Under the Harrow

by Flynn Berry

  59

  LEWIS ONCE TOLD ME he lives in Jericho, not far from here. He gives me the address, and a few minutes later I’m on the step of a brick terraced house and he is opening the door and saying, “Come in.”

  I follow him up the stairs to his flat. The living room is clean and lit by lamps. He has a green couch, bookshelves, and a low table holding a record player. From across the room, I can see the record turning, wobbling a little. A racing bicycle leans against one wall, under a poster from a heist film, three people running, their legs akimbo, in exaggerated vanishing point perspective. Lewis disappears into the kitchen and returns with two bottles of beer.

  “Do you think I did it?”

  “No.”

  My shoulders drop, and I can look at him properly now. He wears a red-checked flannel shirt. His expression is worried and intent.

  “Moretti thinks I asked someone to assault her in Snaith.”

  “I know.”

  “I helped her look for him.”

  “The idea is that once she had been punished, you enjoyed the role. There are benefits to being close to a victim. It’s like Munchausen by proxy.”

  “I didn’t benefit from it. Am I officially a suspect?”

  “Yes.” He starts to peel the label from his beer. “She slept with your boyfriend.”

  “I don’t see how that’s my fault.”

  “That’s not exactly the point.”

  “What else? What else do they find strange about me?”

  “They think Rachel had been using the oven. A fireman noticed that the pot on one of the burners was still warm. It’s unlikely an intruder would turn off a burner before leaving the scene, but you might, out of habit. Or so the house wouldn’t burn down, since she left it to you.”

  “I can’t remember,” I say. “I don’t think I went into the kitchen. What about the knife? What would I have done with the knife?”

  “One theory,” he says, “is that you didn’t dispose of the knife at the scene. You tucked it into your waistband. At the police station, we know you went into the toilets alone. You wrapped the knife in paper, threw it in the bin, and that night it was loaded with the rest of the rubbish and brought to the landfill.”

  “That’s absurd. Wouldn’t Moretti have noticed?”

  “It was a short blade.” He puts his head back and rubs his face.

  “Do you think I’m going to be charged?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “We found a partial footprint. A men’s Lonsdale, with blood on it.”

  The footprint doesn’t eliminate me, he says, since I may have had an accomplice. My body turns leaden. The new information washes over me and I’m too tired to speak. Lewis notices and moves into the kitchen, leaving me to sink in privacy. Sometime later, he returns and hands me a bowl of ramen. We eat while listening to the record.

  “Can you forgive her?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “I think so.”

  When we finish our ramen, he rinses the bowls. It starts to rain, and I consider asking him if I can stay.

  He lends me an umbrella. At the bottom of the stairs, as I lean on the point of the umbrella, he pulls me toward him and kisses me.

  Only for a second, and then I am outside, my heart racing, the struts of the umbrella snapping open above me.

  60

  I THINK I UNDERSTAND now why people don’t leave when a war comes, why even residents with the means to leave stayed in a city like Sarajevo as danger drew closer. A mixture of disbelief and bargaining. If I stay, the war won’t come.

  I could drive to the airport and leave her car in short-stay parking. At an airline desk, I could buy a ticket to a country without an extradition treaty with England.

  The police might have placed a travel alert on my passport, but that isn’t what stops me. He stabbed Rachel eleven times. If I leave now, the police will consider it an admission of guilt, and he will never be caught.

  61

  I SEND MYSELF UP and down the aqueduct. At some point Keith will decide to go for a walk, or he will follow me. I carry pepper spray and the straight razor. The difficult part will be knowing when to stop him. He has to do enough damage for the police to take it seriously, but neither of us is going to die. The detectives must know that he is the violent one, not me, and not to trust anything he has told them.

  Along the path, the brambles are shaped into hollow globes, and sparrows fly through them. I walk south toward Oyster Pond.

  I have to forgive her or else sacrifice our last six months together. In a way, I don’t entirely blame her. If she wanted to switch, to see what it was like to be the other of us, the one who stayed safely at the party that night, at dinner with my boyfriend. Or she just drank too much and stopped caring. Bitch, I think, and the venom does nothing to how much I miss her.

  From part of the aqueduct, you can see the back of her house. The white wooden siding, the chimney, the two sheltering elms. Steam rises from the chimney, like someone is at home, but only because we left the boiler on so the pipes don’t burst.

  I wait for her to come outside. Or for Fenno to lunge into view at one of the windows. It hasn’t gotten any easier to believe she’s gone. At Oyster Pond, I test the pepper spray to make sure it isn’t frozen. I do this on every other walk. If he doesn’t come for me soon, it will be all used up.

  62

  TWO CONSTABLES ARE WAITING for me in front of the Hunters. They’ve seen me before I notice them, they’ve been watching me come down the road. I know the area better than they do. I know places to hide around the aqueduct. The woods are the most dense by Oyster Pond, that’s where I have to go, and I’m plotting this out, waiting for the right moment, but their eyes are fixed on me and I continue toward them. Full of rage, the length of the high street. They’re wasting time. If they had waited a little longer, Keith would have come after me.

