Lady Bag (23 page)

Chapter
39

Just A Little Comfort…

M
y “AA sponsor” sent in some nice soap and shampoo so they let me have a shower. They threw all my clothes in a bin bag and sealed it tight. There was a clean black track suit for me to put on, underwear and a new pair of men’s socks. The smells were of soothing lavender and all the sizes were correct. This was the work of Super Smister. He even sent me a small bottle of mouthwash. It was alcohol-based but I rinsed my mouth thoroughly before swallowing.

When I was ready they took me to a small waiting room, and there, dwarfing one of the two comfy chairs was, not Smister, but beautiful, inspirational Pierre.
And he
brought Electra.

She stood on her hind legs with her forepaws on my shoulders. Upright she was almost as tall as me. She didn’t do anything sloppy, like licking my face but she tucked her head under my chin and made little whiffling sounds. I put my arms around her and we stood like that for several minutes. I thought I’d never see her again, but here she was—warm, smelling of London rain and Yum-Chum.

I ran my hands from her ears, down her slim flanks. You can always feel her ribs of course, but I could tell she’d been fed and brushed. When I sat down she pressed up close and laid her head on my knee. I bent over her and pretended to search her ears for mites, but actually I was telling her how glad I was to see her.

Pierre said, ‘The message from the group is “one step at a time”, and “use this period of adversity as an opportunity”.’ He was looking round the room for microphones. He wore jeans, a Harvard sweatshirt and had a baseball cap on his head which said Praise the Lord—just the sort of thing Smister would find funny.

He went on, ‘We’re all praying for you, of course, but your sister wants you to know that she’s moved away from her previous address and is staying with me and Cherry. She says she found out what Abbie did and she’s so, so sorry.’

‘Abbie?
Abbie
gave me to Drives Badly Bradley?’

‘We must all forgive and rely on a Higher Power to right our wrongs.’ Pierre raised his eyes piously to the ceiling. He was so camp I couldn’t imagine how he’d fooled anyone. ‘Meanwhile,’ he went on, ‘I’ve had a word with your Ms Yost and she’s given us her card so should you wish to pursue legal redress, we can communicate through her.’

‘Thank you so, so much for coming,’ I said, wiping my streaming eyes on the cuff of my sweatshirt. ‘I thought I was lost forever. Unforgiven and dogless.’

‘Your sister and the whole group insisted.’

‘How is she?’

‘She’s doing better. She’s tackling her addictions and, with our help and God’s love, trying to keep better company. She sends her love. She wanted to come herself.’

‘She mustn’t.’

‘No shit,’ Pierre said, sounding more like himself. ‘She may be a masochist but she’s not a total jerk-wad.’

‘Do you pray for her too?’

‘Every day, my child, every day.’

‘Aren’t you confusing an AA sponsor with a Catholic priest?’

‘I could be both. Catholics have all the best uniforms.’

Electra was sniffing me all over, reading me like a book. She stopped at my badly bandaged foot and whined.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s where Drives Badly Bradley slammed his car door. I took the strapping off to shower and I can’t get it back on again. Thanks so much for the soap and clean clothes. I’d been sick.’

‘Your sister seems to know you pretty damn well. Get that foot up here and I’ll sort it out.’

I put my foot on his knee and he untangled the strapping. I sat and watched the huge hands. I wished he had been my mother. He’d brought comfort. He’d told me that Smister wasn’t the one who snitched on me. He’d brought Electra. Plus he’d brought just enough mouthwash to perk me up for a moment.

I sat back in a comfortable chair with my arm round Electra’s shoulders and just for an instant I felt cared for. The Abomination must’ve been looking the other way.

Chapter
40

… After Which
It Gets Even Worse

T
he next morning I was on fire and coughing up chesty brown lava. The custody sergeant allowed me an extra roll of bog paper.

DC Anderson fetched me and made me stand in a room with a glass wall. Then he took me back to the custody suite without asking any questions. I was glad of my clean hair and clothes.

Later he woke me up again and took me to the same place, only this time I was on the other side of the glass looking first at Georgie, then at Joss. Kaylee told me that all three of us were identified by an Australian
au pair
, but I didn’t see her. Joss and Georgie didn’t see me.

The boiling lava hurt my lungs and throat so badly I couldn’t eat breakfast or lunch. But the custody sergeant brought me a choc-ice and a bottle of water. Maybe, now that I couldn’t talk, I wasn’t so annoying.

A doctor came in, listened to my chest and checked my bandages. I could hear her outside the door giving the sergeant a lecture about how all the homeless should be given flu vaccinations. ‘Why?’ he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

I dreamed about being hanged.

I dreamed the Devil loved me and took me to the bedroom. When I lay down for him he cut off my foot. He said it smelled rotten.

I dreamed hornets crawled under my skin and laid their eggs in my heart.

No one came to see me—not even Dl Sprague.

The next time someone fetched me it was a WPC called Linda. She took me to another interview room with a grey plastic-topped table. DC Anderson was in charge.

