What She Left: Enhanced Edition

by T. R. Richmond

  Just seen on Twitter that the reason they pulled Luke in was because he was in Southampton on the night Alice died. Holy shit, that totally contradicts his earlier story. Some lawyer on Twitter reckons they can keep him in for twenty-four hours without charging him – but that they’ll be going for it with him, the full works, searching his flat and all sorts.

  No smoke without fire, that’s what they say.

  I best ring Alice’s mum. Just when you think this can’t get any worse for them.

  She’s even got her own hashtag. Is that what it comes to, what my best friend’s been reduced to? #alicesalmon

  Comment left on the above blog post:

  Megan, I can only apologize if you’ve ever had reason to feel uncomfortable in my company. Fliss and I would very much like you to come over for supper at the weekend – a perfect opportunity for the two of you to become acquainted. You have my mobile – ring me and we can discuss.

  Jeremy ‘Silver Surfer’ Cooke

  Voicemail message left by Alice Salmon for Megan Parker, 4 February 2012, 20.43 p.m.

  Where are you, Parker? Hope you’ve got your Bridget Jones pants on … it must be freeeeeezing in the hills. Got a teensy confession … OK, a whopper of a teensy one but you’ll go schiz so not gonna tell you till you call me. Meg, same length of time since the end of the second year again and we’ll be dirty thirty! Might have done something I haven’t for ages, which might have involved a tiddly snort. Toot toot, as they say. Don’t hate me, Meg, don’t begrudge me a night out. S’need it. So need to get away from it all. I’m trying to not even think about that email of Mum’s. Come down off your hill and call me this instant, Parker Larker!

  Southampton StudentNet online forum,

  7 April 2012

  Topic: Arrest

  See the boyfriend’s been arrested in the Alice Salmon case. Always reckoned there was something dodge about him.

  Posted by ExtremeGamer, 13.20 p.m.

  Like, reckoned how exactly? Pal of his were you, ExtremeGamer, or that another of your crackpot theories?

  Posted by Su, 13.26 p.m.

  Facts speak for themselves. Arrested.

  Posted by ExtremeGamer, 13.33 p.m.

  According to Bookface he was at Liverpool Uni between 2003 and 2006. Must be a bit of a brainbox cos he got a first then was hired by a big building firm on a grad-training scheme.

  Posted by Graeme, 13.56 p.m.

  He did well to get to uni at all – was a shitty school he went to.

  Posted by Lex, 14.14 p.m.

  There was a lad in my sixth form, probably the brainiest kid in the school, but he liked a tear-up on a Friday night with the best of them. Because he was clever don’t mean he don’t talk with his fists.

  Posted by Baz the driver, 14.28 p.m.

  I read a ‘backgrounder’ on him in a newspaper … His parents split up when he was eight. They quoted some psychiatrist who explained repressed emotions over shit like that can manifest themselves decades later as misogyny.

  Posted by Fi, 14.41 p.m.

  Welcome back, Fi! Why’s everything boil down to misogyny in your head? Or is that a misogynistic comment? It couldn’t simply be that one person lost his rag with another and drowned her?

  Posted by Tom, 14.46 p.m.

  Hang on, you’re putting the cart in front of the horse again. People get arrested every day and aren’t charged. It’s the authorities saying we’ve got enough info to make us keen to find out more.

  Posted by Jacko, 14.54 p.m.

  Still convinced she jumped personally.

  Posted by The Other Katniss, 14.54 p.m.

  Yes good point Kat – 2012 is a leap year!!!!

  Posted by Smithy, 15.02 p.m.

  Promising rugger player when he was younger, I heard. Had a trial as a schoolboy for Harlequins then knackered his knee, which put the kibosh on that.

  Posted by Phil, 15.20 p.m.

  More to the point, you seen the pictures of him? Well, HELLO!

  Posted by Christi 15.31 p.m.

  Will he get bail?

  Posted by Not so plain jane, 15.49 p.m.

  Depends. Cops have twenty-four hours to either charge you or release you. They can get an extension but it’s not easy. Was watching a TV show where they did it for ninety-six hours, although they had to get permission from a magistrate.

  Posted by ArtConnoisseur, 15.50 p.m.

  Once again I find myself forced to inform you that I’ll be taking this thread down forthwith. I should remind all contributors that this is a ‘live’ police investigation, therefore commenting about it could be potentially legally prejudicial.

  Posted by StudentNet Forum Administrator, 16.26 p.m.

  But no one’s actually named him if you bothered to read the thread so you’re wrong.

  Posted by Barley Mow, 16.26 p.m.

  Email sent by Professor Jeremy Cooke,

  23 July 2012

  From: jfhcooke@gmail.com

  To: Elizabeth_salmon101@hotmail.com

  Subject: Tell me

  My dear Liz,

  I was going to email you so you heard it from me, but events have overtaken me. That note was – is – indeed attributable to me. My handwriting’s always been spidery.

