During
the drive back into town, he’d settled into grudging acceptance which flared
into head rocking and defiance when they parked in a place entirely new to him.
Sharon reminded him that his mother had planned and diarised this
appointment, and promised that he’d be taken straight back to the centre once
he’d rearranged Mr Slowey’s toy car collection for him.
“I
didn’t know you were qualified for the vulnerable witness procedure?” Harkness
asked Slowey quietly as the Jennings siblings grappled with the child locks in
the rear of the car.
“I’m
not. I just traded in a favour. Borrowed the keys. You don’t know you’re alive
unless you try to flush your career down the pan at least once a day.”
“Open
the can, into the pan,” chimed in Jeremy.
“You
see, Sarge? He understands. You might not, though. I’d better show you how the
controls in the video suite work.”
While Sharon settled Jeremy into the interview suite, Slowey shared his own imperfect
understanding of the recording devices with Harkness.
“You
can record onto the hard drive and back up to a DVD later, or you can record
directly onto a DVD,” said Slowey. “That would be quicker for us but we’d risk
losing the original if we lost it or botched it.”
“That’s
a sensible risk to take,” said Harkness, biting the cellophane off a new disc.
“I don’t want to leave a recording of this here for other people to scrutinise.
How long have we got?”
“Next
interview’s due in just over an hour.”
“Right
then.” Harkness clicked on ‘record’. “We’d best get started.”
Slowey
slumped into his most harmless posture and shuffled into the interview room,
avoiding the temptation to stare into the camera as he eased the door closed.
“It’s
nosy policeman,” shouted Jeremy, looking up from the motley assortment of toy
cars he’d already divided into sub-categories.
“Jeremy,
that’s rude. What’s the rule?”
“Mummy
said ‘nosy policeman’ and she’s never rude.”
“I am
a nosy policeman,” said Slowey, easing himself into an easy chair set at an
oblique angle to Jeremy and well out of his natural eye-line. “You’re a clever
lad, Jeremy. I’m also a helpful policeman. Do you know what that means?”
“Nosy
policeman is talking at me, SJ.”
“Yes,
Jeremy,” said Sharon.
“Mummy
calls me Jeremy. You call me JJ.”
“Yes,
JJ, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Sharon took a deep breath and rolled back her shoulders.
“You can talk to the policeman. Mummy said you can. And so do I. But ‘nosy’ is
not a polite word.”
“Mummy
didn’t say it to me.”
“No.
But she said it to me.”
“Mummy
didn’t say it to me.”
“Do
you trust me, JJ?”
“Always
trust my big sister.”
“Then
you can talk to this nice man. His name is Ken.”
“Always
trust my big sister.”
“Jeremy,
I’m Ken,” began Slowey, resolving to look at Sharon or the window but never
directly at Jeremy. “Your sister tells me you’re a clever boy who could help me
solve crime and do some police work.”
“You
can answer, JJ,” prompted Sharon.
“I can
talk to the police man because I trust my big sister,” proclaimed Jeremy,
sorting toy trucks by function and number of axles.
“Jeremy,
if I say there are three people in this room, is that the truth?” began Slowey,
hoping to quickly dispense with the ‘truth and lies’ exercise.
“I’m
not allowed to say because I might not know what the truth is and I might not
know why people are asking.” He arranged the trucks into an orderly sequence,
their driver’s cabs neatly aligned.
“If
your mummy says you can speak to me and your sister says so too, doesn’t that
mean you’re allowed to tell me the truth?”
“Not
sure.” Jeremy gently rocked, as his hands sought out saloons and hatchbacks.
“What
did mummy always tell you about policeman, JJ?” urged Sharon.
“If
I’m in trouble I must always talk to a policeman and tell him the truth. But
I’m not in trouble.”
“But
you might be in trouble if you don’t tell me the truth, Jeremy.” Slowey ignored
Sharon’s glare and glanced at his watch. “About the fire next door, where
that nice lady and her kiddies died. So, when I say there are three people in
this room….”
“Truth,”
said Jeremy, grouping family hatchbacks together and moving on to saloons.
“And
when I say that Spiderman just swung into this room and stuck himself to the
ceiling, is that the truth?”
“Not
the truth. Just silly. Not possible.”
“You’re
doing ever so well, Jeremy. Is it alright if I call you Jeremy?”
“Truth.”
“Good
lad. Now then, do you know what fingerprints are?”
“Truth.”
“Tell
me then.”
“Marks
left by fingers. Unique patterns. I watch TV. I read.”
“Is it
the truth that you left your fingerprints on Suzanne Murphy’s living room
window in the early hours of 3
rd
August?”
“Jesus,
Slowey, slow down,” hissed Sharon.
“Not
truth,” said Jeremy, frowning with concentration as he examined a beach buggy
which didn’t quite match any other toy car. “Didn’t touch
that
window.
Must keep away from hot, burning flames.”
“I’m
sorry, Jeremy. Did I get it wrong?”
“Yes,”
he said, tossing the beach buggy back into the toy barrel with irritation. “I
touched the upstairs window with my fingerprints. Trying to help. Like my mummy
said I should.”
“Did
you help, Jeremy?”
“I did
help. Truth.” Jeremy had saved his favourite vehicles until last. He marshalled
the panda cars first, in order of the number of blue lights on their roofs.
“But the silly woman wouldn’t come out. Just screamed and bashed her hands
instead. Wouldn’t open the window like I showed her.”
“Why
did you help, Jeremy?”
“Like
I said. My mummy told me to.”
