I told those police detectives to leave it alone but they just won’t. I know it’s not that simple, I know they can’t just walk away from a murder investigation, but still. I wish they would go away and leave us alone; they have no idea how hard they are making things.
I am sitting in the car a few hundred metres from my house. I can see the two detectives outside my door talking to R. I look in the mirror and see the remnants of a very obvious shiner. The make-up I put on was pointless, as my eye is still swollen from earlier today.
We had a fight this morning. I ruined a shirt he liked and so he sent me to the shops to get another one, but not before cuffing me first. He has a million shirts – he certainly didn’t need a new one. It was more about making me feel awkward and having to lie about my injury to shop assistants, almost daring anyone to do anything about it. As if anyone believes any of those lies, anyway. I search my handbag for my shades and put them on before starting the engine and going to the house.
When I get out of the car, I pick up the shopping bags and go straight into the house. Maybe they won’t stop me to talk, but of course they do. I feel even worse about the situation as I watch Adrian Miles get angry. His partner steps in the way a little and somehow that holds him back. I can see this is personal for him. I guess he had a similar upbringing. He’s not protecting me so much as someone else, someone from his past – a mother, probably. I know how that feels. Every day I am grateful for the fact that I haven’t fallen pregnant, yet.
The officers ask me what happened and I lie but it’s pointless – everyone knows the truth. I can tell R is annoyed at me for coming home at that moment, but it doesn’t matter. He would have found something else to be annoyed at me about if it wasn’t that. He just woke up in one of those moods today. Sometimes it’s as simple as that.
I go to the kitchen and drink a couple of mouthfuls of gin before he gets here; I know what will happen when he does. I’ll just wait here.
When he comes back in he starts to taunt me about the detectives, asks me if I have spoken to them about him. I tell him I haven’t, why would I? He gets his phone out and shows me the video of Adrian rescuing me from the river and asks me if I told them about him.
I explain that they would have come sooner if I had told them, they would have asked him directly about it. No answer is good enough. He asks me if anything happened between DS Adrian Miles and me and I say no, how could it? I was barely conscious when he found me. He knows the real answers to all of the questions he is asking. This isn’t about me, this isn’t about the detective, this is about R making me squirm.
I flash back to the night of the attack again as he is talking to me. This time it feels more complete, not just a snapshot. I remember him asking me if Simon and I had fucked. I remember telling him no and then I remember him pounding Simon every time I said no. There was nothing else to say, if I had said yes then he would have killed him on the spot. I shudder at the thought of remembering anything else from that night, knowing that for me to block it out it must be so much worse.
Back in the present, he tells me that I need to make the police go away. He grabs me by the shoulders and whispers. I feel his breath on me and I recoil. He throws me backwards until I collide with the dresser. Something cuts my hand. I feel the sharpness followed by the familiar feeling of blood leaving my body. I fall to the ground and look at my hand. I remember that night again, another fragment of information to build on. I’m in the back of a van, Simon is lying next to me and I can’t wake him. It’s dark and I am afraid.
I am pulled back into the present by shouting. DS Miles is swinging for R and a silent cheer erupts in my mind as his fist connects with R’s jaw. The glee is short-lived, as R punches DS Miles back and then gets hold of the detective by the hair before smashing his head against the counter. DS Grey is tending to me and I find myself more worried that R is really going to hurt DS Miles.
More police officers turn up and break things up. I enjoy seeing R being pulled to the ground and cuffed like the criminal he is, but he is still smiling through it all. He knows he will get away with it. He always does. He knows I will say what he wants me to say, like I always have done. The few times I have spoken out against him, someone other than me has got really hurt and I can’t stand feeling responsible for that.
They cart him off in a police car and DS Grey makes the usual assurances to me about how they will get him. I smile and nod, because it’s futile explaining to them how smart he is – they won’t understand. How could they? They don’t know him like I do. No one does.
I watch her speaking to her partner and I realise there is more going on there than just a working relationship. It explains why I feel her bristling whenever we speak – she can see me pulling her partner in. It’s not my fault; I don’t want to. God knows I’ve told them to leave me alone enough times.
I give a statement of events, not entirely correct. I maintain the police have the wrong end of the stick and that I fell into the cabinet. No one believes me, least of all myself. Before long I am alone in the house. I start to clear away the broken glass and crockery, restoring the house to look as though nothing has happened, ready for when R is released tomorrow and comes home. I am grateful for the respite, though.