What Alice Knew

by T. A. Cotterell

  ‘If he did so little to deserve the flowers, is it not possible she was thanking him for something else?’

  I held out my hands. ‘You tell me.’

  Pullen shuffled his notes and read one of the pages. Philips showed no interest and asked no questions.

  ‘And I’d like you to explain to Mr Philips why you and your husband didn’t share the best bit of gossip you’ll ever have with any of your friends.’

  ‘We don’t do gossip.’

  He waited but I didn’t offer anything more. The less you said … At last Philips spoke.

  ‘Mrs Sheahan, can I take you back to the night Araminta Lyall died?’

  He had a Birmingham accent. Maybe he’d been parachuted in to handle a high-profile case that was going nowhere? Those lapels would work well as a parachute.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You went to your book club.’

  What? How did he know that?

  ‘Um, yes, that’s right.’

  I tried not to sound flustered.

  ‘And your husband planned a visit to his solicitor.’

  Oh my God! They weren’t fooling around. My stomach tightened. Had he already spoken to Karen? Or had Ed told him that? Or was he simply showing me that they knew more than I realized. For just a moment I couldn’t even remember whether I was supposed to know he had told that lie at work. Fortunately our story flooded back like revision in an exam.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But he didn’t go.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Brandon Hill.’

  ‘Does he often go there during work hours?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why that day?’

  ‘He’d booked an early afternoon at the hospital but forgotten to book the solicitor’s appointment. So rather than not take the time off, because he works so hard an early afternoon is a rare bird, he thought he’d go and sit in the sunshine on Brandon Hill for a while, just to chill out.’

  Philips listened with the air of a man who knows the answer before he receives it.

  ‘He was alone?’

  ‘No. I joined him there.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘Five thirty, maybe six. After I had picked up my son from a birthday party in St Werburghs. You can check.’

  ‘We will. And stayed until …’

  ‘I guess about sevenish. Then we went home to give the children tea before I walked to book club.’

  ‘Which way did you go home?’

  ‘Jacobs Wells Road, Constitution Hill, Goldney …’

  Philips mumbled unintelligibly.

  ‘Sorry?’

  He walked over to the table with a wide, bandy-legged sort of slouch, balled his fists and put his knuckles on the table, his face close to mine.

  ‘I said, “That’s lucky.” ’

  He smelt of cheap aftershave and tobacco and his Chi-Lites suit was made of lab-fabric. His closeness annoyed me. It was intimidation.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘No CCTV.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘No proof you were there.’

  ‘I’d say that was unlucky.’

  ‘For us?’

  ‘For us.’

  He stared at me for a moment, close-up, shark-eyed. Then he pulled away and said,

  ‘How did he let you know he was there?’ He looked up at a pipe. ‘Phone you from work?’

  I was about to nod when Ed’s words about calls being logged and checkable came back to me. Leading question.

  ‘No. He remembered at breakfast he’d forgotten to book the solicitor. As it was shaping up to be a lovely day we decided then and there to forget the solicitor and take the time for ourselves. You don’t get that much when you have children.’

  ‘And who did you see on Brandon Hill?’

  ‘No one in particular.’

  ‘Anyone you knew?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  I was about to reply ‘Yes’ when something made me pause. Had we seen anyone we knew? Obviously not, given we hadn’t been there. But why had he asked the question? Had Ed said we had? Why would he? He wouldn’t. Then why was Philips looking at me like that? Because he was bluffing. Maybe Ed had said we had without realizing I was here and thought he could square it with me tonight? My tongue felt dry and furry. There was no choice. I had to go with the obvious.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  He ran a stubby finger around his mouth. As the nanoseconds mounted, I realized I’d got it right. To stop myself high-fiving Pullen, I added,

  ‘There were lots of people around because it was a sunny evening, but no one we knew.’

  ‘Which bench did you sit on?’

