Reuben gave me an extravagant gift for Christmas: a weighty, thick butter-coloured candle scented with cloves, which I burnt all through December and into the New Year, not enjoying a second of it, merely staring at the flames and feeling guilty.
It is January, now, and it is just as I walk into work, feeling the cold across my ribs, considering whether I can get a set of keys to the offices so I can get in and hide the clothes, that I see them.
The police.
They are here.
Waiting for me.
I should be surprised, after all these weeks, but I can hardly muster it.
‘Men here for you,’ Ed says mildly as he starts organizing things on the bus. I walk past him and head towards the offices.
He’s in the driver’s seat, with the door open, when they say to me, ‘We hope you don’t mind us coming here – we haven’t been able to track you down at home. We did leave a note. We need to talk to you about an event that occurred on a Friday in December.’
As I walk with them, into the office, I see Ed’s head is inclined just to the right, slightly cocked, as though he is listening intently.
‘Detective Inspector Lawson, and this is Detective Sergeant Davies,’ they say, when we are sitting inside a shabby meeting room.
I go and make us tea from the machine, my hands shaking the entire time. I get the impression Lawson is in charge. I wonder if they’re friends; if they find the boss–subordinate relationship tough. Maybe Lawson is a stickler at work but nice in the pub, and Davies finds it confusing … Davies’s hopes are for progression. Lawson’s are to lead, to be taken seriously, but also to be liked, maybe. They’re peering at me strangely and I place the cups of tea on the table, my left hand aching with the effort.
They’re in suits, like lawyers, or the Men in Black.
‘Sprained your wrist?’ Lawson says.
‘Fell over,’ I say. ‘In the Sainsbury’s car park. So embarrassing.’
I don’t know where the lie comes from, but it sounds plausible. He nods as I meet his eyes.
‘We just want to have a quick chat with you about an incident, as I said, in December,’ Lawson says slickly.
I clock the language immediately. Quick chat. Just. He’s minimizing it. I meet his eyes. They’re so pale as to be almost silvery, with just a hint of blue.
‘We’re from the CID,’ Lawson says. ‘Criminal Investigation Department. A man’s body was discovered after an assault one Friday night – you might’ve seen on the news …?’
I nod quickly.
So this is it.
It’s over.
It’s almost laughable, my attempt at getting away with it. I have lasted mere weeks. Of course.
I breathe deeply.
Lawson turns to me, his body language relaxed, open, his elbows resting on his knees. He stares straight into my eyes.
And that’s when I think of them. The gloves. The gloves I wore that night – surely with Imran’s DNA on them – are in my car, just over there. They loom in front of me, in my mind, like they are dangling in front of us. I am so glad he can’t know. That I will still look normal to him. Just the face of a nervous woman.
‘We understand you were in the Little Venice area on that Friday night – Joanna. Your friend gave us your work address when you weren’t in.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘She said you called round there.’ But, inside, my mind is racing. She didn’t tell me she’d given my work address. But of course – why would she? She is so sure of my innocence, too.
I try to arrange my face into an impassive smile. What would I know if I hadn’t been there? I would have seen the news, but that’s all. I would remember the date, where I was, because I was nearby – and Sadiq, of course – but nothing more.
‘Yes. Yes we did. And to yours. You got our note?’
‘Sorry, been so busy, what with Christmas …’ I lie.
‘When did you leave the bar you were at – the Gondola?’
‘About half eleven.’
Lawson looks at Davies, who nods. ‘Yes,’ he says.
‘You are on CCTV,’ Lawson says. ‘Outside the bar. You and Laura. You part, and you walk in the direction of the canal on the CCTV we have seen.’
It’s like a grenade has gone off, and now the air hums with silence. My ears shiver with it. Davies is looking at me. Lawson is waiting for me to speak. I didn’t think it through. Another way I’m still the same. I’m not a criminal mastermind. I am still scatty, stupid Joanna.
Where did I go? Did I see anybody? Was I at the canal? What’s my story? Why haven’t I taken the time to work it out? It would have taken five minutes. I am a prize idiot.
I can’t meet his eyes. Those pale, wolfish eyes.
‘We’re running out of leads, Joanna. And you were seen – really very near to the scene. It would be great if you could help us.’
‘Oh, well,’ I gabble. ‘I went another way, actually. I went that way and then I went another way. In the end.’
‘Right?’ Lawson sounds uninterested but his eyes are calm and watchful, looking at me, watching my shaking hand reach for my tea in its polystyrene cup. He is taking it all in.
‘So I was going to go down along the canal path, but …’ I pause. I have to tell them about Sadiq. It’s what I would do if things were different. ‘A man – called Sadiq –’ I add, ‘had been harassing me in the Gondola. So I didn’t want to walk somewhere deserted.’
It could almost be true. My lies make more sense to me than the truth. The truth is muddy and strange.
The only thing is: it’s not the truth.
‘I went the long way. Away from the Gondola and … along the road. And then across the second bridge down,’ I lie. ‘Would you like his – he gave me a …’ I fish around for my purse and find his business card, thinking, Forgive me, Sadiq.
‘What kind of harassment?’
‘Sexual,’ I say. ‘Predatory.’
Lawson turns the tattered business card over in his hands. ‘So bad you went another way?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll look for him. Thank you,’ Lawson says. He asks me more about how Sadiq behaved, and I describe it simply. Dispassionately. He asks me how he looked. What he was wearing.
‘So I was avoiding him when I took a different route. Not down the canal – though it looks like I went that way.’
‘Right,’ Lawson says with a nod. And then a pause. He sips his tea. And then he looks at me, and says three words. ‘Which route, exactly?’
‘Which route?’ I say. I bet he’s been on a course about liars. Hundreds of them. And I bet I am behaving absolutely typically.
We all think we are special. Brilliant liars, if our lives depended on it. But we are all the same. Reuben tells me things he’s read (he is always saying I read somewhere …) and one time he told me about the structure of a lie. It was either that there was not enough detail during the lie, or too much. I can’t remember.
‘Right – so,’ Lawson says, and then he reaches into a kind of satchel that he’s placed on the floor and pulls out a piece of paper. He lays it flat on the table. I see after a second that it’s a map. A screenshot of Google Maps.
I try to think, but it’s impossible under his gaze.
‘Show me on here where you went,’ he says. ‘Take your time.’
I pinch the map and slide it nearer to me. I locate the Gondola with my index finger. That’s it, there – yes. Because we could see the canal bridges – just – from the windows.
With my eyes, I trace my real pathway, over the bridge to Warwick Avenue, stopping at the top of the steps. If the CCTV is right outside the club, I must have been seen heading towards the canal. And so, to avoid it, I’m going to have to say I turned almost completely around, left instead of right.
‘So I walked this way,’ I say, tracing a path from the bar to the road, ‘but then I looped over this way.’ I finish a path. I hope it works. It goes down a street and over another bridge, but it gets me to Warwick Avenue tube alright, and at about the same angle, because no doubt there’s CCTV there, too.