Previously, he loved running, dancing, and was undergoing a cheffing course in central London. He suffered from social anxiety but was learning to manage it with exercise and CBT. He was out running that night when …
He was running.
He was just running.
I almost laugh. It makes sense in a funny kind of way. I can plot it, like a narrative; my whole life leading up to this point.
When I was five, I thought I saw a jester outside our car in a petrol station while Mum, Dad and Wilf were inside in the services. I swore on it. And that’s where it began. The teasing. Imaginative Joanna, they would say. She confuses fantasy and reality.
I spent my degree making up stories for the strange people dwelling in my tutorials. Everybody at school had looked the same, in hindsight, and suddenly, at Oxford, everybody was … different. A man with waist-length dark hair. I used to imagine him combing it every morning. One hundred brush strokes, I was thinking, instead of discussing Ulysses. The girl with the bowl cut of curls, the ends of which she dyed red. The boy who had already made so many notes his folder was rammed full of immaculate, tiny writing.
I still do it now with every customer who comes into the library. Or I did, anyway. The man with the little regular scars on his forearms. The woman with the bald patch on the top of her head. The guy with the beard and the wild hair but the wise, kind dark eyes who I privately call Gandalf. Who were they all? I wanted to know. I made things up for them. To get inside them.
And now, here we are. The perfect, unfolding narrative from an imaginative woman. I was lifted up by the fingers of God and planted in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and I imagined that somebody who was merely out running was trying to attack me.
His life is changed, and more than mine. I deserve all of this. Anybody would say so. The State would say so. The law. And that’s worse than any of it. His injuries. His life.
Reuben clears his throat. ‘What’s the point of all of this? She’s not dangerous. She doesn’t need to be inside. He probably doesn’t even want her inside.’
‘No …’ Sarah says, nodding seriously like my socialist husband hasn’t just taken down the justice system in four sentences. ‘You don’t need to tell me that.’ She says it kindly, not dismissively, in a departure from her usual authoritative tone.
‘To punish and discourage,’ Reuben says, talking over her, using the voice he uses when he’s talking to Tories.
I see Sarah shift away from him. What Reuben doesn’t realize is that he is never going to change anybody’s mind.
‘Those are the reasons – for prison – aren’t they?’ he says.
‘Yes, but –’
‘She doesn’t need punishing. She’s not going to do it again. What’s next? Reforming her? Get her a probation officer? As if. It was wrong place, wrong time. Removing offenders from society – that’s another reason, isn’t it? Because they’re dangerous. Well, she’s not. I just can’t see why … it’s a hefty prison term, isn’t it?’
Sarah doesn’t say anything in response to that, only darts a quick look at me. She knows I don’t want to know, and so she won’t hint either way. She’s a good lawyer. Her legs are crossed only at the ankles, primly, and she sits forward in a wave of perfume and looks at us. ‘You missed one,’ she says.
‘What?’ Reuben says.
‘Justice.’
‘Justice?’ he thunders.
‘This is the law,’ she says, spreading her hands wide. ‘The prosecution have to prove that Joanna broke the law. Forget about the rest. Just look at the offence. She did not commit it. That’s what we’re arguing. Self-defence. Mistake. If we prove the mistake was made in good faith, and not negligently, then the law will treat your case as though it was Sadiq. Then, we need only to establish that you acted in self-defence.’
Just look at the offence. I repeat it to myself, thinking about Imran and his tea. But quietly, a small voice in the back of my mind agrees with Reuben: what use is it all? What will change for Imran if I go to prison? Who is any of this for? The thought is like a rain cloud, flitting over my consciousness. What’s the point of any of it?
‘If something’s a crime and you do that thing – you deserve the punishment. That’s what the UK law is. Whether or not … whether or not you’re – you know – good. The idea is that the law puts in place all possible excuses and defences. If you don’t have one, then you get the punishment.’
I don’t say anything. I am not good.