  My elation inverted instantaneously. Philips could ask questions for as long as I could answer them, and then some. I felt a prickly heat on my neck. Where were the benches anyway on Brandon Hill? Which one would Ed have said? Why-oh-why hadn’t I stuck to Sion Hill? That was the only truth I had. I tried to disguise my mounting panic.

  ‘We sat on the grass.’

  ‘Even though your husband was in a suit?’

  In the early days in Bristol, when we lived in Ambra Vale, I sometimes brought the children to meet him after work on Brandon Hill. I’d always bring a rug.

  ‘I’d brought a rug.’

  ‘Did you have a picnic?’

  Pause. What would he say? Surely he’d know I’d eat at book club. And six thirty was too early anyway.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ice cream?’

  Christ! He’d be asking which way the flake was pointing in a second. Tiny tears pricked my eyes.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was the ice cream van there?’

  ‘Not so as I noticed.’

  ‘I thought artists noticed everything. Aren’t they supposed to have better powers of observation than the rest of us?’

  ‘I find I notice ice cream vans more when I’m with my children.’

  Philips ignored the diversion.

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘This and that. The usual. I don’t think we talked that much. Just lay there and enjoyed the sun.’

  ‘What’s “the usual”?’

  ‘Oh, children, school, where we might go on holiday, admin. Stuff.’

  ‘Very romantic.’

  ‘We try.’

  ‘Was someone cutting the grass?’

  ‘Didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘Hear a mower? A busy bee? They can be quite loud.’

  ‘Not so as I remember.’

  ‘You don’t seem to remember much, if I might say so, Mrs Sheahan.’

  ‘Look, until an hour ago it was a normal day, totally indistinguishable from all the others. Nothing happened. I’ve been to Brandon Hill hundreds of times. I couldn’t tell you what I had for breakfast on any of those other days either.’

  ‘You could try.’

  I gave Philips an assertive look. It said: I’m a busy and innocent woman and I want to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, so I can go home and you can get on with what you are supposed to be doing, which is catching criminals, not hassling innocent(ish) people with smart-arse comments.

  ‘What were you wearing?’

  ‘Not sure. Jeans. Espadrilles maybe. A shirt.’

  ‘A shirt? Hold the front page!’

  ‘I mean not a dress.’

  ‘Which shirt?’

  ‘Jesus! I don’t know.’

  ‘Please try to remember, Mrs Sheahan.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I am trying. I’m just not very good at this.’

  ‘That’s what everyone says until they really try.’

  I turned away and glared at the wall. See, I am REALLY TRYING. I’d worn a thin-cord shirt to the book club.

  ‘A khaki shirt? Corduroy?’

  Philips sniffed unpleasantly and took a mini digital tape recorder from his pocket. It was a long way from Pullen’s. He stopped and started it a few t
imes before finding the spot he was after. He clicked it on: an unknown voice.

  ‘And what was your wife wearing?’

  ‘An old green tracksuit top with black stripes on the arms. Jeans. She’d come straight from her studio.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no doubt in Ed’s voice.

  He clicked it off and looked at me. I was thinking how impressively assured Ed sounded. I would have believed him.

  ‘So what? I said I couldn’t remember. Can you remember what you were wearing on a particular day three weeks ago?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That suit?’

  Philips nodded. I smiled. I would remember if I was wearing that. He took a pack of Marlboro from his breast pocket and tapped the bottom with his forefinger. A cigarette fell out. I looked from Pullen to the ‘No Smoking’ sticker on the door. He shrugged. Philips produced a plastic lighter, nudged his styrofoam cup into position to use as an ashtray, lit the cigarette, took a satisfied pull and blew a bully’s smoke ring. I shook my head contemptuously. It was exactly how Matt said the Oxford police had behaved when they first pulled him in for drugs. It only made me more determined. Philips flicked ash into his empty cup.

  ‘Mrs Sheahan, has your husband ever had an affair?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You seem very sure.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I know him.’

  ‘I knew my wife until she left me.’

  ‘An easy line.’

  ‘That she left me?’

  ‘That you knew her.’

