After a short deliberation, trembling in the pitch-black hallway of my flat, the air drifting in through the shards of broken glass, I decide against dialling 999. Even if I felt capable of having a rational conversation at three o’clock in the morning while dosed up on barbiturates, the idea of inviting the police into my home is not an option. For all I know, any one of the officers I work with on a day-to-day basis might turn up.
Somehow, after taping up the hole in the door with newspaper and Sellotape, I manage to fall back to sleep, and only wake again twelve hours later.
It is Sunday, I figure as I lie under the covers with my eyes closed, my mind blissfully devoid of thoughts beyond this moment; but then I see the patches of blood on the sheets, the cut on my hand from where I’d reached through the glass to pick up the brick, and the rest of the world comes hurtling back into view.
The note, scrawled on an otherwise innocuous piece of white paper in childish handwriting, still lies on the table as I move into the kitchen. After taking a shower to clear my head, washing the blood from my hand and my chin, I pick out an outfit at random from the pile of clothes strewn around my bed, feeling in my coat pocket for my keys, and only then remember the missing purse and shoes. I make a mental note to call the bank as soon as I get to the newspaper offices tomorrow to order a new card. It can wait that long – it isn’t like there is any money in my account to steal between now and then.
Sweeping a handful of pound coins from the counter into my palm, I pour a whisky to take the edge off the headache that has taken hold and close my eyes at the soothing, burning sensation against the back of my throat.
Kentish Town police station is just a short stroll from the flat, and I take the back route to get there, cutting through the Stables market, breathing in the familiar scent of burnt falafel and cheap incense.
The brisk afternoon sun has already receded behind the buildings as I settle on the steps of the station, fifteen minutes later, to finish my cigarette before heading inside.
The officer behind the glass counter pronounces her words pointedly, looking at her watch as she draws her conclusion.
‘So you saw something happen, when was it – Saturday morning? Although why you didn’t report the matter at the time …’ I clench my jaw, my fingers pushing against the counter, out of her view. I’m sorry, I imagine telling her. I desperately wanted to say something but I was off my face on a variety of Class A drugs, and I knew that not only would you not believe a word I said but that thanks to the completely lopsided and ineffectual drug laws you have chosen a career to uphold, you might also have foreseeably had me arrested, thus risking my job, my livelihood and my home. I say nothing, and she continues.
‘All I am saying to you now is that I can’t quite see the connection between this … incident … and the brick that you say was thrown through your door some twenty-four hours later …’ the woman continues and I hold her eye for a moment before pulling away, nodding as I walk out of the station, pulling out another cigarette and feeling a shiver as I light up.
Despite the officer’s implication that the attack I’d witnessed on the Heath and the brick through my window hours later were most likely unrelated – if indeed she had believed me that either event had actually happened at all – I can’t ignore the tightening in my chest as I walk – every car horn, every bustling body a threat as I move along Kentish Town High Street.
Unable to shake the unbidden soundtrack in my head, I toss the half-smoked fag in the gutter and enter the loudest pub I can find and order a large whisky, allowing my thoughts to be drowned out by the churning of the crowds. It’s the same pub where Maureen and I had first met, just a couple of streets away from the refuge she runs, but today as I scan the bar she is nowhere to be seen.
Once the drink starts to take the edge off, helped along by the half of Xanax I slipped into my mouth as I left the police station, the anxiety clinging to my chest loosens its grip.
Regardless of what the police officer had suggested, what I had seen was more than a lovers’ tiff. Still conscious of the breath drawing in and out of my lungs, I work through the facts in palatable fractions. What had I really seen?
Wrestling with myself, with the other memories that threaten to overshadow this one, I allow a picture of the girl’s face to form; concentrating my mind on the area around her head, her face moving more clearly into focus as I do so, like a magic eye picture taking shape. Swallowing a mouthful of whisky, I see her eyes blink open and shut, her face white and glazed over. As the image gains clarity, it shifts so that suddenly the eyes in front of me are someone else’s, and now it is all too much.
Unable to differentiate between the two events in my memory, I feel a pair of hands grabbing my shoulders and pulling me away.
No, get off me!
I don’t know I’ve spoken aloud, but when I look up the barman is standing in front of me, proffering the bottle, a concerned look on his face.
‘No, you’re all right, Ted,’ I say after a moment, pushing my stool back. ‘I’m going to head off.’
‘OK,’ he says, every eye in the pub turning to watch me leave. ‘You take care of yourself.’
By the time I arrive back in Camden, a police cordon is stretched across two bus stops opposite my flat. I recognise the officers guarding the area from a glorified puff piece I was forced to work on a while back about community policing initiatives, as part of management’s attempt to ingratiate itself with the local force.
‘PC Allan?’ I say, fixing him with my best smile as I approach. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Another stabbing. Couple of Somers Town kids, usual shit. Obviously don’t quote me on that …’
‘Fuck,’ I reply, shaking my head. ‘You’re all right, it’s Sunday, I’m not working. That’s my flat.’ I point to a dark window above the newsagent’s, a boarded-up shop on one side, a kebab shop on the other.
‘Actually, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in a minute. I’m just going to get a pad …’
As I walk past the phone box, I flinch at the outline of a ghost-like figure through the glass, but when I look again I see it is my own reflection.