Running Girl (21 page)

‘Don't, Garv. Please!'

‘Getting out that “protection” of yours and waving it under her nose?'

‘Garv, I never would've—'

‘Chasing her down the rotting steps with it?'

‘Yeah, but—'

‘Driving her away when all she'd done was come to you for help?'

‘Stop it, Garv!
Stop!
'

He broke down and wept in spasms, his back scraping like sandpaper against the cell wall, and Garvie went across and put his hand, softly, on Alex's shoulder, and Alex reached up and took hold of it, and they stayed like that for a minute or more.

‘I did all that,' he said at last. ‘But I didn't kill her.'

‘I know. But it doesn't look great, does it? What with the identification up at Pike Pond and the police finding the piece and all those abusive calls. So now you got to do what you really don't want to.'

‘What?'

‘Talk to the pigs.'

‘Oh
man
.'

‘Least it's not hard. Really, all you got to do is give them your alibi.'

‘Alibi!'

‘I know you've got one – there's no point pretending you haven't. What time did Chloe leave you Friday? Half three?'

He nodded.

‘What time did you show up in her garden that night? Half ten?'

He nodded again.

‘So all you have to do is say what you were doing for those seven hours. How incriminating can it be? You were up at Pike Pond doing a deal at half nine. That's awkward, but at least it's an alibi. What were you doing the rest of the time?'

Alex snuffed.

‘Come on, Alex.'

‘I was at home having my tea,' he said quietly. ‘I was that sad.'

Garvie didn't smile. ‘You big buffoon. I knew you hadn't forgotten your mum's stews. So all you got to fess up to is being safely home at tea time. Doesn't do your image much good, but at least it means you won't get sent down.'

He sat again on the cell bench and rested his chin on his hand. ‘All right. Now I've got to think.'

There was a long silence in the bright white room. Alex briefly fell asleep and when he woke Garvie was sat exactly as before, thinking, sphinx-faced and immobile against the cell's white wall.

‘Course,' he said, as if continuing a conversation, ‘you're the easy part of all this. The hard bit's the boyfriend.'

Alex grunted and shifted painfully against the wall.

‘Didn't she tell you anything about him?'

‘No.'

‘What kind of car he drove?'

‘No.'

‘Where he lived?'

‘No, Garv. Nothing. She just said he was trouble.'

‘Did she? What sort of trouble? Violent?'

Alex thought. ‘She was scared, man. Like he was – what's the word? – unpredictable.'

‘A man with a temper.'

‘Right.'

‘Someone she couldn't get away from. Someone living round here. In Five Mile. Working at school, maybe?'

‘I don't know. I mean, she didn't say anything definite. Besides' – he hesitated – ‘I wasn't really listening.'

‘She must have let something slip.'

Alex shook his head.

Garvie pondered. ‘How about this? Did she say anything odd?'

‘Odd?'

‘Something that didn't add up.'

‘I don't ... I don't think so.'

‘Try to remember. Something unusual. Something that stood out.'

For some time the boy was silent. Then he said, ‘You got something, Garv. Yeah. I'd forgotten. In the middle of all that row she said ... what was it? I don't remember. But, like you say, it was something that didn't add up.'

‘What was it?'

He frowned and shook his head. ‘I can't get at it. There was so much shouting and stuff. But it was funny. Something catchy. You know, like one of those slogans.
It's getting better all the time
.'

‘It's getting better all the time?'

Alex shook his head. ‘But something like it. You know what I mean? Like a jingle.' He scowled hard. ‘
It's all in the mind
. That's not it, either. It's no good, I can't remember, Garv.'

He began to cry again. ‘Garv,' he said in a gasp. ‘She came to me for help, Garv.'

Garvie hesitated. ‘Yes, Alex. She did.'

‘I know it now. You were right, she was running scared. And I just gave her more trouble. I let her down.' He shook his head, moaning. ‘I let her go. That's the worst. She came to me and I turned her away. And I know where she was going too.'

