The Sick Rose (2 page)

Adam looked into the lens during the final screech of feedback. After a couple of fumbled attempts Louisa found the pause button and froze his features. He was looking at her with longing and accusation. Grief so strong it was almost sweet engulfed her. She leaned in towards the television as though for an embrace. She could almost believe that the yearning she felt was powerful enough to pull him out of the frozen picture and back into life, but the only reciprocal warmth was the hot static kiss of the screen.

Chapter 1

September 2009

They had not yet charged him with anything. That was the main thing. As long as they didn’t charge him he could tell himself that he was there as a witness, not an accomplice. Paul looked around the cell. There was no window, just a row of square frosted glass bricks at the top of the wall that let in enough light to show that it was morning again but not enough to warm the cell. Outside it would be warm, hot even, if the days before were anything to go by. He remembered the short staircase he had descended to enter the plain little corridor with its studded doors and calculated that this part of the building was sunk into the ground. Its bare surfaces were all cold to the touch; he could feel the floor, cool and hard through his socks. The brown scratchy blanket hadn’t helped; Paul had spent the night alternating between using it as a pillow to stop himself getting neck ache and as a cover to stop himself shivering. The nightmares that had shaken him awake suggested he had managed some sleep, but he felt as though it had been weeks since he closed his eyes. He needed the toilet so badly that he had a cramp in his belly, but there was no paper next to the little steel bowl and he didn’t want to call out for any in case Daniel was nearby and heard him. He might even be in the next cell; the silence didn’t mean anything.

He was examining his fingertips, wondering how long it would take for the blue ink to fade completely from the whorls, when there was the sound of a bolt being drawn back and the door to his cell was thrown open with a reverberating clang. The acoustics of incarceration were new to him. They were familiar to Daniel, of course, who long before his first arrest had inherited a folk memory of heavy doors and alarmed corridors and who talked about plod and Old Bill and the filth. Paul had always called them the police with the absent-minded respect those who never really believe they will encounter them can afford.

A uniformed officer told him it was time to go back into the interview room. He wondered what they would throw at him today. Yesterday’s interview had been an intensive, hour-long inquisition that he had survived, if not won, by putting his training into practice. If they arrest you, Daniel had said, never answer, never explain. If you don’t say it, they can’t use it. Of course he had been preparing Paul to defend himself against charges of robbery or handling or trespass, but presumably the principle also applied for something like this. The longer he thought about it, the more convinced he was that there was no way for them to prove he had been there.

They passed a bathroom in the corridor: Paul begged and the officer took pity on him, waiting outside the stall. It was like the exams at college, where if you needed to go the teachers would escort you and hover at the urinal, as though you’d written the answers on the porcelain in invisible ink. Just like the school toilets, this bathroom had cubicles that amplified the sounds inside. Paul relaxed his bowels and cringed at the splash. There were more of those glass bricks where the wall met the ceiling; no chance of anyone escaping through a window here. There was no mirror over the sinks, for which he was grateful. The third dispenser he tried actually contained some soap: a little squirt of foam that looked soft and fluffy but when he washed his face with it the skin became tight and sore as though he’d splashed bleach on it. He tried putting some on his little finger and cleaning his teeth, but the taste was so bitter he was forced to spit it into the sink.

It was the same room as before, completely windowless with dark blue walls that made it look like midnight no matter what the time. Only air vent bricks in the door and at knee level reassured Paul they weren’t all going to suffocate. The black Formica table had a tatty wooden trim; their chairs were also wooden, with black vinyl seats, but his was orange plastic and attached to the floor with bolts. The reel-to-reel tape recorder took up half the table. The detectives were the same, too: the man called Detective Sergeant Woburn and the woman who had given her title but immediately afterwards asked him to call her Christine, with the result that he instantly forgot her rank and surname. They both looked fresh, and Paul realised that while he had spent the night in the station, they would have gone home to their own beds and showers and toilets. Woburn had shaved – the skin on his cheeks was pink and angry – but there was already a hint of shadow on his jaw. Paul cupped his own chin and wondered when he had last taken a razor to it. Four days ago? Five? And he was still days away from the beginnings of a beard.

