One Step Too Far

by Tina Seskis

  I open up just before they’re about to break it down, and they storm straight past me and one of them heads to the bedroom. Within a couple of seconds he calls, “Jesus Christ, come and look at this Pete.”

  The policeman called Pete goes towards the bedroom but stops stock still, at the threshold, as he sees poor dead Robbie, the drugs paraphernalia on the bedside table. He lets out a cry of horror and then turns to look at me, and there is hatred in his eyes.

  55

  In the night maybe someone had come in and cleaved Ben’s head in two; and then he remembered Caroline turning up, the amount of beer he’d drunk, what he’d done with his missing wife's twin sister. He felt disgusted, repulsed, but there was no time to get to the bathroom, and he vomited endlessly into the waste-paper basket until there was nothing left apart from spice-reeked bile in his throat. Thank Christ Caroline hadn’t followed him up to the bedroom, hopefully she’d have fucked off by now – she wouldn’t hang around surely, not after how nuts he’d gone afterwards. No, he’d never see her again, not ever, no matter what might happen in the future.

  Ben lay in a stupor for hours and hours and when he finally got up it was lunchtime and Caroline had left, thank God. He had a shower hotter than his skin could bear and scrubbed himself raw but still he felt dirty, wrong in his skin, defeated: Emily would never come back to him now. He didn’t know what to do with himself. All he could think of was to clean up, try to remove every last molecule of evidence, make it not true. He threw out the congealed remains of the takeaway, loaded the crockery and glasses into the dishwasher and ran it on its highest setting, even though it was half-empty. He disinfected the coffee table; got the vacuum and hoovered the carpet; sponged and blow-dried and turned over the cushions on the sofa, stained as they were with shame. He threw the beer cans, the whisky and wine bottles into the recycling bin and when he was finally done he made himself a strong black coffee, sat down and turned on the news. When the phone started ringing he ignored it, in case it was Caroline, but then he changed his mind – what if it was her – but it cut out anyway before he could get to it. He still wasn’t thinking straight and so when he saw Caroline’s face staring out at him from the TV screen he thought he was mistaken, hallucinating even. Then when he realised it was definitely her he couldn’t take in the pictures or the words and he wondered blankly what had happened, what terrible thing she’d done now. It was like his mind had too much information to process and refused to reboot, and it was only when they said it a third time, Catherine Brown, not Caroline Brown, that he realised he had finally found his wife.

  56

  Pete and his colleague don’t know what to do with me, still in my bath towel, and after some anxious conferring and calls for back up they finally tell me they’re arresting me on suspicion of murder. The words don’t make any sense to me, so I nod and let them caution me, I don’t give a shit what they do to me now. Poor poor Robbie, so young, so full of life, what the hell have I done? I start sobbing again. A woman police officer arrives, I think they called her specially, and she takes me into the bathroom to search me, and I drop the towel and all she can see are my long white legs and my torso patterned with tiny shiny rivulets of sick. It takes all of 10 seconds and then she says I can get dressed, but after more whispered debate she tells me I have to put on clean clothes out of Robbie’s wardrobe, we mustn’t touch anything to do with the crime scene. That’s what she calls it, a crime scene, because a murder has been committed, by me apparently. Finally the policewoman, butch with her clumpy boots and short sensible hair, cuffs my hands in front of me, and she seems apologetic almost – she knows I’m not up to fighting or running away – and the metal feels cold and alien and painful, and yet it comforts me. As they finally lead me barefoot from the flat, down the lushly carpeted stairs and out onto the morning street I feel small and frail next to the police officers, as if I’ve shrunk a few inches in the night. As the one called Pete marches me to the police van I see the waiting photographers and realise this is a news story. I will be found now, my family will know where I am, discover what I’ve done, know that I’ve ruined yet another life. They must be taking me to a police station, and the thought makes me faint.

