‘Are you all right?’ Charlie Zailer asks me, waiting for me to catch up. ‘You’re limping.’
‘I sprained my ankle yesterday,’ I say, feeling a flush spread across my face.
‘Did you?’ She turns and stands in front of me, forcing me to stop. ‘Sprained ankles generally swell to twice their size. Yours doesn’t look swollen. It looks to me as if it’s your foot that’s sore. Has someone hurt you, Ruth? You seem very far from all right to me. Has your boyfriend hurt you, maybe?’
‘Aidan?’ I think about the way he kisses the straight line of pink scar tissue that starts below my ribcage and runs down over my stomach. He’s never asked what caused it, neither on that first night in London nor since.
He is incapable of harming anybody. I know he is.
‘Aidan?’ Charlie Zailer repeats. ‘Is that your boyfriend’s name?’
I nod.
‘Has Aidan hurt you?’ She folds her arms, blocking the corridor so that I can’t pass her. I don’t know where we’re going anyway; I have no choice but to wait.
‘No. I’ve got a . . . a bad blister on my foot, that’s all. It hurts when my shoe rubs against it.’
‘Why not say so, then? Why pretend a blister’s a sprained ankle?’
I can’t understand why I’m out of breath. I clench my teeth, against the pain in my foot and against her attitude. Knowing what she’s been through, I expected her to be kind. Understanding.
‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ she says in a loud, clear voice, as if she’s talking to a small child. ‘I’ll settle you in one of our reception rooms, sort us out with some tea, see if I can find a plaster for your foot . . .’
‘I don’t need a plaster,’ I say. New beads of sweat prickle my upper lip. ‘It’s fine, honestly. You don’t need to—’
‘. . . And then we’ll talk about your boyfriend. Aidan.’ She starts to walk again. I have to half run to keep up with her. Is it a test? The pain is constant now; I picture a wide, weeping gash beneath my toes, with whatever caused it embedded in the wound, pushing its way deeper in with every step. The effort I’m making not to think about it is like a tight thread in my mind, winding tighter and tighter. My eyes ache to close. I’m aware of the sound of my breathing, of the air rushing out of my lungs and having to be dragged back in.
I follow Charlie Zailer round a corner and we are in another corridor, colder than the last, with windows all along one side. No pictures here, only a row of framed certificates, all with some sort of official-looking stamp on them, but they’re high up on the wall and we’re going too fast for me to read the writing.
I stop when I see a pale green door ahead. I’ve done this before: walked down a long passageway towards a closed door.
Green. Dark green.
‘Ruth?’ Sergeant Zailer is calling me, snapping her fingers in the air. ‘You look as if you’re in shock. What’s wrong? Is it your foot?’
‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.’
‘Are you asthmatic? Have you got an inhaler?’
Asthmatic? I don’t know what she’s talking about. ‘I’m all right,’ I tell her.
‘Well, come on, then.’ When I don’t move, she doubles back on herself, takes my arm and, with one hand on my back, steers me down the corridor, saying something about tea and coffee that sounds more complicated than a simple either-or offer. I mumble, ‘Thanks,’ hoping it’s the right answer. She unlocks the green door, directs me to a chair, tells me to wait. I don’t want her to leave me alone but I’m unwilling to ask her not to, knowing how pathetic I’d sound.
The room contains two chairs apart from the one I’m sitting on, a waste-paper basket and a table with a white-flowered cyclamen on it. The plant is too big for its pot. It must have been for some time, yet someone has been watering it regularly, or else its foliage wouldn’t look so lush. What fool would water a plant day after day and not realise it needed re-potting?
Green.
The door of our room at the Drummond Hotel in London was green. One night of my life, one night out of thirty-eight years, but part of me is still there, trapped in the night that Aidan told me. Part of me never left that hotel.
All my books say there’s no point wasting your energy on ‘if only’s. They offer no advice about what to do if you’re hooked on them. There are no patches available in chemists’ shops that an ‘if only’ addict can stick on her arm to help break the destructive habit.
If only Aidan and I hadn’t gone to London last December, the nightmare I’m living now would never have started.
‘My boyfriend told me he killed a woman, but he didn’t.’