He had a hard time believing Christine was a police officer. She wore lipstick and earrings and her hair was cut in a proper style. She couldn’t have been more different to the squat, sour little woman who had taken his belt and his phone and his keys and his shoes away from him the previous day. Only the duty solicitor, a man in his fifties called Rob, looked like Paul felt. He was bleary-eyed and greasy-haired and had the appearance of someone who had pulled an all-nighter. Paul remembered that Rob had looked like this when he had turned up to the station yesterday and, judging by his eggy tie and tatty shoes, probably did most of the time.

Woburn stared him out while Christine smiled, then lowered her eyes. He wished he could read their minds. Daniel was big on body language: of necessity, he was better able to read people’s minds than anyone Paul had ever met. He always knew what you were thinking. That was one of the reasons it was so difficult to lie to him.

The tape recorder clunked and whirred into action. ‘Interview with Paul Seaforth resumed at 09.20 hours, 1st September 2009,’ said Woburn. ‘We were discussing the events of the evening of 30th August, same year. While you were sleeping, we had a little chat with Scatlock. He’s told us the lot.’

Paul was incredulous and insulted. Did Woburn think he was an idiot? Daniel might be many things, but he wasn’t a grass. Carl had spoken about the police and the mind games they played: it was part of their training, they used misleading language designed by psychologists that convinced you they were telling the truth when they were bluffing. The meaning of Woburn’s words depended on Paul’s response, and he breached his wall of silence only to show that it hadn’t worked.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Fair enough,’ shrugged Woburn. He held up a photograph. Before Paul had a chance to look away, he took in a tableau of the scene that had been replaying itself in his mind ever since they had fled it. Woburn tapped the end of his pen on the worst part of the image. Paul screwed his eyes up but the picture didn’t go away. He made fists and pressed them into the sockets of his eyes but the picture was only imprinted more permanently. ‘Don’t be shy,’ said Woburn. ‘It’s not as though it’s the first time you’ve seen it.’

Paul wondered why they weren’t using the man’s name and hoped it would stay that way. Ken Hillyard. Ken Hillyard. Ken Hillyard. It had been repeating on a loop in his mind and he was afraid that if anyone said it aloud it would break his resolve, like a password. He focused on the table. The varnish had long worn off the wooden trim. He tried to worry at a splinter in it but it had already been rubbed smooth by other guilty fingers. Rob had moved his chair next to the wall and was leaning into it, his left temple pressed against the plaster.

‘It’s uncomfortable viewing,’ said Woburn cheerfully. ‘Perhaps you’d like to see this instead.’ He produced another photograph, of a little black box with a blank screen. Out of context, it took Paul a few seconds to grasp what he was looking at. When he recognised the sat nav, he felt the individual hairs on his arms raise themselves one by one. A second photograph showed the wiggly country lane that led to the village whose name would soon, for a while at least, become public shorthand for a particular crime.

‘Nice piece of kit,’ said Woburn. ‘This is top-of-the-range stuff. They remember everywhere you ever go. This one even remembers when you went there. Covered in your prints, of course.’ A third screenshot from the device showed that they had arrived at the village at 11.20 p.m. Two hours later it had happened. Paul’s heart beat fast as he tried to work out what this meant for him. ‘Look. Here’s how it is. We know you were both there. One of you did it.
I
know which one.
You
know which one.
She
knows which one.’ He jerked his head in Christine’s direction. She remained inscrutable, the sad eyes, the small static smile. ‘Tribes in the Amazon previously undiscovered by white men know who did it. This is a question of when, not if.’ Paul shook his head, feeling his brain bounce off the walls of his skull. He needed to think, and fast, but Woburn was still talking. ‘Here’s what’ll happen if you
don’t
talk to me. Best case scenario, we charge you with aiding and abetting. Worst case, Scatlock blames you, the whole thing goes to a messy trial, it’s your word against his and you go down for something we all know you didn’t do.’