  They step forward, reading me my rights while opening the door of the patrol car. They don’t use handcuffs. During the drive to Abingdon, I focus on the landscape through the window to stop my throat from closing. They didn’t give me time to change, and I still have pepper spray and the straight razor in my pocket.

  The light box sign of the Thames Valley Police appears. Much of it is the same as at other interviews. The room is identical, except one wall is a mirror, behind which other officers can watch us. I’m given a blue tracksuit to change into, and then left to wait in the interview room.

  Moretti comes in and says, “Hello, Nora.”

  They were rehearsals, I realize now, all the interviews before this one. Moretti was practicing for this. He knows me now, and my weaknesses.

  “We found some notes in your room. Is this your handwriting?”

  “Yes.”

  He starts to read. “‘Harm compounding factors. Psychological damage to victim. Sustained attack on same victim. Use of weapon or weapon equivalent. Significant degree of premeditation.’” He leans back in his chair. “Why do you have the sentencing guidelines for grievous bodily harm?”

  “Rachel thought the man who attacked her in Snaith might be caught for doing it again. I thought knowing the prison sentence for a similar crime would help me find him.”

  “Or,” he says, “you wanted to know what your punishment might be.”

  “No.”

  “Where did you scatter her ashes?” he asks.

  “Cornwall.”

  “Did anyone go with you?”

  “No.”

  “None of Rachel’s friends or family?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Did you ask them?”

  “I wanted to be alone.”

  He smooths his suit jacket. “Did you ever bring anything onto the ridge? A picnic?”

  “No.”

  “A witness saw you on the ridge carrying a plastic bag fro
m Whistlestop.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “There is a Whistlestop in Paddington station. You told me you’ve made purchases from it. And that particular branch sells Tennent’s Light Ale and Dunhills.”

  “Is the witness Keith? He made it up. Either they were his or you showed him photographs.”

  Moretti looks at the mirror, as though he wants to be sure someone has heard what I’ve just said. I wonder if I’ve already made a mistake. He remains silent for a moment. The witness must be Keith, or he would contradict me.

  “You assembled the scene on the ridge,” he says. “You wanted us to think Rachel had a stalker. Two days after her murder, you started to worry we might not find it, so you reported it yourself.”

  “No.”

  “Why were you on the ridge?”

  “I wanted to see her house.”

  He leaves the room. For a long time I sit with my hands on my lap. They’re watching me somewhere, on a video monitor, a small, still figure staring ahead. It must be meant to make me nervous, but it’s a relief to be alone. They have thirty-six hours to charge me.

  His boss, DCI Bristowe, will have to approve. He might be in her office now. I imagine she has been watching us, and I wish she would interview me herself. We’ve never spoken, she can’t be convinced of my guilt. I imagine her in a suit, a coffee on her desk, rubbing her shoulders, wondering if she can go home. It will look bad for her, and her department, to charge two suspects that CPS declines to prosecute.

  • • •

  There isn’t a clock in the interview room. Moretti wears a watch but its face is hidden under his sleeve. I don’t know how much time passes. I look at the mirror to try to see shapes behind it. I listen for sounds in the building, and when I don’t hear any I become frightened that we are the only ones in it.

  “Is Lewis here?”

  “No. DS Lewis has been suspended.”

  “Why?”

  “Professional misconduct.”

  • • •

  They don’t let me sleep for very long. It seems like only a few minutes pass between when I enter the cell and when I am back in the room with Moretti. He drinks a tea and doesn’t offer me one.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Paul Wheeler.”

  I try to hide my surprise, but I’m sure Moretti caught it, a twitch. “We met for the first time a few weeks ago. I think he attacked Rachel in Snaith.”

  “He sent you roses.”

  “He was harassing me. He sent the flowers to scare me.”

  “Have you given Paul Wheeler any gifts? Have you lent or given him money?”

  “No.”

  “What are the terms of your agreement?”

  “We don’t have an agreement.”

  Moretti stands and stretches. There are wrinkles on the back of his suit jacket. “Nothing you did with Lewis was illegal,” he says, “but a jury will want to know why you slept with a case detective so soon after the murder.”

  • • •

  Later, he pulls a sheet of paper toward him and lowers his head to read. “‘I’m unhappy. I don’t feel like myself. I’m scared this won’t go away.’” He continues, and I lean forward, my hands twisting on my lap. He’s reading my psychologist’s notes. I thought they were sealed.

  Moretti finishes reading and we sit with the paper on the table between us. “When you found out that Rachel caused so much unhappiness, you must have been very angry with her.”

  “I didn’t know about Liam until you told me.”

  He looks again at the mirror. Moretti still hasn’t mentioned the weapon. If the murderer used a knife from her house, my fingerprints might be on it. I’ve cooked using those knives.

  63

  A DUTY SOLICITOR COMES to see me. She introduces herself as Amrita Ghosh. “Have I been charged?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “I’m here to explain what might happen next.”