‘You’ve been downgraded,’ Kaylee whispered. ‘Are you feeling better? They told me you were quite sick and couldn’t eat. Can I bring you anything in from outside?’

‘Ice cream,’ I croaked. ‘Ice lollies, banana custard.’

‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Anderson turned to WPC Linda and said, ‘Go and pick up some ice cream and a spoon. If they haven’t got any in the canteen, go to Tesco’s and I’ll reimburse you later.’

When she’d gone he said, ‘Listen, Lady Bag, you’re in a position to help me and I’m in a position to help you. On the other hand you can screw up royally in which case I can make things tough for you. Do you understand?’

Kaylee said, ‘Are you offering my client a d-deal?’

Anderson pointed at the recorder on the table. It was not running. ‘I’m talking about good will and maybe recommending treatment instead of a custodial sentence. All I want is a sensible chat, during which we agree to call the Devil by the name of Graham Attwood, and that the Lord of Lust and Wrath doesn’t stick his nose in too many times. I don’t want you to make up shit to please me—that’s not what I’m saying—I just want a reasonable account of what you remember and what you don’t. Is that too much to ask?’

Kaylee said, ‘As f-far as I know, my client has not been charged with an offence meriting a custodial sentence.’

‘Assaulting a police officer—namely me. Last time she pushed me out the door, started screaming about ghosts and ran away.’

My cough bubbled over but I said, ‘When I see a ghost what do you want me to call it—a sausage sandwich?’

‘She wasn’t a ghost; you know that.’

‘But I thought she was.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I thought she was Natalie Munrow who everyone said was dead. So she had to be Natalie Munrow’s ghost.’

‘Do you really believe in ghosts?’

‘I believe in Satan and restless spirits,’ I said. ‘I don’t see why visions of Satan or ghosts should be any less valid than visions of the Virgin Mary.’

‘The Virgin Mary notwithstanding,’ Anderson interrupted, looking tired, ‘when you’re talking about the human manifestation of Satan, please would you call him Graham Attwood? It’ll make a huge difference to the tone of your witness statement. It would make you sound less deranged and me less of a prat.’

‘Who’s a prat?’ WPC Linda asked coming through the door with a tray bearing a heaped bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and four cups of tea. She was a sight for sore eyes, to say nothing of throats.

Soft, sweet frozen gloop slid from spoon to mouth to gullet like honeyed anaesthetic. I smiled at DC Anderson. He really wasn’t bad for a cop.

He burned his tongue on the hot tea, switched on the recorder and said, ‘You’ve said on a number of occasions that you think Graham Attwood killed Natalie Munrow. Can you tell us why?’

‘Start with the easy ones, why don’t you?’ I said.

‘Ah-ahem,’ said Kaylee, so I had to think about it.

In the end I said, ‘Because he was there and he must’ve had his own key. Because the little stone lion’s gone from outside the house. Because J… Whatsisname and Whatsisname didn’t do it or I’d be dead too. Because they both said she was already dead when they got there and they wouldn’t bother to lie to me.’

‘What about the little stone lion?’

‘It stood on the edge of that phoney horse trough. I remember because Electra thought it was so bogus. But next time we went there it was gone. Joss and Georgie wouldn’t have nicked it cos it was heavy and they chose stuff that’s easy to carry and quick to sell—CDs and DVDs.’

‘Would you explain how you know about the stolen items?’

‘When I went back there after the hospital—those were things that were in a mess.’

‘And why did you go back after the hospital?’

‘I thought it was where I lived. The keys fit the door. I had all my identity in my handbag and everyone including a police lady called me Miss Munrow. I couldn’t recognise my own face in the mirror.’

‘Photographs taken of my client at the t-time are in the file—plus doctors’ reports about the extent of her i-injuries, including a skull fracture.’

‘No one knows quite what to make of that,’ DC Anderson said. ‘The CPS is still considering charges of Breaking and Entering and Theft, for instance.’

‘C-concussion and/or hysterical fugue brought on by the influence of legally prescribed painkillers,’ Kaylee said. ‘Any number of doctors including the one who originally treated her could convince a jury th-that… ’

‘Okay, okay.’

I smiled at Kaylee. She was hitting her stride.

‘But you do know who you are now?’ WPC Linda spoke up for the first time.

‘I am the Dowager Lady Bag of Denmark Street, also known as Mad Old Bat with Dog.’ Reasonableness only gets you so far with the police. After that they start taking advantage. I turned my back on the cops and finished my ice cream.

‘Try not to help again,’ Anderson said to his colleague. He paused, giving me time to lick the bowl. Then he said, ‘So let me get this straight: when you entered 14 Harrison Mews for the first time, after being kicked in the head… ’

‘And ribs—don’t forget the ribs.’

‘And ribs, Ms Munrow was already dead and her property had been burglarised.’

‘I didn’t see a body. I didn’t notice her property. Not then. I just wanted a drink.’