‘But it was a mistake,’ Sarah continues. ‘And there’s good, supportive law around this. There’s a whole doctrine … I think that’s your best shot. Though it’s not used very often. Sadiq will help. I will impress upon him that it’s best just to be honest. To prove your innocent mistake.’ Her features soften, and I can see sympathy there behind the facts of the law. Has she ever walked home alone, on an ill-advised jaunt? Perhaps she had dodged the bullet that hit me.
‘Mistake,’ I say. The whole thing was a mistake.
‘So, we’ll use mistake to make the point that you thought the victim was somebody other than who he was, and then self-defence after we’ve got over the mistake hurdle.’
‘Right.’
I reach over and finger one of the lily petals in the middle of the flower arrangement. It’s plastic. The pollen’s plastic, too. They looked so real, until I saw the fine layer of dust.
‘We can do this,’ she says.
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘We can.’
‘Okay,’ I say again.
‘Let’s get to it, then. We need to put your defence statement together. It’s your evidence.’ She turns to Reuben. ‘So, according to the phone records, Joanna called you at eleven thirty-three.’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘And how did she sound?’
‘Well – frightened,’ Reuben says, looking at me. ‘Of course.’
She looks at me. ‘So you hung up, and then you must’ve walked for …’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Your 999 call was at eleven thirty-nine.’
I think quickly, am forced to think quickly. ‘It happened at eleven thirty-nine.’
But the reality, of course, is that it will have been eleven thirty-four. Right after the call cut out. The rest was … the rest was the dithering.
‘So you were pursued while on the phone to Reuben, and then pursued for a further five minutes.’
‘Yes,’ I lie.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘And where were you when you called Reuben?’
My mind spins. Did I ever tell him I was right by the bridge? I don’t think so. ‘Outside the bar,’ I say, hoping there will be no accurate telephone call records. I thank the stars that Reuben turned off my GPS that one time, said Facebook was tracking my every move.
She writes it down. ‘Okay, then.’ She looks up at Reuben. ‘And you agree with this – you corroborate?’
‘Whatever Jo says. That’s the truth,’ Reuben says, his face open, trusting.
Reuben and I are in the car behind Sarah’s office. Neither of us is saying anything. He’s not put the keys in the ignition yet. It’s one of those January days where it seems as though it’s not ever going to get light, the rain beating down like God is drumming his fingers on the roof of the car. I made Reuben come to V Festival with me, years ago, to see The Killers, and it rained like this as we left. You hated that, didn’t you? I’d said to Reuben in the car. He’d nodded, smiling that half-smile. Never make me attend a festival again, he’d said, the car’s wheels spinning in the mud. We failed to move, had to call the AA out, left after dark in the end. I was unable to stop laughing on the way home and, eventually, Reuben joined in.
‘I can’t believe he’s so badly injured,’ Reuben says now. His voice is low. Gravelly.
‘I … I know,’ I say.
‘He’ll give evidence. If he recovers enough,’ Reuben says. ‘So we’ll see … we’ll see him. In court. The man you –’
‘I know,
’ I say quietly. ‘I know.’
‘I feel like a dickhead for sounding off. I sounded like a victim blamer or something,’ he says.
‘You didn’t,’ I say. ‘It all seems … so unfair. So shit.’
‘Yes. If you hadn’t been there … it’s not like you were waiting to hurt someone.’
I can see him grappling with it. My crime. The law. Everything.
‘I mean, you hardly did anything wrong. Did you?’ he says, and when he turns to me, his eyes look desperate, lined and older looking than before.
I squeeze his hand, not knowing what to say. Of course I did, I want to tell him, sadly.
‘You made a mistake. But then you did everything you could to fix it,’ he says. ‘I just … I just don’t know why they’re going after you like this.’
I can’t think about it. People may be sympathetic, but it is hardly commonplace. A man is disabled because of me. I swallow. If I had left two minutes later. Two minutes earlier. If he had been wearing different trainers. If only Sadiq hadn’t frightened me – surely some of this is partly his fault? – then none of it would have happened. If I had been brave enough to turn my head, just a few degrees. I would have seen.
