‘We accept, Katherine, you must have been in a particularly fragile state during this ordeal.’ Although these words sound understanding, I see DI Cousins’s eyes glance at her watch as she says them. My time is limited, it seems. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe they have to stay here however long this takes. This plays to the rebellious streak inside me. Maybe I could just keep them going round in rings, lamenting my lack of firm recollection, and wait for them to lose patience and send me home. Or place me under arrest.
‘Nobody’s doubting that,’ DC Malik chips in when I don’t respond straight away.
‘I’m still struggling to understand one key thing,’ DI Cousins says. ‘If you find them upsetting to remember and difficult to speak about, why did you decide to publish a book about these events? Surely you must have known it would bring the skeletons out of the cupboard? I appreciate you say it may have been therapeutic to write it all down, but to actually publish it? This suggests you wanted to go public with the truth. Or your version of it. But the truth, as we know, isn’t just a matter of perception in this case. As we’ve discovered from our own research and from talking to others involved, and of course from the video, there seems to be a wide gulf between what you allege to have happened and what actually may have occurred.’
I look down at the table when she says this last bit. I know what she’s getting at, and I don’t feel ready to go there. It’s a dark, black hole in my mind which hides everything that is dark and evil – but even though I can’t see what’s within, I can hear the sounds, the whispers, the ghosts of the past tugging on me, pulling me; and the sound of them terrifies me to the core.
‘Enough tiptoeing around the issue, Katherine,’ DI Cousins says, her voice now strong and steely. ‘Please tell us, in plain, honest, clear English, exactly what happened on the day Adah died.’