Garvie said sharply, ‘Where?'

‘To meet him. Her man.'

‘You don't know that, Alex.'

‘I know!'

‘How do you know?'

‘ 'Cause after she left me I knew what I'd done. I knew, Garv. And I called her.'

‘Did you? When? What time?'

‘Ten past four. I looked at my watch 'cause I was wondering where she was. I called her and she picked up. She wouldn't talk to me but I could hear her listening. And I could hear something else too before she hung up. Someone in the background. She was with someone, Garv. I could hear him.'

Garvie got to his feet and looked at the ceiling, and when he looked back at Alex his eyes were glittering. He went over and banged against the cell door with the heel of his hand.

‘I'm going to talk to Singh, get you out of here, man. Back home. Or back to your lovely squat, if you prefer. All you have to do is tell them what you told me.'

The door opened and the young constable smiled at Garvie with his friendly lopsided teeth. ‘Finished?'

Hesitating on the threshold, Garvie looked back. ‘One last thing, Alex.'

‘What?'

‘After she hung up, did you call her straight back?'

The boy looked puzzled. ‘No. But why—'

‘Doesn't matter. Get some rest. Catch you later.'

As the boy leaned his head back against the wall and gave himself up to fresh despair, Garvie left the cell with the friendly young constable and made his way upstairs to the fifth floor.

It was just midnight.

LOCATION: DETECTIVE INSPECTOR
Singh's office: DI Singh sitting behind his desk; Garvie Smith sitting on a swivel chair in front of the desk; operational chart, half empty; three blank walls; small smeary window; digital desk clock showing 00:09; overflowing in-tray topped by a copy of a newspaper with its headline circled in black pen:
POLICE LOSE PLOT IN BEAUTY AND BEAST STORY
.

Aspect of interviewer: uptight; exhausted; deliberately expressionless.

Aspect of interviewee: bruised; cute; deliberately casual.

DI SINGH
[
long pause
]
:
It's time—

GARVIE SMITH:
Nice chair. [
Swivels
] Nice office too. Bit boring.

DI SINGH:
I spoke to your mother.

GARVIE SMITH
[
stops swivelling
]
:
Oh. Did you have to?

DI SINGH:
In fact she contacted us, half an hour ago. To report you missing. When she found out you weren't at your friend's house she was anxious. Understandably. She's reassured now, and—

GARVIE SMITH:
Probably wild with rage.

DI SINGH:
As soon as we've talked, one of the night staff will drive you home so you can explain.

GARVIE SMITH:
Oh. Good. I love explaining.

DI SINGH:
Then you can explain to me what was going on outside the station with the man on the moped.

GARVIE SMITH:
What about Alex?

DI SINGH:
Alex has been very stupid. The gun, the visit to Pike Pond, the constant phone harassment. [
Pause
] Enough about Alex. I want you to tell me about this evening.

GARVIE SMITH:
Does he get compensation? For wrongful arrest?

DI SINGH:
We're not discussing Alex now. We're discussing you. I'll ask the questions and you'll do your best to answer them.

GARVIE SMITH:
By the way, have you checked out that Porsche yet?

DI SINGH:
Please. It's time for you to stop interfering and start cooperating.

GARVIE SMITH:
How about I show you where her old running shoes are?

DI SINGH
[
pause
]
:
One thing at a time. Who was the man on the moped?

GARVIE SMITH:
Here's a better question. Where did she get her new shoes?

DI SINGH:
Don't play games with me.

GARVIE SMITH:
Or this one. Who was driving the Porsche?

DI SINGH:
I said
No games.

GARVIE SMITH:
Why did she go up to Pike Pond? Why did she smile at Jess? What did she say to Alex? What did she need the money for?

DI SINGH
[
silence, exasperated
]

GARVIE SMITH
[
suddenly pointing
]
:
Look at your chart, man. It's half empty. Thursday night? Blank. Friday afternoon? Blank. Friday evening? Blank. You're asking the wrong questions, dude.

