painfully as possible. But this isn’t about me. This is about the authority of the state and our system. And the state and our system have to be better than me. Which is why the death penalty isn’t the answer.”’

  ‘Love that. Every time.’

  ‘So,’ Harrison continued, his confidence renewed, ‘what I’d say to your question, Greg, is this. What Natasha Winthrop did that night took great guts. But women shouldn’t have to rely on their guts, or their own bare hands, to defend themselves. Not every woman could do what she did. Not every woman should have to do what she did. That’s what we should do for each other, as a country. That’s what our police should be for. And that’s what has gone wrong under this terrible president.’

  Greg could feel the atmosphere behind him had changed, that Doug and the rest were all but ready to applaud. All the same, he went in with the follow-up that he believed any TV moderator worth their salt would ask.

  ‘Are you saying, Senator Harrison, that you think it was wrong that Natasha Winthrop took the law into her own hands?’

  ‘I’m saying, Greg, that she should never have been left in the position where that was her only chance. I could say that I’d prefer she had never taken the law into her own hands but that’s not—’

  ‘And have you, sir?’

  ‘Have I what?’

  ‘Ever taken the law into your own hands?’

  ‘I grew up in a tough neighbourhood, Greg. Chicago was a tough town. Sometimes, in the schoolyard, you had to stand up to a guy, let him know he couldn’t push you around and—’

  Ellen interrupted, gripping the lectern tight. ‘And sometimes, Senator, you have to defend yourself against a man who has his hands around your throat and means to kill you. I’ve been there. I know.’

  Harrison stood there, silent. After a beat, he threw a look in Teller’s direction which Greg at first took to be a protest, but which he soon realized was something more desperate. Senator Tom Harrison, presumed frontrunner for his party’s nomination for the White House, was asking for help. He, like everyone else in the room, was beginning to understand that if Natasha Winthrop entered the race, then what he had said a few moments ago might just be the truth.

  I can’t win against this woman.

  Chapter 8

  Washington, DC

  Those words from Chester – the only person that could possibly be is you – caused the temperature to drop. Natasha Winthrop stiffened, aware that there had been a shift. The earlier jabs in her direction had been mere feints, their intent denied as soon as they had been thrown. But this was a direct punch, explicit and unambiguous.

  The two detectives collected up their papers, returning them to the stiff paper file that sat on the desk in front of them: the universal sign that the meeting was over.

  ‘Hold on,’ Natasha was saying. ‘I need to see this CCTV image. There’s been a mistake. I didn’t let anyone into the house. I was in my study the whole time, exactly as I’ve told you. You need to show me this picture you have.’

  ‘We don’t have that at this time,’ said Chester, deploying a stock bit of bureaucratese in a way Natasha took as a deliberate taunt.

  ‘You just referred to it a second ago,’ Natasha said, incredulous, a finger stabbing at the table where the mysterious sheet of paper had lain, face down, a moment earlier.

  ‘That was a report of the CCTV footage.’ Chester smiled a tight little smile. ‘All appropriate information will be shared i
n due course.’ Another smile. ‘Now, talking of information, Miss Winthrop: in a case like this, it would be routine for us to examine your smartphone.’

  ‘Well, that’s completely out of the question.’

  ‘To rule out any connection between you and the deceased.’

  ‘That phone contains all my contacts with my clients. It’s privileged information.’

  ‘I see that and of course you’re under no compulsion to provide it to us.’

  ‘Well, that’s that then.’

  ‘At this stage. But as things develop, we will do whatever is necessary to access the information we need.’

  Allen was nodding, as if still trying to make nice. Natasha wondered if it was force of habit: good cop was his default setting. ‘Just to rule things out,’ he said.

  ‘Well, we can tackle that situation when it arises,’ Natasha said. ‘But for now, the answer is no. And I’d like your notes to record that my sole and stated reason is the protection of attorney-client confidentiality. And to record my adamant, total rejection of the claim that I let this man into my house.’