“Did
you start the fire, Jeremy?” said Slowey, straining to maintain his bored
monotone while Sharon looked on, appalled and speechless.
“Not
truth.”
“Did
you see any strangers near Suzanne’s house?”
“Not
truth.”
“Did
you…”
“No
strangers. Only mummy.”
“What
was mummy doing?”
“Starting
a fire, silly.” Jeremy deployed his ambulances, some with their rear doors open
and ready for casualties.
“Yes,
Jeremy, we are silly,” said Slowey, allowing himself a glance into the camera.
“You see, I thought a strange man came along and started the fire and maybe you
saw him. Are you the clever chap who can tell me the truth and correct my
silliness?”
“I am
that clever chap,” said Jeremy, allowing himself to touch his favourite
vehicles, the ones he always saved until last. “I heard a noise and was
frightened of stranger danger and burglars on the prowl so I looked for mummy
and she was gone and not with daddy in the sick room then the front door was
open and I……” Jeremy twitched and began to rock again.
“Calm
down, JJ, it’s alright, we can stop…” began Sharon as Jeremy sneezed a gobbet
of snot and spittle onto the carpet.
“….went
downstairs and looked outside and found my mummy who was next door lighting a
match and then she threw the match and the fire came and she fell over and got
up and took a big can and scrunched the gravel and ran to me and it’s not true
that there was a strange man.”
“I
think your mummy told me she was tucked up in bed when the fire started. Was I
wrong?”
“Wrong.
Not truth. Mummy was outside with me then she made me go back inside our house
and she was crying and shaking.” Jeremy manoeuvred his fire engines into a line
and rotated the turntable ladder of the largest one to face his chair. “Then I
wanted to go to bed but she wouldn’t let me and she went back outside and told
me nobody was coming out but all I wanted was to go back to bed because it was
after midnight and I can’t stay up that late ‘cause I need my eight hours
exactly. Exactly eight hours and my alarm was set and my second alarm was set
too.”
“I
think you went straight to bed then, Jeremy.”
“Not
the truth. Mummy made us go to the kitchen and then out into our back garden
and look at next door but the flame made my face hot and the smoke tickled my
nose and hurt my eyes and mummy kept crying and saying things, saying that she
only wanted them to go away with their noise and their fighting but they
wouldn’t and they needed a lesson but why wasn’t anyone coming out, they had to
come out, the fire was so fast.” Jeremy rocked gently and he spoke as if he
were tunelessly reciting pop lyrics.
“What
did your mummy want you to do?”
“She
said they had to come out and she likes it when I do things for her so I needed
to tell them and I climbed over the fence and climbed onto their conservatory
through the smoke and heat and knocked on the window and told the woman that
she should come out but she wouldn’t so I went home and my mummy told me not to
tell anyone about the fire because I might get in trouble for not getting the
woman out of the house and it should be a secret.”
“Were
you frightened, Jeremy?”
Jeremy
cocked his head, as if he’d been asked an incomprehensible question.
“What
did you think about what happened, Jeremy?”
“Mummy
wouldn’t let me look at the fire engines,” he said, flicking over a miniature
one. “And I didn’t get my eight hours. Need my eight hours. And I had to sit
in hospital with mess and noise and unclean people.”
Slowey
glanced again at his watch and wished he could turn it back by about three
weeks. He should have seen more clearly and trusted his instincts. Most
murderers could be found either in the victim’s home - or close to it. He knew
that the enormity of what he’d nearly missed, and the consequences for Firth
and others, would later swell in him like vertigo. He couldn’t vouch for how
Harkness would take this revelation; he could only hope that his premature
mid-life crisis had run its course.
“Thank
you, Jeremy. I think it’s time we got you back to the centre, don’t you?” said
Slowey, grinning his most toothsome grin.
“Truth!”
said Jeremy, offering his imitation of a laugh, thinking that it was expected
of him without feeling anything as obscure and impractical as mirth. Just when
he thought he understood how so-called normal people thought and felt and
acted, they just found new ways to perplex and panic him. They simply shouldn’t
die or kill or grieve as these things made no sense, had no purpose and most of
all upset the perfect pattern of his life.
‘Oh!
Chintzy, chintzy cheeriness, half dead and half alive.’
Marjorie
rolled John Betjeman’s line around her mind as the plump and cheerful
manageress guided her around the hospice. She took in the floral print
curtains, the mint-green and sunflower-yellow décor and the motivational
posters backlit and framed in chrome. She sniffed for any hint of ammonia and
decay beneath the thick smell of fresh paint and new linoleum. Once just
another bleak and knowing slice of verse from her ‘A’ level syllabus, so many
decades and a heartbeat ago, Betjeman’s words had afforded her a glimpse of a
world she would never have to tolerate in her bright, young future. Now it had
become a pungent and mocking prophesy.
‘What
do they think has happened, the old fools, to make them like this?’ Larkin had
written. ‘Why aren’t they screaming?’ She had forsaken the humanities for
nursing, trading the chance of a degree and a career in teaching or academia
for a caring profession, a vocation for the heart as well as the mind. She had
spent the whole of her working life and too much of her personal life caring
for others; sopping up blood, mopping up faeces and urine and bile, cajoling
the unwilling and the unable into one more pill, one more sip or one more bite,
staving off Death for as long as He would humour her. She had given all of
herself away, eroding piece by piece until only the calcified husk of her heart
remained to leave her a griping, sniping old fool.
“It’s
been lovely to meet you, Marjorie,” said the plump woman whose name she’d
forgotten already. “I’m really looking forward to getting to know Anthony.’