by M. J. Hyland
‘My name’s Keith Pearl. I’ve been appointed by the court. I’ll be taking you through your statement and I’ll sit with you when we go into the interview room. But you might not see me again.’
A jackhammer starts up outside.
‘That’s bad timing,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It was dead quiet before.’
‘You’ll have to speak up nice and clearly.’
‘Okay.’
He tells me that Ian Gordon Welkin was found deceased in the room next to mine and that I woke the landlady by knocking on her door and informed her that I’d ‘hit him too hard’ and that I subsequently went for a walk but didn’t resist arrest when I was found by the police about a half-hour later.
‘I didn’t hit him hard enough to kill him,’ I say. ‘And I didn’t mean to kill him.’
‘What did you intend then?'
‘I don’t know.’
He moves his red notebook from one hand to the other. ‘But were you angry?'
‘No.’
I pull Davies’ jacket tighter round my neck for some warmth. ‘Why did you hit him?’
‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’
He crosses his legs. ‘All right, you’d better tell me what happened. Tell me about all the important details leading up to the event. Your actions, state of mind, who said what to whom.’
‘What I tell you doesn’t get told to the police, right?'
‘Yes. What you tell me is privileged and you only tell me what you want me to know. Is that clear? I need to know the story as you want it told in your statement.’
‘I could lie if I wanted?'
He crosses his legs again. ‘I didn’t say that. And I wouldn’t advise that. I’m not advising that.’
I tell him the story, that Welkin got very drunk, that I went in to wake him and, when he wouldn’t wake, I hit him on the temple.
‘I can’t remember now if it was his right or left temple but I know for sure there was no blood.’
‘Didn’t the victim steal something of yours?'
‘Who told you that?'
He opens his notebook. ‘The landlady, Mrs Bowman, made a statement to the police.’
‘He took my clock but then he gave it back. I didn’t want to get revenge or anything like that, if that’s what you mean.’
I won’t mention the ball peen hammer.
‘What was the cause of death?’ I say.
‘We don’t have a coroner’s report yet,’ he says, ‘that’ll take a few weeks.’
‘Is that all you can tell me?'
The jackhammer fires up, and he raises his voice, moves his face in close to mine and I can feel the heat of his breath.
‘The preliminary report suggests that the cause of death was internal haemorrhaging caused by blunt impact. It appears that the time of death was about 4 a.m. That’s all I can say at this stage.’
The jackhammer stops.
‘I didn’t hit him very hard,’ I say.
He makes a note, then puts his notebook in his jacket pocket.
‘That’s what you keep saying,’ he says. ‘But I need a clearer picture of what you actually intended. I need to know your state of mind.’
‘I wanted to wake him up.’
‘Can you be a little more specific?'
I held the wrench in my right hand and struck a blow. I know that. Welkin slept, deep and drunk, and maybe I wanted to get at him while he couldn’t move or talk or strike back.
I went to my room and he was still sleeping. I don’t think I slept. I think I went straight down to Bridget.
I didn’t want him dead.
‘I’m not sure if I remember,’ I say.
‘All right. So, you hit him with a wrench, which you’d taken from your toolkit? When did you get the wrench?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you get it an hour before? Two hours before? Try to remember.’
‘I told you. I can’t remember.’
He crosses and uncrosses his legs. ‘Okay. Did you have the wrench when you went into his room?'
‘I think I went back out to get it, but I’m not sure.’
He makes another note.
‘Why did he die if I only hit him once?’ I say.
‘Some heads burst open like grapes,’ he says.
He smiles, shows me his big white teeth, straight and neat like white bricks.
I look at him but, as soon as we make eye-contact, he looks away.
‘Do you want to tell this story in your formal statement, or do you want to exercise your right to silence? Perhaps wait until your memory begins to serve you a little better?'
He looks at his watch.
‘Can I do that?'
‘Yes.’
‘Silence,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll be silent.’
‘Then we’re agreed.’
He gets up, goes to the cell door, bangs on the hatch, two times with the side of one fist, twice with the other, and not too hard. He’s done this plenty of times before and he’ll not risk hurting his hands.
He leaves.
15
Somebody out in the station’s eating fish and chips and the smell of vinegar’s making me hungry.
Davies comes back. ‘The interview room’s not ready yet. There’s going to be a delay.’
‘How long?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘But my solicitor’s here.’
‘He’ll wait in the office.’
Davies sits on the stool and flicks through his pocket book and yawns with his mouth closed. His eyes water and his nostrils flare.
‘Do you want your jacket back?’
‘I suppose you’d better keep it for a while.’
‘Could I have some food?’
‘After the interview.’
He writes something and then takes his time putting the lid back on his ballpoint pen.
‘I’m going to try and sleep now,’ I say. ‘
If that’s what you want.’
I lie on my back and look up at the dirty porridge ceiling.
I don’t sleep.
There’s somebody at the cell door.
Davies gets up, speaks in a whisper through the hatch, turns back to me.
