When the Music's Over (48 page)

Maybe I blacked out with the pain and fear. All I knew was the weight was suddenly gone from me and I could move freely, if painfully. I had a bag with me, I remember, a shoulder bag I always carried, where I kept keys and money and
Lorna Doone
and my autograph book and for some reason it was in my mind. I had to have my bag. I was leaving and I had to have my bag. It was on a little polished wooden table with bowed legs by the door and I must have picked it up as I stumbled out. Nobody tried to stop me. I heard Caxton say behind me that I wasn't to tell anyone. Something like that. Nobody would believe me. People would just think I was a lying little whore. He said I ought to be grateful that he'd had sex with me. That I'd lost my virginity to the great Danny Caxton. They were talking again as I went out but I don't know what they were saying. I was in a daze and god knows what I looked like but I walked down the corridor, found a lift and pressed the button for the ground floor. I don't know if anybody noticed me in the lobby but I felt as if everyone was looking at me and they knew I'd done a bad thing.

I must have walked around Blackpool for hours, but all I remember is being sick in the street, people skirting around me, looking at me, thinking I'm just a drunken whore. I wanted to scream out and tell them what had happened to me, but the shame was too great. Was it my fault for singing that song? Did he think it was some sort of an invitation?

I was so late back that I missed dinner. I must have looked a sight. I just remember my father telling me off for being late and my mother saying I didn't look well. I said I didn't feel well, either, and I wasn't hungry. My mother was worried. She felt my forehead, said it was a bit hot and she hoped I wasn't coming down with something. I thought she could smell the sick on my breath and maybe figured I'd been drinking. All I wanted was a bath to wash off the filth of what had happened to me, but we weren't allowed to run the hot water at that time of evening, so I just went to our room, undressed, brushed my teeth for ages and tried to wash myself as best I could with cold water from the basin. Then I curled up in bed and cried and cried and cried.

I don't remember when Melanie came to bed. Perhaps I was already asleep. She told me the next day she saw some spots of blood on my knickers which I had just dropped by the bedside. She asked me what happened. I said my period must have come early. That was also why I could get away with not feeling well and being a bit off all the following week. It was common knowledge between Mum and me that I had “difficult” periods, that sometimes the cramps were painful and I became moody and withdrawn. It was the perfect excuse even though I wasn't due for another week and a half. I wasn't always as regular as some people—

Linda put down her pen and refilled her wineglass. She had let her cigarette burn down in the ashtray while she wrote, so she lit another. She noticed that her hand was shaking as she did so, perhaps because it had been so tense gripping the pen to write. Dusk was gathering quickly, and the shadows lengthened on the garden, the river itself already dark under the shade of the sheltering trees. A blackbird sang somewhere, louder than the other birds. She knew she was almost finished now and already felt spent, the way she did when she knew she'd got to the end of a particularly difficult poem after weeks of drafts and revisions. She put the cigarette down again and set off on the final words . . .

The rest of week went by like a bad dream. I don't think Melanie knew what to make of me but she never said anything directly. I tried to do the things we enjoyed doing, but my heart wasn't in it and I'm sure Melanie knew. It was hard to believe at first that life just went on as normal when we got back home, that people just went about their business as usual as if nothing had happened, like in Auden's poem, while Icarus's wax wings melt, the horse scratches its behind and the dog goes on with its doggy life, when all I really wanted was to stop all the clocks. No, that's not true. That's a different poem. And I didn't want a big fuss. I didn't want anyone to know, especially after that abortive visit to the police. I wanted everyone to go on like the horse and the dog and not notice me, my imaginary wax wings melting as I approached the sun, falling, falling into the darkness of the sea. Icarus died. I pulled myself out of the darkness, shook myself off and went on with my life. I squeezed it all into a ball and hid it away in the deepest darkest place I could find, where it remains to this day, a dark star inside me.

In a very odd way, I feel that I've been feeding off it ever since, the poetry has been feeding off it, though never about it, this dark star I made of the thing that happened to me when I was on the cusp of adulthood. This dark star that I haven't told anyone about. I think even now talking about it worries me not so much because it upsets me, though that is certainly the case, but because I'm afraid I might lose something by letting out the darkness that feeds me. Lose my muse, my creativity, my poetry. I wrote earlier that sometimes I need the darkness, and I believe this is true. But it doesn't mean I wanted what happened.

