Lady Bag

by Liza Cody

  ‘I couldn’t remember how to turn right. So either I had to go straight or keep turning left. Acton’s where I ended up.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Sprague said, ‘because Acton’s where you started out. Isn’t it, Angela Mary Sutherland?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ I let my head fall onto the table and pretended to pass out. The worst had happened—the police computer had put the bits together. Bag lady, public nuisance, drunk and disorderly, barmy as a fruit bun, was actually a thundering great thief and a fraudster. She was worthy of their notice. She was wanted for murder.

  Smister told Natalie’s brother, Edward, about the Lord of Lust and Wrath, Edward told the cops, the cops went to 17 Milton Way and His Satanic Maggoty did the rest. All the carrion feeders were coming home to roost—black flapping birds, white crawling grubs—settling for an endless night of fun and frolic in the hollow centre of my being. If they hadn’t stolen my shoelaces I could’ve hung myself from the doorknob right then and there.

  Someone shook my elbow.

  ‘Ow-ow,’ I said. ‘Assault. They aren’t allowed to touch me. You’re my witness.’

  ‘It was me who touched you,’ Kaylee said. ‘S-sorry. They need you to answer some questions.’

  Sprague said, ‘I’ll cut to the chase, shall I? Samples of your DNA were recovered from 14 Harrison Mews, scene of the murder of Natalie Munrow. Later, you went to 17 Milton Way where a woman called Chantelle Cain was assaulted two nights ago. On both occasions someone of your general description was witnessed at the scene, at or around the appropriate time frame. Care to comment, Ms Sutherland?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t know any of the names you just said.’

  ‘Yes you do,’ Sprague said calmly. ‘Last time you were here you were questioned with regard to Natalie Munrow’s murder and afterwards you saw Chantelle Cain in the corridor where you claimed she was Natalie Munrow’s ghost.’

  ‘No I didn’t. That must’ve been someone else.’

  ‘It was you,’ DC Anderson said. ‘I was there. I wrote it all down in my notebook.’

  ‘You’re making it up.’

  ‘D’you want to see my notebook? I’m a working copper not a novelist.’

  ‘You can’t tell me coppers don’t make stuff up.’

  ‘Sh-shut up,’ Kaylee hissed.

  Sprague said, ‘It’s all there, dated and in sequence. Give it up, Bag Lady… ’

  ‘Lady Bag to you.’

  ‘… and let’s have a proper interview for a change—one where you don’t pretend to be demented. Now… ’ Sprague consulted my case file, my story as told by the Fraud Squad and the Serious Crimes Unit, the story I told after the Devil wept salt tears from his dead eyes. It represented the pit I dug for myself after he handed me the cold steel shovel. I wasn’t innocent by any means, but I wasn’t wholly and solely guilty either.

  ‘I’m never going to condemn myself to please Lord Ashmodai ever again.’ I said. ‘I haven’t killed anyone or assaulted anyone. I always seem to go where Satan calls me—I can’t help that—he has manipulative charisma. But his mouth is full of scorpions and venom. There’s a crack in my head… ’ I fingered the longest scar, ‘… that’s where the horror seeps in and the names drop out. I meet many people in my walk of life—walking is my walk of life in case you don’t know. I may have met all the people you say. But I get very fuzzy without a drink.’

  ‘And even fuzzier with one.’ DC Anderson sounded bitter.

  ‘What is the name of the man you call the Devil?’ Sprague asked.

  ‘Ashmodai, Lord of Lust and Wrath.’

  ‘I told you,’ Anderson muttered. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘The name in his passport,’ Sprague said.

  ‘Must never be mentioned in the presence of the Law; that is His law. Break it and he will cut your heart into a thousand slices and drag them out from under your toenails with his sharp silver claws.’

  ‘Isn’t it Graham Attwood, currently residing at 17 Milton Way? The same address where you used to live with your mother?’

  ‘My foot’s broken,’ I told him. ‘The doctor said I should have more pills for the pain.’

  ‘When I say so. Now, what is the current relationship between you and Graham S Attwood?’

  ‘None,’ I said. ‘But I’m a good dog—I come when I’m called.’

