by Tania Carver
He looked ahead. And smiled. A burger van was parked at the side of the road. He quickened his pace.
‘Bacon sandwich and cup of tea, please, mate,’ he said to the guy behind the counter. He was big, fat and greasy-looking. A bad advert for getting high on your own supply, thought Mickey.
‘You with that lot over there?’ the bloke said, slapping a couple of rashers of bacon down on the grill, standing back as they started to spit.
‘Yeah,’ said Mickey, staring at the bacon hungrily.
‘Looks pretty bad,’ the bloke said.
‘It is,’ said Mickey. ‘Very bad.’
‘If you’re gonna be here long,’ the bloke said, ‘send them over here. I’ll do discount.’
‘Cheers. You not busy, then?’
‘Been here since crack of dawn. Same as usual. Those places along the river start early. But the recession . . .’ He sniffed. ‘Customer’s a customer, innit?’ The bloke moved the bacon round the griddle, picking up old, black grease but still looking tasty.
‘It is,’ said Mickey, hoping the bacon wouldn’t take long.
‘What is it then, murder? Body or somethin’?
Mickey nodded. ‘Yeah. Awful.’ A thought struck him. ‘Hey, you’ve been here all hours. See any activity on the quay this morning?’
‘Like what?’
‘Dunno.’ He shrugged, tried to keep it light. ‘Vans, people coming and going. Maybe quickly, maybe acting like they shouldn’t have been there. That kind of thing.’
He stared at the grill, kept the bacon moving. ‘Don’t know nothin’ about that.’
At the bloke’s reaction, Mickey felt that thrill. The copper’s thrill, the one that meant a breakthrough.
‘You did, didn’t you?’
The bloke said nothing, just became intensely interested in the grill, willing the bacon to cook quicker, prodding it with his spatula.
‘What did you see?’
‘I . . . nothin’. Didn’t see nothin’. Keep me out o’ this.’
‘Listen. Someone’s been murdered over there. A young woman. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. In my life. Now, if you’ve seen something, you’d better tell me.’
He took the bacon off the grill, stuck it on a slice of white bread, slapped another one on top of it, put it on the counter. ‘On the house.’
Mickey sighed. ‘I didn’t want to do this, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Like you said, over there is swarming with coppers. Now, I can either direct them across to here when they get a bit hungry and thirsty or I can get this van impounded and off the road.’
The man held his spatula in the air. ‘What for?’
‘I’ll think of something. Health and safety’s a godsend for stuff like that.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Or . . .’
The man looked around the inside of his van like it was his own little kingdom, one he would never see again. He sighed. ‘All right, then. I’ll tell you.’
He did.
And Mickey got that tingle again, that frisson that said he was on to something. And it felt so damned good. He had forgotten just how good. In fact, he was in such a hurry to get back to the quay he almost forgot his bacon sandwich.
Almost.
11
Suzanne closed the door, put the bolts in place, the chain across, flattened herself against it. Sighed like she had been holding her breath underwater.
She looked down the hall of her flat. At first glance, everything looked the same as it always did, but, looking more closely, she noticed differences. Things had been moved out of place and not put back. Doors and drawers left open that she would usually have shut. And vice versa.
The police. She hoped.
This should have been the place she felt safe, could take refuge in. Not any more. There was nowhere she could feel safe in now. Not even her own body. Not after today. What she had just been through.
The rape suite had been what she expected. White, tiled, functional.
So had the feelings inside her: apprehension, fear, terror.
The detective had taken her into the station, insisting Suzanne call her by her first name of Anni. Taking her straight through to this white room, waving away the paperwork until afterwards. Then pulling up two stiff-backed chairs, sitting opposite each other, talking and maintaining eye contact all the while.
‘You can have counselling, you know. We can arrange it.’
Suzanne couldn’t reply. There were no words in her mouth.
Anni continued. ‘If, you know, you need it. If things . . .’