‘I need the woman’s name, and details of where we can find her,’ says Sergeant Zailer, ready to write down whatever I say. When I don’t answer immediately, she says, ‘Ruth, if Aidan’s beaten somebody up so badly that—’
‘No! He hasn’t touched her.’ I have to make her understand. ‘She’s fine. Nobody’s hurt. I . . . He hasn’t been anywhere near her, I’m sure he hasn’t.’
‘Nobody’s hurt?’ Charlie Zailer looks stumped.
‘No.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Yes.’
She thinks for a few moments, then smiles at me. ‘All right. Let’s come back to your boyfriend and this woman later,’ she says. ‘I’m going to take a few basic details first, if that’s okay.’ Suddenly, she has an entirely different manner; she is no longer impatient, suspicious. She’s ditched her too-loud patronising voice and is acting as if we’re friends; we might be at a pub quiz, on the same team—she’s writing down the answers. ‘Name? Ruth Bussey, right? B-U-S-S-E-Y?’
‘Yes.’
‘Middle name?’
Does she really want to know? Is she joking? ‘Zinta.’
She laughs. ‘Really?’
‘My mother’s Latvian.’
‘It’s a great name,’ she says. ‘I’ve always wanted a more interesting middle name. Mine’s Elizabeth. And your address?’
‘Blantyre Lodge, Blantyre Park, Spil—’
‘You live in the park?’
‘In the lodge house, just inside the park gates.’
‘That funny little house with the black and white top?’
Timber-panelled gables.
I don’t correct her. I nod.
‘I see that house every day on my drive to work. That’s yours?’
‘I rent it. I don’t own it.’
‘One thing I’ve always wondered: how do you get those red leaves to grow down the roof like that, like a fringe? Did you plant something in the chimney? I mean, I can understand a plant growing up the side of a house, but . . .’
‘Why does any of this matter?’ I blurt out. ‘I’m only the tenant. I didn’t plant anything anywhere.’
‘Who’s your landlord?’
‘The council.’ I sigh, recognising the need to be patient, however impossible that might seem. If I try to speed things up, she will make sure to slow them down. Her cheery determination is like a restraint around me, pinning me in my chair for as long as she wants me there.
‘How long have you lived there, Ruth?’
‘Nearly four years.’
‘And no trouble paying your rent on time during those years?’
Another odd question. There must be a reason for it. ‘No.’
‘Not tempted to buy a place? Get on the property ladder?’
‘I . . .’
This is ludicrous.
‘I’m not ready to . . .’
‘Commit to home-ownership? Put down roots?’ Charlie Zailer suggests, still smiling. ‘Fair enough. I felt that way for a long time.’ She taps her pen against the hard cover of her notebook. ‘What was your address before Blantyre Lodge?’
‘I . . . Could I have a drink, please?’
‘Tea’s on the way. Where did you live before Blantyre Lodge?’
With my eyes fixed on the table in front of me, I recite my old address: ‘84 Pople Street, Lincoln.’
‘Also rented?’
‘No. That house was mine.’
‘So you’d put down roots in Lincoln. Why did you move?’
I open my mouth to lie, then remember what a hash I made of my last attempt at dishonesty: my fake sprained ankle. I rub the palms of my hands against my jeans, wiping off the sticky dampness. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions? What does it matter why I moved? I’m here to talk about my boyfriend . . .’
The door opens. A tall, thin man who looks too young to have left school comes in holding two mugs of tea. Proper mugs that look like bone china, one with green stripes and one with brown. Mine is chipped at the top. ‘Perfect timing.’ Sergeant Zailer smiles at her colleague, then at me. He mouths something at her, pointing at her notebook. She says, ‘Apparently nobody’s hurt,’ and gives him a look I can’t decipher. ‘Thanks, Robbie.’ Once Robbie has left us alone, closing the door behind him, she says, ‘Drink your tea and relax, Ruth. There’s no hurry. I know you’ve got something you want to tell me, and we’ll get there, I promise. The questions I’m asking—they’re all standard. Nothing to worry about.’
In other words, there is no way I can avoid answering them. What a fool I was to imagine Charlie Zailer would be more sensitive than any other police officer. After what happened to her, she probably resolved to fill the space her feelings used to occupy with sheet metal. I tried to do the same thing myself for a long time; I understand the logic behind it.
To my relief, she doesn’t ask again why I left Lincoln. Instead, she wants to know if I have a job. I lean forward. Steam from my tea wets my face. Somehow it’s comforting.
