The police officer led me along a corridor with several closed doors either side. I shivered. There didn’t seem to be any heat in the building at all. The corridor smelled of sweat.
‘How did you know who I was?’ I said.
The officer didn’t look back.
‘One of my colleagues,’ she said. ‘Said he thought he recognised you. Been to your address recently following an incident.’
I blushed. They had plenty to choose from. The crude graffiti on the side of our house; Me lashing out and collapsing into the arms of the police officer who was questioning me, and then refusing to be taken to hospital by the paramedics; The one where I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up thinking there was an intruder in the house. It could be any number of hysterical incidents.
‘Oh,’ I said.
I was right. They had been watching me on the CCTV. Watching me pace up and down. Watching me read the offensive hand-written slogan on one of their posters on the wall. They would no doubt think I had written it. Probably thought I was some sort of attention-seeking, loony.
At the end of the corridor she pushed open a door and held it for me.
‘Please take a seat.’
I was surprised to see a room. I had expected the corridor to lead to another corridor, or a staircase. I guessed that one of the other doors I had passed along the way led to other parts of the building.
I had never been inside an interview room in a police station before. But I knew I was in one now.
I wondered if it was just a place for me to chat, or wait. Or whether I was about to be interviewed about something. Possible questions shot through my mind. ‘Where was your husband on the night of the 25th? How often did he tell you he was working late? Did you know about his secret criminal activity? Mrs Marsden, why is your husband’s body covered in bloody scratches and seeping wounds?’
The police officer sat opposite me. She took a notepad from a desk drawer and a pen from her breast pocket.
‘Your husband rang you?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘Did he tell you why we had arrested him?’
I shook my head.
For some reason my lips seemed clamped shut. As though to open them would be to condemn both me and Neil to whatever crime it was we were individually suspected of.
‘He’s been arrested on suspicion of an assault.’
My mind flicked back to all the posters on the wall in the reception area. Drugs; Knives; Guns; Assault. I supposed it had to be one of them. I would probably have preferred it to be drugs.
I risked condemnation and opened my mouth.
‘Assault?’
‘Do you know where your husband was this evening?’
Ought I to know? It might seem strange for me not to know. I wasn’t sure what to say.
‘I … wasn’t sure,’ I said.’
She gave me a look and frowned.
‘I mean, I thought he might be at work, possibly. Or out somewhere.’
‘Out somewhere?’
I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. I’d been doing pretty well up until then. The fact was, that since I had attacked him the night before, I had no idea where he had been.
‘Where was he?’ I asked.
I winced at the question. It had sounded confrontational, like a taunt. But I hadn’t meant it to.
‘He was arrested in the town. In the open ground behind the supermarket. Near the small industrial estate back there.’
I knew where it was. But what on earth had Neil been doing back there? Apart from assaulting someone.
‘Who was assaulted?’ I said.
‘A young man,’ she said. ‘A member of the public saw the attack and called the police. Your husband was arrested at the scene, and the young man was taken to hospital.’
My heart skipped a beat.
‘To hospital?’ ‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘We don’t have any details at this stage,’ she said. ‘We’re waiting for an update some time soon.’
I pictured Neil behind the supermarket, pounding away at someone. He hadn’t retaliated when I attacked him. Maybe this was payback for me, and some poor chap took the punishment on my behalf. I lowered my head and covered my eyes with my hand.
‘Your husband has admitted the assault,’ she said. ‘He said the man deserved it. Deserved it for what he’d done.’
I looked up at her, but her eyes told me nothing. How could they? Only Neil could make sense of this.
‘Can I see my husband?’ I said.
She looked at her watch.
‘You will have a chance to speak with him soon. Is there anything you can tell me that you think might relate to this assault?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’
She put the pen back in her pocket and picked up the notepad.
‘Please wait here, Mrs Marsden.’
As the door closed behind her, I thought I heard a click, like a key turning in the lock.
