Fabric was wrapped around her, a shroud. Her eyes struggled to focus. Where was she? Freddie could hear Mardling’s blood dripping onto the floor. No! No, it was the kitchen tap. She was home. Alone. Another boom shook through her skull. Ajay? They’d left the bar. There’d been a bottle of wine in the park. Some cans. How’d she got home? She groped for her glasses. Her head reverberated with another bang. The door. Someone was hammering on the door. Ajay? Her flatmates? She stumbled out of bed, grabbed the nearest thing: her H&M Espress-oh’s shirt, still half-buttoned, she pulled it over her head. Dizzying herself with the effort.
Her eyes were stuck at the corners, she followed the crystallised salt tracks with her fingers. Peeling her Sellotaped tongue from the roof of her mouth, she managed: ‘Coming!’ The word was wet, sodden, heavy, though her mouth was dry. Everywhere was darkness. Another thud landed on her like a punch. How much sleep? Still drunk. Boom: her mind shook with fragments of memory. She tried to rub the image of Mardling’s body from her eyes with her fingers. Would a murderer knock?
‘Freddie Venton!’ a male voice shouted from the other side. Bailiffs? Like before. She tried to formulate her thoughts, sort them into order. What was she to say? The Mac was P-something’s. A flatmate’s. They couldn’t take it.
‘Freddie Venton, open up!’ The noise crashed like thunder over her head. Stumbling, she got a hand on the lock, pulled.
Light from the hallway sent her reeling back.
Nas was there, in a black trouser suit, white shirt. Her dark hair swept up away from her face. Chocolate eyes flashing in creamy whites. She had chunky boots on. Next to her: the blue puffa jacket guy who’d been with her at St Pancras. Up close, Freddie could see his blonde hair was silvering, thinning, probably why he had it shaved to a bristly number one. Unfortunately his close-cropped hair accentuated the square shape of his head. He looked like a Lego man. He was in pale pink shirtsleeves, jeans, glowing white trainers: ready to pounce. She could see their mouths open and close like fish. The air pressed upon her, heavy, as if she were underwater, words bubbled toward her. Don’t. Be. Sick.
‘Venton…you…connection…harm…defence.’ Their fish words didn’t fit together.
‘Nas?’
What was puffa saying? Concentrate on breathing. Don’t. Be. Sick. In. Out. In.
Nas’s hands gripped her shoulders. Anchoring her. ‘Freddie? Do you understand? You have to come with us?’ Freddie nodded. Her brain shrank away from her skull, dehydrated, a husk. Nasreen’s face came into focus. She looked older. Colder. Distant. ‘Put some trousers on,’ Nasreen said.
Freddie looked down. She was wearing her Little Mermaid pants. Tufts of mousey pubic hair curled round the edges.
What was going on? They walked in close formation down the stairs. In silence. Each step an earthquake in Freddie’s body. She needed a Coke. A bacon sandwich. Her stomach tidal-waved. No, no food yet. In. Out. In. Out.
Outside was a waiting police car. Nasreen held open the back door for her. Nasreen’s patronising hand guided the top of her head. At the edges of her consciousness something flickered. A warning. Freddie leant her head against the cool glass of the window, closed her eyes and willed herself not to vom. She was thankful they travelled in silence.
They were at Jubilee police station, the aging 1970s jewel in the Tower Hamlets policing borough, a clusterfuck of concrete and white metal-framed windows. She recognised it from the TV news. Nas held the door for her again. Freddie took some steadying gulps of air. The street lights hurt her eyes. The puffa guy strode off. Nas looked pissed.
Freddie’s mouth moistened enough to speak. The words disjointed. ‘This about the dead dude?’
‘Sergeant Byrne will check you in.’
They were stood inside the entrance hall of the station – it looked nothing like Heartbeat, the ancient cop show her mum was always re-watching. Scratched wooden-framed glass doors, which reminded Freddie of her old school maths classrooms, were at each end of the room. The geometric pattern of green shatterproof glass filled every available pane, blocking out all hope of natural light. Posters warning of car theft and pickpockets barely clung to the walls. Fluorescent strip lighting finished off the effect: everything had a cold blue tinge to it. It was as comforting as being inside an ice cube. Sergeant Byrne, a fat man in his fifties, leant against the desk like he couldn’t support his own weight.
Booked in? What was this?
‘Please empty all your pockets into the tray,’ the Duty Sergeant’s voice was heavy with contempt. Either that or he had a nasty sinus infection, Freddie thought.
Nas stood wordless.
The contents of Freddie’s hastily pulled on jeans pockets and jacket were documented and placed in individual plastic bags: ‘One iPhone, one wallet; contents: a Hackney library card, a Visa debit card, two Visa credit cards, one receipt from Vacate bar, fifty-seven pence in loose change. One set of keys. Two unopened banana-flavoured condoms.’
‘It’s easier to get into the airport than in here!’ Freddie said. No one laughed.
The copper pulled a small white powdery triangle out of her pocket and held it up to her.
‘It’s a Smint,’ her eyes were too gritty to roll. ‘No one has time to do drugs.’
He sniffed it. ‘One fluffy mint.’ The Sergeant dropped it into a bag and plunged his hand back into her jacket pocket.
‘You can chuck that if you want,’ Freddie nodded at the empty sanitary towel wrapper he pulled out. He dropped the wrapper into its own sealed plastic bag and placed it on top of her other belongings in the tray.
‘Remove the laces from your shoes.’ He took a sip from a vending machine plastic cup of coffee he had under the desk.
Her synapses crackled, her neurotransmitters jump-started. ‘What? This is a fucking joke, right? I’m being punked?’
‘Mind your language.’ He spoke like her dad. Why Is a Young Woman Swearing So Offensive to Men?
‘Dude, these are DMs, it’ll take me half an hour.’
‘Now,’ he said. His small piggy eyes disappearing into the fat of his face.
Freddie looked at Nasreen who was staring straight ahead. Her stomach settled into a hollow feeling of dread. What had Nas and that guy said to her when they picked her up from her flat? She flopped onto a plastic bench that was bolted to the ground. 100 Everyday Objects That Can Kill You.
‘There,’ she slapped the laces onto the counter. ‘I’ll never get them back the way they were. Happy?’
‘This way, Miss Venton.’ Nasreen pushed a button to release the interconnecting door.
Miss Venton? ‘When can I have my phone back? I need to let my boss know I’ll be late.’ Freddie followed Nasreen’s silent back; her boots flapping round her ankles with each step. ‘Seriously, Nas, what the hell is going on? I’m sorry ’bout what I said earlier. About you sounding like your mum, and that.’ She limped behind Nas as they passed offices with blinds pulled down and closed blue-painted MDF doors. ‘I didn’t mean any harm. I was just doing my job.’
Nasreen stopped and spun round, her