Suzanne’s head was still spinning. It was like she had stepped out of her normal life into something surreal. A waking dream or some absurdist theatre play. In the car on the way to the station she had looked out of the window, watched people moving around, going in and out of shops, coffee houses. Carrying shopping, talking on phones, wheeling pushchairs. Normal people doing normal things. Leading normal lives. And there was her. Watching that life through the window, like a TV documentary on an alien tribe.
Suzanne found a nod for Anni. Anni returned it, gave her knee a squeeze. Suzanne’s first instinct was to place her own hand over it, keep it there, pressing hard, her only communication to that normal world. But she didn’t. She just sat there numbly, allowing Anni’s hand to stay where it was. Anni stood up.
‘We need you to undress,’ she said.
Suzanne was still wearing the T-shirt she had slept in the previous night, her dressing gown over the top of it. Anni left the room, gave her privacy, waited until she was in the cotton hospital gown. She sat on the examining table, against the wall, the loose ties at the back of the gown making her feel even more naked.
Anni returned and, with gloved hands, held out a plastic bag for Suzanne to deposit her T-shirt into. She did so. Anni smiled. Suzanne couldn’t return it.
‘Right,’ Anni said, sitting down next to her on the table. ‘I’ve got to nip upstairs to get some paperwork done. You won’t be alone for long. Will you be OK for a couple of minutes?’
Suzanne nodded, her head down, hair wafting back and forth like curtains in a slow breeze.
‘Good. The doctor’ll not be long.’ She placed her hand on Suzanne’s shoulder, gave another small squeeze.
Eventually, with another small squeeze, Anni removed her hand, stood up and left the room.
Now it was just Suzanne. Alone, but with a whole new world in her head for company.
Her mind slipped back to the night before. The dream that might not have been a dream. Her moods, her responses to it, had clicked backwards and forwards all day like a metronome: I’m making it all up. Imagining things. Wasting their time. Then: no. I’m not. It was real and there was someone with me. Someone in my room. In my bed. In my—
She tried to balance her thoughts, still her racing heart. Her hands clamped between her thighs, her ankles crossed. She closed her eyes, attempted to calm her breathing. The same thoughts tumbling over and over in her head.
I’m not giving in to this . . . I’m not giving in to this . . . I’m going to be strong, be strong . . . this bastard isn’t going to win . . .
And then the door opened.
Suzanne gave a start as a woman in a white coat entered. Overweight, hair a functional bob, clothes muted shades of grey and beige. She held a file, looked at it.
‘Suzanne . . . Perry?’ She looked at Suzanne with eyes that had a calculated, professional deadness about them, a shield between herself and the wreckage of women she must confront daily.
‘Yes.’ Suzanne’s voice was small, rusty, as if shrunken from disuse. She cleared her throat, spoke again. ‘Yes.’ Stronger this time.
The doctor gave a smile that penetrated the shield and reached her eyes, showed that, no matter how much she tried not to become involved with her patients, she was still a human being.
‘I’m Doctor Winter,’ she said, still smiling, trying to reassure her. She took another look at the file in her hands, then looked bac
k at Suzanne. ‘Right,’ she said, her voice warm and comforting, like a children’s storybook reader. ‘The first thing I want you to do is to provide a urine sample.’
Doctor Winter sent her into a cubicle with two small pots to fill. Suzanne did as she was asked, returned with the pots, put them on the desk as instructed.
‘OK,’ said Doctor Winter, snapping on latex gloves, ‘if you could just pop yourself on the table . . .’
Suzanne did as she was told. ‘Legs apart, knees bent, please. I’ll try to make this as painless as possible . . .’
Suzanne put her head back, closed her eyes. She had been fine up until then. This was the part she had been dreading.
12
It was afternoon, the sun was shining and Castle Park seemed to have been specially designed as the perfect place to enjoy the perfect day.