‘We’re set to go,’ he says. ‘I’ve got to cuff you.’
I hold out my hands. ‘Okay.’
‘And you’d better give me my jacket.’
We go to a small, grey-walled interview room.
My brief’s sitting at a small white table opposite two middle-aged men. There are four chairs, no window, and the dark brown carpet’s scarred with cigarette burns. It smells like a chicken pen.
I smile at the men, smile like a man about to be interviewed for a job, forget that I’m cuffed, reach out to shake their hands.
‘Just sit,’ says Davies.
I sit at the table next to my brief.
Davies leaves.
‘I’m Detective Inspector McCrossan,’ says the man with a thick grey moustache sitting opposite me. ‘Hello,’ I say.
He pulls his chair in closer to the table and I get a whiff of the ashy stink that’s caught in the bush of hairs over his lip.
‘And I’m Senior Investigating Officer Watts,’ says the other man sat opposite. This one has a thin mouth and small teeth like a row of dirty pebbles.
‘You’re being held and questioned on suspicion of the murder of Ian Gordon Welkin,’ says McCrossan. ‘Is that clear to you?'
My arms go cold, a blast of fear up from my gut, all the way to the ends of my fingers.
‘I’ll take down the exact words as spoken by you,’ says McCrossan, ‘and I’ll only ask you questions which seem necessary to make the statement coherent, intelligible and relevant to the material matters. I won’t prompt you.’
‘Okay.’
‘When the statement’s finished,’ he says, ‘we’ll ask you to read it and then we’ll type it up and make three copies.’
‘I just want to say—'
‘Is this what you want?’ says McCrossan.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘If you do decide to make a statement,’ says McCrossan, ‘you can make any corrections, alterations or additions that you wish. Then you’ll be asked to write and sign a certificate.’
My brief takes a sheet of paper from Watts and writes: Patrick James Oxtoby has elected to exercise his right to silence.
He dates the page and gives it to me to sign then pushes his chair back as though he means to stand, but doesn’t stand, just puts himself further back, away from me, away from the table.
‘No, wait,’ I say. ‘I want to say that I didn’t mean to kill him. I just hit him once and not hard.’
My brief sighs. ‘It’s up to you,’ he says. ‘It’s entirely up to you. Are you sure you want to make a statement?'
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I want to tell you what happened. I’m not a killer.’
Watts takes out a new sheet of paper.
‘Write your name in the blank space and sign,’ he says.
‘I PATRICK JAMES OXTOBY wish to make a statement. I want someone to write down what I say. I have been told that I need not say anything unless I wish to do so and that whatever I say may be given in evidence.’
My brief folds his arms across his chest and I tell McCrossan and Watts what I’ve already told him.
When I stop to take a sip of water, my brief puts his hand on my arm, same as before, like he’s afraid if he touches me properly he might get a disease off me.
‘Are you satisfied with that?’ he asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s all I want to say.’
McCrossan shows me the adjustable wrench. It’s wrapped in plastic and it’s clean.
‘It doesn’t even have blood on it,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that some kind of proof I didn’t crack his skull open?'
‘All we need,’ says McCrossan, ‘is for you to identify this wrench as belonging to you.’
I lift my cuffed hands to scratch my head, then put them back on the table.
If I say it’s mine, is that like admitting to murder? Is it a trick?
I look at my brief.
‘If it’s yours,’ he says, ‘go ahead and say so.’
‘Yeah, it’s mine,’ I say.
‘What, for the record, am I holding in my hand?’ says McCrossan.
‘You’re holding my adjustable wrench,’ I say.
Davies comes in with four mugs of tea and a tin of biscuits on a tray.
The interview stops and we drink tea and eat the stale biscuits. When we’re finished, the room’s dark and the lights need to be switched on so I can read and sign this document:
I have read the above statement and I have been told that I can correct, alter or add anything I wish. This statement is true. I have made it of my own free will.
‘Patrick James Oxtoby,’ says McCrossan, ‘you are formally charged with the murder of Ian Gordon Welkin.’
‘That’s it?’ I say.
‘We’re finished,’ says Watts. ‘Take the prisoner back to his cell.’
My brief puts his business card on the table, stands, goes to the door, opens it and walks straight out. I look at his card. I’d forgotten his name was Keith Pearl.
Davies shakes his head, nice and slow, back and forth. ‘He could have at least wished you luck.’
Davies takes me to the cell and uncuffs me.
‘So I’m not going to be let out on bail then?’ I say.
‘We’ll be taking you to the magistrate’s on Monday morning.’
That’s nearly two days away.
I sit on the rubber mat.
‘I’ll get you something to eat,’ he says.
He leaves and comes back with two sandwiches, two shortbread biscuits, and a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m starving.’
‘You’ll get a hot breakfast in the morning.’
‘Thanks.’ He leaves. I want him to stay.
After I’ve eaten one of the sandwiches, I go to the hatch and look out into the corridor. The wall opposite is covered in pictures of the wanted.
