by C. S. Barnes
‘I’m fine, thank you, Mrs Thompson.’
My mother nodded, smiled, and excused herself, leaving Daniel and me to float awkwardly around the open front door, apparently half-clueless as to how to properly behave around each other now. We had torn pieces from each other the previous evening, but now there was a ball of nervous energy wedged between us.
I tried to find something worth saying but my mind was a jumble of snapshot images now. I remembered how his breath had fallen out of him in great pants, from a mouth contorted into such a twist that under different circumstances it would have looked like he was in pain. I remembered slowing asking if he was okay. I couldn’t remember why I’d done that. I couldn’t remember my reasoning but I remembered his answer: ‘I just want this to be good for you.’
The audio had the wrong image attached. It was Daniel’s voice, but the boy’s body, and my thrust, and although I shook it away there it was again immediately after until I
couldn’t pull the individual components away from each other and I–
‘Gillian?’ Daniel set his hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of the memory – memories.
‘Everything okay? You looked like you slipped out on me there.’
‘Sorry.’ I paused, shook away the last of the boy’s face. ‘I’m fine.’
He nodded, pressed his lips together, and then said: ‘So how was it for you?’ He laughed at the question, but the humour mostly escaped me, given that I thought we’d already half-had this conversation. My expression remained blank and so Daniel readjusted his tone when he spoke again, adding: ‘Seriously, GT, was it okay?’
The house phone ringing cut through my thoughts then, but this was quickly extinguished by my mother answering the call from elsewhere in the house.
‘It was mind-blowing,’ I said.
But after that we fell into a game of reassurances. Every compliment that I delivered was met with a ‘Really?’ or a ‘Do you mean that?’ from Daniel, and I quite quickly ran out of ways to tell him how satisfactory his performance had been. He may have sensed this, or perhaps he just realised how one-sided our exchange of compliments had been. Whichever it was, something happened that made him move towards me then, the fingers of his right hand loose around my shoulders and his lips firm against my forehead.
He’d barely pulled away from this kiss when he muttered against my skin: ‘You’re a phenomenal woman, Gillian Thompson.’
‘I am?’
‘You are.’
‘Gillian?’
I hadn’t heard my mother step back into the hallway. She set the phone back in its cradle on the sideboard, prompting a musical tone from the handset to signal its charging.
‘I’ve got to pop out, Gillian.’
Her face was pale, pained.
‘Is everything okay, Mum?’
‘Multiple stab wounds. Christ, he was only seventeen.’
I threw a puzzled expression at Daniel that he bounced back to me.
‘Timothy Westburn.’
So that was his name then, I remember thinking. My mother had said it with some familiarity, and she looked at me with an expectant expression, waiting for a reaction. I nodded slowly, making a silent bid for more information.
‘Anne’s son?’
Daniel’s hand was on my shoulder again now, delivering what I thought was meant to be a reassuring squeeze, but I still couldn’t find a reaction for all of this.
‘You’d know her by sight, Gillian; she’s one of the women who brought food over, after your father.’ She added this last bit with hesitation. And suddenly I knew exactly who my mother was referring to. Big hair, painful smile, workaholic husband, generic son.
Dead son now. Thanks to me.
Chapter 27
It had been eight days since Timothy Westburn’s murder. Or the Westburn boy’s murder, as our neighbours were now referring to it, which they did, multiple times, during any given conversation, whether it was relevant or not. No matter how tenuous the link, the women of our street would somehow find a way to incorporate the incident into their day-to-day chatter and the habit was apparently contagious given that within two days of the incident happening, my mother was suddenly suffering from this same affliction. Anne, a woman who we had never spoken to prior to my father’s death, was suddenly the only person worth talking about and my mother, for reasons I couldn’t fathom at the time, couldn’t help but talk about her relentlessly. About her pain, and her loss, and about how horrible life must seem now. Each platitude was a knife to the stomach – for want of a better turn of phrase – although with hindsight I think that my mother might have known that, or at the very least hoped it.
