I Know What I Saw

Blake lets the video run on. The camera and the other officer follow Ebadi along the hall and into the house. Marble again on the floor, running straight through, its gloss firing light in every direction. As the camera turns I see the fireplace is there, but it too is cased in grey spidery marble. The camera turns briefly again and instead of the chesterfields there is a white sofa in a large L. The lens darts round with the movement of the officer and as it does I see the dining table is gone. Where it once stood, there is a huge, ornate glass coffee table bordered by what look to be cushions. Then I look more carefully and see that it is not a coffee table I am looking at but a sunken dining table. It has been dropped about three feet into the ground.

All since Tuesday night.

17 Saturday

‘It’s impossible,’ I say. There’s no solution to this formula.

‘Is it?’ Conway says, but he’s not really asking.

My brain continues to whirr and click through the gears. Could the murderer have changed everything? The murder was late Tuesday night. I told the police about it Wednesday night. They claim to have visited the address that night. It couldn’t be. Is it a trick of some sort? Is it the wrong address? But even as I am asking myself the questions, I already know it’s the right place, but somehow the impossible has happened.

‘It’s not exactly the way you described it, is it, Mr Shute?’ Conway again.

It’s not. There is no hiding from that. I don’t want to hide from that. It’s the truth.

‘Well, the layout is the same,’ I say in desperation but the words fall from my mouth like pebbles on to sand.

‘Nothing is the same, Mr Shute. Nothing that you have described to us, in detail, is the same.’

‘But—’

‘I will ask you a final time, Mr Shute. Did you witness a murder at this address? At number 42B?’

I notice that Blake has curled into herself in pity.

‘Yes. I know what I saw.’

‘So how do you explain that video?’ she asks softly. Her voice pleads.

‘I can’t. But I saw it.’ And then a thought comes to me that I voice straight away. ‘There in that room where that sunken table is. Did you check under there?’ I say but the question dies in the air. It’s not possible.

‘Xander. Mr Shute. Can I be really clear?’ says Blake. ‘If you maintain the lie, we are going to have to charge you with the more serious offence of Perverting the Course of Justice. If you accept it now as a lie, we can consider the lesser charge of wasting police time.’

I shake my head. This feels too fast and – wrong.

‘I – I know what I saw. Something’s not right.’

The two of them exchange glances. From one, a look of regret. From the other, irritation.

‘Fine. Mr Shute,’ says Conway. ‘We are formally charging you with Perverting the Course of Justice and we are terminating the interview. The time by my watch is fifteen twenty-two.’

The tapes are switched off and I am led out of the room and out towards the front exit.

I turn to Blake and try to catch her eye but fail. In the end I stop and face her.

‘There’s something you need to know about Ebadi,’ I say.

She raises her eyebrows and waits.

‘Two men came and removed the body the next morning,’ I say. ‘The neighbour from the main house, she saw them.’

Conway stops ahead of us and turns around.

‘Are you telling us that if we speak to Mrs Wilbert, the neighbour, again,’ he says, ‘she will tell us that on Wednesday morning she saw two men remove a dead body from the house?’

‘Well. No,’ I say. ‘She didn’t see the body, but the van. It must have been put into the van,’ I say quickly.

‘So, she saw a van?’

‘Yes. She saw a van and then she saw the men and they were clearly removing things from the house.’

‘Okay. I think we’re done here, Mr Shute.’

I turn back to Blake but her expression is set. ‘You have to check,’ I say.

She stares but says nothing. At the barriers the two of them wait and watch me leave.

‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Shute, if we need you sooner, but until then you’re to be back here in two weeks. March 1st,’ Conway says.

I push the door and step out. As my foot strikes the step, the world feels improbably solid. But I know it isn’t. I’ve just seen evidence of that on a screen.

My head throbs as I reach the bottom of the steps. None of this makes sense.

My mind needs room to run. There has to be an answer hidden in the facts somewhere. It just needs the right lens. If I stand back or to the side of this problem, I know I will be able to find the answer. And that it will come to me in a burst.

The light is beginning to fade and with it, whatever warmth it had brought. I look up as I leave the station behind and start a path in a loop around the building. It is a desolate place. I know that when the summer arrives, the light will make even these bricks quiver again with life. But at this moment, nothing around me feels capable of life.