  ‘Don’t cry,’ Kaylee said. ‘Here.’ She rummaged in a briefcase and handed me a wodge of tissues.

  ‘He used to be your toy boy, didn’t he?’ DI Sprague was unmoved. ‘In fact you were obsessed with him, weren’t you? You threw away your previously unblemished career in order to finance the kind of lifestyle you thought would attract a young man, many years your junior.’

  I couldn’t answer. His words were tearing holes in my skin.

  ‘In fact,’ he went on, ‘isn’t it true that you are still dangerously obsessed and that your obsession and jealousy are responsible for the death of one woman and Grievous Bodily Harm to another? To say nothing of burglary, identity theft and fraud—but we’ll deal with the details later.’

  ‘I-I-I must insist,’ Kaylee said, ‘that we take a break so that I can seek medical attention for my client. She’s in no fit state… ’

  ‘In a minute,’ Dl Sprague said. ‘I don’t know why she won’t give us a decent account of herself if she has nothing to hide. This… ’ he smacked my case file with his hand, ‘… says it all. She’s homeless and he’s living in her house. That could be motive for murder. Attwood is the connection between three women, Angela Mary Sutherland, Natalie Munrow and Chantelle Cain. Natalie is dead and the others won’t say a word against him, even though this one here thinks he’s the Devil incarnate. Angela, do you want to be charged with murder and locked up for life?’

  Maybe I do. There’s always a roof over your head in prison, and a bed, and three square a day. There’s medication—you aren’t on the treadmill of finding money to score wine, drinking wine, finding more money. If you keep your head down no one bothers you much. No one breaks your heart or betrays you. You don’t have to find a place to sleep at night. You’re safe.

  ‘That wasn’t supposed to be a hard question,’ Anderson said. ‘Listen, you may not give a shit what happens to you, but what about Electra? At best she gets homed with someone else. At worst she roams the street till she’s knocked over, injured and destroyed.’

  ‘You’re a clever one.’ I said. ‘What are you? Satan’s mouthpiece?’

  ‘Why would Satan want me to encourage you to tell the truth? Isn’t he the Lord of Lies?’

  ‘You’re playing games with me.’

  ‘How does it feel?’ Sprague sneered. ‘Let’s stop wasting time. We have witnesses, physical evidence, motive, history of mental instability—I don’t know why we’re bothering to get a statement… ’

  ‘You don’t want a statement,’ I said. ‘You want a confession. You want me to do your job for you. Well I won’t. I didn’t kill anyone. And I bet you’ve come up with something that makes you doubt it yourself. Haven’t you?’

  Anderson just stared at me but Sprague said, ‘Interview suspended at 11.13.’ He stacked his papers and marched out of the room followed by a hangdog Anderson.

  Kaylee said, ‘W-why are you so antagonistic? Don’t they hate you enough already?’

  ‘They hate me whatever I say. Why don’t you go and talk to them? Ask them what they found in the Devil’s lair. You know there must be something or they would’ve charged me already.’

  ‘Why do you talk so barmy? You’ve not stupid.’

  ‘Go and talk to Old Filthy. Or are you scared of them?’ She did look scared. But she wasn’t stupid either in spite of being prejudiced. Why don’t people accept that you can be barmy and intelligent at the same time? Being barmy doesn’t make you stupid unless you were stupid in the first place.
/>   When she’d gone they sent a constable in to sit with me but I laid my head down and tried to sleep again. My heart was racing from the peril I was in and my foot was throbbing in sync with it. I didn’t think anyone could hear it but me. Electra would know, but she was living with Smister and Abbie in a ménage à trois. There’s no room for a fourth in one of those.

  All I was thinking about was a bottle of red wine. I could almost feel it trickling down my throat—acting as a disinfectant and killing the crawling things in my chest, becoming the anaesthetic that would hush my throbbing foot.

  Was there anything I could tell Old Filthy that would make them let me go?

  The only thing they’ll believe is a confession: bless me Inspector, for I have sinned, now hand over the communion wine? I think not.

  Kaylee Yost came back into the interview room. ‘H-how’re you holding up?’

  ‘It hurts.’

  ‘What does?’