  Her voice is candid and direct, and she meets my eyes. I can’t tell if she thinks I’m guilty. I suppose she might not have an opinion. She is here to share general information, not offer me advice. She might not have reviewed the case in any detail.

  She starts with what I already know. After my arrest, the police have thirty-six hours before they must either charge or release me. If I am released, the police will likely continue to consider me as a suspect and to build the case against me, unless new evidence eliminates me.

  The solicitor doesn’t do anything to confuse me. She never asks how I am coping. She makes it clear that she is a neutral party. If I am charged, I will remain in custody while an Oxfordshire prosecutor decides if the evidence against me is strong enough to move to trial. If it is, I will appear before a magistrate to enter a plea. If I plead guilty, negotiations will begin between my defense counsel and the prosecutor. If I plead not guilty, the magistrate will either set bail or remand me into custody until the trial.

  “It is my duty to tell you that there is a sentence reduction for a guilty plea. The prosecutor might also adjust the charge from murder to manslaughter. It depends on the details of the offense.”

  “What’s the average length of time in prison after a guilty manslaughter plea?”

  “Three years.”

  “What’s the average if you plead not guilty to murder and are convicted?”

  “Twenty years.”

  She holds my eyes. I don’t think she believes I’m innocent.

  • • •

  The difference between being released at thirty-three or forty-nine.

  I won’t do well in cross-examination. At York Crown Court some defendants remained composed and patient. Others became emotional, to the jury’s distaste. The juries appeared to prefer when defendants kept calm, and I won’t be able to.

  The visit from the duty solicitor was not about due process, it was the first application of pressure. They could have waited until I was charged, but they want to be sure I have time before the magistrate’s hearing to consider it. Three or twenty years.

  64

  “ARE YOU TIRED?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  He smiles at me. For a moment I think he will let me go. The silence stretches between us.

  “Your fingerprints are on the banister post.”

  I watch his expression closely. “Which one?”

  “The one you tied the dog’s lead around.”

  “I must have touched it on a different visit.”

  “They’re close to the ground. To reach there, you would have had to kneel on the floor.” He straightens his tie. “One of the prints is in the dog’s blood.”

  “Show me a photograph of it.”

  He leaves the room. My breathing turns loud and ragged. I can’t remember if detectives are allowed to lie during an interview. It’s such a huge point of law, I can’t believe I don’t know it. He might be allowed to say anything.

  The minutes stretch on. I try to stare through the black mirror, and my reflection is appalled and ashen. He wants to retire. How important is it to him to leave after a success? I never considered it before.

  I didn’t touch the banister post that day, but I did touch the dog. I put my hand against his side while he was hanging. I knew he was dead, but I still wanted to comfort him.

  I must have left fingerprints somewhere else in the house. All he would have to do is change the label on where the print was found. The house has been industrially cleaned now. I won’t be able to prove him wrong.

  65

  MORETTI DOESN’T RETURN, and a constable leads me to the cell.

  He’s fitting me up. When I asked about the defensive injuries, he shrugged. He might decide to remember a scratch or a bruise on me.

  I don’t sleep. Instead I pretend to be a juror, listening to the evidence and the witnesses. I don’t know if it will be clear that
the police are crooked, or if something about me will make it easy for them to believe.

  • • •

  A constable unlocks the door and says, “Follow me, please.”

  Sunlight falls over us as we walk down the corridor. It must be Thursday morning. I can’t tell from her face if in a few minutes she will charge or release me.

  An officer hands me my clothes and bag. Moretti isn’t in the room. I wonder if he’s watching on a monitor somewhere else in the building. I’m not being charged. He must have lied about the prints on the banister.

  I hurry away from the police station. The morning is cool and damp, the sun behind a scrim of gray cloud. Giddiness bursts up my legs and into my chest. I dig my nails into the sides of my arms, sailing down the road.

  By the time I reach Marlow, the Emerald Gate has opened. I order scallion pancakes, chow fun, and dumplings. I eat greedily, tearing the pancakes with my hands, scooping mouthfuls of food. While I eat, I don’t think of anything but how it tastes.

  After the bowls are scraped clean, I lean back in my chair and look out the window and wonder what I am supposed to do next.

  At the station last night I started to make plans. I didn’t mean to, but couldn’t help it. Plans to travel. To sleep rough.

  66

  I RETURN TO the Hunters to pack my things. Tonight I will stay with Martha in London, and the thought makes me heavy with relief.

  Before I stow my laptop, I open it on the bed. The screen brightens. I haven’t checked his name in over a week, since before Cornwall.

  • • •

  Paul Wheeler violated his parole. Over the weekend he assaulted a woman in Holbeck, South Leeds. Milly Athill. The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. He followed her into her home. The charge against him will be much more severe this time. He committed the crime while he was on probation, and it’s a repeat offense. It was a sustained attack on one victim. The prosecutor will likely be able to prove psychological damage to the victim.