Large nods, mock sympathy on his face. ‘Especially given what you’re inside for.’
She clenches her nails into her hands. Even though she should have been expecting it, it hits her with the force of a blow.
‘Your nephew, wasn’t it?’
Head down.No comment.
‘Drunk driving.’ Not a question, his beefy fingers leafing through the file.
No comment.
‘Nasty thing to happen. A kid of that age. Can’t imagine you’ve got much of a relationship with your family now.’
No comment.Her breath’s coming faster now, her heart rate accelerating.
‘Nothing left for you on the outside, is there?’
The voice fades out, the prison cell too. Anna’s standing on a beach, totally alone, her feet moving slowly towards the water, pockets full of stones.
Nothing left at all.
Their questions asked, Little and Large leave the cell. Anna stays still, her hands clenched on the table in front of her. The final onslaught left her broken. She can barely bring herself to move, let alone meet Tom’s gaze. He’ll probably walk out at this stage, refuse to represent her any further.
‘Anna,’ he says.
She can’t move. Won’t move. Shame pins her to the seat.
‘Anna,’ he says again. ‘Look at me.’
She can’t.
But she must. This is part of it. Facing it. What she’s done. She raises her head, turns towards him gradually, braced.
What she sees, though, is completely unexpected. No judgement. No disdain. An expression of concern on his face.
‘That’s tough,’ he says, and overwhelmed by the sympathetic tone in his voice, she starts to cry.
OUTSIDE
Watching you watching me. You’re not watching me, though, you’re watching yourself talk, standing in front of that big mirror above the fireplace in your back room. Practising? That’s the way you hold your head in lectures, the way you wave your hand for emphasis. God, you’re so VAIN. I love it.
This is all about you.
I know you were looking at me earlier in the seminar. The others would kill me if they knew how close we are. But I understand you better than all of THEM.
Sometimes you walk so fast it’s hard to keep up. I manage, though, on your tail, all the way back to your house. It’s a challenge. Quick, slow. Quick, quick, slow. Sometimes you stop altogether, like you want me to catch up.
You want me to know where you live. Why else would you wait?
I need to be alone with you. I can’t concentrate when there are too many people around. It’s better when I’m here, outside. Looking in at you like this, nothing else to distract me.
It’s peaceful here, surrounded by leaves. I like that you’ve left it all so wild, a special corner just for me. You want me to be here, keeping you company, waiting for my time to come inside.
10
The police are gone for what feels like hours. Once she stops crying, calms down a little, Anna realises just how hungry she still is. The sandwich has barely made a dent. She’s tired now, too, and in pain. With no clock and no access to natural light, she has no way of knowing whether it’s evening yet. It’s the time she’s enjoyed the most inside, watching the sunset that she could sometimes see from the corner of her cell window, as the light sank down into the west. Not tonight.
She could ask for more food. She should ask if she can go to the loo. But she’s too tired now. She’s going to be charged with murder, she knows it, and she’ll be convicted. No matter that it’s obviously a suicide, there’s no motive, no reason why she should have done such a thing. They don’t care that someone has died in horrific circumstances. They don’t care that she didn’t know the woman. She’s already inside, a convicted prisoner. Of course it was her.