It's odd the way memory works on the sense of time. When it happened, it all seemed to happen so fast. Though the pain seemed never-ending, details flashed by, hardly noticed. The texture of candlewick, smell of greasepaint, the Laughing Policeman, the numbers on Caxton's arm. When you think about it afterward, it runs in slow motion. You remember the details. But when you recall it so many years later it has settled, then shifted and altered in your memory and become something else.
Not that it didn't happen, and not that it didn't happen more or less the way I remember it happened, but I have perhaps forgotten some things and even added some. I couldn't swear to the Laughing Policeman or the click of the camera. It may have been longer between my arrival in the suite and the rape. But I do remember that two men raped me that day. Surely that is the important thing? One was Danny Caxton, the other is the man I saw in the photograph. I did sing “You Don't Have to Say You Love Me,” and I do remember the numbers. Maybe Caxton said something else when I was leaving. Maybe more was said, but if it was it has gone now. This is the best I can do. It's as true as I can make it.

When I first started out, my poetry was free, fanciful, shocking, with outrageous imagery and flights of jazzy rhythmic cadences. I couldn't get it out quickly enough, tripping over my own feet to find out what the next metaphor would be. I hardly ever revised anything. Now, though, my verse seems crabbed, constipated, metaphysical, slow and hard to squeeze out. The critics like it. They tell me it has a certain stately grace. Is that what's happened to me? Strange that it should flow so easily in my youth, after what happened, then seem to harden, to crystalize and insist on taking certain rigid forms and structures in my middle age. Stately grace is all very well, but sometimes I long for that free loping rhythm and ringing cadence of my youth, like I long for that carefree innocent young girl that was.

Linda closed the notebook and put down the pen. She could hardly see anymore for tears. Darkness had fallen, and the last of the swallows were swooping and diving over the woods. The bats would be out soon. She rubbed her eyes, filled her wineglass to the brim and lit another cigarette.

W
ELL, PAUL, IT LOOKS LIKE THE END OF THE ROAD
for you, doesn't it?”

“No comment,” said Warner. He was sitting nervously in the interview room beside his legal aid solicitor, who didn't seem too happy at being woken up early on a Saturday morning. Warner had balked at Jessie Malton, perhaps because she was a woman and she was black, but he was quickly put in his place and told it wasn't as easy as that to change legal aid representation, and you certainly couldn't do it simply because you objected to the lawyer's color and gender.

“I think your attitude might soon change,” said Annie, opening the thick folder in front of her. While Annie and Gerry had been enjoying themselves at the Riverside Inn, they had managed to persuade Jazz Singh to work a late shift and Vic Manson to stay on an extra hour. Vic was married, so all he had to do was phone and say he'd be home a bit late, but Jazz had had a hot date that she wasn't too pleased about canceling. On the other hand, she knew what had been done to Mimsy Moffat, and she wanted to contribute her best efforts to putting her killer away, and if her girlfriend couldn't understand that about her by now, she told Annie, there was no point going on with the relationship. Perhaps Annie and Gerry could have gone at him that evening, too, but they wouldn't have had anywhere near as much ammunition as they had now—including Mimosa's sketchbook and
mobile—and he wouldn't have had a night in the cell to probe his conscience, if he had one, or anticipate the worst, if he didn't.

“First off, we managed to recover Mimosa's belongings from the van she was in on the night she died,” Annie said, “and we found a couple of interesting things among them.”

“What's that got to do with me?”

“There's a little sketchbook, for a start. They were sketches of mostly people she knew—Albert, her mother, Jade, the other girls, Sunny and his pals. And you.”

“I've seen that. So what? She always had a pencil and a sketchbook in her hands, even when you wanted her to do a bit of work.”

“Then there was her mobile,” Annie went on. “Calls to and from Albert, Jade, Sunny, home. And again, you. Mostly from.”

“I told you she helped me and Albert out sometimes.”

“So these phone calls were all work connected?”

“What else would they be?”

“Most went unanswered. About fifteen over the past month. Couldn't you get through to her?”

“Obviously not. No doubt she was busy with her Paki friends.”

“They weren't friends, Paul. At least not towards the end. What was so important that you couldn't pass on a message to her through Albert? You saw him often enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fifteen unanswered calls. Your friend's little sister. It's odd, that's all.”

“I don't see why.”

“Did she tell you anything about her association with the Pakistanis?” Gerry asked.

“No. For Christ's sake, I've told you, she agreed with us!”

“Us?”

“Me and Albert. I don't understand this. Mimsy was always making disparaging remarks about Pakis. She even got in trouble for it at school.”

“But you didn't talk about her odd behavior with Albert last Tuesday night, didn't get him all het up?”

“No. I told you. We watched DVDs and fell asleep.”