  It was essential to show no fear.

  ‘How did you and Mr Sheahan meet?’

  ‘At a party.’

  ‘He get drunk that night?’

  ‘On Pepsi?’

  ‘He didn’t need to, of course.’

  I looked at Pullen. ‘Is waterboarding allowed?’

  No answer. Philips raised an eyebrow at Pullen as if to say he could be tempted.

  ‘So he doesn’t have affairs, as far as you know, but he does have a history of following women he meets at parties.’

  ‘A woman. Once.’

  ‘Once. One fact. And one supposition based on previous behaviour.’

  ‘A supposition.’

  ‘At present.’

  ‘Mr Philips, my husband is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. He doesn’t deal in bullshit or snobbery or politics. He doesn’t want to chase a girl home from a party, whether I’m there or not, whether he’s drunk or drinking Pepsi. He never has. It’s not his style. I know him and I know that.’

  ‘Present company excepted.’

  ‘Present company excepted. Only he didn’t have a family then.’

  ‘He didn’t have a family then.’ The words lingered in the air like smoke. ‘Or a good name he might want to protect.’

  I thought of his parents’ house, his tiny bedroom, the horsehair mattress, sheets as thick as curtains. A room filled with work and ambition.

  ‘He’s not interested in baubles.’

  Philips smiled for the first time, mean and professional.

  ‘End of, Mrs Sheahan. You are free to go.’

  He turned around and without another word swept out of the room. I looked at Pullen for confirmation. He shrugged, jerked his head towards the open door and grunted, ‘For now.’

  It was because I was looking in my handbag for money to pay the cab driver that I didn’t spot the small crowd milling around on the pavement outside our iron gate. Having got out the far side and been faffing around with my purse and trying to find the right coins for a tip, I only saw the hounds from hell when the creaking taxi-van swung around and swept off down the hill. Someone shouted,

  ‘Over there!’

  Before I could take in what was happening, the swarm had crossed the street and I was surrounded, camera lenses and microphones shoved in front of me, a furry boom riding high, an elbow in my ribs, voices rising, climbing over each other, the modern press-gang. There were probably only four or five of them, but my surprise and their aggression made it seem like more.

  ‘Did you kill her?’

  ‘Did your husband murder Araminta Lyall?’

  ‘Mrs Sheahan, what are they charging you with?’

  ‘Alice – will your husband get bail?’

  I was shaking my head, eyes fixed on the tarmac, thinking there must be a law against this sort of thing and pushing to get across the road to the sanctuary of the garden and the house. Flashbulbs popped. Questions rattled. A microphone hit my shoulder. A grunted apology, another breathless question. Yet I had a weird feeling of being in control, because even as they swarmed around me, hemming me in and jostling, I wasn’t physically impeded. I struggled on towards the gate as if it was a dream.

  ‘Is your husband still being questioned?’

  ‘Do you have to go back?’

  ‘Are you on bail?’

  I turned and gave the questioner a contemptuous look. A flashbulb exploded in my face.

  ‘Alice – this way.’

  A female voice, warm and welcoming. I looked up for the first time. A lady in her early twenties with dyed-blonde hair, a soft round face and an upturned nose was holding a notebook, her pen poised. For some reason she seemed old-fashioned, out of place amidst the hard-edged microphones and dead-eyed cameras. She was smaller than me, looking up, a friendly face in the pack. I rolled my eyes as if to say ‘What on earth are you and I doing here?’ She rolled hers back sympathetically, shook her head and said,

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  I stopped. The swarm stopped. The assumption of guilt caused a momentary silence, as if some ancient omertà had been broken and even the press-dogs of war shied away from anything so explicit. Even though I knew I shouldn’t respond, just press on, her question crystallized all the feelings of betrayal and terror that I had carried around from the moment I realized ML xxx was Araminta Lyall. I couldn’t help myself. I stopped and said,

  ‘What did you say?’