God, I am so stupid. I have ruined my life. I have ruined his life. I have ruined Reuben’s life. The only person winning is Sarah.
‘I wish things had been different,’ I say, my voice low.
‘Me, too,’ he says. ‘I wish we’d stayed on the line. That we hadn’t got cut off.’
‘I really thought … I really thought it was curtains. I thought he was going to – to … to get me,’ I say, and my voice breaks. Because, underneath it all, of course, I am a victim, too. Imran is worse off than me, but I am a victim of something.
‘I know,’ he says.
I think of the lie I told. The tiny lie that felt meaningless. I got him out of the water straight away. They fight, the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct to tell the truth, like stags with locked horns, both sitting on my chest, their antlers stabbing my heart. And suddenly I am telling him, my husband, and maybe he can help. Maybe he can share the weight.
‘God,’ I say, wishing – foolishly – to downplay it. To mislead. ‘I wish I had got him out of the puddle immediately.’
It’s as though a silent bomb has gone off in the car. Everything looks the same. The gear stick. The Yankee Candle hanging air freshener left over from the previous Christmas, now faded to a light pink. The rain running down the windows, the drops with trailing tails. And yet everything has changed. The air crackles with it, like that moment between lightning and thunder, like the moment between the two final chords of a piano concerto.
‘What?’ Reuben says softly, slowly, a note of danger in his voice.
I turn and look at him. His stubble has become a full beard, the strands a dull auburn in the fading winter light, stark against his white shirt. Of course, he’s not misled.
‘What?’ he says again.
‘I didn’t get him out of that puddle as soon as I said. I was … I was so scared. I wasn’t doing anything.’
‘How long? So those call records – so your account of it? It’s wrong? My evidence is wrong?’
I ignore his other questions. ‘Minutes. I almost called you again. I almost … I almost walked away.’
Reuben makes a sudden movement, towards the gear stick, his left hand reaching to grab it. He grips it like it’s an enemy’s hand.
‘You almost left?’
‘I was so afraid. I thought he was going to kill me. And then I was so afraid … of what I’d done. I was in shock. You’ve no idea. You’ve no idea how something like that – it changes things.’
‘I’ve some idea,’ he says.
It has the desired effect: it reminds me that this isn’t happening only to me. That it isn’t my life alone that’s changed forever.
‘Yes. I was just … I don’t even properly remember,’ I say, although I do. I remember absolutely everything: the descending mist. The bright, lemon yellow of the street lights. The man I thought to be Sadiq lying at the bottom of the stairs, his limbs bent at strange angles. How wet my clothes got. My hair clinging to my neck like snakes. How I was paralysed. With fear of him, of course. But also with shock. At myself.
‘Can’t you see?’ I say. ‘I was terrified. I was dithering.’
Reuben says nothing.
And so I add, ‘Nobody knows.’
I shouldn’t have told him that way. I should have been straight with him. Looked him in the eye. A full and frank confession. I could have told him I was ashamed of it. Paved the way. Not this. This selfish, stupid, offhand confession. I went in the back door instead of the front way; I surprised him, like a burglar in the middle of the night, and now he’s surprising me back.
‘Wouldn’t you ever consider leaving? Wouldn’t you dither for just a second?’ I say.
His gaze swivels to me. That green gaze.
‘Did you know?’ he says. ‘About the puddle? That he couldn’t breathe?’
‘No. No.’
He nods.
‘But wouldn’t you ever consider leaving?’ I push, pressing him, ransacking his mind for a grain of forgiveness, of understanding. But it’s not there. I am opening drawers and cupboards that I have already looked in, searching for something I am never going to find.
He doesn’t answer me. He puts the keys in the ignition. The car into gear. Checks each mirror. Methodically. I wait. I wait to hear, but nothing comes. Only the sound of the rain, like a timer, ticking down.
‘No,’ he says, after a few moments have elapsed. ‘I’m sorry, but – no. That’s a life. There. In the puddle. While you waited. While you stood and did nothing.’