“What about the fingerprint?” Annie said.

“What fingerprint?”

“We found Albert's fingerprints in Jim Nuttall's van, as you'd expect. But why did we also find yours? The same van that Albert Moffat drove on a casual basis, the one that was parked in the lane at the back of your building on the night in question.”

“No comment.”

“You've already been told you don't have to say anything,” Annie reminded him, “so it's well within your rights to say ‘no comment,' but as I'm sure Ms. Malton will tell you, that bit about later relying on something in court is a deal breaker. Should this case go to court, and I have to tell you the CPS think we have a good case, then you will almost certainly be asked this question, among others, and your ‘no comment' from today's interview will be noted at the time. But we do have the fingerprint. Think about it, Paul.”

Warner looked disconcerted and turned to Jessie Malton, who whispered a few words in his ear. He clearly didn't like what he had heard. “All right,” he said. “It's a simple-enough explanation. I've been with Albert a few times on road trips.”

“Including Sheffield, the day of Mimosa Moffat's murder?”

“That's right.”

“And the person who took delivery there will vouch for you?”

“Well, I don't know about that. I mean, I got Albert to drop me off in the city center so I could do a bit of shopping, so he wouldn't have seen me.”

“What did you buy?”

“This and that.”

“Got the receipts?”

“I threw them away.”

“Pity,” said Annie. “Did you use a credit or debit card?”

“I paid cash.”

“Right,” said Annie. “Why did you head to the local recycling plant with a bin bag full of clothes and a pair of shoes as soon as you got home from your last interview here?”

“I'd been meaning to take them for ages. I don't know why I did it then, particularly. I just wanted something to do.”

“Why not take them to a charity shop? They were in perfectly good condition.”

“Never thought.”

“Are you sure you weren't feeling anxious about what they might reveal?”

“I wouldn't say I was anxious. I just felt like it. OK?”

He had raised his voice for the first time, and Jessie Malton tapped him on the arm and whispered in his ear.

“Sorry,” he said. “This is putting a lot of stress on me.”

“Why is it stressful, Paul, if you've got nothing to hide?” Gerry asked. “You were helpful enough before. Remember? You told us that Albert Moffat was with you the whole time after you got back home from the pub on Tuesday until eleven the following morning.”

“Well, I thought he was. I mean, I suppose he could have slipped out if I dozed off or something.”

“If?” said Gerry. “Did you doze off?”

“I might have done. I don't remember. Like I said, we were drinking.”

“Are you trying to tell us that Albert nipped out and murdered his sister?”

“No. I'm not saying that. Just that I could have been mistaken. He might have gone out, if I was asleep.”

“Were you asleep?”

“I don't remember.”

“How about if
you
went out when
he
dozed off?” Annie said. “Is that a viable scenario?”

“That's not how it happened.”

Annie paused. “There is one other thing.”

“Oh. Yes?”

“Yes, Paul. You see, we found one of your fingerprints under the outside door handle, on the driver's side.”

“Sure. I spelled Albert for a while. He was a bit hungover. We changed places. I drove.”

“Very considerate of you. But the fingerprint,
your
fingerprint, was a bloody fingerprint. And the blood was Mimosa Moffat's. What do you have to say about that?”

“No comment.”

“I thought so.”

Jessie Malton looked as impassive as ever.

Annie went on. “Well, I'm sure you know what that means. I'm just trying to clear up the events of that Tuesday night. We have your bloody fingerprint under the door handle of the van, not Albert's. Now, Albert has used the van since then, we know, but he didn't mention you being with him. Luckily for us, your bloody fingerprint was in an out-of-the-way spot. Easy to miss when you gave it a quick wipe-down. It seems as if you might have been a bit shaken or agitated when you first tried to open the door after beating Mimsy Moffat to death.”

“Detective,” said Jessie Malton. “Can we have no more of that?”

“Sorry. Slip of the tongue. But I'm sure both you and Ms. Malton will realize that this needs a bit of explanation.”

“I must have cut myself before I spelled Albert on Wednesday, that's all.”

Annie sighed. “Paul. Paul. I've already told you it was Mimosa Moffat's blood. Believe me, we've checked. It's hers. No doubt about it. How did you come to have Mimosa's blood on your hands on Wednesday in Sunderland, if indeed you were there at all?”

“You must have made a mistake. Lots of people probably used that van since . . .”

“Since when, Paul? Since you used it?”

“I was going to say since it was parked at the back of the flat.”

