‘Who’s Samantha Valentine, Erin?’
TWO
It’s a night of firsts for me as I’m escorted inside the police station. Even during the darkest periods of my life, I’ve never found myself on the wrong side of the law. I’m just not that type of person. Fundamentally, I’m a people pleaser by nature. You know, the sort who apologises to someone else for stepping on my foot?
I don’t kill people.
It’s Thursday night and the custody suite is loud and harshly lit. I feel the emotional charge, tangible around me, as I answer the jovial sergeant’s questions on autopilot: name, address, date of birth…
‘Do you suffer from any mental health problems, Erin? Are you feeling suicidal, taking any medication?’
‘No,’ I reply honestly to his questions, ‘not anymore.’
Next I’m ushered into a small, sterile room where another female proceeds to take my fingerprints and photographs me from various angles.
I don’t like my photograph being taken. In some cultures they believe it steals your soul.
After asking me to remove my clothes, she hands me a grey melange tracksuit to wear. It’s ugly and swamps my small frameas I silently dress, but it’s warm and at least it isn’t covered in Ari’s blood.Ari. I see a moment of brief recognition, followed by surprise on his face as I had plunged the knife into him. It made me feel nauseous, but what else could I have done?
Another police worker takes samples of my hair. She scrapes the inside of my fingernails and cheeks with a long cotton bud and uses another to swab the congealed blood on my hands. It’s sunk into the lines and grooves on my palms, and I can smell it, meaty and metallic on my skin. I’m desperate to wash it off, but I’m reluctant to ask in case it makes me look like I’m trying to tamper with evidence or something. I really don’t know how any of this works.
‘When can I speak to my friend, Samantha?’ I muster up the courage to ask. ‘Is she here, at the police station? Is she OK?’ But the expressionless woman simply shrugs her shoulders unhelpfully, saying, ‘They’ll be down to talk to you soon.’
Anguish and despair are stuck to the walls inside the small holding cell as they lock me inside it. It’s claustrophobic and airless and my guts begin to churn with anxiety. I’m desperate to pee in the metal toilet, but I spot a camera on the ceiling. I’ll never be able to go now.
The blue plastic pillow, similar to the ones you get in hospitals, is flat as a pancake and reeks of the sweat of a thousand men and women before me as I lay my head down on it and pull the thin, scratchy blanket up over me. I think about asking for another – it’s chilly and I’m shivering – but I don’t want to sound like a diva.
Somehow, incredibly, I must fall asleep because when I wake up I instinctively sense that it’s dark outside. A few moments pass before I hear the clunking noise of the iron door as it opens. I hold my breath as a male face I haven’t seen before peers around it.
‘Erin Santos? They’re ready to see you now.’
THREE
The stout, short, dark-haired woman introduces herself as Detective Sergeant Amanda Pritchard. They’ve sent a female to interview me. This is good. I figure she’ll be more inclined to listen to what I have to say than any man might. After all, it’s because of one that I find myself here.Women don’t start wars.
The duty solicitor sitting to my right has just introduced himself as William – ‘call me Bill’ – Roberts, with a lacklustre handshake. His limp effort does little to instil confidence in me. I’m sure that once they’ve heard my story, then this horrible mess will all be sorted out. Maybe they’ll even let me go?
Bill advises me to reply ‘no comment’ to the questions the police are about to put to me, advice I have absolutely no intention of following.
DS Pritchard switches the tape recorder on.
‘Start by taking me through the events of today if you can, Erin,’ she says. ‘Whatever you can remember.’
I nod, take a deep breath. I’m genuinely keen to talk.
‘I got a Snapchat message from my friend, Sam – Samantha Valentine – around 4 p.m. today, while I was at work. She was begging for my help.’
I realise Snapchat is generally more popular with teenagers than it is with thirty-somethings like myself, and I find the chirrupy notifications beyond irritating, but it’s that or nothing if I want to communicate with Sam.
‘We have to message in secret, you see, and Snapchat deletes them once you’ve read them. They’re end-to-end encrypted, so there’s no trace. Anyway,that’show much of a control freak Ari was. He wouldn’t even let her speak to her friends and checked her phone constantly. He wasobsessed.’
I’ve always taken the ability to talk and breathe at the same time for granted, but now I’m struggling.
‘I knew it was all going to come to a head sooner or later.’ I fidget in the hard plastic police seat, legs pulsing with adrenalin. ‘I could feel something terrible was about to happen, but this time,this time,thankfully, I was prepared.’
The detective cocks her head at me.
‘Prepared for what? In what way were you prepared, Erin?’
