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Authors: Dorothy Koomson
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but I do not recognise him. He probably hasn’t arrested anyone I’ve ever represented, but then they don’t usually bother themselves with the small-time criminals I take care of.
‘So, Mr Britcham,
Jack
,’ she says, dramatically raising her penand pressing the point into the notepad, ‘do want to tell me what happened?’
‘They’ve got you on a routine road accident?’ I ask. ‘What did you do to get demoted?’
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Jack, but when I heard that it wasn’t any ordinary accident because you and your wife were involved, I
had
to come and see for myself how you were going to explain away another woman dying by your side.’
She has a way of modulating her speech so that everything sounds sarcastic and condescending but, more than that, as if you’re guilty of something she’ll eventually find out about.
‘She’s not going to die.’
‘Let’s hope not, eh? Because it’d be pretty difficult to explain away two dead wives – both with only you as a witness – won’t it?’
‘There were plenty of witnesses and someone drove into us, not the other way around.’
‘Hmmm, but it’s odd, don’t you think, how your airbag deployed and your wife’s didn’t?’
‘The passenger airbag was faulty. I kept meaning to get it checked but never got around to it. I hate myself for that.’
‘Did your wife know the airbag was faulty?’
‘Yes,’ I say through gritted teeth.
‘A suspicious person might say this was an accident waiting to happen. Or should that be
fated
to happen?’
‘If you’ve got something to say, Ms Morgan, say it.’
She shakes her head, twists her miserly little mouth and fractionally cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘No, nothing. I just wonder if your second wife knows that being married to you should come with a health warning – something about a short life expectancy.’
‘If you’ve got evidence that I killed …’ I still find it hard to say her name. I try not to around Libby, but in general it is a name that causes a sob to swell in the back of my throat, a name that claws her memory across my tongue as I speak it. ‘… Eve, then charge me and we can go to trial. If you haven’t then I’d appreciate it if you left me alone.’
‘Ah, Jack, if I left you alone, you’d think you’d got away with it, and I can’t ever let you think that.’
She wants me to lose my temper, she wants me to shout at her, to show her the other side of me. This is what she did during the interrogations last time: she would push and goad until I snapped. Then she would be in there, asking, ‘Is this what happened? Did she wind you up about her past and you accidentally killed her? It’d be understandable, some women can drive a man to it. They do things that are just asking for a slap or two to keep them in line. Is that what happened? We’d understand if it was.’ And even in my rage I’d tell her that I couldn’t hurt anyone like that, especially not Eve. ‘I love her,’ I’d repeated over and over. ‘I love her, how can you kill someone you love?’
‘Are you going to take my statement about the crash or not?’ I ask calmly.
She’s a little peeved that I’ve ignored her last verbal dig. ‘Why of course, it should make for interesting bedtime reading.’ She flips over to a clean page in her book and again dramatically raises her pen. ‘Go on, Jack, hit me with it.’
Behind her, I see the surgeon who talked to me briefly before he went in to operate on Libby coming towards me. He still has a surgical cap around his head and a mask around his chin, and his look is troubled. My heart feels like it has jumped out of a plane without a parachute and is freefalling from a great height.
I gather up my courage and step around the policewoman to go to meet him. ‘Mr Britcham,’ he says. I didn’t realise until I heard him say my name that I have already braced myself for the worst.
libby
April, 2009
‘Tell me about Eve.’
Since we’d
‘So, Mr Britcham,
Jack
,’ she says, dramatically raising her penand pressing the point into the notepad, ‘do want to tell me what happened?’
‘They’ve got you on a routine road accident?’ I ask. ‘What did you do to get demoted?’
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Jack, but when I heard that it wasn’t any ordinary accident because you and your wife were involved, I
had
to come and see for myself how you were going to explain away another woman dying by your side.’
She has a way of modulating her speech so that everything sounds sarcastic and condescending but, more than that, as if you’re guilty of something she’ll eventually find out about.
‘She’s not going to die.’
‘Let’s hope not, eh? Because it’d be pretty difficult to explain away two dead wives – both with only you as a witness – won’t it?’
‘There were plenty of witnesses and someone drove into us, not the other way around.’
‘Hmmm, but it’s odd, don’t you think, how your airbag deployed and your wife’s didn’t?’
‘The passenger airbag was faulty. I kept meaning to get it checked but never got around to it. I hate myself for that.’
‘Did your wife know the airbag was faulty?’
‘Yes,’ I say through gritted teeth.
‘A suspicious person might say this was an accident waiting to happen. Or should that be
fated
to happen?’
‘If you’ve got something to say, Ms Morgan, say it.’
She shakes her head, twists her miserly little mouth and fractionally cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘No, nothing. I just wonder if your second wife knows that being married to you should come with a health warning – something about a short life expectancy.’
‘If you’ve got evidence that I killed …’ I still find it hard to say her name. I try not to around Libby, but in general it is a name that causes a sob to swell in the back of my throat, a name that claws her memory across my tongue as I speak it. ‘… Eve, then charge me and we can go to trial. If you haven’t then I’d appreciate it if you left me alone.’
‘Ah, Jack, if I left you alone, you’d think you’d got away with it, and I can’t ever let you think that.’
She wants me to lose my temper, she wants me to shout at her, to show her the other side of me. This is what she did during the interrogations last time: she would push and goad until I snapped. Then she would be in there, asking, ‘Is this what happened? Did she wind you up about her past and you accidentally killed her? It’d be understandable, some women can drive a man to it. They do things that are just asking for a slap or two to keep them in line. Is that what happened? We’d understand if it was.’ And even in my rage I’d tell her that I couldn’t hurt anyone like that, especially not Eve. ‘I love her,’ I’d repeated over and over. ‘I love her, how can you kill someone you love?’
‘Are you going to take my statement about the crash or not?’ I ask calmly.
She’s a little peeved that I’ve ignored her last verbal dig. ‘Why of course, it should make for interesting bedtime reading.’ She flips over to a clean page in her book and again dramatically raises her pen. ‘Go on, Jack, hit me with it.’
Behind her, I see the surgeon who talked to me briefly before he went in to operate on Libby coming towards me. He still has a surgical cap around his head and a mask around his chin, and his look is troubled. My heart feels like it has jumped out of a plane without a parachute and is freefalling from a great height.
I gather up my courage and step around the policewoman to go to meet him. ‘Mr Britcham,’ he says. I didn’t realise until I heard him say my name that I have already braced myself for the worst.
libby
April, 2009
‘Tell me about Eve.’
Since we’d
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