“But they haven't, Paul. Yes, Albert Moffat drove it back to Jim Nuttall's after his delivery to Sunderland the following day, and you say you were with him, but since then nobody but Mr. Nuttall has used it. We checked. Albert's and Nuttall's fingerprints were close to yours, but they didn't overlap, they didn't obliterate yours, and there was no blood on them. Nuttall's so used to opening that van door, he probably grasps the same spot every time by habit. You, on the other hand, being shaken up, as I said, reached too far the wrong way and left a clear and well-protected print. There's no way around it, Paul.”

“This is all just circumstantial. You can't go to court with a case as flimsy as this.”

“Can't we, Paul?” Annie turned over a sheet. “What about the pills?”

“What pills?”

“The ones in the bin bag you were trying to get rid of. We'll be doing further analysis, but for the moment we have it on good authority that they're flunitrazepam, more commonly known as Rohypnol, or roofies. Inadequate men give them to unsuspecting females to put them asleep before sex. When the girls wake up, their memories are vague. Sometimes they don't even remember they've been raped. Is that what happened to you, Paul? Did women forget they'd had sex with you? Was it that forgettable? Did you give one of those pills to Mimosa and rape her. Did she forget? Or did she remember and taunt you with it?”

“Again, Detective, I shouldn't have to tell you to give up the fishing expedition,” said Jessie Malton.

“Sorry.” Annie took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Sometimes when you go fishing you catch something. That's not what you used them for the other night, though, is it? Sex. That time you slipped one to Albert and he went out like a light after all he'd had to drink. You'd been carefully pacing yourself, pretending to keep up with his drinking, but you hadn't had all that much, had you?”

Warner looked at Jessie Malton. “This is preposterous,” he said. “Can't you stop them?”

“If you don't wish to comment, then say so,” said Jessie Malton. Annie could hear her distancing herself from Warner.

“No comment,” he said.

“Let's talk about the shoes, then,” Annie went on. “The Doc Martens you were about to get rid of at the recycling plant.”

Paul squirmed.

“They look as if they've been cleaned thoroughly, but we found traces of blood on those, too,” Annie said. “And do you know what? It was Mimosa Moffat's blood. You tried to get rid of it, didn't you, scrubbing and polishing, but it's hard, Paul. It gets in the seams, and it's hard to get out.” Paul seemed to be shrinking deeper into his chair. Annie pressed her advantage. “And do you know what's worst of all,” she went on. “What's probably the most appalling thing anyone can
do to another human being.” She let the silence stretch. “You jumped on her, Paul. I don't know whether you did it while she was still alive or after you'd killed her, but you stamped on her, and that stamp made an imprint. And that imprint—from Mimosa Moffat's skin, Paul—matches the right shoe you were about to get rid of when Superintendent Carver's men apprehended you. There are several scuffs and scratches on the sole that act as unique identifying features. What do you have to say to that?” Annie let the silence stretch again. “Nothing?” she said after a while. “Well, that shouldn't surprise me. I mean, what is there to say after you've punched and kicked a defenseless young girl to death and stamped on her when she was down?”

“I didn't . . . I didn't . . .”

Annie leaned forward. “You didn't what, Paul? Come on, I'd like to know. Because right now I'm just thinking you were such an arrogant bastard that you didn't even bother getting rid of the shoes you kicked her to death with until after you were worried we were getting close. Don't you think it's time to come clean with us? I told you it was the end of the road.”

Paul looked at her. His eyes were red rimmed, his face drained of color. “I didn't mean to.”

“Didn't mean to what, Paul?”

Jessie Malton leaned over to whisper something, but Paul brushed her off and said, “Kill her. I didn't mean to kill her,” before she could stop him. Jessie Malton dropped her pencil on her legal pad and looked up at the ceiling, muttering something under her breath.

Annie felt the tension leave her body like air from a tire, but there was still more work to be done. “You're admitting you killed her, are you, Paul?”

“Yes. I killed her. But I didn't mean to. The silly bitch.”

“Why did you kill her?”

“Can't you guess?”

“You loved her?”

“Loved? I don't know. Maybe. I
wanted
her. Or I thought I did.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

Warner stared down at the bare desk for a few seconds before answering. “Once. Yes.”

“How did that happen? Did you give her a roofie and rape her?”

“No. She came around looking for Albert, but he was off somewhere. You know . . . one thing led to another.”

“Are you sure you didn't give her a roofie?”

“No way. She was a bit drunk.”

“She was very young, Paul. Underage, in fact.”

“But she could seem so mature. I could see something in her. I don't know. I thought if I could get through to her, you know, I could change her. I could save her.”