Tessie stands by the door. She is wearing a silk kimono over green pyjamas. Her hair is down. She looks tired and sad. As Owen passes her, she touches his arm and says, ‘What did you do, Owen? What did you do?’
‘I didn’t do anything, for God’s sake. You know I didn’t do anything.’
Tessie turns and walks away.
‘For God’s sake, Tessie,’ he shouts after her. ‘You know I didn’t!’
She walks into her bedroom and pulls the door quietly shut behind her.
He feels a hand on his shoulder. ‘Mr Pick, please, we need to leave.’
He shrugs the hand off, anger beginning to replace the shock and awe. ‘I’m coming,’ he says. ‘I’m coming, OK?’
As he leaves the house, he is suddenly aware that the proportions of the street outside are all off, that there’s something not right, a feeling of impending chaos, and then they appear: a flock, a pack; a dozen men and women with cameras, with microphones, pressing towards them. The PC and the detective both cover him instinctively with their arms and hustle him onwards, through the throng.
‘Mr Pick, Mr Pick!’
They know his name. How do they know his name? How did they know this was going to happen? How did they know?
He glances up and straight into the lens of a camera. He opens his eyes wide and is dazzled by a burning white flash. Something forces his head down again. He is in a car. The car door is closed. There are faces at the window, faces and lenses. The car moves quickly; people touch it; they are so close Owen doesn’t understand why their feet aren’t being crushed by the tyres. And then he is not on his street any more, he is on themain road and there are no more people with cameras, just normal people going about their business. Owen sits back in the seat. He exhales.
‘Who told them?’ he asks the backs of the heads of the two people sitting in the front.
‘The press?’ says the woman.
‘Yes. Who told them you were coming to get me?’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea. They knew we’d been searching the area. People talk. I’m sorry you had to experience that.’
‘But … it’ll be in the papers,’ he says. ‘People will think I did it.’
‘Did what, Mr Pick?’
He peers at her face in the rear-view mirror. She’s looking right at him. There’s that chilling smile again.
‘The thing!’ he says. ‘Whatever the thing is that you’re arresting me for.’
‘You’re not under arrest, Mr Pick. Not yet.’
‘Then why?’ He stares out of the window, watches a small girl from a dog-walking company trying to load a giant bloodhound into the back of a van. ‘Why am I here?’
He looks at himself in the rear-view mirror. His hair has started to dry. It’s shorter on one side than the other and sticking up on the top. The blood from his cut has dried into a kind of huge tear shape, dripping into his eyebrow. He looks horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. And the nation’s press has just photographed him like this, being placed into the back of a police car to be questioned about a missing teenage girl. He doesn’t even like teenage girls. And he’s not even under arrest. He’s left his phoneat home. What if Deanna is trying to message him? What if she thinks he’s ignoring her?
And then an even worse thought hits him. What if he’s in the papers tomorrow? With his crooked hair and blood-encrusted eyebrow and yesterday’s clothes looking like a horrible pervert, with a headline screeching something like ‘IS THIS SAFFYRE’S KILLER?’ He groans out loud.
‘Are you OK, Mr Pick?’
‘No!’ he replies. ‘God. No. Of course I’m not OK. I’m going to be in the papers and I’m not even under arrest! Is that even legal?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is legal, Mr Pick. I’m afraid it is.’
‘But everyone will have seen my face and then you’ll let me go and no one will care that I didn’t do it, they’ll just remember my face. I’ll never get a job, I’ll—’ He envisages Deanna peeling open theEvening Standardon the Tube tonight. ‘Oh God!’
‘Mr Pick. Let’s just take this one step at a time, shall we? Hopefully we’ll be able to let you go within an hour or two. We’ll notify the press. They’ll have no interest in running the story if there’s nothing to it. So, let’s just see how we get on, shall we?’ She smiles again.
Owen sits back, folds his arms around his stomach and rocks slightly. The world feels like a straitjacket, sucking all the air out of his chest cavity, squeezing his bones. He looks at people out of the window: normal people doing normal things. Walking to the shops. Going to work. Being normal suddenly looks like the most alien concept in the world, something he can barely conceive of.
‘Do I need a lawyer?’ he asks.
