Then she looked at me. I tried to look back. Eye contact.
‘Mr Mercer, you understand, do you not, that you have the right to a lawyer?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you are happy to proceed without legal representation?’
‘Yes.’ I wanted her sympathy now, and a lawyer wouldn’t help with that.
‘So,’ she said, ‘you and your son found the body of Mr Bryce on the evening of first July, as discussed in our interview of second July.’
I said nothing. What was she expecting me to say?
‘Do you have anything you wish to add to the recollections you gave then?’
‘No.’ I still remembered her kindness across the kitchen table. I hadn’t wanted her to feel sorry for me then. I wanted her sympathy now, though. ‘It hasn’t been an easy time.’ Eye contact.
‘And we are aware that discovery of a body can be a traumatic event. You have been made aware that counselling services are available, should you wish.’
Surely she couldn’t ask me whether I had seen a counsellor? Wasn’t that privileged? And surely it could never count against me that I hadn’t?
‘Everyone has been very kind.’ Her mouth smiled. There was a keenness to her gaze that I hadn’t seen before, a tilt of the head that suggested distance. Raptor.
‘Mr Mercer, what was your state of mind on the evening of the thirtieth of June?’
‘You mean the first of July?’
‘No, Mr Mercer, I mean the evening of the thirtieth of June. The evening before your … discovery of the body.’
Why the pause before the word discovery? What was she implying?
‘You’re asking me to account for my movements?’
‘No, Mr Mercer. I’m asking you to describe your state of mind.’
‘Normal. Whatever that is.’
‘And what’s normal, for you?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘I see.’ She smiled. Then she produced a typescript from a briefcase and turned to a page marked with a Post-it.
‘A neighbour of yours reports hearing raised voices in your house on the night of the thirtieth of June.’
‘Raised voices?’
‘An argument. Which continued from roughly eleven fifteen to eleven forty-five.’
‘A neighbour?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re talking about Mr Ashani.’
‘I’m afraid that I can’t share those details with you at this point. Mr Mercer, did you and your wife argue between those hours?’
‘I don’t remember.’ Still that professional smile. Still the keenness of the eyes. Yellow-grey, unblinking.
‘Did you and your wife argue between those times?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Maybe?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was very faint.’ She gestured towards the recorder. ‘Could you repeat your last answer?’
‘Yes. We argued.’
The longest of pauses. Her eyes blazed. I tried to smile back. Eye contact. I brought the cup to my lips, realised it was empty. Smiled again. Put the cup down.
‘Mr Mercer, I’m going to read from the transcript of the interview with your neighbour. All right?’
‘All right.’
She read without inflection, her voice flat, like a bored clerk on a long and tedious telephone call. ‘You fucking bitch. You fucking little bitch. I’m going to make you pay for that. Jesus. Next time I meet a bitch like you in a pub, the last thing I’m going to do is marry her. Christ on the fucking cross.’
The smile was gone now. Her grey-gold eyes stared. Waiting. Hungry, almost.
‘It’s the kind of thing I could have said.’
‘Did you say it, Mr Mercer?’
‘Yes. I probably did.’
‘You probably did?’
‘I said it.’
She closed the transcript, placed it carefully in front of her on the table. ‘Well now.’ The smile was back. Patient, without warmth. She followed my gaze as I looked towards the door. Would she stop me if I got up to leave? Would she arrest me?
Something in me – almost a voice – told me that she couldn’t search the house if she arrested me at the police station; that she could only search the place where the arrest was made. I was sure – almost sure – that I had read that somewhere. Had I read that somewhere? Why had I said no to a lawyer?
I forced myself to meet her gaze. ‘You’re quoting selectively,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Mercer? Could you explain yourself?’
‘You’re taking my words out of context.’ My voice sounded injured; the voice of a petulant child.
‘And how would you contextualise your words, Mr Mercer? Let me remind you of what you said: “You fucking little bitch. I’m going to make you pay for that.” We agree – do we not – that you said that?’
‘Yes. Look …’
‘Yes?’
‘That’s not how it was said.’
‘Your voice was raised, was it not?’
‘That’s not what I mean.’
‘Was your voice raised?’
‘Obviously. Otherwise Mr Ashani wouldn’t have heard me.’
‘Well, quite,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
‘So it was Mr Ashani …’
‘… a neighbour …’
‘… who heard us through the wall. He’s an old man, and he doesn’t understand context.’
‘And again, what was the context?’
‘We were making up.’
She laughed. She actually laughed. She put her hand to her mouth, then composed herself. ‘Go on, Mr Mercer.’
‘Look at your transcript again.’
‘And why would I do that, Mr Mercer?’
‘Because you’re leaving out what Millicent said.’
‘And what did your wife say?’
‘She called me motherfucker, and told me I was a jerked-up little dweeb. We were laughing. Didn’t he say we were laughing?’
She leafed lazily through her transcript, made a play of not looking at me.
‘We were sharing a bottle of wine; we were laughing.’
‘Really, Mr Mercer? Really?’