  ‘Understood,’ he said. Chester remained mute, simply staring hard at Natasha for a good fifteen seconds, before eventually tucking her documents under her arm – no text showing – and heading out.

  A guard came in, to usher Natasha to a ‘holding suite’. Once there, she sat alone, on a single, hard plastic chair, under the eye of not one but two surveillance cameras, positioned unabashedly in the corners. She let out a long, deep sigh. The image that came into her mind was of that man, lying dead on her floor, his bodily fluids all over both of them.

  She opened up her phone, flicked it out of airplane mode and felt it come to life in her hand. Buzzing and trembling as the inbox filled up and the texts, WhatsApps and DMs arrived. She skimmed them – the good wishes from friends, the offers of help from former colleagues, the tweets from strangers – and she had the same feeling she’d had about two weeks earlier, when her televised performance at the committee had suddenly become a sensation. This was the second time this month that she had felt herself buried in an online avalanche.

  She moved away from her mentions to look at the general newsfeed, and at first she assumed she’d failed to press the button properly: this string of tweets was about her too.

  Breaking: DC Police still holding Natasha Winthrop after questioning her for more than an hour this morning.

  So that was out. Somebody inside this building, inside DC Police at any rate, was not just leaking the details of this inquiry, they were supplying live, play-by-play commentary. She searched for ‘Winthrop’ and ‘CCTV’: still nothing. ‘Winthrop’ and ‘footage’. Not yet.

  Instead, all she could see were different versions of – and reactions to – the news that she was still being questioned. There seemed to be hundreds of them, flooding in every second. And most seemed to be using the same hashtag. #Heroine.

  The older messages were praising her as some kind of vigilante. And the people doing it were so odd: writers for the National Review; pundits from The Blaze; cheerleaders for the president. All those right-wingers who normally hated her were suddenly lauding her as a poster girl for self-defence. Many of them seemed to think she had shot her attacker.

  The best defence against a bad man with a gun is a good *woman* with a gun. #Heroine

  But the fresher messages expressed less admiration for her than hostility towards the police. At the milder end there was mere impatience, hoping that DC Police would soon end ‘this ordeal’, calling on the department, first, to issue a statement that Natasha had been attacked and that she had killed in self-defence and, second, to allow her to go free. A distinguished book reviewer for the New Yorker tweeted:

  The longer this goes on, the more it adds to the anguish Natasha Winthrop has already had to suffer. Enough.

  A young writer for The Nation weighed in:

  Every hour DC Police keep #Natasha under this cloud of suspicion, the more it looks like a vendetta #settlingscores #waronterror #civilliberties

  And a woman who had set up a website dedicated to monitoring sexual harassment posted this:

  Imagine if a man had knocked out a violent attacker. Everyone would be praising him as a hero. But naturally a woman is viewed with suspicion.

  A former US congressman, Republican, had tweeted just two minutes earlier:

  Every American has the right to defend their home with all necessary force. The police have nothing to investigate.

  And then, right before her eyes, she saw it change. A tweet from the local CBS affiliate:

  Breaking: Police investigating CCTV footage, apparently showing Winthrop letting assailant into her home.

  She closed her eyes, like a sailor who knows a fifty-foot wave is about to crash onto the deck. She didn’t need to see any more. She knew what was coming. Soon it would be: Police suspect Winthrop may have known her attacker. And eventually: Police believe Winthrop knew her victim.

  She leaned back, letting her head rest against the breeze-block wall. Her eyes remained closed.

  It’s possible she fell asleep, if only for a few seconds, because she started when she heard the beep of the door being clicked open.

  ‘Natasha!’

  Even the way he said the word irritated her. The faux pity, like a parent addressing a toddler who’d fallen over: Look at you, poor thing! The cheek of it grated on her, considering – and she knew this was a petty thought, especially at a time like this – he was below her in the hierarchy of those who served the committee. He was the mere spokesperson, while she had been the senior counsel. Three years her junior, and yet here he was: Dad come to bail out the teenager who’d been hauled in for speeding.

