I Know What I Saw

‘The murder. Or the attempt, however you want to define it. But I didn’t do it,’ I say, looking at my hands. I shrug in my clothes and suddenly, in this confined space, I feel the urge to run. The room is too small for three of us really. It’s tiny, just enough space for the table and chairs. There’s certainly no room to spread.

‘Okay, well, we are here to listen. We aren’t making any judgements, are we, Rochelle? Just tell us what happened from your point of view.’

Rochelle? I wonder. Might that have been her name too? The name brings a rush of familiarity. Perhaps I heard it, that night. Was that the name he had been calling out? Over and over.

‘I didn’t do it. But I was there. I saw it happen,’ I say.

‘You saw what happen?’ she asks. Her eyes narrow and I can see they are processing something I am not included in.

‘The attack. I saw her being attacked. I was in the room.’ I look up then at the faces of the two officers in front of me. They look at one another. Disbelief? No, not that, something else. Confusion.

‘Her? Did you say her?’ she asks, her eyebrows contracting.

I nod. ‘The woman. In the house. I saw her being strangled. By her boyfriend.’

They look at one another again. The silence grows, expanding until it fills every speck of space. He is confused and irritated with himself and with me, because of something he hasn’t understood.

‘This interview is being terminated. The time is 22:22 by my watch,’ he says and presses a button on the machine.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask. They look at one another ominously.

‘We are just going to get the custody sergeant to speak to you again. You might need an appropriate adult,’ the woman says and pushes off from her seat. I have forgotten her name already.

‘An appropriate adult? I’m not a child. Wait. I’m not mad either. I might look odd,’ I say, ‘but there is nothing wrong in here.’ I point to my right temple.

‘It won’t take a moment but it’s best if you don’t speak until he’s seen you.’ She holds the door open and motions for me to leave.

I am ushered back to my cell and left to wait. They are concerned for my mental health. Out there it happens every day. Even as people walk past, covering their mouths and noses, the eyes are there communicating pity, and disgust. But here, I have the power of speech. I have the opportunity to speak and be heard. They have to hear me. When you hear me, you don’t leave thinking I’m crazy I promise you.

I hear the door to my cell clang open.

‘Mr Shute, I’m the custody sergeant.’ I look up and see the officer from before. I stand to speak to him so I won’t be at a disadvantage sitting.

‘Just a few questions,’ he says, rubbing his white stubble self-consciously. I wait for him to run through them and answer them all. No tricks in these questions at all. ‘Are you currently or have you ever had treatment for any mental illness?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been sectioned under the Mental Health Act?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever attempted suicide or are you feeling suicidal at the moment?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. I don’t think you need an assessing psychiatrist at this time.’

Now I am back in the interview room and this time I listen to their names: Rachel Blake, not Rochelle. And Simon Conway, detective inspectors, both of them. The interview starts again from the top. The initial statements are all the same, as if I am caught in a system glitch: introductions, caution, the right to a solicitor, all explained meticulously once again. I avoid their eyes through it all, concentrating my gaze on my fingers.

‘Just before the break,’ says Rachel Blake, ‘you were telling us about witnessing an attack. On a woman.’

‘Yes,’ I say. I am still puzzled about why they’d decided that I was mentally unwell. Nothing that the custody sergeant asked me gave me any hint.

‘Well, I’m going to be asking you about that later. For now, I want to talk to you about the attack on a gentleman by the name of Kenneth Squire. Does that name sound familiar to you?’ she asks.

‘No,’ I say. This is plainly a mistake. ‘Who is he?’

‘He is a person, like you, shall we say, of no fixed abode. If I may show you a photograph? The suspect is now being shown exhibit RB/1, a photograph of the victim. Do you recognise this man?’

I stare at the picture and my blood freezes. It is unmistakeable – it’s the man from the park, the drunk. A shot of his face, with his eyes closed. There’s a long surgical scar running along his throat. But it is him.

‘Er, yes. I. Well. No, I don’t know him as such but I do recognise him,’ I say slowly.

‘From where?’ Blake asks, her voice flat.

‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Just from around.’

She continues. ‘Mr Squire was found earlier this morning in Hyde Park. He was stabbed in the neck and would have died if he hadn’t been spotted by a runner. Do you have any idea how he might have received that injury?’

‘No,’ I say.

‘That cut on your eye, Mr Shute. How did you get it?’

I put my fingers to it. The stitches lie proud of the surface but I resist the urge to scratch them.