  In the van I’m put in a cage, like an animal. I’m so low down I can smell the diesel fumes, can feel the road close by, beneath the slack motion of the van's suspension, and I start to feel nauseous again. I’m so defeated I try to lean my head back, but funnily enough there’s no head rest, so I lie it awkwardly against the side of the van and at every bump it hits the metal, hard, and the shot of pain is dull although it should be electric, and I know I deserve it. I’m hazily aware of stopping for traffic lights and changing lanes and rounding corners but I feel a weird out of body sensation, as though I’m looking in on myself, am some villainous protagonist in a movie. After maybe 10 minutes the van picks up speed and it absolutely hammers round a corner, turning left, going briefly onto two wheels or so it seems, and now it’s a right hand bend this time, and then the brakes are applied and it yanks to a halt, and I hear some talking through the window, and now we’re off again, more slowly this time, and after a few more yards we stop and the back doors are being opened and the pin sharp May sunshine, fresh after Saturday’s rain, floods into the van, into my eyes, and I close them quickly, there’s no place in me for brightness.

  I’m told to get out the van and as I do so I stumble and brush against the door and get black grease on Robbie’s jeans. For some reason this bothers me so I say sorry, I’m not sure to whom, and try to brush the mark off, and the woman PC says, “Come on, madam,” not unkindly, and she holds my shackled arm and leads me towards the steps that take us up into the massive building. We enter reception, if that’s what you call it in a police station, and there are officers everywhere, staring at me, I seem to be a big story for some reason. I’m buzzed straight through and am taken into a hideous little room that stinks of misery, and they send a doctor and ask me all these questions about my health, my mental health, whether I’ve ever self-harmed, whether I’m suicidal now. It’s depressing. I tell them that it depends what their definition of self-harm is, but they just look at me stonily and when I refuse to be drawn on whether I’m planning on killing myself they mark something down on their pad and move on to asking me if there’s anyone I’d like to be informed of my arrest. I almost think that’s funny, presumably the whole country knows by now, judging by all the photographers outside Robbie’s flat, and I wonder vaguely how they got there so fast. When they ask me if I want a solicitor I’m too tired to think and so it feels easier to say no. So they take me to a cell and when they finally leave me alone I find that I’m beyond feeling, beyond caring, I’m in a place deep in my mind that feels safe and warm, where nothing can go wrong, because it already has, every last thing that can.

  57

  Angel was so busy chatting to her new friend Philip that she didn’t notice for ages that Cat wasn’t around. She'd assumed Cat was with Simon, and so when instead she'd spotted him talking to a willowy woman with glossy black hair cut straight across her brow, Angel went over and asked him where Cat was. Simon hadn’t seen her leave either, it had been crowded in the bar and he’d been waiting to be served, so when by 1.30 Cat still hadn't come back Angel tried to call her, but her phone just went to voicemail.

  Oh well, thought Angel, and she guessed she’d just see Cat at home. But she was a bit annoyed that Cat had left without saying goodbye, especially as she’d taken her pink silk purse – Angel was feeling a little edgy now, and wasn’t sure who it would be OK to ask in here. In the end she went to rejoin Simon, and drank more champagne which took her mind off her purse, and when Simon asked her if she’d like to come back for a nightcap, he was staying at a hotel just round the corner, she thought, why not, he was attractive and besides it would save her a cab fare, and so they left together and Angel hoped afterwards that Cat wouldn’t mind.

  58

  Many hours later I sit on the edge of my ve
ry own bunk in a cell in Paddington Green Police Station and I’m still trying to digest the fact they think I’m a murderous drug dealing tramp. Am I? What with the terror of waking up next to a corpse I’d completely forgotten the implications of what we’d done together, how we’d shared Angel’s drugs, that it was me who'd given them to him. That I have caused his death. I shiver uncontrollably, it’s cold in here, my police-issue white top and trousers are far too flimsy, and I realise that my pathetic attempt to run away from the past, to start a new life, has failed, back-fired, caused yet more misery. I’ve been strip-searched again, by two officers this time, and the snail trails on my body are still there and the rank smell of sick is lodged forever in my nostrils. At least I can give up now, I really am past fighting for survival, but the irony is I think my erratic answers earlier mean they’ve put me on suicide watch, so someone keeps peering through the grill every 15 minutes. It would be quite amusing really, if I hadn’t killed someone. A fat-faced policeman looks in on me yet again and I look blankly at him for a while, uncomprehendingly, like a gorilla in a zoo, and then I turn my face to the wall.