  Or perhaps, she acknowledged to herself in the same second, her irritation at the sight of Dan Benson had a simpler explanation. Namely, she didn’t trust him.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve been going through this alone,’ he said, flicking his hair away from his forehead as he pulled up a chair alongside her.

  ‘Well, they offered me a lawyer. But I figured, hey, I’ve got that covered.’

  ‘Sure, but I mean, just in terms of emotional support, Natasha.’ He bit his lower lip and fixed her with a look of earnest concern, the man who prides himself on his sensitivity to women, the man who posts a clenched-fist emoji of solidarity on International Women’s Day. ‘Natasha, no woman should be alone at a time like this.’

  ‘That’s really kind, Dan.’ She began thinking through the angles. ‘Was this the chairman’s idea?’

  ‘Very much so, of course. Now, tell me, how can I get you home?’

  So, the chairman. Made sense, and not only because he was Benson’s patron. Of all the members of the House committee, the chairman had been the one most obviously rattled by Natasha’s sudden media exposure. He’d had a presidential bid of his own to nurture; these hearings were meant to be his launch pad. And then his damned counsel sucks up all the ink and grabs all the airtime. That was not how things were meant to work. Had he seen #Heroine trending and despatched his bag-carrier to ensure Natasha was suitably and swiftly contained?

  ‘I’m not allowed to go home. Crime scene.’

  ‘You’re coming to my apartment. Shower, sleep, eat. Whatever you need.’

  Dan Benson’s home might well have been the last place on earth she wanted to go – second only, perhaps, to the home of his boss – but she understood that she was short of alternatives. She had friends she could call, but the explanations, the hassle, the wait. No, it made more sense to accept this offer and get out of here right now.

  There were forms to fill in, and more delays, but eventually Natasha Winthrop was in a cab threading her way to Dan Benson’s apartment block near Cleveland Park. Her willpower was strong and she didn’t so much as glance at Twitter. But her phone buzzed all the same: journalists mainly, along
with a few friends and legal contacts. The former suggested she call back, so that she could tell her ‘side of the story’. The latter offered help, a move clearly, though tacitly, prompted by the report of video footage that purportedly showed her letting her assailant into her home. Benson was talking, but she wasn’t listening. Occasionally she murmured a noise of assent or comprehension but she knew that her eyes had glazed over. She was elsewhere. She was staring at her memory of that man – standing in her house, framed in the doorway, in that suspended second before he moved towards her.

  What brought her back was the sight of a truck, its satellite dish extended and its ears pricked up, parked on the corner of Benson’s street. For the briefest of seconds, she told herself it might be something else. Maybe even a coincidence.

  But as she got closer, it was obvious. The WJLA livery on the side announced it as belonging to a news crew for Channel 7 and the side door swung open to reveal a bank of screens and a technician already at work. As the cab got closer, she saw two more sat-trucks, their dishes cocked, primed for broadcast. And there, next to what she assumed was Dan’s building, a little knot of snappers and reporters, with one, two, three, four TV cameras.

  ‘Christ,’ Dan said. ‘A goat-fuck.’

  Instantly, Natasha knew he was lying. The feigned surprise wasn’t fooling anybody; not her, anyway. How else had the press known to come here? She had told no one she was heading to Benson’s, save for one other colleague from the law firm who had offered to come collect her from police headquarters. Oh, and a friend who had made the same offer. Actually two friends. But who would they have told?

  ‘No can park,’ the driver was saying over his shoulder, gesturing at the street, where it seemed every space had been filled by the press corps.

  ‘All right,’ Dan replied, his eyes darting. ‘Just slow down.’

  Natasha pictured herself and Benson emerging from the taxi, how it would look on the news. The pair of them jostled, questions barked out, trying to make their way to the entrance. The visual implication to the casual viewer that they – she – had done something wrong. Why else would she be hunted like this? To her surprise, she found time to consider one other cause for alarm: people were bound to see those pictures of her and Dan and conclude they were a couple.