by Ese McGowan
The whole country is now in lockdown, most of the globe in fact and Miriam’s bosses, so hell bent on crowing about low crime figures want her to dive in and propel the facts to a quick result. No result preferably. An open and shut case. Accidental death. And there are no glaringly obvious facts. There’s a lot of gossip. This neighbourhood seems in stark contrast to those parading themselves in the media and by the government as pillars of society and benevolent open communities that we never knew about. There is no solidarity among these people. In normal times, it’s nigh on impossible to persuade anyone to talk, to find any witnesses, especially in a neighbourhood of people who, once all is said and done, will have to live alongside the people they have snitched on, because that’s how it will be interpreted and no one likes a grass. But this is nothing like that. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing with neighbours exploding with opinions and flimsy evidence devoid of fact. They all want to expose each other. They all, somehow, appear to have a grievance with either Erin Green or Adam Konstantas, or both and they are unified only in their immense dislike for either Erin Green or Alicia Mason and some hold a grudge to both, to a degree. More so to Erin Green on balance. And yet, not one person saw anything tangible that Miriam can clamp her teeth into. Two parties or more, two intoxicated scenes, many stories and among them confusion of what happened at which party but all Miriam has here is a fairly real notion that Adam Konstantas had begun an affair with Alicia Mason. This does not give anyone any motive to kill apart from the guy who plunged to his death from the rooftop and the scorned girlfriend, Erin and that’s a motive to kill Adam or Alicia, not Joel. It’s a mess. No one has fundamentally provided an alibi for anyone else, although Abigail and Jason seem to believe that at least one of them saw Alicia and Adam copulating in Erin Green’s kitchen at some point at one of the parties in question, possibly both but they are suffering from fatigue and anxiety issues brought on by historical anti-social behaviour in the street. They are confused. Miriam cannot rely on either of them. Alicia is certain they themselves attended the party. There is no clarity.
And why did Adam Konstantas disappear to apparently pick up Alicia and her children from her parents when only some hours before they had collected her from the Police Station and said she would be staying with them? At the point at which there had been no mention of her children either from Alicia or her parents? Was there a fight whereby Joel Mason confronted him and Adam Konstantas pushed him off the roof? Yet two other witness accounts state that Joel Mason openly encouraged his wife’s sexual engagement with other men, lately with Adam and he now confirms this and he does sound like the conceited sort that would do whatever the hell he likes and has done, now he reveals, for years and before he had even met Erin Green.
Pearl Ritter among others is positive Adam and Alicia’s relationship had existed far longer than the chance encounter of someone he had once worked with, moving into the house next door. His position on that is nebulous to say the least. It’s clear lying is a thing he frequently indulges in. Pearl is certain that while Erin Green was away, that he would entertain other women, particularly Alicia Mason and possibly Dana Begum. Miriam wonders why the dead body wasn’t that of Alicia’s or Adam’s, now that would have made more sense. But no, they are all accusing Erin Green of killing Joel Mason and for the life of her, Miriam cannot see why. She cannot pull out a motive from the accusations. She would kill Alicia or Adam but not Joel. It literally makes no sense.
Then there is the Erin Green problem and Miriam is not alone in this. Everyone has a problem with Erin Green and there is nothing in her background. Not one single thing that dates beyond five years and those five years are to a detective quite unremarkable, episodically dull. She cannot very well kick her out of the cell that she asked to be housed in when her fiancé has moved in the person who insists she murdered her husband, not in the midst of a pandemic. She refuses to speak to a lawyer. She has neither confessed nor provided any factual information. She has described, in pure drivel, how she was locked in her room by Alicia and Adam while they had sex downstairs in the kitchen, which aligns with the Bartlett’s account and Miriam cannot turf her out to any old place as the lockdown prevents households mixing. It’s an impossible situation.
Miriam’s vain hope that the DNA results would conjure up a clearer picture have fallen flat. It matters not about taking DNA swabs from the witnesses if the dead man’s body is covered in multiple DNA findings, which after a party in a confined space was not a surprise. Even the pathology report isn’t going to tell her much. Who doesn’t take drugs at a party of the middle classes these days? All that may do is lead the coroner to declare the cause of death an accident and Miriam has given him clear guidance on this, that she vehemently does not want him to rule on any cause of death until she has discussed all behavioural and environmental crime scene possibilities with him. Unless there are physical signs of a struggle which could not have been caused by the fall.
Nothing will show a struggle and nothing will show a push, not conclusively anyway. The man fell face down.