The castle had stood for two thousand years and looked like it was ready to stand for another couple of thousand. Flowers bloomed from the perfectly maintained beds and borders surrounding it, people strolled along the neat walkways. Even those who were hurrying to weekday work or business appointments slowed down to enjoy the surroundings. It felt to Marina like a small vacation in another world.
The parkland behind the castle sloped down towards the small lake and the children’s play areas. For Marina, sitting on a bench, taking in the view, the castle always brought to mind images of Boudica and her army, blazing around in their chariots. But where once the warrior-queen would have whipped her horses to get up the hill, attacking the castle while dodging arrows and spears, now the grounds were full of school children on educational day trips, young mothers, nannies and au pairs pushing their baby buggies round. The only kind of sustained assault on the castle came from busloads of primary school children running riot or the occasional Lycra-wearing, stroller-pushing mother taking on the hill as part of her jogging route.
One was running past Marina now. She looked up, smiled. The woman, thin, tanned, her blonde hair pulled away from her sweating face in a severe ponytail, saw Marina sitting with one hand resting on Josephina’s buggy, returned the smile.
‘Got to keep going,’ the woman gasped, passing, ‘get my shape back . . .’ And off she went.
Marina watched her go. What did she mean, get her shape back? The woman looked in perfect condition. Thin, fit-looking, her stomach didn’t even have the slightest bit of sag to it.
Despite the sunshine, Marina felt suddenly cold, like the black cloud from earlier was following her. Was that the kind of thing she was expected to do? Run to get back in shape? To have her new mother’s body scrutinised and deemed either acceptable or unacceptable? She didn’t want that. She couldn’t have that.
Marina thought back to her pregnancy. Before Phil. While Tony was still - was still around. That was hard enough. She felt like she was the first person ever to experience what she was feeling. There was no elation about it, none of the joy she had been told to expect. Just terror. Abject terror.
And then there was Phil. Getting together had been traumatic enough, and she had hoped that, once he was there, Josephina’s real father, then things would be OK. She would calm down. Enjoy the changes her life was going through.
But.
It felt like every time she looked at Josephina she was reminded of what happened. Of the real, dark world, not this sunny, colourful one before her. She saw not a baby but a living slab of guilt.
And that was it. She felt like she could never relax, never enjoy the life she ought to be having with her partner and daughter the way she should be. The way all the other mothers around her in the park seemed to be doing.
Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were just pretending, putting on a public face. Maybe they were shrivelled with terror inside.
She looked round. No. They didn’t seem to be. The mothers around her seemed to be as happy as their children in the play area. She looked down at Josephina. The baby was lying asleep, arms up as if in surrender, tiny fists at the sides of her head. Completely unaware of this world - or any world - and anything in it.
And Marina felt another layer of guilt. For the baby. She should be happy, enjoying herself for Josephina’s sake. She was with the man she loved, Phil, the baby’s real father. She tried to imagine what it would have been like the other way round, what she would have felt if they hadn’t all been together. But that didn’t work.
So she tried to wish herself happy. Tried. And failed.
Marina pushed the baby buggy backwards and forwards. Josephina stirred slightly, kept on sleeping. She had tried to talk to the other mothers in the park but they seemed to have their own circles of friends. None of her old friends from teaching had small children so she couldn’t talk to them. And she couldn’t talk to Phil either, no matter how much she loved him.
Sitting there in the sunshine, with children playing all around her, the flowers in bloom and what she usually regarded as the comforting presence of the castle, she felt alone. Completely alone.
Her phone rang. She jumped. Her first response was to check the baby, see if it had woken her, if she was upset in any way. But Josephina just kept on sleeping. Good. Relieved, she checked the display, answered it. She knew who it was.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey yourself.’
Phil.
Then couldn’t think of anything more to say to him.
‘You OK?’ he said.
‘Fine. Just in Castle Park. Pushing Josephina. Letting her see the sunshine.’ She bit her lip.