I call out through the wire mesh.
‘Can somebody put the heating on?’
There’s no reply.
There’s a red button on the wall to the left of the door. I press it long and hard.
There’s no reply.
I press it again, longer and harder.
There’s no reply.
I press it again, keep it held down.
The desk sergeant comes. ‘Stand back,’ he says.
I stand back and he opens the cell door.
‘Here’s a blanket.’
He gives me a grey blanket and I take it to the bench. He stands by the cell door and watches.
The blanket’s got four big holes in it. Somebody’s burnt the holes with cigarettes and then stretched the holes good and proper.
‘It takes a bit of getting used to,’ he says. ‘Best eat all your food. It’ll make you feel better.’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
He leaves and after he’s out the door I say, ‘Thanks for the blanket.’
There’s enough air for breathing but I’m short of breath. I want the cell door to open and for Davies to walk in and tell me they’ve decided to release me.
But nobody comes and the pain in my neck and shoulders is getting worse.
I lie down, try for rest, but there’s cold air coming in through the crack in the window and the blanket’s too small to cover me.
I stand and do some star-jumps, the kind I’ve not done since I was in school and then I pace a while, count my steps, five across, seven from the cell door to the back wall, back and forth I walk, fast as I can, but when I lie down again I’m as cold as I was before.
I get up and look through the hatch.
It’s dead quiet out there.
I go back to the rubber mat and sit.
But here it is, at last.
There’s somebody out there.
At last, somebody’s come, there’s somebody walking in the corridor and there are keys jangling. A cell door opens.
But it’s not mine.
I try to open the hatch, but it’s been locked.
I bash my fists on the metal.
‘I need another blanket.’
But nobody comes.
‘I need another blanket.’
16
I wake in the early morning. It’s still dark outside, dark enough for cars to have headlights on, a few people off to work. There’s probably a moon in the sky.
When the sun rises, it’s pale and cold. A car door slams. A copper talks on a CB radio. A siren starts up. The world’s got started.
During the long cold night, when I sank into sleep, it was short and shallow and I saw what I did to Welkin, saw it over and over, and I was in a stupor so close to screaming that I went in the dark and slammed my fist on the cell door.
For a while I believed in magic and imagined that the door had opened and I walked out to the street and to an all-night café where the windows were lit by orange lamps and Georgia came to my table and I ordered steak and chips and then I caught the bus and walked by the sea and Bridget’s sailing boat was finished, painted blue and waiting.
Then, as the sky began to fill with light, the birds sang it over and over, sang that I’d done it, sang that the world will go on the same way without me, without Welkin and without me, they sang that the world would go on just the same, that what I’d done made no difference.
I’ve been awake a good while and the sun’s gone behind the clouds, the cell’s dark again, and the rubber mat stinks even more of rotten meat. My feet are cold and I wish I’d been wearing thicker socks when they came to get me.
I try pacing to get some warmth and think all the time that I want to be counted b
ack in, to go out there and join in with the sounds of the street, people getting in and out of cars, meeting family and friends, off to work and shops, cafés, cinemas and clubs, schools and houses and pubs, down the clean, carpeted stairs to full English breakfasts in boarding houses.
I had all that and what I didn’t have I could’ve had.
Davies comes and he’s got another brown paper bag. I sit up on the bench.
‘Good morning,’ he says. ‘What’ve you done with the mat?'
‘It’s over there.’
I point to the corner.
‘It stinks,’ I say.
He comes right over to me, stands good and close, and he’s smiling. He must be here to tell me I’m free to go.
‘Are you letting me go now?’
‘No. I’ve brought you a sandwich and a cup of tea.’
‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ I say. ‘At most I’m guilty of assault.’
‘Eat this,’ he says. ‘It’s got chicken in it.’ I take the sandwich.
‘I’ve got to stay until you’ve eaten that,’ he says. ‘And I’ve got to see you’ve had something to drink.’
He takes the stool to sit on.
‘Some people can’t eat after a murder,’ he says. ‘Some can’t even hold down a cup of water.’
‘I’m hungry,’ I say. ‘But that doesn’t prove I’m a murderer.’
Davies comes to my cell early next morning. I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours and every time I closed my eyes, I got to thinking about my mother, how she must be worried sick. In one of my dreams I explained what happened and she told me I had to go to work at a petrol station. I went to work at the petrol station and I got no breakfast. Every morning at the petrol station I had to lock up bikes. All I was doing was locking up bikes. Smell of petrol. No breakfast. The smell of petrol and an empty stomach.
‘Get ready to leave,’ says Davies.
‘Where am I going?'
‘Magistrate’s court. Habeas corpus.’
‘Can I make another phone call?'
‘You’ve had your phone call.’
He cuffs me and we leave.
Sergeant Middleton drives and Davies sits with me in the back. ‘What’s going to happen?’ I say.
‘The magistrate’ll decide whether you’ll be remanded in custody or released on bail.’