Christine leaned in as though to impart a confidence. ‘We know it was Daniel. Of course we do. I think you got a bit out of your depth, didn’t you, hmm? So I don’t blame you for clamming up. But you were there, and this is only the evidence that we found before we’ve really started digging, so there’s bound to be plenty more where that came from. Look, I know you’re afraid of him.’ Paul felt a stone in his throat and Christine’s face began to swim. If he blinked even once he’d had it: her sympathy was not worth Woburn’s contempt. ‘I know you’re afraid of what he might do. But that’s exactly my point: the more you tell us about what Daniel did, the stronger our case against him will be and the longer he will go away for.’

‘Do you have any
idea
what would happen if I did that?’ he blurted. ‘You don’t know what he’s like.’ Not until he saw Rob flinch upright in his chair did he realise his virtual admission of guilt.

‘On the contrary, I know all too well what Daniel Scatlock’s like,’ said Woburn. ‘I’ve been nicking his dad since I was in uniform. Junior’s got a juvenile file as thick as a doorstep. I’ve been looking forward to his coming of age for years.’

A future without Daniel in it, was that really what they were offering? He had thought it was the answer to his prayers, but now that it seemed to be a possibility he wasn’t so sure. He had wanted to escape, but not like this, with death as the catalyst and liberty as the sacrifice. Despite the plans he had made for life on his own, for the first time it occurred to him that he didn’t know how to cope without Daniel, how to
be
.

The only sounds in the room were the soft rhythmic click of the tape recorder and a light nasal whistle every time Rob exhaled. When Paul spoke it felt like jumping off the highest diving board at the pool: you didn’t so much decide to do it as find that, after a few seconds of tiptoeing on the edge, the water was rushing up to meet you.

‘I’ll need protection. Like, a safe house or something.’

‘A safe house?’ snorted Woburn. ‘Have you any idea how much that would cost? That’s for serious cases.’

‘How much more serious does it
get
?’ asked Paul.

‘What DS Woburn means is that safe houses are very labour intensive and they tend to be for more vulnerable people, families and those at risk from the public,’ explained Christine. ‘I’m afraid that the CPS wouldn’t see your case as exceptional, or regard you as particularly vulnerable. People have to testify against friends all the time. But we can offer you a degree of witness protection and . . .’ A silence followed, during which she searched the air above her head. When she spoke again her tone was breezy. ‘I think it’s time we all had a cup of tea,’ she said.

‘
What
?’ said Woburn.

‘Interview suspended at 09.31 hours,’ said Christine and pressed the pause button.

Woburn glared at her but didn’t argue. Paul understood suddenly that she was his boss. It was obvious now: Daniel would have sussed it out in seconds. The two detectives rose and left the room together. Their voices, his harsh, hers soft, faded as they walked away. The uniform who’d escorted him from his cell came back to wait at the door.

Rob’s spine slackened again: now he had his chin on his chest, in the classic pose of the park bench dosser. ‘Well, this puts rather a different complexion on things,’ he said. ‘Time for a cigarette break, methinks.’

Paul, alone with the uniform now, watched the tape machine, suspended on pause: its two turning circles, one with an orange tag, the other plain white, kept making tiny movements as though straining to get away. Woburn and Christine came back after five minutes or an hour, Paul couldn’t tell any more, with tea for all five of them. It came in two plastic cups, doubled up so that you could hold it without burning your hands. Until yesterday, he’d never had tea in a disposable cup. Even at Daniel’s the tea had always been in a proper mug. Once you got used to drinking out of plastic, it wasn’t that bad. Whoever had made the tea had put just the right amount of sugar in it. He supposed they were waiting for Rob to come back before they could turn the tape recorder on. Christine spoke first.

‘We might have found a middle way. Now, you’ve got blood on your hands, metaphorically speaking, but I think if we, ah, if we
reframe
this case with you as a witness for the prosecution we can get a collar on Daniel without involving you at all.’