  59

  When Angel got back at lunchtime on the Saturday and it was clear that Cat still hadn't come home, Angel started properly to worry. Although she’d never liked to ask (she'd assumed Cat would tell her when she was ready) she’d always sensed a strange sadness in her friend, and after the drama of yesterday she wondered just what the truth was and what Cat had done now, whether she was OK, or whether perhaps she should call the police.

  Don’t be daft, thought Angel. She wasn’t Cat's mother, she probably just went home with someone. But the feeling wouldn’t go away and when Angel went to work on the Saturday night she left Cat a message asking her to call as soon as she got home, and she wrote down her number on the back of a gas bill and left it on the table by the front door, in case Cat had lost her mobile, maybe that’s why she hadn’t called.

  It was from one of the customers at the blackjack table that Angel first overheard the shocking news that Roberto Monteiro was dead. So when she finished her shift she pulled up the BBC news on her phone to see what had happened, and that’s how she found out her best friend had been arrested for murder.

  60

  I’m sobbing quietly now, as if it has finally hit me. I regret everything I’ve done these past two days, every last thing. If only I’d been sensible, like I used to be, taken the day off work, stayed quietly at home. If only I’d been brave enough to get through it on my own. If only I’d not gone out for lunch with Simon, what an insane idea, as if I could possibly have enjoyed myself. If only the doctor’s drugs hadn’t turned me manic, crazy. If only I’d stayed in bed all evening instead of going out again, what the fuck was I thinking, and to a pointless awards dinner of all things. If only I’d not gone on to the party, not met Robbie, not had Angel’s drugs on me. If only if only if only. And now because of me one of the country’s brightest young footballers is lying dead and blue in a morgue. When the police said it was Roberto Monteiro it all made sense at last – why people were staring as we walked to find a cab; why he was so keen for us to stay in rather than go out and be recognised; why he seemed so into me, who didn’t have a clue who he was, knowing I must have liked him for himself; why he was wealthy and yet so young. He just didn’t seem like a footballer to me though – I thought footballers lived in home counties mansions, not central London apartments, and this may sound prejudiced but he seemed far too cultured, too much of a gentleman. His sister’s a model apparently, it seems she’s a friend of the fashion designer’s and that was why he was at the club. He was injured, recovering from a knee operation, and so would have been allowed to be out, even on a Friday night. I only know all this because I overheard the policeman called Pete telling someone outside my cell, and he was almost crying, he must be a Chelsea supporter.

  Of course I’ve heard of Roberto Monteiro, everyone has, but I’ve never been into football and although it sounds silly, out of context in my over-wrought state I just did not work it out. I'd even laughed with my husband one time, shortly before everything went wrong, at how much Ben looked like him. I almost laugh now, I feel hysterical, maniacal, mad. What did Robbie see in me, I wonder? Was it just that I didn’t know who he was, or was it more than that? And what did I see in him? Was it only that he looked like my husband? I suppose I’ll never know, and then the tears come, big fat generous ones, for Robbie, for his youth and promise and beauty that will never be fulfilled, and that makes me think of everything else that has happened and I curl up tight on the filthy bunk and wish the world would just fuck off and go away.

  61

  Caroline had felt a peculiar sense of triumph when she'd fucked her twin sister’s husband. She’d thought he was fair game, Emily had abandoned him after all, and the fact that Ben’s desire for her, Caroline, had been so intense and all-consuming, well, it had made her feel powerful, magnificent, in that moment of release for them both, the ultimate triumph in her lifelong competition with her sister. Immediately afterwards, when he’d pushed her violently off and leapt to his feet, staring at her with revulsion before bolting from the room, she’d realised the depth of his disgust for her – that their act had turned to hate not love, that she’d achieved nothing. Her heart tightened as she poured another drink, and she wondered why she was so unlovable. What was wrong with her?