  You may not believe me, but when I initiated my Alice research, I barely remembered the note. I’d been in a right imbroglio in 2004. Then Alice arrived and she reminded me so much of all the emotions I’d tried – and largely succeeded – to subjugate. You, basically. Then, discovering who she was, it was as if a piece of my past – a piece of me – came back to life. Once I invited her to a drinks party, the annual anthropology bash.

  ‘That sounds like a barrel of laughs,’ she’d joked. ‘Won’t it be just academic staff?’

  ‘You get a special dispensation because your mother used to work here.’

  She’d hesitated.

  ‘There’ll be free alcohol,’ I informed her and that was the clincher.

  ‘You lot really know how to let your hair down,’ she’d said, observing us shuffling around like warmed-up cadavers. ‘Where’s the music? Where the booze?’

  Three hours later we were in my office. She’d pulled a joint out of her pocket, we passed it between us and it reminded me of what I’d frequently felt my uni days should remind me of. She said she felt woozy, came and sat on my lap and I said, ‘No, don’t.’ Later she fell asleep on the sofa in the corner and I lay my sweater over her, went to pull it up around her, tuck her in, but she put her arms round my neck. ‘Smell nice,’ she said. Wasn’t intending to do what came next – you’ve got to believe me, Liz – but my hand brushed her hair and it was like an electric shock: a jolt of you coursing up into me.

  I’m drunk, Liz. Not that it’s apparent. Can’t even do that well: get drunk. Look at this email: even the god-damn punctuation is right. I’m going to have another drink. The lecherous lecturer is going to get pie-eyed. A sober drunk. That’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one. Listen to me, an oxymoron. I’m even pretentious when I’m sozzled.

  Fliss knows all about our affair. Finding out what I did with Alice will break her heart, but I owe her the truth. We mustn’t die with secrets and frankly I’m drowning under them. I wish I’d been let in on that particular one earlier: that they corrode the soul.

  You often used to refer to the here and now, Liz – well, the trouble with that is it’s so bloody fleeting. Who’d have thought it, eh? The big C. A bugger of a brand, which is sufficiently rare that its evolution is impervious to predictions. It won’t finish me off forthwith, but it’s questionable whether I’ll become a septuagenarian. I’m sorry if this is unpalatable but illness, like age, does that: makes one less empathetic and more immune to embarrassment.

  Might you have it in your heart to not completely detest me? The Liz I shared part of my life with would. The one with whom I stood on Chesil beach, who whooped with pleasure at the Titians and Caravaggios in the National, who – aged twenty-something but little-girl-like – beamed when
she learnt that the fur on a deer’s antlers was called ‘velvet’. Understanding and forgiveness: that’s pretty much all there is. And justice.

  We shouldn’t be ashamed of us; we mustn’t whitewash ourselves out of history. We had a relationship, we slept together, we fucked. We matter.

  It’s raining. I might sleep here tonight. It wouldn’t be unprecedented for me to wake among the chaos of paperwork, my phone bleeping from missed calls from Fliss. I’ve put that woman through so much worry. I’ve been such a selfish man, but shouldn’t it be how one typically behaves that dictates how one is judged? The person one is day in and day out over the long haul, rather than the best or worst thing one’s done. Wouldn’t that be a fairer barometer of the life you’ve led, the person you are?

  When I wake it might be better. Tell me it will be. Tell me I’ll sleep. Tell me I won’t be staring at the walls in the night, concentrating on not screaming, or hugging my books, or writing in the condensation on the window: JFHC RIP. Tell me I’ll wake and I’ll be nine again – nine, say, or fourteen or even thirty-five would do. I’d take the sharp sting of my father’s belt, that evil old bastard, the schoolyard taunts, the coalescing gloom of Fliss’s hospital visits and those ever-more hypothetical conversations about names and nurseries and schools, or the emptying despair of middle age. I’d take any of it not to be a man who feels the black end pressing down on me.

  Let me sleep a good sleep. Let me whisky. Let me go gentle.

  Was it gentle for you, when you so nearly went into that good night? That day in the refectory, the black beams of Tudor warships above your head, the table smooth from the rubbing of generations of academics’ elbows too far below your feet. You must have felt so utterly alone.

  I saw a shrink after we split up and he was fond of one particular epigram: pain has to go somewhere. Right now mine is going to you. It’s unfair, but where else is there? Where it goes after that is up to you. I’m too tired to care. Isn’t this a turn up for the books? The man who’s zealously guarded his own decision-making, putting his fate in the hands of another.

  Have pity on me. Throw me to the lions. It’s your call.

