Instead, for reasons he was later unable to explain to himself or anyone else, still wearing his black waiter’s trousers and the white shirt stained with Michelle’s blood, he had lain down on the velveteen sofa in his nan’s front room. The night was chilly. He was shivering with cold, but did not even think about digging out a sweater or a blanket. The TV in the corner was tuned to a bad movie, but Alfonso was not really watching.
His family were all devout Catholics. He had taken one of his nan’s several crucifixes off the wall and was clutching it to his chest. He could not explain why he was doing that, either.
Alfonso’s mind was racing, replaying the events of the last few days, particularly the attacks on Marlena and Michelle and the injuries they had both suffered. He’d been told at the hospital that Michelle would require plastic surgery to repair her face. But it wasn’t only the extent of Michelle’s injuries that had left him in a state of shock. He couldn’t stop thinking about his own situation. Now only he and Ari remained unscathed, as it were. And if that wasn’t enough to draw the finger of suspicion, Alfonso had been in the immediate vicinity of the two most brutal incidents.
The two officers who’d arrived while the ambulancemen were attending to Michelle had been unaware that it was the latest in a series of incidents. When they asked what had happened, he told them that he’d been walking home from the Vine when he heard a woman screaming. His name was already on the police computer because of the statement he’d given about the attack on Marlena. The similarities between the two attacks would not go unnoticed. Particularly when they came to the attention of that CID man with the intelligent eyes. He had already seemed suspicious of Alfonso when they’d met for coffee the previous evening. How would he react when he learned that Alfonso had been witness to a second attack? Detective Sergeant David Vogel did not strike Alfonso as a man who would be prepared to accept a single coincidence, let alone a double one.
The wailing siren seemed to be very close now, loud above the noise of the TV. Perhaps it was more than one siren. Alfonso wasn’t sure. They couldn’t be coming for him, could they? Not yet. Not that quickly. He jumped up off the sofa and ran to the window overlooking the street.
Tugging the heavy brocade curtain to one side, he peered out. He couldn’t see a police car and neither could he hear one any more. Maybe it had passed by. He tried to reassure himself that was what must have happened, but in his mind’s eye he pictured the patrol car parking up outside, and police officers climbing the concrete staircase to the walkway that ran along the 1950s council block to his nan’s flat. He had after all, under protest and against his better judgement, given DS Vogel the full address.
He stood by the window of the third-floor maisonette, listening and watching for less than a minute. It seemed longer. Part of him wanted to run away, to escape from it all, but he had nowhere to run to.
When he heard the hammering on the front door, it came almost as a relief. Bang, bang, bang. Then a male voice calling out — not Vogel; this voice was harsher and much harder.
‘Police, open up. Police. Open up!’
On autopilot, Alfonso did as he was told. He walked into the hall and opened the front door. Several police officers burst in, including a woman in plain clothes, another detective, Alfonso assumed. One of the male uniformed officers grabbed his arms and held them firmly behind his back. Vogel followed, his manner far less aggressive, those intelligent eyes sweeping over Alfonso.
‘Mr Bertorelli, DC Jones and I need to question you further in connection with the attack on PC Michelle Monahan a few hours ago,’ Vogel said. ‘I understand you were a witness to this attack and that you travelled to University College Hospital with PC Monahan. Is that the case?’
Alfonso agreed that it was. ‘I was walking back here,’ he continued lamely.
‘Isn’t it rather a long walk, Mr Bertorelli?’
Alfonso shrugged. ‘I do it in about forty-five minutes,’ he said. ‘The only exercise I take is getting to and from work.’
‘I see,’ said Vogel, in the unmistakable tone of voice of one who clearly did not. ‘Well, sir, I should warn you that there are certain formalities we must now proceed with, and that I have a warrant to search this property.’
Alfonso had been half-expecting this, but he was stunned all the same. He knew he wasn’t functioning properly and felt as if he would probably never function properly again.
‘Is there anyone else here, Mr Bertorelli?’ asked DC Pam Jones.
‘What?’
It was hard for Alfonso to answer the simplest of questions. Nothing was registering in his brain. There was only thick fog inside his head. He should have been prepared, but he wasn’t. Not at all.
‘Y-yes,’ he stumbled. ‘My nan. She’s in bed. Asleep.’
‘Right,’ Vogel interjected. ‘Heavy sleeper, is she?’
‘Yes. I suppose so. She’s poorly. The doctor gives her pills. Why?’
‘Because I thought we’d made enough noise to wake most people up, Mr Bertorelli,’ persisted Vogel. ‘Now, perhaps you’d like to rouse your nan and bring her down here. Might give her less of a shock than one of these chaps bursting in on her.’
Vogel gestured vaguely in the direction of his and DC Jones’ uniformed escort. In their equipment-packed tactical vests they certainly looked frightening to Alfonso. He nodded. Subdued. Submissive. He began to make his way towards the door that led out to the hall, aware that one of the constables seemed to be planning to accompany him.
Suddenly Vogel ordered them to wait, then took a step towards the second door off the sitting room, which led directly into the kitchen, and pointed at a washing machine in the far corner. It was running.
‘Doing a wash, are you, Mr Bertorelli?’ queried Vogel. ‘At this hour in the morning?’
Alfonso shook his head. He looked puzzled.
‘Maybe Nan put it on, before she went to bed.’
‘Long cycle, unless your gran keeps extremely late hours,’ said Pam Jones, pointedly checking her watch. The time was 5.10 a.m.
Alfonso shrugged and made his way upstairs, followed as he’d thought he would be by a uniformed PC. When he returned, Vogel was still standing in the kitchen doorway staring at the washing machine.
‘Nan’s on her way down, she’s just getting dressed,’ Alfonso said.
Vogel didn’t respond. The machine appeared to be in spin mode now. As if on cue, it came to the end of its cycle and stopped. Vogel opened the door and pulled out a small bundle of damp washing, letting it fall to the floor. He sifted quickly through and pulled out a grey hoody.
‘No DNA left on this, I shouldn’t think,’ he muttered.
Then he held the garment up and showed it to Alfonso.
‘Yours, sir, I assume?’ he said.
‘No,’ Alfonso replied, in a high-pitched voice he didn’t recognize as his own. ‘I’ve never seen it before in my life.’
‘I see, sir. So how do you suppose it got into your grandmother’s washing machine?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Might it belong to your grandmother?’ Vogel’s voice was heavy with irony. ‘Wears hoodies, does she?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Right. So you’ve never seen this hoody before, and yet it’s being washed in your washing machine in the early hours of the morning.’
‘My nan’s washing machine,’ Alfonso responded.
‘Mr Bertorelli, I advise you to think very carefully before you make any remarks that might be regarded as facetious,’ said Vogel. ‘I surely don’t have to remind you what a serious matter this is.’