‘Situation normal,’ Linda muttered, and Anderson kicked her under the table.

‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘it has been suggested that you had blood on you
before
anyone kicked you. It has been suggested that you were only kicked because
you
were committing an assault on John Farmer who thought
you
were already a murderer and was in fear for his life and defending himself.’

I should’ve expected it, I really should. The Devil turns friends into enemies; he renders the just unjust, and the unjust unjuster.

‘Don’t start mumbling rubbish,’ Anderson said.

I tried to collect myself, but all I could think of to say was, ‘Have you
seen
Joss?’

Kaylee said, ‘D-DC Anderson are you seriously accusing… ?’

‘I have to mention it.’

‘I’m s-sorry,’ she said, ‘b-but I don’t think much of this non-confrontational style you promised me.’

‘An accusation has been made—in the same way that she’s accused Mr Attwood.’

‘But I’ve never hurt anyone.’

‘You pushed
me
,’ he said reasonably.

‘But it didn’t hurt, did it? Besides, I needed a wee and you were standing between me and the toilet.’

He took a moment to collect himself. He’d begun to sweat. Then he said, ‘What makes you think Mr Attwood had Miss Munrow’s key?’

‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it?’ I started to cough.

‘Would you like more ice cream?’ he asked, sighing.

I nodded, and after WPC Linda left the room I said, ‘He went to Natalie’s house while she was at the theatre. Why would he do that if he couldn’t go in?’

‘My problem is this—suppose the woman you saw Attwood with was not Miss Munrow? Suppose it was Chantelle Cain?’

‘So what?’ I said. ‘He still took a taxi to Harrison Mews. Chantelle doesn’t live there, does she?’

‘But suppose he only went there to leave a secret note for Miss Munrow about the surprise party they were planning for Chantelle’s birthday, and then he went straight home to Acton. Suppose he didn’t have a key to the house in Harrison Mews and he never went inside.’

My heart double-knocked. The cops had talked to the Devil. He’d told them a story which I really hoped they would check. I said, ‘When’s her birthday?’

‘In about a month, apparently.’

‘Then I’d want to see the note
and
Chantelle’s passport and birth certificate and send them away for forensic testing to make sure they weren’t faked. He could make a nun lie for him.’

‘But you never actually saw him there.’

‘No, but she had the jasmine-scented bubbly bath oil he loves and his favourite candles, and soap from Fortnum’s. That’s why I thought it was my bathroom. He trained me too, you see. The pillows smelled of almond and citrus so I thought it was my bedroom. I’m not lying—the Devil’s head lay on those pillows.’

‘You said… ’

‘Gram,’ I cried. ‘In his earthly manifestation Gram Attwood luxuriated in that bath and slept in that bed.’

‘Have you checked the product in the b-bathroom?’ Kaylee asked, as WPC Linda came in with more tea and ice cream.

‘No I fucking haven’t,’ he said. ‘And I’m not going to. I can’t see the Crown Prosecutors setting much store by a vagrant’s sense of smell.’

Kaylee agreed. ‘She’s never going to be a prosecution witness anyway, is she?’

‘God, I hope not. But she might still have to defend herself. She might find she’s the only one left in the frame.’

‘So you m-might check if any of the same products that are in his house are in Natalie’s house too. You might want to check for his DNA on the sheets… ’

‘Too late, the brother’s been staying there… ’

I let the chilly gloop anaesthetise my throat again.

I could tell my story but I couldn’t sell it.

Decent Middle-English juries, senior police officers, the CPS, barristers and judges would all reject my story because they rejected me. I live on the outer edge of the known universe, a scrounger who drinks red wine, who doesn’t bathe regularly, who’s had her head kicked in—leaving her grotesque and ugly. But for exactly the same reasons they’d probably accept me as a mad, bad killer.

The spoon was rattling like maracas against the bowl. My spine was strung tight as piano wire.

‘Can we take a break?’ Kaylee asked.

Kaylee said, ‘You’re damaging your liver, you know. You could die a horrible painful death.’

‘Beats a horrible painful life.’

‘What?’

‘If I go to prison for life… ’

The custody sergeant came in with a plastic cup of water and a pill—only one pill. I panicked.

‘Strictly speaking, your medication isn’t due for another hour and a half,’ he said. ‘Take it or leave it but don’t make so much fuss.’

One whole hour and a half, ninety minutes to be endured one by one—how could they torture me like that? Shouldn’t the Red Cross have something to say about it?

‘You’re sick.’ Kaylee hovered in the doorway to my cell. ‘I could ask for you to be transferred… ’

‘No!’
I’d be sectioned for sure and then I’d never get out—never see Electra again, never be free from their medication. That’s not living. Although, why should I care? The Devil is covering his tracks with webs of eight-legged lies. And I am his fly—encased in the sticky ropes that hold me helpless while he sucks at my viscera. The pain and emptiness started in my chest and corkscrewed everywhere.