  The round face continued smiling equably and said calmly,

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  Suddenly it seemed as if everything had been leading to this moment – the discovery, the uncertainty, the fear, the shock, the secret, the lie, the confession, the tension, the unfairness, the inescapability, the infinity of the situation in which I found myself – and the dam burst. I broke the first rule of being hounded by the press: I allowed them to unsettle me. I screamed,

  ‘How fucking dare you? You’ve never met me or my husband and yet you stand there and make arrogant assumptions and false accusations about us just to sell your crappy paper. I hate you. You’re despicable. You’re all just scum, ruining people’s lives!’

  There was silence. Was it my imagination or did the crowd silently part, like the Red Sea for Moses, embarrassed by its very existence? I pushed on past them, my head down. No one followed. It was only when I had closed the front door behind me and leant against the cool silent wall in the hallway that I realized there might have been another reason the scrum had stepped aside to let me through: everyone had got their story.

  Ed clicked the television off as the screen switched back from our street to the anchorwoman on the local six o’clock news, a large picture of the Ashton Court Balloon Festival filling the wall behind her.

  ‘Possibly that wasn’t a good idea,’ he said with a ghost of a smile. He had arrived back half an hour after me, barely a hair out of place, the hounds long gone to file their stories. The telephone burst into life. ‘Don’t answer it. I think we may have done enough damage for one day.’

  After we had explained the concept of ‘mistaken identity’ to Nell and Arthur, who wanted to know so many gory details it was possible he hoped we were murderers, I phoned my mother. She was surprisingly cool about it, primarily because she’d loathed the press since Dad died. She wouldn’t even let the local newspaper take photos when we hosted the village fete at Highlands each year.
It must have been the only fete in the country that didn’t have a picture of a child beside a giant marrow or a policeman eating an ice cream or a baby or a dog being adorable.

  Ed gave an extraordinary performance. Whereas I was a nervous wreck, unwilling to go near the windows because I was convinced paparazzi lenses were trained on us and bugs were in every bookcase and vase, he seemed entirely unfazed, though he turned on a tap to be safe, even as he laughed at my paranoia. We’d dovetailed on the flowers, Ed saying he’d fixed that woman’s loo – ‘house pipes are basically the same as human pipes’ – and had been surprised to hear she had left flowers as it had only taken him a minute or so. ‘A very straightforward procedure’, he’d called it. He did admit he was shocked, though he hoped he hadn’t shown it, that the police had found out about them and admitted he couldn’t work it out. The difference between what I said I was wearing and what he said I was wearing on Brandon Hill he’d simply laughed off – ‘Alice is an artist. She lives in her head.’ He then told me where we were on Brandon Hill and that he would always answer ‘didn’t notice’ to any question he could.

  ‘Was there an ice cream van? Didn’t notice.’

  ‘Was there someone mowing the grass? Didn’t notice.’

  ‘Were there people on the swings? Didn’t notice.’

  ‘You don’t notice much, Mr Sheahan.’

  ‘No. I was having a rare moment of peace and quiet with my wife. I wanted to feel the sun on my face. When I wasn’t staring at the sky, my eyes were closed.’

  ‘They’re after the oyster,’ he said, offering an out-of-character metaphor, ‘give them the grit.’

  He crossed the room to where I sat unhappily at the island and touched my cheek with the back of a finger.

  ‘Would you like me to speak to the press on your behalf, my darling? I could make some sort of statement? It was completely outrageous the way they treated you.’

  I shook my head, there was no point fanning the flames, and snuggled into the crook of his neck. At that moment he seemed so strong and brave and protective that I loved him completely.

  There is something out-of-body about watching yourself on TV, particularly when you’re surrounded by the press as if you were David Beckham or the Yorkshire Ripper. I watched News at Ten with guilty fascination, simultaneously knowing what was about to happen yet unable to believe it actually would. The moment arrived: the round-faced young girl, the outrageous slur, the sudden silence, an expensive accent, bleeped expletives. Infamy. I had almost reached the pavement. There’d only been five more yards to the gate.