The reality is that Joel may have slipped or he may have been pushed. The fact he had landed face down means nothing really, she knows that, when clearly under and around him lay broken roof tiles. His body may very well have ricocheted, tumbled or twisted on his way down over the roof. It is only a given that had he faced inward when he fell, without any obstacles to twist him, this would have had him land on his back and suggest a fight and yet even then he could simply have lost his footing. He was drunk, intoxicated. Lying face down surely suggests he was facing outward when he fell or when he was pushed but again, there is no clear evidence of either to herald one theory over another: a push, or wobble whilst looking out over the rooftops while drunk? Twisting when falling. And let’s face it, no one will be erecting scaffolding to run a fine comb over the area when not one person wants to come out and risk catching this damn virus. Blood out of stone.
How is it no one saw anything? When does that happen when so many people would have been watching, surely? In the garden, in the neighbourhood. Because of the noise in a lockdown, a party in a lockdown, a lockdown of a virus none such that anyone has experienced in a century. And that no one should have been doing what these people were doing. How could no one, whatsoever, who attended the party not have seen or heard anything at all, other than Mabel Ledbetter who has Erin and Joel having an argument in the downstairs toilet somewhere near or close to the time of the murder, just before she swears they climbed the stairs together.
Time to talk to Erin Green.
‘Get the door open would you?’ barks Detective Miriam Sykes.
‘You going in there?’
‘Yes, can’t take her out can I?’
‘Shouldn’t you put on some PPE before you do that Ma’am?’
Miriam pulls back the cell flap. ‘You got a temperature Erin, any sign of a dry cough?’
‘No,’ Erin replies.
‘Doors please,’ insists Miriam to which the officer obliges with a disproving look.
‘Let’s have a chat shall we Erin?’
‘Ok.’
‘I’ve read your statement.’
‘Oh, it’s not a statement. It’s my story of what happened.’
Miriam drags a chair into the cell and places her phone on the cell bed and presses record on the app. ‘You need a coffee?’ Erin nods. ‘Charlie?’ she yells out. He pops his head around the door. ‘Two coffees, make mine strong and black, you?’ she looks at Erin.
‘White, no sugar please.’
‘Ok, so explain to me, Erin,’ Miriam begins. ‘What the hell are you doing in here?’
‘Staying safe. Protecting the NHS.’
‘Yeah, ok, you can cut the crap. You left out the staying home bit. There a reason you’re so desperate to avoid going home?’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘Actually, I’d quite like to be at home for longer than five hours a night and yet instead I’m stuck in here with
you, trying to work out what the hell happened over on your street that led to a man lying dead on your next-door neighbours patio.’
‘Don’t ask me. I had nothing to do with that. You should be asking why they locked me in the spare room. Didn’t you read what I wrote?’
‘Yes, it makes for quite the story. In fact I have never read anything quite like it in all my years policing.’
Erin smirks. A deep-seated smug smirk that sends a chill down Miriam’s spine.
It wasn’t smug. I do that when I feel nervous. I am not who people think I am.
‘Can I ask you Erin, if you wouldn’t mind being honest with me? Have you ever experienced or been advised that you suffer with mental health conditions?’
‘No,’ she replies and she takes a discernible affront to the suggestion. ‘I take it, from that, that you think I’m some kind of nutter.’
‘I’m not assuming anything Erin. I want to understand what head space you’re in as it isn’t normal for anyone to ask to be incarcerated.’
‘We’re in the middle of a pandemic. What’s normal?’ she responds.
‘Fair point. But even so, you need to explain to me why. Are you afraid of your fiancé, Adam? Has he done anything that makes you feel in fear of your life?’
‘Yes, he, with that woman, locked me in the spare room. They drugged me. Ask Dana Begum, she must have seen me or heard me banging on the window.’
‘I did and she says you’re lying about that. She said that no one else was on the street when you claim to have banged in the window, that the street was silent and that the only banging she could hear was your fiancé taking a sledgehammer to your garden wall.’
‘Oh that’s not true. I don’t know why she would say that.’
‘Were you or are you aware that Adam entertained Dana Begum when you worked away from home and that there have been suggestions he may have had an affair with her?’
Erin looks startled but not upset. ‘There’s no way he would sleep with her. She isn’t remotely like me.’
‘Why would she have to be like you for him to want to sleep with another woman? I don’t understand your logic?’
‘She isn’t as attractive as I am and he’s incredible fussy. He’s shallow. And her figure is bland. No one double takes on her. Ask them.’
It’s all part of the act. I can’t remember when I started doing this but it was somewhere around the time I met Adam, maybe before.
‘Ok. What about your friend Mabel Ledbetter? How would you describe your relationship with her?’
‘Fractious.’
‘Oh, and now there was me thinking she was your best friend.’
‘I don’t have a best friend. Mabel’s a Gemini.’
Great, thinks Miriam. Now we have entered the realms of investigation by astrology if things couldn’t get any more surreal and removed from reality.
