Skin Deep (31 page)

He didn’t answer and tugged at the duvet cover with rough little fingers.

‘Charlie, do you want something? Only I’m not really in the mood to talk about this.’

‘Is he nice to you?’

‘Ryan? Of course he is.’

‘How?’

‘What?’ What’s up with him?

‘How is he nice?’

‘Um, he makes me laugh when I’m fed up. And he talks to me about . . . about stuff that bothers me. He doesn’t let me get upset over what people think or say or how they look at me.’ I stopped – there were other things, but nothing I’d share with Charlie. ‘He’s just really nice to be around.’

‘Oh, OK . . . I’m going to go to bed now.’ He wriggled out from under my covers and paused. ‘If I’d done something really bad, would you still love me?’

What? Charlie never said things like that. ‘Of course I would. Why?’

‘Nothing. Just wondered.’ He went out and closed the door quietly behind him.

I felt guilty then, in a way I hadn’t over Mum and Dad. All the upset in the house must be getting to him. I should try harder to be nice. Sleep didn’t come easily that night.

I woke the next morning to something shaking by my ear. By the time I remembered and reached inside the pillowcase, I had missed the call.

Ryan’s number.

‘Shit!’

I hit CallBack.

A man answered. ‘Hello?’

‘Where’s Ryan?’

‘Is that Jenna? I just called you. It’s Cole.’

Panic exploded inside me. ‘What’s happened?’

‘They arrested him this morning. We’re down at the station now. He wanted me to tell you – said he’d promised.’

What are you supposed to think about when you’re waiting in a police interview room?
Everything in my head was a tangled mess.

Cole was outside trying to calm Mum down while we waited for the solicitor to arrive. I could hear her yelling from a distance.

Please don’t let them think she’s mad and cart her off.

Are they going to charge me? Will they lock me up?

Mum, stop screaming, it’s not helping. Cole, shut her up before she gets in trouble.

Is Jenna upset? Will she think I’ve done it now?

This isn’t happening, it’s not real. It’s not real. It is not real.

I swallowed to make the empty, sick feeling go away. I repeated words in my head like Mum with one of her meditation mantras, willing the world to be what she wanted it to be. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.

A different policewoman to yesterday stuck her head round the door. This one was older, about Mum’s age.

‘Have you had breakfast?’

‘No, I –’

‘Bacon and egg roll all right? And a coffee?’

I nodded. I didn’t want it, but I did want her to go away.

They’d arrested me at eight o’clock. Must have thought we’d skip off if they didn’t get there early. As if you could make a run for it on a narrowboat. Mum had tried to hit one of them and Cole had to hold her back.

She seemed to have stopped screaming. Maybe he’d managed to calm her down.

The policewoman sat with me when she brought my breakfast in. ‘Eat it,’ she said, as I picked at the roll. ‘You won’t get anything else until lunchtime and you have to be in a fit state for questioning.’

I took a small bite, chewing slowly, and attempted not to gag.

‘Try to manage half,’ she said more gently.

I wanted to tell her I didn’t kill anyone, but there was no point. Probably everyone said that.

The solicitor arrived eventually, bringing Cole in with him.

‘Is Mum OK?’

‘Yeah, stop worrying. She’s in the waiting room. She’s calm now. They’ll come and get me if she goes off on one again.’ Cole sat in the chair next to me. ‘Right, now listen to this guy while he explains how this is different to yesterday.’

I tried to concentrate on the solicitor’s words, but the voice in my head was still saying: make it stop make it stop make it stop.

It was the same detectives who came to interview me. Like yesterday, one did most of the talking and the other sat back and watched me. Looking for guilt, I thought.

I went through my story again, but this time they asked me questions for the tape. Why did I hit the lad at the Rugby Club? What did Carlisle say to me after that? Why had they found my blood in the grooves of his ring? Why hadn’t I gone home? Why did I lie about being home?

I told them everything like Cole wanted me to.

‘Mum was trying to protect me. She knew it looked bad. But I didn’t do it.’

They made no comment and moved on. Had I known Carlisle would be on the bridge? Had we arranged to meet there to fight? Was it coincidence or had I followed him there, waiting until the car picked his friends up before I attacked him? What were my motives for attacking him?

On and on and on.

I kept saying I didn’t do it, I wasn’t there, but they wouldn’t stop asking.

After what seemed like hours, another detective came in and called the quiet one out. We waited a few minutes in silence until he came back.

‘We have to take a break. There’s something we need to look into. I’ll get an officer to bring you some tea.’

Over an hour passed, in which Cole bobbed in and out between me and Mum, before they came back and started the questions again.

‘When you went to the Reeds’ stable, you said you were alone there all night. Is that true?’

‘Yes.’

This is serious shit. You have to tell them.

I can’t do that to her.

This is not a game. You have to.

‘Nobody came to the stable while you were there?’

‘No.’

Tell them, you idiot.

The detective sat forward. ‘I’d like to remind you that you are under caution. Look, Ryan, we need to know exactly what happened. You’re all we’ve got for this right now. If we get it wrong, there’s someone still out there who could hurt another person. Maybe this time he could hurt someone you care about. Your girlfriend lives round there. What if she was next?’

Mr Gregson coughed. ‘I don’t think this line of questioning –’

‘Right, right.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll make it easier for you, Ryan. We’ve just taken a statement from Miss Reed. She tells us she was with you in the stable on the night in question. Is that true?’

A lump formed in my throat. Why did she do that?

‘Mr Gregson, can you explain to your client the severity of the offence he is under arrest for? I’m not sure he’s quite understanding.’

