‘Look at it, Xander. She was called Michelle. Who was Michelle, Xander?’ Blake asks.
The name. Just the utterance of it pricks a memory from somewhere. Then I remember. Mishal. Michelle? At the cemetery. The new headstone. And then I recall him in the room itself as he stood over her. He called her that. Didn’t he? Chelle. I try to unhook my mind from what I can see, from this room and these two police officers, and try to let my mind spring back to that day.
‘He might have called her Michelle, I think. But there’s mo—’
‘Michelle?’ Conway cuts me off, looking at Blake.
‘Who did?’ she asks.
‘The killer, Ebadi.’
‘Did he? You’re sure?’ Conway says.
‘Sure? No. Not sure. I was hiding behind a sofa. I’m not sure. But the name. I’ve seen it. But not Michelle, like you’re saying it. Mishal,’ I say, inflecting the word.
‘So, you don’t know Michelle, but Mishal rings a bell, you say? Tell me more about that,’ he says.
Mishal rings a bell. Something in that phrase he used sends a current through me. My eyes begin to water in the expectation of a realisation that is just there at the edges of my grasp.
‘I saw the name in a cemetery. Ebadi. I followed him. I think I know where he buried her,’ I say.
‘Actually, Mr Shute, we know exactly where she is and it isn’t buried. She was cremated. Scattered over a park.’
‘But, Mishal,’ I say. ‘It has to be her. Just – you have to look. Mishal. Acton cemetery. M. I. S. H. A. L.,’ I spell it out.
They ignore me, and then at a nudge from Blake, Conway flicks the photograph over to me once again. I look down at the picture, knowing that it is fruitless. And then my heart stops.
‘The name we have for her is Michelle Mackintosh. Not Mishal. We have identified her and that’s her,’ he says, placing a finger on her face. ‘And with her is a man you might recognise. The police investigating this case at the time haven’t made a record of who that man was. Isn’t even a great picture to be fair, but you know him, don’t you, Mr Shute?’
I look down at the man in the picture again and rub my eyes. I don’t understand.
‘Can you help us with who he is?’
I stare at the woman standing next to the man. She does ring a bell. Belle. Michelle. Ma Belle.
Ma Belle. Mabel.
The woman in the picture is Grace.
And that man beside her is me.
31
Tuesday
I am back in the police cell. There, in the hot space of the interview room, with everything collapsing around me, I managed to do just one thing right: I asked for a solicitor. And so here I am, waiting for them.
The idea that the killing happened so long ago is sitting in my head, immiscible, like oil on water. I can’t absorb the information. I do know one thing, however. The problem – all problems – are mathematical in nature. The solutions are there in the analysis and I have been through the possibilities.
1 The police were lying to me in the interview to get me to confess to something. I’ve ruled this out. To make it work there would have to be illegality, not to mention effort on a monolithic scale, and I don’t think Conway is capable of either.
2 The police are telling the truth and there was a murder thirty years ago, but not the one that I saw. That means there were two murders. But it’s highly unlikely that there were two murders of two young women in one place. There’s a probability factor here that I have tried to calculate on too little data, but whichever way I unpack it and whatever the variables are, the probabilities are too remote. Then there is the simple fact of the picture – that was me, without a doubt.
And that picture of Grace, Michelle Grace Mackintosh. Ma belle. My Michelle. Our joke. That name she hated. Common. And now to see her, to see us, in that Polaroid from all that time ago, it feels like a heavy piece of machinery inside me has slipped its gearings and is shuddering to a halt. I can’t work out what she has to do with it. It can’t be her who was killed. It’s not possible. And yet from the list of what seems possible, it suddenly has shifted from possibility to likelihood. I have to accept that my memory of what I saw isn’t true.
I slide to the floor. Looking around this cell, I know that I have to get out. I need to shed some of this debris that has gathered around me and get out into the air and walk. The concrete is cold against my legs. I lean back into the wall and then begin to rock. With every point of contact, flesh against stone, a tiny fraction of this buzz is earthed into the ground. It can’t be her. I tell myself this over and over. I’d have known it. Surely, I’d have known it. Known her anywhere. But then what was it about that night that I remembered if not the name? Didn’t I have a sense of knowing? Could Conway be right? Could I have supressed the memory?
And then the realisation punches home: Grace is dead.
When the door opens I am not certain how much time has passed. I look up from my place on the floor and meet the hazel eyes of a young woman. She looks down at me and nods at the officer who leaves.
She comes and sits next to me. Her suit seems used to these conditions and hangs from her slight frame. It’s the same solicitor from before. Her hair, pulled off her face with clips, shines bronze in this light.
‘Feeling okay?’ she says – the vowels are long – ohkay. Northern. I look at her face. A sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose makes her look young.
‘Yes. I just have to ground myself. You came back?’
She nods. There is a breeze of something fresh coming her clothes. Lemon?
‘Look, I have just had a look at your disclosure. And I had a word with custody already.’
‘And?’
‘And it seems that you’re not …’ she says, and points a finger at her temple and makes small circles. ‘You’ve been tested apparently.’
‘Nice,’ I say, mustering a small smile.
‘The bad news is that you are an idiot. The good news, however,’ she says, getting to her feet and helping me up, ‘is that there’s not enough evidence here to hold you.’
Standing, I turn to face her. ‘What? But I was there.’
‘Were you, though?’ Hazel eyes blink at me.
‘Yes. I described the whole place to them. They know I was there.’
‘I’ve had a listen to your interview. You weren’t there in 1989. You were there last week.’
‘But – it was her. That’s the same woman I saw being killed. And it turns out I knew her. Grace was my girlfriend.’
She digs around in a small brown leather bag for a pen. ‘Don’t know about no Grace. Michelle Mackintosh is who they have. Anyway, if they had enough evidence they’d have charged you by now. They’ve got nothing.’
‘It’s the same woman, Miss —’
‘Janine. Jan.’
‘Jan. It’s the same person. She just called herself Grace. It was her middle name. I knew her.’
‘It weren’t her middle name, though. I’ve seen the birth certificate. There is no middle name. Anyway, we go back in, you go “no comment”. We get out of here and talk properly later. Understood?’
I take her forearm in my hand so that she faces me when I speak to her. I have to make her understand. ‘It’s her. I’m telling you. I’m not mad. I’m not stupid. It was her.’
‘Look. We are about to go into a police interview. Unless you are in the mood to confess to a murder, I suggest you take my advice. No comment. Got it?’
‘But—’