in first. Pete had stopped suddenly on the stairs and screamed, ‘Marion, Marion!’ He went to her. Karen had followed and saw Marion lying there. She checked for signs of life.
She shivered. Arm Rubber gave me a look that said: ‘C’mon mate, I think she’s had enough’, but I hadn’t. I may have been new to murder, but I understood the value of first-hand, untainted, lawyer-free testimony.
‘Go on,’ I demanded.
‘I got her blood on my hands, so I washed them. Then I had to get out of there.’
A shiver rattled her entire frame.
‘Did Pete definitely unlock both doors?’ I asked. She nodded and bowed her head. Her centre parting wobbled and so did I.
‘Look, Karen, I’m sorry, I have to ask … we need to find whoever did this.’
She sniffed hard at the pavement, and I lamented yet another failure to channel my inner bad cop. I fought the urge to place a comforting hand on her quivering shoulder and walked away.
I joined Clive inside the front door just as three hotshot detectives swaggered in. The senior of the trio wore the hangdog expression of a man put out by life. ‘Detective Superintendent Glenn,’ he barked. Clive unloaded the basic detail while DS Glenn nodded impatiently. As I took up the slack, he fixed me with a scowl. Clearly, I was way too excited for his deadpan taste.
They made what seemed to me a cursory inspection of the crime scene: skirting around it as you might a dead bird on the pavement, or a splatter of puke. Then DS Glenn stomped off outside.
‘Is that it?’ I asked Clive.
‘It’s not Magnum P.I.,’ he laughed, ‘they’ll wait for forensics and statements, then they’ll decide what lines of enquiry to take.’
One of Hangdog Glenn’s bitches stopped by on his way out to treat us to a condescending glare: ‘What time do you go off duty, lads?’
‘We finished almost an hour ago at nine,’ said Clive, all chipper, just so he’d know we didn’t mind the inconvenience one bit.
‘Okay, call Clapham. Get them to send an officer to guard the door overnight and an unmarked car to take the husband and woman in to make a statement.’
‘Right now?’ I asked.
‘Of course right now,’ he spat, ‘and we’ll need statements from you two before you start your shifts tomorrow.’ He scuttled off down the garden steps, his gumshoe mac flapping in the summer breeze. At the gate, he turned. ‘Make sure you get the front door keys off the husband,’ he shouted, not realising that said husband was stood right there.
As Peter fished around for his keys, Clive and I descended the steps towards him. A sickening dread tugged at my guts. What could I possibly say to him now? I thought back to all those funerals in Ireland, how we always spouted the same stock phrases to mourners. ‘Doesn’t he look peaceful?’ was a classic. I mean what did we expect? Signs of a struggle? Fingernail scratch marks down the side of the coffin?
Then I remembered the one cover-all stock phrase, used by everyone when coming face-to-face with the principal mourners: ‘I’m sorry for your trouble.’ That line always seemed so anodyne, so emotionally detached, so generic. My brother Fintan and I used to dream up equivalents. ‘Oh dear,’ was his favourite. I liked: ‘Sure, it could be worse.’
Clive took Peter’s keys and spoke first. ‘Who else has a set?’
‘Just me and … Marion,’ said Peter, his voice cracking at the mention of her name.
‘We’re fetching a car for you and your colleague. I’m afraid we need statements from both of you tonight.’
Peter just stared into space.
‘Where can you go after the police station?’ asked Clive. ‘Have you got family near here?’
Peter shook his pale face mournfully. ‘The only place I can go is to Marion’s mum and dad up in Enfield.’
Clive and I exchanged frowns.
‘Do you think that’s wise, son?’ asked Clive. Peter looked at him blankly.
‘Okay,’ said Clive, ‘first I’ve got to get officers round there to tell them the news.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ Peter gasped and we all baulked. Every parent’s worst nightmare: the death knock. Peter walked slowly away from us but I could hear every word. ‘Oh Jesus, Jesus,’ he muttered, over and over.
A sudden deafening bellow made us jump. Peter’s wails were primeval, from the very core of his being. My mind flashed back to the time the Dalys’ prize-winning cow died howling in their shed. I’m sure their mother said she’d developed gangrenous teats. I couldn’t drink milk for a month after.
I turned to Clive: ‘If he did it, he surely wouldn’t go and stay with her family.’
‘He’s either innocent or one hell of an actor,’ said Clive, ‘I mean look at him, he’s shivering like a shitting dog.’
‘Maybe he’s racked with guilt. She must have known her killer. She let him in.’
‘And it must have been a man,’ said Clive, ‘I mean, just from the point of view of strength. It’s always the man, isn’t it?’
‘They were only married thirteen months,’ I said, ‘I just don’t see it.’
‘Neither did she,’ deadpanned Clive, chuckling as he set off across the road. I wondered if that’s what happened to all cops, in the end.
I couldn’t just leave Peter like that, bent double, bawling at the pavement. I walked over and put a hand on his heaving shoulders. He calmed almost instantly. I couldn’t think of a thing to say, so I said: ‘I’m sorry for your trouble.’
He breathed in deeply.
‘Thank you, Officer,’ he blurted, and I could tell he meant it, before the spasms of grief swept him away once more.
As the car taking Peter and Karen to Clapham police station moved off, a flash of streetlight illuminated the interior. Freeze-framed in the back seat, Peter’s ghostly white face stared straight ahead, as if into an abyss. How I longed for a glimpse inside that mind. On the far side of him, two large teary eyes gazed into his. Then, for a nanosecond, the eyes of Karen Foster locked onto mine, glinting wounded confusion.
The murder scene buzz snapped off like a light. A sense of helplessness gnawed away at my red-raw nerves.
‘Go home, son, you look shattered,’ said Clive, and I lacked the will to argue.
It was less than a mile to the flat I shared with Aidan, an old friend from back home.
Aidan was a psychiatric nurse at the Maudsley hospital, and on ‘earlies’ that week. But I guessed he’d still be up, chain-smoking his Marlboro Reds, noodling on his guitar, crafting a ballad to the latest random woman he’d fallen in love with at the bus stop or in some supermarket queue, the soft eejit.
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