‘Really. Motherfucker is a term of affection. So’s bitch.’
‘Unfortunately, Mr Mercer, I have no record of your wife’s reply, affectionate or otherwise.’
‘I would never use the word bitch in anger.’ I was struggling to keep the desperation from my voice. ‘It’s an ironic use.’
‘Let’s move on, shall we?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘let’s not, until we’ve discussed why I said it.’
‘Mr Mercer,’ she said, smiling broadly, ‘I’m just trying to establish the facts. It’s time to move on.’
They knew about Millicent’s affair with Bryce. They had interviewed someone who worked at the Swedish who could only have been the manager. He had heard everything. The description he gave of my swearing didn’t make it sound in any way ironic. Apparently I had used words stronger than bloody.
The detective made it very clear what she thought of me. It’s hard to explain to a female police officer why you have used the word cunting in a loud argument with your wife, or why you have screamed the same word at the manager of a Swedish café. ‘I didn’t scream it,’ I wanted to say. ‘I was never that loud.’ They had also spoken to someone who had seen me swearing and sucking my thumb in the street. Ranting, the description said. Ranting.
I tried to bring her back to my argument with Millicent the night before the neighbour died. It wasn’t about the affair, I wanted to say. It was about our son. I didn’t know about the affair. It was about vegetables, and sweets, and ice cream, and fruit. Parent stuff, and parents shout at each other about this stuff. About how much cheese is too much cheese, and how many burgers are too many burgers. My wife thinks I make a thing about food, and it doesn’t need to be a thing. We were done, by the time I called her a bitch. We’d moved on. We were laughi
ng. And anyway, who doesn’t shout about this stuff?
But she kept moving the conversation forwards, never letting the subject rest for long enough for me to explain myself. I sounded lame. I sounded petulant. I sounded like a hurt child.
She left me alone. Paul came in and accompanied me to the toilet, then fetched another coffee for me. He was brisk and completely without warmth. I wondered what she had said to him.
I should have called a lawyer. I wondered what I would think, confronted cold with a man like me and a corpse in the house next door. They had spoken to a lot of people about me, and the theme that kept emerging was anger. Maybe that was me, the ranting man. A man in thrall to rage. Ranting in the home. Ranting in the café. Ranting in the street.
A small step from rage to jealous rage.
I drew myself together. So far they had nothing on me, though. Not really. Apart from the anger. And even if I was angry, there’s no law against anger, is there? Not if you don’t act on it. I sat for a while longer, sideways in my chair, feet on the table.
Then I took out my phone. They hadn’t asked me to hand it over, and they hadn’t told me not to use it. I checked that the voice recorder wasn’t recording; I had seen the detective turn it off, but I wanted to be sure. As far as I could tell it was off.
I dialled a number from memory. It rang twice before she rejected the call, as I knew she would. ‘I’m not here, I’m sorry to say.’ Her rock-crystal voice, the careless precision of her diction. ‘Leave me a message and of course I’ll call you back.’
I could only hope that she would listen to my message, that she wouldn’t simply press 3 and leave me to my fate.
‘Caroline,’ I said, ‘Alex. It’s Alex. And I’m sorry for this. I’m truly sorry. But if the police want to speak to you about me, I need to speak to you first. I can and will explain.’
After an hour Paul came in with a cup of coffee.
‘Am I free to go?’ I asked him.
‘You could …’ he said. ‘You’re not under arrest.’
‘I can?’
‘I wouldn’t, though.’
‘OK.’ I said. ‘Why not?’
He made a gesture that I couldn’t read, and left the room.
I was tired now, and irritable from the coffee. I hadn’t eaten in hours.
June came back in and I asked her if I could go.
‘Would you like to leave, Mr Mercer?’
Something in her manner suggested that leaving would be a very bad idea.
‘I’ll stay,’ I said.
‘All right,’ she said. She turned the recorder back on, and told the machine what time it was. ‘Mr Mercer, there’s a piece of information to which I’d like to know your reaction.’
‘Would it be possible to have a sandwich or something?’
‘This won’t take long.’
That raptor smile. Those searching eyes.
‘Mr Mercer, would it surprise you to know that we believe your neighbour Mr Bryce was murdered?’
‘Not really.’
‘That doesn’t surprise you?’
‘There’s been a lot of police activity in the neighbour’s house.’
‘You surmised that from our activity?’ Her head tilted gently from one side to the other, then back. The smile was gone. I met her gaze for a moment, then looked away.
‘Yes. And the style of your questions suggests you think something’s wrong. You asked me not to leave the country.’
‘I see.’ Some change in her, as if I had revealed a piece of myself that I should have kept hidden. She sat for a moment, consulted her papers. Then she seemed to reach a decision.
‘Mr Mercer, do you know why we think your neighbour was murdered?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Only that you think he was.’ Breathe.
‘I see.’
She produced a colour print. A standard British three-pin plug, dismantled. She spoke an evidence number into the recorder.
‘Mr Mercer is now studying the photograph. Mr Mercer, do you notice anything about this that you wish to comment on?’
