“I was nervous to get out.” Her gaze flickers across mine as if she’s wondering whether I’ll judge her for this admission. “There was something about them.”
“Can you explain a bit more what you mean by that?”
“There was a threatening look about them.”
“Did you witness any violence between them?”
“They were pushing and shoving.”
“Was that how one of them ended up in the water?”
“I couldn’t say, but it’s not rocket science, is it? One of them was much bigger than the other.”
“But you didn’t actually witness the fall?”
“No. I was getting my phone out of my bag so I could call you, wasn’t I?”
“And the next time you looked, what did you see?”
“Just one of them, standing on the side, looking into the water.”
“Did he try to help the boy who went into the water?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Did he try to run away?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No. He didn’t see me. I wondered if they were off their heads.”
“What makes you say that?”
Her eyes dart sideways. “One of them, I think it was the one who fell, was weaving around a bit before.”
“In what way?”
“Sort of sideways. Like this.”
She gets up and enacts a bizarre drunken stagger. Woodley and I avert our eyes until she sits back down. It’s a small space and she has a curvaceous figure.
“Did you see how they got into the scrapyard?”
“No. Climbed the fence, I expect.”
Woodley says, “Emergency services had to cut through the chain locking the main gate, so they must have, unless there’s a hole in the fence somewhere.”
The witness shivers in spite of the heat. She looks tired.
On the desk between us a mobile phone begins to buzz and dance, as if on cue. It has a glittery case. She grabs it and takes a look at the screen. Her finger hovers before she rejects the call.
“It’s my partner.” She lays it down carefully.
“Do you need to call him back?”
“No, it’s fine, we already spoke. He’s just worried.” There’s something about the way she says this that makes me keep my mouth shut for a minute, just to see if she’ll elaborate. She does; they almost always do. Most people have an urge to explain.
“He doesn’t think I’m in danger. He just wants me home, you know.”
I notice a small dash of lipstick on the front of her teeth as she gives me a smile that’s more an exercise in muscle control than a show of emotional warmth.
“Of course,” I say. “That’s understandable.”
She squeezes her arms together awkwardly, showing me a glimpse of something lacy as her blouse parts. I look away again. The fan heater’s still blasting out hot air and Woodley and I are both tugging at our collars.
“So, just to clarify, you didn’t see what happened at the precise moment when one of the lads went into the canal, because you were getting your phone out of your bag?”
“I didn’t see, but just as I dialed I heard a splash, and when I looked again, the white boy was gone. It was just the black boy standing there, looking at the water.”
“And were you able to identify the skin color of the boys from where you were sitting?”
“No, but I saw them after.”
“After what?”
“After emergency services got there and pulled him out of the water. Honestly, I’m surprised he was still alive. I can’t believe the other boy did nothing to help. If I hadn’t phoned you . . .”
“You did the right thing.”
As soon as she’s gone, I flick the heater off and leave the door open. Woodley and I watch her stride across the yard to retrieve her car from outside the entrance. It’s a top-of-the-range small Mercedes, sporty and fast.
“What do you think?” Woodley says.
“She hasn’t actually witnessed a crime.”
“She’d go down well in court, though,” he says as we watch her leave.
I agree. She’s articulate, confident, and well-presented.
“Why would she have to fumble in her bag for her phone if she drives a motor like that?” I ask. “Surely it would be Bluetooth-connected. Can you check the paramedics’ account supports her story? And I’d like to hear the recording of the emergency call she made, please, if we can arrange that.”
When the Mahad family arrives home from the hospital, Abdi walks up the stairs to the flat on his own, though Nur hovers anxiously behind him all the way. It’s painfully slow progress.
Abdi takes himself straight to bed. He still hasn’t uttered a word.
Sofia, Maryam, and Nur have decided that the best thing to do is let him sleep, in the hope that it will help him get through his shock. Even so, for the next couple of hours, Sofia can’t stop checking on him. She reminds herself of the anxious first-time mothers she helps at the hospital.
For a while she sits beside him in a silent vigil, a textbook beside her that she can’t concentrate on, but the sight of his immobile body gets to her. She fidgets, and her head snaps up sharply when her father appears in the doorway, blocking the light. He peers into the room.
Sofia loves her father deeply and knows every inch of his silhouette like the back of her own hand. She’s noticed a stoop in his shoulders lately, which is new, and makes her feel a little pang of sadness.
“Sofia,” he whispers, “can you phone Fiona Sadler? We want to ask how Noah is.”
Fiona Sadler is Noah’s mum, and Sofia doesn’t like her. There’s nothing specific Fiona’s said or done that Sofia could give as a reason for this if somebody asked; it’s more that she doesn’t seem to be a warm person. Sofia finds her prickly and difficult to talk to.
“Do you think we should?” she asks. “They’re probably at the hospital.”
It’s a poor attempt to put off making the call, because she knows that if they’re asking, her parents will have already decided. They’ve asked her because she’s always been the one to call the Sadlers. When Noah and Abdi were younger, Maryam could never phone to make arrangements for play-dates because her English wasn’t good enough, so it fell to Sofia. Nur has better English, but he’s not fluent like his children.
It’s a language barrier that’s given Sofia and Abdi plenty of opportunities for mischief over the years, just like the children of fellow immigrants they know.
Sofia dials the number, secretly praying that nobody will pick up. Her shyness makes phone calls a bit of an ordeal generally, but today her sixth sense tells her that making this particular call is also a bad idea.
After just enough rings that she’s hopeful voice mail will pick up, there’s a breathy “Hello?”
“Mrs. Sadler? It’s Sofia, Abdi’s sister. I’m so sorry to bother you, but we were wondering how Noah is.”
She feels as if she’s got wedges of lemon in her mouth.
At the other end of the line, Fi Sadler makes a sound like a gasp and then moans, long and low, and Sofia feels the sound echo at the very core of herself. She’s drenched in something that feels like shame as she realizes that she was right: It was entirely the wrong thing to do to make this call. Whatever’s happened to Noah is very bad.
She turns her back on her parents.
“I’m so sorry . . .” she starts to say, but another voice comes on the line.