by Matt Rudd
And as we cycle past, looking the other way to avoid detection, Bob shouts, ‘There’s that bastard,’ and I look around.
‘You bastard,’ he shouts, his angry red face even angrier and redder than usual. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What are you doing here, more like?’
‘Brenda. You remember her? My wife? The woman you drove to suicide? She would have been here today. She was racing for the Samaritans. But they couldn’t save her, thanks to you, you bastard.’
‘We’re doing this for her. In her memory,’ puffs the postman. ‘And you shouldn’t be here.’
‘Yeah, you bastard’ shouts Bob, working himself into an even greater rage.
‘Listen, I don’t know what you think I—’
‘What’s that on your cap? The Animal Samaritans? Are you taking the piss?’
And with that, Bob veers towards me. With a sudden burst of adrenalin, I sprint away, leaving him shaking his fist in the distance.
We finish. We finish the triathlon. Andy manages a smile. I manage a couple of exhausted whoops because finally, in this year of mistakes, accidents and stupid misunderstandings, I’ve achieved something. And then we leave because, unless he’s had a heart attack or stopped to kill some more domestic animals, Bob won’t be far behind us.
The two police officers are waiting for me when we get back to the house – and they aren’t there to congratulate me on my sporting prowess. A few more questions, but down at the station, they say. Do I have to do this now? I’ve just done a whole triathlon. Yes. Would I like a solicitor? I’m still not under formal caution, but they would appreciate my cooperation. Isabel looks worried. I kiss her and tell her everything will be all right. It’s like a movie. I wave goodbye from the back of the police car. She waves. Jacob waves. Not even one year old and he can wave properly. None of the other babies in the baby group can do that.
And now it’s not like a movie. It’s like The Bill. Not the new Bill with all the shooting and chases and love interest and jazzy music. It’s like classic Bill, a whole episode in the interview room. I am being interviewed under caution, I am told, although I am not under arrest. Just like in The Bill.
‘Where were you on the morning of Thursday, 31 October?’
‘We’ve already been through this.’ I can pretend I’m in The Bill, too.
‘Once again for the tape.’ Ahh, his Bill trumps my Bill. So I explain, once again for the tape, that I was staggering around the village trying to find my way back home. It doesn’t sound very convincing, I say, but it’s the truth.
Then I’m asked to explain my relationship with Brenda and Bob. We go through everything in forensic detail and, even to me, it sounds bad. Like I had a vendetta against Brenda and, when her cat accidentally killed my chicken, I plotted my revenge.
They won’t accept my version of events. They don’t believe that Bob killed his own whippet and replaced it with an identical one before anyone, even his wife, noticed. They are convinced I killed the cats. They say they had several phone calls from the public (all anonymous) implicating me, which I point out was almost certainly the rest of the village cabal or just some nutters attracted by the ridiculous £10,000 reward.
‘Ridiculous? You think a reward to track down a cat murderer is ridiculous?’
Now they’ve started using the ‘murderer’ tag as well. Enough is enough. ‘Look, I’m tired. I’ve done a triathlon – for the bloody Animal Samaritans, by the way, in case you really think I hate animals. All your evidence is circumstantial and I can’t see the point of continuing this interview. I’d like to go home.’
The cop who has until now been quite friendly – almost, you could say, like the good cop – suddenly becomes very, very angry – almost, you could say, like the bad cop: ‘The point of this interview is to find out who murdered a poor defenceless woman and then dragged her body across a village green and dumped her on train tracks to destroy all forensic evidence. That’s the point.’
I feel the room start to spin. ‘But it was suicide.’
‘She was already dead when the train hit her.’
‘I think I’d like a solicitor now.’
Monday 25 November
I was released in the small hours after the duty solicitor challenged the police to charge me or release me. He had obviously been watching too much television as well. All their evidence was circumstantial, he’d pointed out, just like I had. I had motive, they argued, and I was in the area with a ridiculous, unconfirmable alibi. But they didn’t have enough. They had hoped for a confession, but I kept confounding them by proclaiming my innocence. And eventually, their time ran out.
‘Don’t leave the country, sir,’ said the bad cop – and he wasn’t even joking.
Isabel was still awake when I got home. Seeing the look of worry on her face when the door opened made everything worse. She was pale and tired. She gave me a hug. I tried to reassure her that everything would be okay and we went to bed. It took me hours to get to sleep and when I finally drifted off, I dreamed of a man who looked like me sitting in a parked car outside the gates of a prison. He was waiting for someone. I saw my older self step through the gates and realised the man in the car was Jacob, as an adult. He had grown up without his father. I woke in a sweat to find Isabel already awake, staring out of the window across the moonlit garden. She still looked terrified.
When I woke again, it was 10.30 a.m. and Isabel was not in the bed. I would be two hours late for work. Why hadn’t she woken me?
‘It’s okay. I called Janice. I told her you’d caught a terrible cold on your triathlon.’
‘But there were more cardboard boxes. Snowy will be terrified.’
‘What?’
‘Snowy. Janice’s cat.’