‘Doesn’t it break your heart, Gillian?’ she had asked once, in such a deadpan and unemotional tone that I had to watch her expression for a beat just to ascertain whether her question was serious.
‘Of course it does, Mum.’
I saw her once. Anne Westburn, that is, not my mother. She was smuggled into the back of what I later thought must have been an unmarked police car. Even though she’d been staring out of the window, her resting expression suggested that she couldn’t see a thing. My initial reaction, after that first contact, was unexpected and unstoppable, but then vomiting usually is. I pounded up the stairs as my glottis closed and my larynx raised, already anticipating the contraction of my diaphragm and the vigorous tensing of my abdominal walls. The biological procedure was a relatively familiar one. The shakes and sweating that followed were easily explained, as was the sudden feeling of dehydration. I could rationalise the whole act away as a biological reflux, a physical reaction, as it were. But I couldn’t – or perhaps, didn’t want to – explain, specifically, what it was a reaction to.
‘Are you okay?’ my mother asked from the doorway of the bathroom. I was perched on the closed toilet seat, leaning over the sink to cup handfuls of water into my mouth. Between gulps I replied: ‘Probably a reaction to something.’
‘Something that you’ve eaten?’
‘What else would it be?’ I snapped, already knowing, before the sentence was fully formed, that I shouldn’t have done.
My mother was still asking too many questions. We discussed the Timothy
Westburn incident, at length, at the most inappropriate of times as well – over dinner, just before bed, sometimes even in Daniel’s company – but we also discussed Daniel and me, how things were going, what the status of my feelings were, both in and outside the context of my newfound romantic relationship. And she appeared to pick over my answers with an attention that felt forensic in her hunt for minor details. Four days into the phenomenon of my mother talking over everything to within an inch of its life, even Daniel felt moved to extend a hypothesis on the matter.
‘Do you think your mum knows?’ He asked the question in a tone that made him sound only half-interested as we wandered through the aisles of Tesco.
These excursions to the supermarket had felt more natural – more normal – since I had lost touch with Paul. I’d only seen him once since the night it all happened, and even then it had been by coincidence, not design. Daniel had asked if we could be outside, go for a walk: ‘What about that park you like?’ The space meant something different now. Paul was no longer my immediate thought when the park was mentioned. I was even surprised when I saw him that afternoon, with Peaches – and a different woman. By then I’d started to feel grateful that it hadn’t been him after all.
‘Gillian?’
Daniel’s question caught me midway through picking out vegetables for dinner. ‘Do you think she knows what?’
He let out a sharp breath. ‘You know what, GT.’
Daniel paced away then, now appearing uninterested in the conversation he’d started.
‘Christ, Daniel, how would she possibly know that?’
The words were hurried out, louder than intended, reaching Daniel, who was only five steps away now, and apparently catching one or two fellow shoppers on the way. A man and a woman – a
nother couple, perhaps – turned, widened their eyes, and looked from me, the source of the noise, to Daniel, the equally startled target of it. Daniel laughed it off but as he moved over to me the couple promptly removed themselves from the aisle. He stood next to me, one arm wrapped around my shoulders with his chin balanced on my head as he made a gentle and entirely unwelcome ‘Shh’ sound.
‘Hey, where did that come from?’ he asked, pulling away to look down at me. I couldn’t explain it away and so opted for a stern silence. Daniel leaned in and kissed my forehead. ‘Sorry, GT, I’m sure she doesn’t know. Like you said, how could she, right? How could anyone?’
Another four days rolled by without any anomalies occurring. I had recovered from the brief bout of vomiting and my digestive tract seemed to be in fully working order, but the choking sensation I experienced when Daniel and I rounded the corner to my street, to find a police vehicle parked directly outside my house, was undeniable. Daniel asked what they could be doing there; I don’t think that I answered. The sound of chatter emanating from the living room instantly ceased as we closed the front door behind us and my mother appeared in the hallway soon after.