‘I work for my boyfriend,’ I tell her.
‘What’s his name?’ She watches me carefully.
‘You know his name.’
‘Aidan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Surname?’
‘Seed.’
‘And what does Aidan do?’
‘He’s got his own picture-framing business, Seed Art Services. ’
‘Oh, I’ve seen the sign. You’re by the river, aren’t you? Near that pub, what’s it called . . .?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long have you worked for Aidan?’
‘Since last August.’
‘Where did you work before that? When you first moved to Spilling?’
I tell myself this will be over soon. Even the worst things end eventually.
‘I didn’t, at first. Then I worked at the Spilling Gallery.’
‘As a picture-framer?’
‘No.’ The word comes out like a cry of pain. It feels like a punishment, this long, drawn-out, pointless interrogation. ‘I didn’t know how to frame pictures then. My boss did the framing. I was a sales assistant—a receptionist, but I also sold pictures to customers. Aidan trained me properly, when I went to work for him.’
‘So now you know how to frame pictures.’ Charlie Zailer sounds pleased with my achievement. ‘Did you work when you lived in Lincoln?’
‘I had my own business.’
She smiles encouragingly. ‘I’m not psychic.’
‘I had a garden design business. Green Haven Gardens,’ I say quickly, before she can ask me.
‘Quite a change, then—garden designer to picture-framer. Your boss at the Spilling Gallery, what was his name?’
‘Saul Hansard,’ I say weakly.
She puts down her notebook and pen. She watches me, the bony fingers of her right hand playing with the ring on her left. It’s a single diamond—a small one with gold claws around it, sticking up from the gold band it’s attached to.
She’s engaged.
I feel excluded from her private happiness, and know I have no right to. It’s a sign of how far back I’ve slipped since London.
The better you understand yourself, the easier it is to change, my books say.
‘So, you and Aidan Seed work together, framing pictures by the river. Ever been flooded?’ Sergeant Zailer asks brightly. ‘I know the pub has. Oh—the Star, that’s what it’s called. I’ve seen your sign—“Seed Art Services, Conservation Framing”—but I assumed you’d shut down. Whenever I look, there’s a sign in the window saying you’re closed.’
I stare at her. I can’t do this any more. I stand up, knocking my legs against the table, spilling tea. More from her mug than mine. ‘Aidan believes he killed a woman called Mary Trelease,’ I tell her again. ‘I know he didn’t.’
‘We’ll be getting to that in a moment,’ she says. ‘Sit down, Ruth. I asked you a question: Seed Art Services is still up and running, is it?’
‘Yes, it is,’ I snap, feeling humiliated. ‘Aidan and I work there, six days a week, sometimes seven. The sign in the window says “Closed except for appointments and deliveries”. We’re too busy to have people dropping in with little odds and ends. If someone only wants one picture framed and they spend half an hour choosing the frame and the mount, we make a loss on that job.’
Charlie Zailer nods. ‘So, who are your customers, then?’
‘
Why?
For God’s sake, why does any of this matter? Local artists, museums and galleries, some corporate customers . . .’
‘And how long has Aidan been in business? His workshop’s been there for as long as—’
‘Six years,’ I cut her off. ‘Do you want to know where we both went to school? Our mothers’ maiden names?’
‘No. I’d like to know where Aidan lives, though. With you?’
‘As good as.’
‘Since when?’
‘Two, two and a half months.’
Since our night in London.
‘He’s also got his own flat, attached to the framing workshop. It’s more of a storeroom than a flat, really. It’s got a tiny kitchen in one corner that barely works. You can’t have the gas rings and the oven on at the same time.’ I stop, aware that I’ve told her more than I needed to.
‘Most single men could live in a grimy bucket and not notice. ’ Sergeant Zailer laughs. ‘So does he own or rent his . . . premises?’
‘He rents.’ I brush my hair away from my eyes. ‘Before you ask, yes, he also pays his rent on time.’
She folds her arms, smiles. ‘All right, Ruth. Thanks for your patience. Now, tell me about Aidan and Mary Trelease.’
Unsure whether I’ve passed or failed whatever bizarre test she has just inflicted upon me, I try to compose myself and say clearly, ‘He didn’t kill her.’
‘Let me clarify this point one more time: to your knowledge, nobody—neither Aidan nor anyone else—has hurt or killed Mary Trelease. Correct?’