‘Wish I was with you.’ He gave a small, brittle laugh that died away. ‘You’ve probably heard on the news, there’s been a murder.’
She hadn’t heard. She was barely aware of anything or anyone but herself at the moment. Still, the old, dark familiar shiver ran through her. ‘So that means . . .’
‘I’ll be late.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry. You know . . . you know what it’s like.’
That shiver again. ‘Yes. I know what it’s like. Is it . . .’ she said, knowing she should say something. ‘. . . is it bad?’
‘Like there are good ones?’ An old phrase he always used. ‘Yeah. Worse than . . . yeah.’ There were some other voices on the line, the sound of Phil covering the mouthpiece to talk to them. ‘Look,’ he said, coming back to her, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later, OK? Let you know what’s happening.’
‘OK.’
She rang off, looked at the phone. Only then realising he had still been talking to her, telling her he loved her.
She stood up. Looked around, saw nothing to keep her in the park, her vacation over. Started walking. She reached the top of the hill, the main road. Looked down the hill towards East Hill, upwards towards the town centre. Set off walking.
It was only when she found herself down by the bridge over the River Colne then she realised she had no idea where she had been or where she was going.
13
Suzanne stood with her back against her front door, wondering when she would ever feel safe again, hoping the locks and chains would be enough to keep out any intruder.
She could still feel the ghost of the cold metal inside her. See the screw-top pots with her different bodily fluids and samples taken on cotton buds all in a line. And Doctor Winter checking her notes, looking her in the eye:
‘You haven’t been raped.’
There would be more tests, but that was the conclusion.
Suzanne should have felt relieved. But . . .
Before her was the phone table. Her landline handset lying across her hard-back address book. Had she left it that way? At that angle? Down the hall she could see into her bedroom, see the duvet pulled back, the open curtains, the raised, wooden blind . . .
‘Oh God . . .’
She sank to the floor, her back against the front door, covered her face with her hands. Tears came. Great, wracking sobs. She pulled her hands in tighter, her fingernails digging into her skin.
‘No . . . no . . .’
Her legs kicke
d out, impotent with rage and frustration. Felt herself caving in to the emotion, being weakened by it like acid eating away at her, destroying her from the inside . . . Then she opened her eyes. Willed the tears to stop.
‘No . . .’ Shouting. ‘No . . . you’re not going to win . . . No . . .’
Suzanne felt something rise within her. Hot. Fiery. Angry. She stood up.
‘No, no, you bastard . . .’
She looked around the hallway for something - anything - to hold. Saw the phone. Picked it up. ‘You hear me?’ Turning round on the spot, shouting at the walls. ‘You’re not . . . going to . . . fucking . . . win . . .’
She hurled the phone as hard as she could. It hit the far wall, fell to the floor.
She stared at it, sighed. Light-headed but the emotion subsiding, breathing like she had just run a marathon. Or run for her life.
And she hadn’t mentioned Anthony. Surely they would find out soon enough. They had records, they would check them. And then they would think she was lying. Making it up for whatever reason, to get attention.
Well, she wasn’t lying. Wasn’t making it up. And if the bastards thought that . . .
She wiped the tears away, her cheeks burning. Sat back on the floor.
The photo of her lying semi-naked would now be in some forensic lab. She could just imagine it being passed round by strangers, objectified like some porn image. Being commented on, judged, rated. It felt like a second violation. She tried to tell herself that they were professionals, that it was only a piece of evidence from which clues could be removed. But she wasn’t convinced. She began to tremble, from anger or pity she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.
She breathed deeply, tried to focus. Concentrate. Her fingers picking at the plaster in the crook of her arm where she had given a blood sample. She looked down the hall again, into the rooms. Everything that she had built up, the place she regarded as safe, had been violated. No other word for it. Burglary victims talked of the same thing, but this, thought Suzanne, was something more. Something deeper and crueller. A kind of rape.