‘The police think you’re a prime suspect in a murder. I wouldn’t worry about a cat.’
‘Cats are what got me here in the first place.’
Tuesday 26 November
Another £1,000 last night, right on the nose. I told myself I was only doing it to take my mind off the whole murder thing, but even I didn’t believe me. I still managed to stop at £1,000 and walk away from the virtual table. So I’m down to just under £6,000. I’ll get to £5,000 and I’ll stop for good because this is a streak and streaks don’t last. More importantly, £5,000 is manageable. I’ve got all the aloe and that’s paid for. I’ve got the job. I can keep £5,000 hidden from Isabel and it will be gone by next spring. If I can get past the whole murder thing, keep my head down at work and focus on my lovely family, I can still finish this year well.
Even this is too much to hope for.
‘Look, I know. The boxes. Another order came in. I’m so sorry. I’ll move them this afternoon.’ I say all this to Janice the minute I get in, before she can have her inevitable whinge.
‘Right,’ she replies nervously. And she continues being nervous all morning, right up until the point where I say, ‘Is something the matter?’
‘I had a detective on the phone yesterday. Wanted to know what you thought of cats.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘He wouldn’t say why. He just said it was important.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I thought you were ambivalent.’
‘Ambivalent? I work for Cat World. How can I be ambivalent?’
‘Well, he was very pushy. He said he knew you worked for Cat World, but he wondered whether I’d noticed anything, anything at all, that might make me think you weren’t such a fan of cats. He said it must be hard writing about cats all day long. He wondered whether it could get to you. So I told him.’
‘You told him what?’
‘I told him about you and Snowy. And the outburst about the boxes.’
‘Oh, great.’
‘And the other outburst.’
‘What “other outburst”?’
‘The one about the column. I also mentioned that your tone had become more…sarcastic recently. You used to be such a wonderful cat
journalist, always coming up with ideas. But lately, you’ve been rather, well, snide.’
‘Snide?! Me? That’s ridiculous. It’s just been a difficult few months.’
‘I want you to take a few days off.’
‘What?’
‘Paid, of course. I know you’re having money problems.’
‘Did you tell the detective that, too?’
‘He was calling about the cat murders, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you a cat murderer?’
‘You can’t murder a bloody cat.’
Janice looked even more alarmed. I protested my innocence, I told her about the replaced whippet but it didn’t help; she has no feelings for dogs. Only cats. And right then, she was two-thirds convinced her former star cat journalist, the founder of ‘Good enough to eat?’ was none other than the famous cat slayer of Kent. She didn’t even know that I might be a proper murderer as well.
Isabel is ashen when I get home. Ashen is the very worst colour a wife can look. Crimson is bad, possibly even painful, but usually shortlived. Ashen is long-term bad. She doesn’t even ask why I am home so early. I tell her anyway.
‘I’ve been suspended pending the investigation into the cat murders. I don’t know what will happen when she finds out it’s murder-murder as well as cat murder…What’s wrong?’
She takes a few seconds to reply: ‘The police came round again. They wanted to know about our debts.’ Her voice is frighteningly measured.
My heart is pounding. I feel sick, but there’s nothing I can do except listen, with dread, to the terrible words falling from her lips.
‘I said we had had the whole flooding incident, but most of that had been insured. Then I explained how you’d gambled on the internet – it sounds so ridiculous – but we’d got on top of that. We’d got on top of that latest little William crisis. It was only a little blip, I told them. And you know what the policeman said?’ She’s ashen and teary now. ‘He said, “I hardly think £8,000 is a blip”.’
Immediately I know that my next sentence is the most important sentence of my life and that I must, on no account, get it wrong. If I get it wrong, I’m finished. I will be alone and miserable in some bedsit for ever, drinking cheap whisky, staring at an old dog-eared photo of my beautiful son and my beautiful wife and wondering why I threw everything away. That’s if I’m not in a prison cell. I have to say something really, really good, something that can sum up in an understandable, non-inflammatory nutshell why on earth I (a) racked up gambling debts of £8,000 and then (b) only told Isabel about £1,400 of them.
But I can’t think of a brilliant sentence. All I can think of is how important it is that I come up with a brilliant sentence because I’m only going to get one sentence. And then all I can think about is how I must stop thinking about how brilliant that sentence needs to be and start thinking about what I should actually say because at least eight seconds have gone by and the window of opportunity is closing. And I have to say something. Anything. Now. Say it. Say it now.
‘Darling, I’ve got it down to £6,000 and I can explain.’
This is exactly the wrong sentence. It is the sentence people say when they can’t explain a thing. Any other sentence would have been better. ‘Darling, you’re looking a bit old these days so I gambled to get money to buy a mail-order bride from the Philippines.’ That would have been better. Well, it wouldn’t but I’ve still screwed it. I know this because Isabel doesn’t wait for the explanation. She says, ‘I want you to be gone by the time I get back from the coffee morning,’ grabs Jacob, bundles him into the sling and makes for the door. ‘I’ve been an idiot,’ she says as she goes.