Neil hadn’t been arrested for taking two teenage girls away. He’d been arrested for assaulting a man. Relief flooded through me.
I pictured the man he’d attacked. Perhaps a money lender of some kind. Maybe he’d tried to call in Neil’s gambling debts.
I tried to stop my racing mind. I needed to speak to Neil.
In the half an hour or so before the door opened again I counted all the books on two shelves, went through the times-tables several times in my head and had just started counting the number of creases and bumps on one of the square polystyrene tiles that made up the ceiling.
Neil walked in first, a male police officer came after him.
My breath caught in my throat as soon as I saw Neil’s face. He couldn’t have looked worse if he had just walked away from a car crash. My stomach convulsed and I couldn’t hold back a sob. Your face.
Neil sat down and nodded at me. I wiped the excess moisture from my eyes. The male police officer stood behind Neil.
‘What happened?’ I said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Neil said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t want me to. But I had to get him.’
‘Get who?’ I said, although I had an inkling I already knew.
Neil leaned forward across the desk. He lowered his voice, although not enough to keep what he said strictly between the two of us.
‘The fucker that did it,’ he said. ‘The fucking bastard with the skateboard. I got him.’
I shook my head and reached out for Neil’s hand, but the police officer held his hand up and shook his head. I pulled my hand back again. But not before I saw Neil’s hand coming to meet mine. Bloody and bruised. Perhaps from the man he’d attacked. Perhaps from me.
‘I’m so sorry, Neil,’ I said. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
He shook his head. Smiled at me.
‘I was lying to you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want you to know what I was really doing. Every night I was going to the same place you got mugged, looking for him, asking questions. I thought if I kept taking money out from the same cash machine as you did that night, he might attack me. Several times a night I would go back to the machine and make a big show of taking money out, just in the hope that the bastard would try it again.
‘That’s why we got those messages, Chris. On the wall outside, and scratched onto our wall in the living-room. He was warning me to stay away from him. To stop asking around. That’s probably why the picture went missing too, so he knew what I looked like. He was in our house — you were right. It was him that came in.’ Neil shook his head. A short laugh escaped from his throat. ‘And then tonight, he finally took the bait. I know it was him. I know it was the same bloke. Skateboard, hoodie. He got the money right out of my hand. So I chased him. Caught up with him behind the supermarket. Something inside me just flipped. I think if someone hadn’t walked by and shouted out… well who knows. I think they’re going to arrest him too, after he comes out of hospital. He’s not badly hurt. I didn’t kill him. But they must do him for stealing my money, for coming into our house and for at
tacking you. They must be able to do the fucker for something.’
I could barely speak through my tears.
‘But what about you?’ I said. ‘What’s going to happen to you?’
Neil looked up at the police officer. The police officer shrugged his shoulders. Neil looked back at me.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Chris. About this. I’m really sorry.’
‘Well surely they must let you go. If he stole your money — that’s mugging. All you did was chase him to get your money back. You weren’t at fault at all.’
Neil looked down at the table.
‘I went a bit too far,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t deemed reasonable in the eyes of the law.’
‘Look at you,’ I said. My eyes flickered across the scratches on his face and neck. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He raised his eyebrows and, almost imperceptibly, shook his head.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘He didn’t do much damage. It looks worse than it is.’
If God existed, and if He decided, there and then, to give me the choice of being where I was, or being swallowed up by a gigantic hole, I would have gone with the hole. Neil had obviously allowed the police to believe that his injuries were from the man he assaulted rather than from his loving wife. Not only had he not fought back as I had attacked him, but now he had protected me from facing awkward questions from the police.
‘How are you getting on with finding your parents?’ he said. ‘Any further down the line?’
I nodded.
‘I’m getting there,’ I said. ‘But I could do with your help.’
He smiled.
‘I’m a bit tied up at the moment,’ he said. ‘But when I’m free, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘What about work?’ I said.
‘I think I need a bit of a holiday,’ he said. ‘Besides, I’ve been working late a lot recently.’
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