‘There are some policemen here, Gillian.’
Hot Fuzz. 2007. Simon Pegg. ‘She is not a policewoman. She’s a police officer. Being a woman has nothing to do with it.’
I didn’t correct her, although I desperately wanted to.
‘They’ve asked if they can talk to you,’ she added.
‘Of course. That’s fine,’ I said, wondering whether I was actually allowed to refuse.
Inside the living room, perched side by side on the sofa, there were two men. One – the older one of the two – wore police constable attire. From what I could see of his white shirt, half-hidden beneath a black vest, his upper half was pressed with military precision, as were the trousers that completed him. He was leaning forward, forearms balanced on his knees and his hands hanging loose between them. When I glanced at his posture I noticed a wedding band. The notably younger model who sat alongside him boasted no signs of being married, but I had to wait until he lifted a hand to readjust his glasses to be sure. This other man was clearly the senior officer of the two – I’ve seen enough police dramas to know the difference in rank between a uniform and a suit. But his alleged seniority worried me slightly, partly due to his age but chiefly due to his fast and loose interpretation of what he must have considered to be appropriate work attire, which had left him looking too dishevelled for me to take seriously. The grey scuff mark at the front of his left shoe irked me. This second officer half-stood as my mother guided me into the room; he leaned over the coffee table to offer a handshake.
‘Detective Sergeant Ayleson, and this is Police Constable Shiefs.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, instantly feeling that it wasn’t right.
Both officers waited for me to position myself comfortably in the seat opposite them before they launched into their questions.
‘Miss Thompson, on the night of the Timothy Westburn incident, did you see anyone unusual hanging around the street? Perhaps someone who you didn’t recognise?’ DS Ayleson fired off the question while his colleague remained stern alongside him, a pen already hovering over a small notebook, should I say anything at all worth writing down.
‘I wasn’t actually here much on the evening that it happened.’
‘Oh, so you were where?’
‘At a friend’s house.’ I flinched. I had used the wrong word. ‘Boyfriend, sorry. At a boyfriend’s house. My boyfriend.’ I was suddenly conscious of Daniel, somewhere in the house, perhaps even directly outside of this room, listening to me fumble about with his title.
‘Okay, and–’
‘I came home,’ I interrupted him, not knowing why I was offering this information so freely, yet instantly appreciating the world of difficulty it may open.
‘During the night?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did you drive? Walk?’
‘I walked, yes.’
PC Shiefs was writing something down. I had to physically restrain myself from taking the pen away from him.
‘Whereabouts was that from?’
‘He lives on Clevehill Close.’
‘That’s quite a walk back from there to here,’ PC Shiefs chimed in at last.
‘I like walking,’ I replied, uncomfortably aware of how feeble the response sounded.
Detective Sergeant Ayleson picked up again then: ‘Which way did you walk home?’
‘I cut through the Coleman Estate and came along Neathfield Avenue.’
There was a flicker of something in Ayleson’s face before he said: ‘Isn’t that the long way home?’
‘It seemed safer to cut through the houses at that time of the night.’
‘Safer, Miss Thompson? Why’s that?’
‘Given what was happening half an hour away in the other direction?’
‘Although, you didn’t know that at the time.’
‘In hindsight,’ I said and he nodded.
‘Now, Miss Thompson, this boyfriend you mentioned–’
Daniel must have taken this as a cue. He appeared in the doorway then, slumped against the frame with an ease that suggested he had been perched there for the entire conversation. He raised a hand, as though replying to a roll call, and flashed a confident grin at the officers.
‘Boyfriend,’ he said.