DI SINGH
[
angrily
]
:
And I suppose you think you can fill in all those blanks for me.

GARVIE SMITH
[
pointing
]
:
Thursday night she was at Imperium. Think what you like, but being dropped off by Abdul near Market Square at six thirty doesn't mean she stayed there all evening.

[
Silence
]

GARVIE SMITH:
Friday afternoon, two o'clock till two thirty she was at Jessica Walker's trying to borrow running shoes.

DI SINGH:
You don't know that. [
Hesitation
]
How
do you know that?

GARVIE SMITH:
Then she took a bus out to Limekilns. Number twenty-seven. Check it out. Got to Alex's at three.

DI SINGH:
What?

GARVIE SMITH:
Ask him. He'll tell you now. They argued. She said something to him. And she left at three thirty. [
Pause
] There you go [
pointing
], you can fill it in a bit more now.

DI SINGH
[
long silence, looking first at Garvie, then at chart
]

GARVIE SMITH:
I can fill it in for you if you've got a marker pen.

DI SINGH
[
quietly but angrily
]
:
Listen to
me
now. Even if you're right about where she was at those times – and you've just given yourself a lot of questions to answer – you still don't understand. This
is not a game
. We're not
playing
at being policemen. A girl has been killed. There is a point to what we do, and that point is to find out what happened, not here [
hitting chart
], not here [
hitting chart
], not here [
hitting chart
], but here [
hitting chart hard
] on Friday evening, when she was killed. Do you understand? That's what I'm focused on. You tell me she left Alex Robinson's at three thirty. But I want to know what happened next, here, between four and nine, when she was murdered. And you can't tell me that, can you?

[
Silence
]

DI SINGH
[
breathing heavily
]
:
You can't tell me where she went or who she met.

GARVIE SMITH
[
quietly
]
:
Yes, I can even tell you that.

DI SINGH:
And you can't tell me that because ... [
Falling silent
] What did you say?

GARVIE SMITH:
I can tell you exactly where she went after leaving Alex's. And I can tell you who she was with at four o'clock.

DI SINGH
[
long pause
]
:
Who?

GARVIE SMITH:
Me.

The silence in the office was the silence of shock – like the stunned silence that greets public announcements of disasters, or the hand-to-the-mouth silence of women finding lipstick on their husbands' collars, or the small frightened silence of the medical consultant's private room – and in this silence Garvie took out a Benson and Hedges and lit up, and said, ‘Next thing is, you'll be asking me what happened.'

Still nonplussed, Singh looked vaguely at the smoke, up at the smoke detector in the ceiling, back at Garvie. He opened his mouth.

‘Relax,' Garvie said. ‘They hardly ever go off. And I'm just about to tell you something useful. I said before, I'm only trying to help.' He scrutinized the end of his cigarette for a moment. ‘Course,' he went on, ‘you'd've known all this already if you'd bothered to interview me like everyone else.' He took a drag, exhaled and focused. ‘Four o'clock,' he said at last, ‘not long after final bell, I was up on Top Pitch. Trying to unwind after a hard day in the classroom.'

Singh came to life and felt around his desk for his notebook. ‘Alone?'

‘Till Chloe arrived. I was unwinding nicely. Then she comes up the slope from Bottom Pitch, looking ... strange.'

‘Strange how?'

‘I'll come to that. It was a surprise to see her at all, to be honest. We weren't talking that much. Nothing heavy. I just wasn't expecting her.'

He drew deeply on his cigarette, tilted his head and blew smoke at the ceiling. Stared at it for a moment or two. He said, ‘Looking strange 'cause she wasn't looking like Chloe. Not just that she'd lost her mascara and her hair was all over the shop and her face looked like putty. Because she didn't seem to care or even to notice. That was the weird thing. You know? As if she'd forgotten how to
be
Chloe.'