‘Mabel has told me that she found you and Joel in the downstairs toilet together and it looked very much like you were fighting.’ She pauses and looks directly in Erin’s eyes locking her in, watching her discomfort ascend. ‘She then states that she saw you and Joel go upstairs together, you first and then him, suggesting, she thinks, that neither of you wanted to be seen going up there together.’
Erin remains silent. The smug expression has disappeared. She looks mildly as if she is scrambling her brain for a reason. ‘That didn’t happen.’
I’m trying to remember something. You have stirred something in me.
‘What if I told you that Mabel was not the only witness to you two going up the stairs together, possibly only moments before he tumbled off the roof.’ Miriam, like all police officers, often invents purported witness statements to nudge the suspect along. It isn’t right but mostly, it works.
‘So everyone’s a liar. Tell me something new.’
‘Come on Erin. There’s a pandemic out there. Wouldn’t you like all of this cleared up quickly so we can get out of here and not risk getting this damn virus. Just tell me what happened. What did you argue with Joel about?’
‘There was no argument. I can’t tell you about something that never happened. I left before midnight. Ask the Bartlett’s. I’ve no doubt Abigail would have clocked me leaving as she’s always watching the house like the stalker she is.’
‘Nope, she didn’t mention any time to me.’
Have you ever had that feeling that the whole world is going to come crashing down on you? No? Well you’re in luck, it’s about to happen.
21
‘You don’t remember me do you?’ I ask her.
‘Sorry?’ Miriam pulls back from resting her elbows on her knees. It’s unnerving when an unexpected question is so randomly thrown at you. ‘I’m not with you.’
‘Maths class. We sat next to each other.’ Miriam turns her mouth down, squints her blue milky cold eyes, lines her forehead depressing her eyebrows to a curve. ‘
‘What?’ Miriam is perplexed and then you see her face register. ‘You had brown hair, mousey brown hair.’ I nod. ‘But, you’re—’
‘Not Erin.’
‘Shit. You changed your name?’
‘It’s coming back to you isn’t it? But you can’t quite find it. Arabella.’
‘Oh so that’s why I couldn’t find anything on you,’ smarts Miriam and she doesn’t look a whole load comfortable with her reconnaissance of me. ‘Why did you change your name Erin?’
‘He changed it.’
‘Adam?’
‘Yes.’
Then she points at me in her eureka moment. ‘You were miserable all the time. You hung out with Joel Banks who dyed his hair black and wore black lipstick.’
And then I puke. I told you I block things out.
She reaches for the coarse roll of paper hanging off the wall by the seat bare toilet, the smell of which I’m sure I’ll never free from my nose.
‘Joel Black is Joel Mason,’ she says as I begin to shake beyond my control. ‘What the hell is going on Erin? Do I call you Erin?’
I don’t care. I am not her and she is not me because that person was destroyed long ago.
‘What’s your relationship with Joel Mason, Erin? What happened when he came to work with you, can you tell me that?’
An officer knocks on the door and passes the coffee over to us with his mask on and hands sheathed in blue plastic gloves.
‘Erin, talk to me? Did this man do something to you that might have upset you enough to push him off the roof?’
I shake my head. ‘I didn’t do it,’ I tell her. I repeat, ‘I didn’t do it.’
And now everything comes back to me. The conversations I overheard. The telephone calls. The emails I saw when he hadn’t remembered to log out. The holidays I had gone on with him and spent alone, in a locked hotel room. The bruises I had woken up with on so many mornings and the wooziness I have felt for most of my last five years.
‘Joel introduced me to Adam, if you can call it that.’
‘Ok. When you worked with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Describe to me the relationship you had with Joel because and correct me if I’m wrong here, but it didn’t look much like a healthy one.’
‘He bullied me. He threatened me. No one liked him at school so he picked me. I got away from him when my mother moved, after my father died but he found me again and it all started again only worse. He forced me onto Adam.’
‘Why didn’t you stop it? You were an adult. You could have left your job, got away from him.’
‘He made my life a misery. I was suicidal when I was a teenager because of him and there he was again, bigger, stronger, psychotic. After a while I started to believe that Adam was all right. Joel seemed to disappear but he didn’t. I remember hearing them on the phone, laughing about me and everywhere we went on holiday I swore blind I would see Joel watching me on the beach, in the restaurant, on the train, the plane, in my hotel room and Adam said I was crazy. He was always laughing with someone and I know I saw the emails.
’
‘But why didn’t you leave him? Why did you pretend not to know Joel?’
‘I block bad things out. I’d blocked Joel out so well that when he moved next door I didn’t even recognise him. It was his voice I couldn’t erase. Something about his voice and then at the party he dragged me into the toilet, threatening to tell everyone who I really was.’
‘And who is that? What does he have on you Erin?’
‘I killed my brother.’