They took what they must have considered to be the necessary details from Daniel then. His full name, his age, his address, the details of anyone living at home with him – a line of questioning they surely regretted taking – and they enquired about his relationship with me. It made for uncomfortable listening. Daniel was now sitting on the arm of the chair that I had tucked myself into, meaning there was no escaping his answers. Their words were swapped like trading cards over the top of me, as if I were just an aside now. As if Daniel had suddenly become the real star of the conversation. I resented that more than I should have done. But the conversation pulled back around and I brushed off that resentment, replacing it with what I believe was my first flutter of real panic since this interview ordeal had started.
‘And what time did Miss Thompson leave your house?’
I felt Daniel shrug. When I looked up I found both officers looking to me for an answer then and I suddenly wondered where my mother was, whether she was within earshot, whether she would recognise a lie.
‘I’m not sure what time I left, to be honest,’ I offered. ‘My mother heard me come home, so you might be best off asking her. I know it was quite early in the morning by the time I was getting into bed here.’
I left my answer deliberately vague, hoping to leave the officers without concrete facts to fall back on. The whole thing had felt remarkably similar to telling the truth. But then this was a version of the truth, I thought. This was the version of events that the majority knew now. And I wondered, idly – already knowing that it didn’t, of course – whether that somehow made this the new truth.
‘Verify that with the mother,’ Ayleson said to Shiefs before flicking his eyes back in my direction. ‘Miss Thompson, how old are you?’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘And you’ve lived here your whole life?’
‘Not this house, but this area, yes.’
‘And have you ever heard about any trouble in the area?’
Daniel and I exchanged quizzical looks. The question hadn’t been directed at him but I had hoped that he could help me decipher it.
‘Trouble?’ Daniel pushed.
‘Drugs, scraps, any issues with the younger members of this street, or the surrounding streets, that should have been mentioned to the police but maybe weren’t, for one reason or another. Anything ringing a bell there?’
The more he developed the question, the less sure I felt about what he was actually asking me. ‘No, no bells.’ I said, weakly.
He sighed and so I assumed I must have given him the wrong answer. ‘Timothy West
burn’s murder has raised some serious questions for us here about youth groups in the area, Miss Thompson. I know you’re a little older than the victim, but anything that you can think of now would be useful in our investigation into this.’
I had to hold back a smile. They had nothing. Absolutely nothing. And they were asking people – they were asking me, of all people – to try and help them. It was just beautiful, really. The whole situation was suddenly beautiful.
Obviously I knew nothing in that vein and I told them so. With Daniel’s hand offering an unnecessarily reassuring squeeze on my shoulder, I explained to the two officers that I had never been considered popular enough to be drawn into that side of youth culture and they nodded, as if they knew something about that.
‘I understand that, Miss Thompson,’ DS Ayleson offered. But he couldn’t. He was far too attractive, far too likeable, to possibly understand. DS Ayleson struck me as the sort of person who was simply given his normalcy at birth; some of us had to work for ours. ‘In which case, I think we’re about finished here for the time being. Thank you, both,’ he said, as if he’d suddenly remembered that Daniel had appeared midway through the process. The four of us exchanged pleasantries ahead of our collective goodbye. DS Ayleson offered me his business card on the understanding that I would contact him should I remember anything that would be useful.
What, like my having killed the boy? A voice offered from somewhere in the rear of my cranium and on hearing it I wondered where my guilt was now.
‘Thank you again for your time,’ the senior officer said on his way out of the front door, taking with him little to no information, and concluding my first and, as it turned out, final, encounter with the police.
Chapter 28
It was one week and six days on from my audience with the police when my mother found me in my bedroom, neatly folding items of clothing into squares that were then stacked regimentally on top of each other in properly marked boxes. The clothing I had worn on that night was the first to be packed, tucked away beneath a winter wardrobe that I wouldn’t need for another three months. There were two weeks remaining of the summer holiday from university, and I was eager to get back to the normalcy of that life. The daily experiments, the forced conversations with people whose names I barely remembered, because they hardly required or even wanted me to. There was a feeling of familiarity with your fellow students and simultaneous anonymity in your surroundings, which made university life markedly easier than the life I had been trying to piece together at home.