  ‘Foot, head, everything. I need a wash. All I can smell is puke.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said without any confidence at all. ‘Meanwhile I’ll find you some tea.’ She went to the door and had a muttered conversation with the constable.

  When she came back she said, ‘I think maybe you’re right. They’ve only just picked up on the connection between you and Mr Atwood, and when the Acton police went to his house they found something at his address that might or might not be a murder weapon.’

  ‘They don’t seem very happy about it.’

  ‘That’s because they thought they had you all sewn up, and they don’t want to start again. Before, they just wanted to know who was with you when the murder was committed, and who struck the fatal blow. Now they have to think again.’

  I laid my head back down on the table. It was the old Georgie and Joss conundrum. Am I a snout or am I not? If the cops caught them Georgie and Joss would make trouble for me. Then they’d try to kill me. It didn’t seem fair.

  ‘What isn’t f-fair?’ Kaylee asked. ‘Please would you sit up and concentrate? I can only understand one word in ten. Who’s Georgian Joss?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Is he one of the men who were with you the day Ms Munrow was killed?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Everyone I know hurts me. I can’t deal with it anymore.’

  ‘I can’t advise you, I can only represent you.’

  ‘How about getting me something to drink, eh? I can’t think. My head can’t handle the possibilities. I have to choose between death and damnation. The Doc said I should elevate my foot but there’s sod-all to elevate it on. So it’s hurting and I need more pills—and a little drink to calm my nerves.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to bring any a-alcohol in here, and frankly, Ms Sutherland, it sounds to me as if you’ve had too many pills already. You really do mumble, you know.’

  But she must’ve spoken to someone, because when Sprague and Anderson came back they were followed by a uniform who carried in tea and an extra chair for my foot.

  I put my feet up, tipped my chair back and very nearly fell flat on the floor.

  ‘Are you going to answer some questions?’ DI Sprague said, ‘or are you going to play silly buggers forever and ever amen?’

  ‘There are impediments,’ I said, but Kaylee interrupted, saying, ‘M-my client would like to be helpful, but asks you to remember that she suffered severe head trauma which has affected her memory and her personality, reports of which are, I believe, in your possession.’ She stopped, breathless at her own bravery. I patted her knee.

  ‘Just do your best,’ Anderson said.

  DI Sprague cleared his throat. ‘We have it on tape from last time you graced us with your presence, that you claimed to have followed the “Devil” from Haymarket to Harrison Mews. Please continue your account of events from there.’

  ‘I didn’t follow. He took a taxi, and gave the driver his address.’

  ‘What number Harrison Mews?’

  ‘I can’t remember numbers.’

  ‘Alright. Then what did you do?’

  ‘I waited.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To warn the Devil’s doxy that she would be destroyed and burned in icy flames while her brains and viscera… ’

  ‘Enough!’ DI Sprague glared at me. ‘In other words, you threatened her.’

  ‘You see,’ I said to Kaylee, ‘I say “warn”, he says “threaten”, let’s call the whole thing off.’

  ‘No, do continue with your account,’ Dl Sprague snarled.

  ‘So Electra and I waited outside the theatre for the play to end. But it was a cold night and when she came out of the theatre there were two of her. I’d had a little drink and I thought I was seeing double.’ I don’t know why I said that. It wasn’t true. It came to me; I thought it was funny so I said it. Now it was part of my statement. I hurried on, ‘I told her to beware but I think it came out all wrong and she didn’t take a blind bit of notice.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we went to sleep.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Can’t remember. Oh, except for Floating Outreach—Lemony Melony—then we had to go somewhere else or she’d have done me some good.’

  ‘Who?’ DC Anderson said.

  DI Sprague leaned forward. ‘Are you claiming that you spent the night in the West End, and you’ve a witness to prove it?’

  ‘Floating Outreach?’ Anderson said. ‘Is that an official agency? Or what? Church?’

  I covered my face with my hands. The light was too bright. There were eyes making holes in my brain for the words to spill out of.

  ‘I suppose it’ll have to be checked,’ DI Sprague said. ‘So when did you get to Harrison Mews?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I haven’t got a watch.’

  ‘Try,’ Anderson said, ‘it might be important.’