17
Conceal
Reuben gave me an extravagant gift for Christmas: a weighty, thick butter-coloured candle scented with cloves, which I burnt all through December and into the New Year, not enjoying a second of it, merely staring at the flames and feeling guilty.
It is January, now, and it is just as I walk into work, feeling the cold across my ribs, considering whether I can get a set of keys to the offices so I can get in and hide the clothes, that I see them.
The police.
They are here.
Waiting for me.
I should be surprised, after all these weeks, but I can hardly muster it.
‘Men here for you,’ Ed says mildly as he starts organizing things on the bus. I walk past him and head towards the offices.
He’s in the driver’s seat, with the door open, when they say to me, ‘We hope you don’t mind us coming here – we haven’t been able to track you down at home. We did leave a note. We need to talk to you about an event that occurred on a Friday in December.’
As I walk with them, into the office, I see Ed’s head is inclined just to the right, slightly cocked, as though he is listening intently.
‘Detective Inspector Lawson, and this is Detective Sergeant Davies,’ they say, when we are sitting inside a shabby meeting room.
I go and make us tea from the machine, my hands shaking the entire time. I get the impression Lawson is in charge. I wonder if they’re friends; if they find the boss–subordinate relationship tough. Maybe Lawson is a stickler at work but nice in the pub, and Davies finds it confusing … Davies’s hopes are for progression. Lawson’s are to lead, to be taken seriously, but also to be liked, maybe. They’re peering at me strangely and I place the cups of tea on the table, my left hand aching with the effort.
They’re in suits, like lawyers, or the Men in Black.
‘Sprained your wrist?’ Lawson says.
‘Fell over,’ I say. ‘In the Sainsbury’s car park. So embarrassing.’
I don’t know where the lie comes from, but it sounds plausible. He nods as I meet his eyes.
‘We just want to have a quick chat with you about an incident, as I said, in December,’ Lawson says slickly.
I clock the language immediately. Quick chat. Just. He’s min
imizing it. I meet his eyes. They’re so pale as to be almost silvery, with just a hint of blue.
‘We’re from the CID,’ Lawson says. ‘Criminal Investigation Department. A man’s body was discovered after an assault one Friday night – you might’ve seen on the news …?’
I nod quickly.
So this is it.
It’s over.
It’s almost laughable, my attempt at getting away with it. I have lasted mere weeks. Of course.
I breathe deeply.
Lawson turns to me, his body language relaxed, open, his elbows resting on his knees. He stares straight into my eyes.
And that’s when I think of them. The gloves. The gloves I wore that night – surely with Imran’s DNA on them – are in my car, just over there. They loom in front of me, in my mind, like they are dangling in front of us. I am so glad he can’t know. That I will still look normal to him. Just the face of a nervous woman.
‘We understand you were in the Little Venice area on that Friday night – Joanna. Your friend gave us your work address when you weren’t in.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘She said you called round there.’ But, inside, my mind is racing. She didn’t tell me she’d given my work address. But of course – why would she? She is so sure of my innocence, too.
I try to arrange my face into an impassive smile. What would I know if I hadn’t been there? I would have seen the news, but that’s all. I would remember the date, where I was, because I was nearby – and Sadiq, of course – but nothing more.
‘Yes. Yes we did. And to yours. You got our note?’
‘Sorry, been so busy, what with Christmas …’ I lie.
‘When did you leave the bar you were at – the Gondola?’
‘About half eleven.’
Lawson looks at Davies, who nods. ‘Yes,’ he says.
‘You are on CCTV,’ Lawson says. ‘Outside the bar. You and Laura. You part, and you walk in the direction of the canal on the CCTV we have seen.’
It’s like a grenade has gone off, and now the air hums with silence. My ears shiver with it. Davies is looking at me. Lawson is waiting for me to speak. I didn’t think it through. Another way I’m still the same. I’m not a criminal mastermind. I am still scatty, stupid Joanna.
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