The words fall on the table between them, cool as stones. Anna bites her lip.
Tom nods once, twice. ‘I didn’t realise that you were due to be released,’ he says. ‘I owe you an apology. I made some assumptions about the situation.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me.’
He takes in a breath, lines his notebook up neatly with the side of the table. ‘I believe you,’ he says. ‘You’d better tell me what happened from the start.’
9
The hatch on the door bangs open.
‘Time’s up,’ a voice says. ‘We need to get on.’
Tom looks at Anna – she could argue for more time, but right now she doesn’t see what else they can discuss, given how much she’s keeping from him.
He’s right, they need to see what the police have to say. She nods.
‘We’re entitled to as much time as we need,’ he says, ‘but we are ready to proceed at this point.’
‘Good of you,’ the voice says with a note of deep sarcasm before the hatch slams shut again. After a moment, the door opens and the police officers file in. They don’t look friendly. Anna knows if they had their way, they would simply leave her to rot. At least this time they aren’t accompanied by the unpleasant prison officer – he must be off shift now. Someone else has unlocked the door for them, locks it once they’ve entered.
She’s exhausted. It’s probably been about eight hours now that she’s been in here, and they’ve offered her no food, no water. Nothing. She hasn’t raised it with Tom, though, thinking no one would bother with feeding her. But it’s the first request he makes as soon as they’ve sat down, fussing over their notebooks and the device they’re using to record the interview. They look at each other and shrug.
‘Not a matter for us,’ Little says. ‘That’s down to prison procedure.’
‘Then tell the prison to follow their procedure and give my client a meal and some water,’ Tom says. ‘Otherwise they’ll be facing legal action from me.’
Large sighs and lumbers to his feet, pressing the buzzer three times. Anna resigns herself to a long wait, but to her surprise, someone opens the door immediately. It must be a secret police code, she thinks. Three rings and you’re free. Not that it would work for her.
Large passes over the request, and shortly after, a bottle of water and a sandwich are produced for her. It’s a nice-looking sandwich, too, bits of salad poking out of the side – Anna hasn’t seen food that appetising since she was put in custody. It must have come from the staff canteen. Little comes round and unlocks the handcuff, freeing her right hand. She shakes it to get the blood flowing through it again, wincing as the feeling comes back into her fingers, then starts ramming the food into her mouth. Little sits back down, fixing her with a hard stare. She’s too busy inhaling the sandwich to care.
‘Interesting,’ Little says. ‘I’m not sure I’d be able to eat if I were facing a murder charge.’
There was a time when a comment like that would have made Anna freeze. But now she’s too hungry. The case has already been determined, no matter what she does. The verdict of guilty is as clear to her as if the foreman of the jury had stood up and shouted it in her face. She swallows what’s left of her food and washes it down with some water.
‘Well?’ he says. ‘Don’t you have anything to say?’
She’s still under caution, she knows that, and she’s not being caught out in that way. She leans back in her seat, savouring the last of the sandwich flavour.
The problem she’s got, as far as she can see, is that either way, the prison is potentially in a lot of trouble. Tom’s mention of litigation was on the nose. They’ll be sued for not taking care of the dead woman’s emotional needs if it’s suicide; they’ll be sued for not keeping her safe if Anna killed her. There’s fractionally more chance they’ll get away with it if they can prove it was Anna.
Large slaps the table. ‘Enough of this,’ he says. ‘A woman is dead. A nineteen-year-old girl, to be precise. Do you think that because she was a homeless drug addict she doesn’t matter? Did you think we wouldn’t care?’
Tom holds his hand up as if to protest at the questions but Anna shakes her head. The words cut deep. If she shuts her eyes, she can still see the body in her mind, the bloodstains. It’s engraved in her memory for good. She doesn’t want to show that to these men though, the pain of it. Trying to distract herself, she twists her right hand round in circles, releasing the residual cramp from the long period in handcuffs. Then she catches sight of the nail of her index finger.
It’s filthy, a dark ring at the base of the nail and underneath. She stares at it, transfixed. The blood on her left hand has mostly rubbed off, as she’s had it free during the day, but her right hand is pretty much as it was when she was first locked up. The thought of what’s encrusted under the nail surges up in her mind: the drying blood. Sharp bile hits the back of Anna’s throat.
‘Of course she matters,’ she says, her voice low. Of course she cares about what’s happened. But she’s got to stick to ‘no comment’. She and Tom have a plan – ‘no comment’ to any question asked, regardless of what they say to her. She takes in a breath, puts her chin up. Mask on. They’re not going to get to her.
Little snaps open his notebook, writes a couple of lines. He shows it to Large, who smirks, nods.
Here they go. This is where it starts. The questions, a relentless tide of them. The charge. There’s nothing that she’ll be able to say to make this go away. Even if she could, she won’t get rid of the smell of it that’s lingering in her nostrils: the blood, the sweat.
Large slaps the table again. Little clears his throat. Large leans back.
By the end of the interview, Anna feels like she’s been clubbed round the head. She’s reeling from the force of it. They haven’t spared any details in their description of how the corpse was found. Even though Anna saw it for herself, there’s an impact in the retelling that winds her. By the time they come to asking her about why she was found leaning over the body covered in blood, she’s almost ready to throw in the towel and scream out that fine, it was her, she’d cut the woman’s throat.
‘It must be very frightening,’ Little says, leaning over towards her, his voice dripping with honeyed venom. ‘To be facing release, I mean. I know how chaotic it is for you girls on the outside. No wonder you wanted to commit a further offence and make sure you never had to face reality again.’
