Page 7 of A Slow Fire Burning

Eyebrow started to say something, her voice light and musical as though she was telling a funny story and was just about to get to the punch line. “Mr. Sutherland died of massive blood loss; he had knife wounds to the chest and neck. His time of death is yet to be formally established, but our science officer felt it likely to be around twenty-four to thirty-six hours before he was discovered. Now, you say you were with Mr. Sutherland on Friday night, is that right?”

Laura’s face burned, her eyes stung. Idiot. She was an idiot. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I was with him on Friday night.”

“On Friday night. And you went back to his houseboat with him, yes? You had sex with him, you said? Twice, wasn’t it? And what time exactly on Saturday morning did you leave Mr. Sutherland?”

A trap. It was a trap, and she’d walked straight into it. Idiot. She scraped her teeth over her lower lip, bit down hard.Don’t say anything, she imagined a solicitor would say to her.Don’t talk to anyone.She shook her head, a small sound coming from the back of her throat, seemingly without her volition.

“What was that? Laura? Did you say something, Laura?”

“I’m sorry he’s dead and everything,” she said, ignoring the advice coming from within her own head, “but I didn’t do anything.You hear me? I didn’t do anything. I didn’t stab anyone. Anyone who says I did is a liar. He was... I don’t know, he said stuff to me, stuff I didn’t like. I didn’tdoanything. Maybe I hit him, maybe...” She could taste blood in her mouth; she swallowed hard. “Don’t... just don’t try to say that I did this, because I had nothing to do with it. Maybe there was some pushing and shoving, but that was it, you know, and then he was gone, so that was that, you know. That was that. It’s not my fault, you see, it’s not my fault, even... the fight or whatever, it’s not my fault.”

Laura could hear her own voice going on and on and on, rising higher and higher. She could tell what she sounded like, like a mad person ranting, like one of those crazy people who stands at a street corner and shouts at nothing, she knew that was what she sounded like and she couldn’t stop herself.

“Gone?” Eyebrow said. “You said, ‘Then he was gone.’ What did you mean by that, Laura?”

“I mean he was gone. He left, walked out, what d’you think? After we fought—not really fought, but you know—after that, he just put on his jeans and his shirt and he walked out and just left me there.”

“In his house... on his boat, alone?”

“That’s right. I suppose he was the trusting sort,” she said, and she laughed, which she knew was completely inappropriate and yet still, she couldn’t stop herself, because it was funny, the thought that he was trusting, wasn’t it? Under the circumstances? Not funny ha ha, maybe, but still. Once she’d started laughing, she found that she couldn’t stop; she felt herself going red in the face, as though she were choking. The detectives looked at each other.

Eyebrow shrugged. “I’ll just go and get her a glass of water,” she said at last.

A moment later, Laura heard the detective call out, not from thekitchen, but from the bathroom. “Sir, do you want to come through here a minute?”

The bald one got up, and as he did, Laura felt a wave of panic rise, chasing the laughter clean out of her chest. She said, “Hang on a minute, I didn’t say you could go through there,” but it was too late. She followed them to the threshold of the bathroom, where Eyebrow stood, pointing first at the sink, where Laura had left the watch (the one belonging, unmistakably, to Daniel Sutherland, his initials engraved on the back), and then to Laura’s bloodstained T-shirt, scrunched in a ball in the corner of the room.

“I cut myself,” Laura said, her face burning red, “I told you that. I cut myself when I climbed through the window.”

“You did tell us that,” Egg said. “Do you want to tell us about the watch, too?”

“I took it,” Laura said sullenly, “obviously. I took it. But it’s not what you think. I just did it to piss him off. I was going to... I don’t know, throw it in the canal, tell him to go fetch. But then I... I don’t know, I thought it might mean something, you know, when I saw the engraving on the back and I thought, like, what if his mother had given it to him before she died or whatever and it was irreplaceable? I was going to give it back to him.”

Egg looked at her sadly, as though he had some very bad news, which in a way he did. “What’s going to happen now,” he said, “is that we’re going to take you over to the police station to answer some more questions. You’ll be answering questions under caution, you understand what that means? That you have the right to remain silent if you wish to, you don’t have to answer the questions. There will be a solicitor there if you like, to explain it to you. And we’re also going to take some samples from you, for comparison with what was found at the scene.”

“Samples? What does that mean?”

“An officer at the station will scrape under your fingernails, comb your hair for fibers, that sort of thing. It’s nothing invasive, nothing to worry about.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Laura’s voice quavered. She wanted someone to help her and she couldn’t think who it was she should call. “Can I say no?”

“It’s all right, Laura.” Eyebrow’s voice turned soothing. “It’s all very simple and easy; there’s nothing to be frightened of.”

“That’s a lie,” Laura said. “You know that’s a lie.”

“The other thing we’re going to do,” Egg said, “is apply for a warrant to search your home, and I’m sure you realize that under the circumstances we’re not going to have any trouble getting one, so if there’s anything else you think we need to know about, it’d be a good idea to tell us now, okay?”

Laura considered the question. She tried to think whether there was anything she should tell them, but her mind was a blank. Eyebrow was talking to her, touching her arm, and she flinched. “Your clothes, Laura? Can you show us what you were wearing on Friday night?”

Laura plucked random items of clothing from the floor in her room. She handed them a pair of jeans, which she may or may not have been wearing, she flung a bra in their general direction. She went to the loo, leaving the two of them in the hallway, Egg’s head bent down to listen to whatever it was Eyebrow was saying. Laura paused at the bathroom door, heard the woman mutter something aboutengravedand somethingoddandnot really all there, is she?

Sitting on the loo, her knickers around her ankles, Laura smiled ruefully to herself. She’d been called worse. Not all there?Not all therewas nothing,not all therewas pretty much a compliment by comparison to all the other things she’d been called over the years: mong, freak, spaz, cabbage, retard, nutter.

Fucking psychowas what Daniel Sutherland had called her, when she’d gone for him, properly gone for him, kicking, punching, clawing at him. He grabbed her, digging his thumbs into the flesh of her upper arms. “You fucking psycho, you... crazybitch.”

It all turned so fast. One moment she was lying there on his bed smoking a cigarette and the next she was on the towpath with blood on her face and his watch in her pocket. As the detectives escorted her down seven flights, Laura wondered how she could tell them the truth of the thing, that she’d taken the watch out of spite, yes, but strangely out of hope too. She’d wanted to punish him, but she’d also wanted to give herself an excuse to return, to see him again.

No chance of that now, though, was there?

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