‘Shut up and give him a minute,’ Cole snapped. He shifted his hand from the back of my chair to make slow circles on my shoulder.

The clock on the wall ticked as they all waited.

‘Were you and Miss Reed in the stable together on the night Steven Carlisle died?’ the detective asked.

I nodded slowly.

‘I need you to say it for the tape, Ryan.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you tell us earlier that you were alone?’

‘I didn’t want Jenna to get in trouble with her parents.’

The policeman rocked back in his chair and made an exasperated sound.

‘My client is a juvenile,’ Gregson reminded him. ‘I think he’s just demonstrated that his failure to disclose absolute events stems more from that than a desire to withhold evidence.’

The detective rubbed his head. ‘Yeah, OK. Ryan, look, we need to go through all this again now. After you had the fight with Carlisle . . . give it to me again, the real version this time.’

Cole kept his hand on my back.

‘I walked over to Jenna’s. Slowly. I was drinking the vodka. I stopped to sit down a few times. It started to go to my head.’

‘You finished the bottle?’

‘More or less. It might’ve had a tiny bit left in the bottom. I chucked it in a hedge.’

‘Where?’

‘Must’ve been somewhere on the road down to Jenna’s. Barker’s Lane, I think it’s called.’

‘OK, go on.’

‘I went to the stable and let myself in the feed store because I was cold.’

‘Did you have a coat with you?’

‘No. I-I didn’t stop to pick one up when I left. I just wanted to get away. Um . . . then I crashed out. I woke up when Jenna came in and turned the light on.’

‘Tell me what happened then.’

‘She sat with me for a while. I was quite out of it. She asked me if I wanted her to stay and I said yes. I know that was wrong, but I was smashed and I didn’t think . . .’

‘And?’

‘I . . . was . . . upset. Over some things Mum said. I-I didn’t want to be on my own.’

‘And what exactly did your mother say?’

‘Is that really relevant?’ Gregson said. ‘It is clearly distressing to my client and –’

‘Your client is under arrest for murder. I’d say anything that distresses him is highly relevant,’ the detective retorted. ‘We need to understand his state of mind at this point.’

‘Mum’s not well. She doesn’t mean what she says when she’s like that.’

‘Ryan, we’re not here to judge your mother but to establish who killed a young man. Please answer the question.’

I stared at a scratch on the table. ‘She said I was a disappointment to her and she went on for a bit about how all men are bastards. She said she was going out to get . . . to get laid and I should go with her if I was so bothered about her taking risks with strangers. She said stuff about Cole. About how he never cared about us, especially me, and that he only pretended to so he could keep in with her. And . . . and . . .’

‘What?’

‘She said she loved him.’

Cole’s hand stiffened on my back.

‘That was what did it, I guess. I thought she’d told him that and he’d left us anyway. So I took off. She yelled at me to get out.’

‘Did you intend to go back?’

‘Not until the morning. I thought she’d bring a guy home and I didn’t want to be there when she did. She’s ill, you see, and that’s part of her illness, but she can’t see that when she’s in the middle of it and –’

The detective held his hand up. ‘OK, I get the picture.’

‘I think we should take a break,’ Gregson said.

Cole leaned forward. ‘Do you want to take a break, kiddo?’

‘No, I want to get it over with.’ And I did. Wanted them to stop asking questions I didn’t want to answer. Wanted to stop betraying Mum. I stopped caring about whether they’d charge me or not as long as they left me alone. ‘Jenna went back to the house and got some food and blankets. I sobered up a bit after I had something to eat. Then we went to sleep. We were there until the morning.’ I stared at the policemen. ‘We were asleep. Nothing more. I mean it.’

‘You said she left and came back. Can you give us the times?’

‘Don’t know. Didn’t look. I was too out of it. Oh . . . she said something . . . when she first came down. About me being cold and it wasn’t eleven yet. She didn’t think I should sleep there.’

‘So at around eleven o’clock, were you alone or was she there?’ His eyes nailed me to the chair.

‘I don’t know. I told you. If I had to guess, alone probably.’

‘Stop there,’ Gregson cut in. ‘We are straying into conjecture. How is this relevant?’

The quiet one kept watching me as he answered. ‘Because at the estimated time of death of the victim, which is eleven o’clock, your client has no alibi. Miss Reed was back at the house.’

‘You’re surely not suggesting that he left the stables in an inebriated state, wandered down to the canal, happened across the victim and murdered him, before returning and pretending nothing had happened.’

‘If he was drunk.’

‘I assume his girlfriend corroborates that.’

‘She’s fourteen, Mr Gregson. Young enough to be taken in by a clever act.’

Cole slammed his fist on the table. ‘Cut the crap! You know he didn’t do it. He’s a kid, not a criminal mastermind.’

They ignored him. ‘Ryan, did Carlisle jump you again? Was it self-defence on your part? Did it all go too far?’

I sank my head into my hands. ‘No, I never saw him after he ran off in the village. I keep telling you.’

The detective leaned towards me. ‘I’m going to ask you one final time. Did you kill Steven Carlisle?’

I sat up and looked right back at him. ‘No.’

‘I think he’s made himself clear.’ Gregson looked at his watch. ‘Are you going to charge him or release him?’

‘Neither,’ the policeman said. ‘I’m going to get a search going for this vodka bottle. I can hold him here until the morning if we need to.’

‘He’s a juvenile and –’

‘And he’s NFA.’

I looked a question at Gregson.

‘No fixed address,’ he told me.

‘What if you find the bottle?’ I asked.