I Know What I Saw

‘Fine,’ she says and bangs on the door until it is opened. ‘Good luck then,’ she says to me, not unkindly. Then as she is let out, she says to the officer, ‘He’s on his own.’

I stare at the door that has just closed. A scratched PIG on the blue paint makes me suddenly laugh.

Moments later, an officer opens the door and nods at me.

‘Interview,’ he says.

My heart starts beating again. I haven’t been able to distil the events into any order. What am I supposed to tell them, that I lay cringing in a corner? If I come clean about being there, what does that say about me? That I am a man who is not above breaking in and being somewhere uninvited? That I violated someone’s home and lurked in its dark corners? What kind of man will I become by admitting that?

What kind of man am I if I don’t admit that?

9 Wednesday

When he was fourteen, Rory won a prize – a real one. It was the equivalent of a child’s Nobel prize for science. I remember seeing him walk on to the stage of a university lecture hall, a small huddled figure in that vast space. He smiled coyly as he shook the Dean’s hand and I looked on, slowly warming through with jealousy until I was glowing white. It was a prize I was too old for. People clapped. A man spoke about the ‘completely innovative’ approach to one of the world’s most complex theoretical physics questions. The maths in it was difficult but the truth was that he was so bright that he could slice straight into the physics while the others were still stuck on the numbers. But that wasn’t the only reason he’d won. It had been my solution, from one of Dad’s monthly debates. And though I’d harvested it from some other physicists I’d been researching in answer to the debate, Rory didn’t know that. As far as he knew he’d just stolen my answer.

I was made to go along to the presentation. Afterwards, Dad had promised us, him, a steak at a new South American steakhouse. Later, once the steak had been eaten and he’d been slapped on the shoulder by Dad – later, once we were back at home watching Dad drink whisky and Mum wine – later, once the trophy had been nudged into centre spot on the mantel, Rory, to whom I’d said nothing all evening, walked up to the fireplace and picked up the trophy and placed it at my feet.

‘This is yours,’ he said, avoiding my eye. ‘Dad,’ he said then, still looking at the floor. ‘This is his. It was his answer.’

Dad nodded and took a sip of whisky. ‘It belongs to you both. Not for the science – but because you improve each other.’

I tried to rationalise what he’d done. He was younger. He was allowed to make mistakes like this. I might have done the same in his position. In fact I never reminded myself that I’d cheated him. Or that he’d have won anyway. Instead I sat with the trophy at my feet, ashamed of it and me and him all at once. Hours later, Dad was sleeping in his chair, snoring, his glass balanced on his chest. Mum, watching Dad closely, put down her glass and came to me. She took my face in her hands and then turned to do the same to Rory. Her hair was greying, I noticed, and she had started wearing her glasses permanently then.

‘I won’t leave you,’ she said. ‘Not ever.’

I opened my mouth to say something but the words wouldn’t form.

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she said, smiling sadly.

‘… but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’

I’m here again with a jolt. I nod. I wrap my arms around my body and huddle. If I create enough warmth, it might help with the pain.

‘For the tape,’ he says.

I haven’t seen this officer before. There is something in his eyes that telegraphs dullness. He blinks slowly as if the wheels are moving through sludge. But there’s also something else there, humanity maybe? Suppressed, but there, blistering the skin, waiting to break free but being held back by stupidity. I wait, expecting the bubble to burst so I can be honest with him. But I don’t know if I can just say to him that I did not attack her. That I only watched. That yes, I failed to act, but I did nothing. That that was my crime and I’m prepared to suffer the consequences of that inaction.

‘You have to say it out loud, for the tape.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I understand the caution.’

‘Do you know why you have been arrested?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

The officer looks unsurprised by this. Maybe everybody who is arrested knows why they have been taken.

‘Tell me then. Why do you think you’ve been arrested?’ he says, then looks across at his partner.

I have barely registered her presence. She sits at his side, hair pulled back from her face. I’m not sure what her official title is but it feels as if she is in deference to him, this man who she must know can’t keep up with her. The intelligence in her eyes shows the advantage she has over him.