Do babies remember things? They’ve done almost all their formative learning by the time they’re three years old, haven’t they? That’s what Isabel read in one of her infernal books. So we’ve done one-third of that…and most of it involves his father being an utter abject failure. On the other hand, the first thing I can remember is an ice cream I had at Harrods when I was four. So when Jacob is thirty-two, he might not remember what just happened. He might not remember his mother asking his father to leave because the police told her about a gambling debt he had tried to hide.
He might though. He might remember that like I remember the ice cream. He is very advanced for his age.
Wednesday 27 November
The friend’s sofa. Back on the friend’s sofa. I haven’t been here for years. Well, a year and a half. And isn’t the sofa symbolic of so many things? Failure, self-loathing, misery, rejection, failure, abject failure, total and abject failure, more failure.
Andy would be sleeping on his sofa if he could; such is his own abject misery. While I have been ruining my life, he has had several more tearful arguments with Saskia. Apparently, she’s now stopped saying she loved him and started saying she’s glad he doesn’t want to marry her because she doesn’t want to marry him, not while he’s friends with me.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re the Destroyer of Relationships.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what she said, not me.’
‘Ridiculous.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Especially after what she tried to do to me and Isabel.’
‘I know.’
We sit there on the sofa watching Road Wars. Drinking. Pretending everything will be all right. It won’t be all right. Saskia is moving back to New York. Isabel is almost certainly consulting divorce lawyers as we speak.
At least Geoff and Alex are still keeping the thin flickering flame of true love alight. Maybe they can set an example. Maybe it is possible to re-ignite the passion.
Thursday 28 November
Alex and Geoff have split up. After my little chat with Geoff, it was great for a few days. Both of them were treating each other mean and keeping each other keen. But then neither of them was returning each other’s calls. No one was talking. No one was even texting. Everyone was being all cool and aloof.
Alex, who I now realise has phoned up to shout at me, says he always knew I was wrong. You shouldn’t play games, he rants, which is rich, coming from him. You should be true and honest and speak with your heart.
‘I never wanted to advise you.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have done. Look at the mess it’s got me in.’ He’s crying now, which is embarrassing. In any case, he’s the least of my worries.
‘Look, mate. I’m sorry, but I’m not doing particularly well with my relationship, either.’
‘What?’
‘Isabel’s thrown me out.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I lied about the extent of my gambling debts, because 2 per cent of her thinks I might have killed some cats and a ginger midget, because of bloody Saskia and because I’ve probably lost my job.’
‘You see, you idiot,’ he cries hysterically and, I have to say, unexpectedly after all I’ve done for him. ‘Why do you ruin everything?’ This is the original Alex, the Alex I knew before he became new gay, nice Alex. I hang up.
I call Isabel, but she doesn’t answer.
I call Andy at work and he says he’ll be home in an hour. I sit there watching Noel Edmonds attempt to make a ridiculously tedious game of chance seem tactical. I watch a man with £15,000 on the table throw it all away for 1p. He’s an idiot. Who would behave so stupidly? Then, of course, I realise that I would. I am the loser on Deal or No Deal. I switch it off in disgust and stare at the blank wall. If only the blank wall was my life. A nice blank wall. With Jacob on it. And Isabel. But nothing else. A clean slate.
Friday 29 November
Johnson pops round. He starts by telling us both that he warned us. Marriage. Women. Life. All impossible. If only we were gay, then we wouldn’t have any of these problems.
Andy points out that Alex and Geoff have just split up.
I point out that it wasn’t Isabel who ruined everything.
‘Ah, yes. How is the cat murdering going?’<
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I had been hoping not to mention the latest developments to Johnson because the thought of having to digest his alarmist interpretation of events is almost more than I can bear. And I was right.
‘I told you the train thing was suspicious. Didn’t I tell you?’
‘Yes, you told me.’
‘This is bad. This is very bad. What the hell are you doing about it?’
‘Nothing. I’m innocent. It was only an interview. They didn’t arrest me.’
‘What? Are you crazy? You’re in the frame. You can’t just sit there and let justice take its course. What if it doesn’t? You’ve heard of the Guildford Four? The Birmingham Six?’
‘It’s hardly the same thing.’
‘You idiot. Don’t you see?’ Johnson is unusually fired up. Normally, he spouts his opinions with an air of superior resignation. He’s older, he’s wiser, he’s been around the block, but he knows no one will take his sage-like advice. This is different. He looks genuinely worried.
‘No, I don’t bloody see. What can I do? The police are investigating. They can’t prove I did something I didn’t do.’
‘You’re mad. You don’t know anything. Who do you think killed Brenda?’
‘Bob.’
‘And what is Bob?’
‘A publican?’
‘No, an ex-policeman. He thinks like a policeman, he speaks like a policeman, he plans like a policeman. And do you really think if he’s killed his wife, her two cats and a whippet, he’s not capable of putting someone else in the frame for it?’
‘You’ve watched too much Bill.’
‘Is it worth taking the risk? Are you just going to sit there feeling sorry for yourself while someone else ruins your life?’
‘Yes, I bloody am.’
‘You need to take Bob on. You need to beat him at his own game.’