  I screwed up my eyes. Someone going to work gave me his coffee, no shoppers on Oxford Street, hardly anyone in Hyde Park except dog walkers. So it had to be before eight or nine in the morning. The bins hadn’t been emptied—that’s where I got my breakfast. Then it might’ve taken me an hour to find Harrison Mews.

  ‘Speak up,’ Sprague said. ‘What’re you chuntering about?’

  ‘I-I-I think she said, “Nine or ten”,’ Kaylee whispered.

  ‘Do-do-do you?’

  ‘I haven’t got a watch,’ I shouted at Sprague. ‘I’m doing the best I can, and so’s she.’

  ‘You’re taking the piss!’ Sprague shouted back. ‘A woman is dead.’

  ‘A lot of women are dead.’ I couldn’t help myself. ‘Needle Jane in a toilet—poisoned junk; Old Mary, Hungerford Bridge of pneumonia; little Svetlana, Soho—some bastard ruptured her spleen and I don’t think she was even fourteen; Too-Tall Tina, in a fire—she wouldn’t have been there if some bastards hadn’t been beating on her for her prescription and her benefits. Where were you then? What’s so special about Natalie? Oh yeah, I forgot about the one-law-for-the-rich, one-law-for-the-poor police.’

  Sprague leapt to his feet, picked up his files, raised them above his head and brought them down on the table with such a crack that even DC Anderson jumped. Then he swung round and left the room.

  I said, ‘Maybe he should try anger management.’

  ‘The one time you choose to be articulate, clear and understandable… ’ Anderson sighed.

  ‘I don’t choose. I live in the Devil’s machine by the Devil’s rules, and so do you. We’re all his pawns. But some of us, like your Mr Sprague, are his minions. I haven’t made up my mind about you.’

  ‘Sometimes she makes a twisted kind of sense,’ he said to Kaylee, ‘and then I begin to worry.’

  ‘Perhaps the Detective Inspector should just listen,’ Kaylee said, pink and panting. ‘P-perhaps if he worried about the details later… ’ She broke
off, twisting a button on her neat black jacket.

  I finished my tea. It didn’t help. I needed Electra. She was my best friend. Kaylee was no substitute.

  DI Sprague came back. He said, ‘I’ve taken my tranquiliser. Now, can we get on with it? You were saying you got to Harrison Mews at some time between nine and ten in the morning. What did you do then?’

  ‘I waited for him—Ashmodai. I might have dropped off for a moment. He was sleeping under scarlet satin, taking more than half the bed. That’s what he does. He takes all your life and leaves you with a tiny corner of your own duvet.’

  ‘You went in and saw him?’

  ‘I didn’t know which house he was in. I don’t have to see him. He lives forever in here.’ I tapped my head and my heart.

  ‘Then what?’

  Then I had a problem: Joss. Should I save myself and tell them about Joss, or save myself and not tell them about Joss? I said, ‘I want round the clock police protection.’

  ‘You’ll have round the clock prison protection if you don’t tell me who was with you. You were seen with two other people so don’t lie.’

  ‘I can’t be seen. I’m invisible—when I ask for my pills. There was someone but I can’t tell you his name cos he’d kill me, I mean really kill me with boots and scrambled brains.’

  ‘C-calm down.’ Kaylee patted the back of my hand.

  ‘He’s one of the big, strong and violent ones who always do Satan’s bidding. When he stamps on me with his massive boot my skull breaks and they have to stitch me up. My teeth crumble and I can’t afford a dentist. What can you do compared with that?’

  ‘You don’t want to find out.’ Sprague too was big and strong. He had a violent smile which showed all of his blood-stained teeth.

  Back in my cell, they gave me two more pills, a glass of water and a ham sandwich. Then they left me alone.

  Chapter 38

  It Gets Worse

  ‘Where’s Kaylee?’ I said.

  ‘She was held up,’ Anderson said. ‘She’ll be here in a minute.’

  We were in the same scruffy white room with the grey plastic-topped table, four chairs, recorder and camera. The other chair on my side of the table was empty. I put my foot up on it so the cops could see the strapping and remember I was injured. It works with Electra—bandaged paws earn me points for caring. Why doesn’t it work on the cops?