  Caroline stayed on Ben's couch all night and drank herself stupid, and in the morning she crept upstairs to his room and stared at the slammed door, willing him to come out. She debated opening it herself and just barging in, but the handle was hanging at an odd angle, as if it was about to fall off, and in the end she thought better of it, he had been quite scary last night – and so she turned on her heel and staggered out into the street. She swayed the hundred or so yards to the end of the road and stopped outside the off-licence, with its green steel grill snapped shut like teeth, and she stood at the kerb and teetered as a bus crashed past. Eventually she crossed when there was a break in the traffic, and stumbled along the side street opposite, not knowing what to do, where to go. She perched on a garden wall and buried her head in her jacket and began to sob, loudly, theatrically, and she’d been there for maybe five minutes when two lads in United shirts swaggered by, and said, “Cheer up love, you could be a Chelsea supporter,” and when she looked up at them bewildered they laughed and said, “Haven’t you heard – Roberto Monteiro’s dead.”

  62

  I’ve been alone in this cell for hours, with just my toxic thoughts and the every-15-minute sight of a bored-looking policeman to distract me. Eventually I guess I doze off, and only wake up when a meal gets dumped through the hatch. My jailer tells me they’re still collecting evidence so won’t be interviewing me for a while. I don’t acknowledge that I’ve heard what he’s saying, I don’t mean to be rude but I don’t care whether they interview me ever, I don’t care if I never leave this cell again. The meal they give me is a supermarket ready meal, a lasagne they must have removed from the packaging and microwaved themselves. I haven’t eaten since the curry last night, and although I’m not much interested in living anymore my stomach continues to defy me, it’s rumbling, and so I take a few mouthfuls and it’s actually quite nice, and I end up eating it all which dimly surprises me. They’ve only given me a plastic spoon, I obviously can’t be trusted with a knife and fork, and when I’ve finished eating the uniformed officer demands I give him back the spoon, as though it’s precious, so I hand it through the hatch to him. I lie down again and nothing happens for more long hours, apart from at some point there’s some shouting and swearing outside, some heavy scuffles, and then I hear another cell door slam and some pitiful high-pitched wailing starts up, and it must be someone different as the shouting voice earlier had been low-toned and threatening, although I had no idea what language it was in. It grows dark and I use the toilet in the corner of the cell and even in the gloom I can see it’s shit-smeared and disgusting, and then I lie back down and
go to sleep.

  When I wake up it’s light and a microwaved breakfast gets shoved at me, and I almost wonder whether to ask what’s going on, what will happen next, but I feel too listless, apathetic, I just can’t be bothered. Instead I sit up and take hold of my inadequate implements and smash the food down my throat like a toddler. Before I’ve finished the door opens and a young man in very clean jeans and a pressed striped shirt asks me to get up, they’re ready to interview me. It must be Monday morning – I should be in work, they’ll all be there by now, talking about me, I must be the biggest story ever. I get up and my bones feel old. The police officer asks me to follow him and he leads me along the passage, past other wretched prisoners, and someone is ranting and swearing and begging to be let out, he says he needs to feed his dog. I feel sorry for the dog, pining somewhere, hungry, and it makes me cry. The thought of another police interview, a year after the last one, is torture now it comes to it, and I feel so guilty and bereft, about Robbie this time, I can barely stand, but I do my best to keep up and we walk through some double doors and along another cheerless corridor and enter a small windowless room that contains a desk, three orange plastic chairs and a big old-fashioned tape machine. The detective tells me to sit, and he takes one of the seats across the desk from me, and he looks too immaculate, too newly-laundered for these surroundings.

  I lean back and again I look in on myself, as though I’m watching an actor still, and the sensation makes me feel dispassionate and strangely calm. We wait, how long, maybe half a minute and then another plain-clothed officer comes in, a woman this time, and she sits down and they start the interview, and although they ask me again if I want a solicitor I don’t care what happens, so I say no, it’s OK thanks.