‘Can you get the sketch for us?’ the detective interrupts.
‘I can look for it, but it might take a while.’
‘We can wait, but before you go searching,’ he pulls out a notebook, ‘can you tell us where you were when Rick Shevlin was murdered?’
This is ridiculous. I don’t know anything about Rick Shevlin. ‘Detective Inspector O’Connor, I don’t have a hectic social life, and days drift into each other. You could talk to my husband, Edgar. He’s much better on these things than I am.’
The detective stares at me suspiciously. Does he think I’m lying?
‘One other thing, Sandra,’ he’s still holding his notebook, his pen ready to write everything down, ‘we believe Rick Shevlin was seeing a woman using the tag name Cassie4Casanova. Does the name mean anything to you?’
The question comes so out of the blue I have no way to cushion my response, but I take the shocked look off my face as quickly as I can, my mind doing a quick double-take. Christ, should I tell them Edgar could be seeing a woman by that name? I still see the name repeated over and over on the computer screen. What’s holding me back? It makes sense to tell them, to put an end to this mess. Then I remember the hotel key, the one I took from her house. When I reply, my words sound calmer than I feel. ‘I don’t know anyone by that name,’ I say. ‘Should I?’
His face looks stern. ‘The sketch, Sandra,’ he says. ‘You were going to get it for us.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I get up to leave the room, frantically piecing the information together. If Edgar is seeing this woman, she could be the killer. I was right to be afraid. I wasn’t imagining any of this, but maybe she isn’t out to get me after all – maybe it’s Edgar who’s in danger. She could even be with him now.
Opening the door of the studio, I search for the folder, knowing I need to get rid of these two as fast as I can. I find my portfolio at the bottom of the chest of drawers. Opening it, I flick through my old work, which even now feels like it was done by someone else, a different me – an artist I no longer know.
It doesn’t take long to find the sketch. Again, I urge myself to be calm. I’ll contact Edgar once they’re gone. I’ll warn him. I’ll make him believe me, whatever it takes.
Entering the room, I get the sense that they’ve been talking about me. ‘Here,’ I say, handing the sketch to the woman, ‘but I’ll need it back.’
‘Of course,’ she replies.
I turn to the detective and say, keeping my voice steady, ‘Detective Inspector O’Connor?’
‘Yes?’
‘Where was Rick Shevlin killed?’
‘Room 122, the Earlbrook Hotel.’
I
Sandra hasn’t been taking her medication – very bold and particularly perilous. She has fed herself into my hands, making my position stronger. Some people have problems facing up to the truth, always looking for ways to feed their denial and their rose-tinted plan of life.
Yesterday I paid a visit to the village of my birth, the one near the woods. No one recognised me, my appearance having changed dramatically since the last time I was there.
I can’t go back any more, without remembering the killing of my step-father and the witch. As I walked through the woods, I felt as if I was in a dream and that, like the witch, I had become invisible. The sounds and smells of the woodlands hadn’t changed very much, Mother Nature holding on with her tenacious grip, triumphant once left in peace. It didn’t take me long to find the part of the woodland I was looking for, the hidden scorned earth from thirty-two years before. I was pleased with the sharpness of my memory, and that it stood me well, even though it was dark by the time I found it.
The earth was damp with the familiar smell of moss and sap, as I lay embryonic upon the flattened earth, as if in the hollow of a hand, willing my mother to rise from the ground and take hold of me, but she was too long gone for that. Not even the photograph I clutched in my hand, of the woman I had never known, with that forlorn expression on her face, could summon her ghost.
I waited for first light, the amber sun rising between the knotted branches, me, like a sleeping princess in the castle, the witch’s evil spell casting a tangled web, with everyone trapped in time. You may think I’m being silly now, as if I’m waiting for some elusive prince to cut through the thorns to me. If you think that, then you are the fool. I live a half-life. I do not sink into an eternal sleep. I roam. I feel. I touch. I bend. I seek. I lose myself and face the dark. It is loss and fear that haunt most people. I have experienced both, and have overcome the two.