  She’ll come into her own after I’m gone, Fliss will; I just know she will. She’ll make me proud. I wish I could say the same of myself.

  Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. That’s what I would have said to my kids if I’d ever had them.

  I’m sorry.

  Love Jem

  Statement issued by Hampshire Constabulary,

  7 April 2012, 17.22 p.m.

  A 27-year-old man arrested on suspicion of the murder of a former Southampton resident has been released without charge.

  Police have confirmed that the man has been freed from custody following questioning in relation to the February 5 death of Alice Salmon.

  Police made the arrest yesterday after a new witness came forward in connection with the case, but the man from south London was released this afternoon.

  Detective Superintendent Simon Ranger says: ‘Our investigations continue into the exact circumstances surrounding Alice’s death. A post-mortem has concluded that she died by drowning, but we are systematically working to establish her last movements.

  ‘I would like to thank members of the public who have assisted thus far and stress we remain keen to talk to anyone who saw Alice that evening or witnessed any activity near the River Dane.’

  Alice Salmon’s body was discovered at 07.15 GMT on February 5.

  If you have any information that could assist the investigation, please contact the incident room or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

  Extract from transcript of interview at Southampton Central police station between Detective Superintendent Simon Ranger, Detective Julie Welbeck and Elizabeth Salmon,

  5 August 2012, 17.45 p.m.

  ES: Do you have kids?

  SR: Yes, one, a girl.

  ES: How old?

  SR: Seven. Why?

  ES: Because they grow up and you can’t protect them. You do your best to set them off on the best course you can, but you have to stand back and watch them go. Can’t wrap them in cotton wool. Tuck them up or fuck them up, which is it us parents do?

  SR: Was there a specific reason you called by today, Mrs Salmon? Only we weren’t expecting to see you.

  ES: Came to lay flowers at … at … by the river. Water must have been so very cold.

  SR: I gather you’re also keen to share some new information.

  ES: It’s been six months. Where are my answers?

  SR: I appreciate how painful this all must be.

  ES: Do you? I doubt you do. Because you’ll finish your shift and fill out the paperwork – what will you say about me, that I’m inconsistent, unstable, inebriated? – and tuck your daughter up in bed and I’ll, I’ll … I haven’t the faintest clue what I’ll do.

  Interviewee stands up and paces around the room … cries again …

  ES: I’m not stupid.

  JW: No one’s suggesting that. How about we get you that cup of tea now?

  ES: Tea, no, no tea. He stalked her.

  SR: Who?

  ES: The lecturer who’s writing the book about Alice, he stalked her when she was at uni … Took advantage of her, he did, him a middle-aged man and her a fresher, barely eighteen, her first time away from home. Makes me sick, the thought of him enticing her into that lair, waiting till she was drunk then pouncing. My baby, a lamb to the slaughter. I’ve got evidence, I’ve got an email from Cooke admitting it.

  SR: Please, slow down, Mrs Salmon –

  ES: Like a confessional, maybe the snake’s lapsed Catholicism has lapsed. It was Christmas 2004: he took her to his disgusting hovel of an office and … [Interviewee rocks forwards and backwards on her seat, cries, peers upwards] … You need to arrest him!

  SR: It’s not as simple as that.

  ES: But I’ve got evidence, his confession, that’s proof.

  SR: I appreciate this is painful –

  ES: Nothing’s painful after you’ve lost a child. It’s merely layers of numbness.

  JW: Mrs Salmon, have you been drinking?

  ES: What’s booze? Another layer of numbness – water running off ice. Wouldn’t you, if you were me?

  SR: Yes, yes, I expect I would. Are you positive we can’t get you that tea?

  ES: Stop offering me tea! What good will tea do? Alice is dead. The vicar said, ‘God must have needed another angel,’ but she wasn’t God’s angel to take, she was mine. You’ve given up on her; if it wasn’t for the media keeping her in the news you’d have moved on completely. What they say might not always be right, but at least they haven’t forgotten her.

  SR: Let me assure you our enquiries have been extensive and we’re still very much keeping an open mind.

  ES: Forget an open mind – it’s Cooke you should arrest.

  SR: Did your daughter mention this alleged incident to you – indeed to anyone – at the time?

  ES: No ‘alleged’ about it and, no, she didn’t, at least not to me. She bottled it all up – if I’d have got wind of it I’d have been on the phone to the police within milliseconds … then I’d have paid the monster a visit of my own, made him wish he’d never been born.

  Interviewee hugs herself, then cries …

  ES: All you’ve done is go on a wild goose chase after Luke – most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

  SR: Arresting someone on suspicion of murder is not a step we take lightly.

  ES: That boy loved my daughter and I’ll always love him for that. It’s Cooke you should be interrogating. Someone killed her and he’s clearly fixated with her – then and now.