‘It’s correctly wired.’
‘It is indeed correctly wired.’
‘Someone has replaced the fuse with a piece of metal.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘someone has.’
Her eyes blazed. Her smile was back.
‘Mr Mercer, you will notice the cord which is attached to the plug.’
‘It’s from an iron, or a heater, or something.’
‘Yes. It is in fact from the iron that was found in the bath beside Mr Bryce. The iron that caused Mr Bryce’s death by electrocution.’
Was she accusing me? She was still smiling, and there was something more human about the smile now, a warmth, as if she were inviting me to share a confidence.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘I suppose if you wanted to kill yourself you would modify your iron in this way.’
‘If indeed you owned an iron.’
‘He didn’t own an iron?’
‘A man of expensive tastes.’
I thought of the dry-cleaning bags on his kitchen table.
‘Mr Mercer, can you account for your movements in the three hours before your discovery of the body of Mr Bryce?’
‘I was working. Viewing for an edit.’
‘Would that be something you were doing from home?’
‘Yes,’ I said, defensively.
‘Can anyone verify that?’
‘Max, maybe.’
She stood up, made a point of looking at her watch. She was still smiling that warm, encouraging smile. ‘Useful to know.’ She reached out her hand, and I shook it. ‘Thank you for coming in, Mr Mercer. One of my colleagues will drive you home.’
‘But …’ I looked at the recording machine. She reached over and turned it off.
‘It’s been a long day for you. I’m sure you’ll be glad to spend time with your wife and your son.’
While you still can, I thought. She means while you still can.
I sat in a plastic seat in the public area of the station, waiting for someone to drive me home. The desk sergeant sat reading a newspaper. Why had I agreed to be driven? I could easily walk.
They had nothing on me – I was certain of that. And yet the more I thought about the conversation with the detective, the more I admired her. She had made no threats. She had made no accusation. She had kept me waiting, but not long enough that I had reason to complain. She had seen to it that her colleagues had behaved impeccably towards me. She had the measure of people like me. She had completely done me over.
It was a brilliant piece of staging. My stomach was cramping up from the bad coffee and the lack of food. I was on edge, and desperately wanted a cigarette. But she had my measure. She had known I wouldn’t get up and leave.
This wasn’t about the recording. I had said nothing that would incriminate me on a transcript. I was certain of that.
No, it was all about timing, about making sure I was vulnerable, about making certain that I felt alone. It was about demonstrating her lack of empathy towards me, about timing the moment her empathy returned. It was about that one piece of information. She was working a hunch.
She wanted to know what I thought. What I felt. ‘If indeed you owned an iron.’ Her eyes on my face. Confess.
‘Alex.’
A form, all arms and shoulders and summer prints. A voice I knew. Bracelets sighing metallic on her slender arm.
‘What?’ I was staring at the floor.
‘Alex, are you OK?’
I looked up. Rose. Pretty, etiolated Rose. Rose who didn’t know her own strength.
The answer was no, of course I wasn’t anything like OK, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I looked at her, and wanted Millicent. Millicent would know what to do. Millicent always knew.
‘Hi,’ I said. I drew myself up, sat as casually as I could, tried to project OK. I risked a smile. She smiled back.
‘I’m waiting for a lift. This place gives me the creeps.’
‘I’m waiting for a lift too.’
She nodded. She really was very pretty, in that delicate English way of hers. What did she want from me?
I picked up a newspaper. We sat there next to each other pretending to read, while the duty sergeant pretended to be busy with paperwork.
‘Alex,’ she said after a time, ‘Alex, do you have to go straight home?’
At the Sacred Cock I bought two double whiskies. We sat at a table near the bar, said very little, stared into our drinks. Millicent thought I was still at the police station. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Rose and I shared a secret, although I didn’t yet know what that secret was. I was shaken by the interview at the police station; Rose seemed shaken too. Perhaps that was all it was. Perhaps that was why I was here with her, and not at home with Millicent and Max.
‘Rose,’ I said.
She spoke my name just as I spoke hers.
‘Jinx,’ she said. ‘Almost.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘almost.’
I had to ask her first. ‘What were you doing there?’ I needed time to decide how to explain myself to her.
‘That was my question to you, Alex.’
‘You first.’
She smiled. She liked me, and I didn’t want to throw that away.
‘They wanted to know why I walked through their crime scene. Isn’t there supposed to be tape? Alex, did you know the house was a crime scene?’
‘You broke their lock, Rose. Did you really not wonder?’
‘Grief,’ she said. She picked up a whisky and drank it down. ‘Does weird things to you. I don’t know what I thought that lock was doing there. They didn’t like that as an answer, obviously. Though it’s the truth. Cheers, by the way.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Alex, did they ask you about me? About whether you heard me opening drawers in the kitchen?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, they didn’t ask me that.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘somehow they knew. You would have told them if they’d asked you, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘They were really interested in why I was opening drawers in the kitchen. I mean, really interested. And you really didn’t tell them you heard me?’
‘You have my word on that.’
A Line of Blood Page 51