‘Ms Greenside, we’ve been over this many times. We have found, inside your house, in the stuffing of a mattress, a large knife that we know, from fingerprint analysis, was used in a serious offence. Now, why don’t you just tell us why you hid it?’
Carrie wrung her hands. Her body seemed awkward, like a teenager’s, and her brain was foggy. Her clothes were alien and she felt the eyes of the detective searching her secrets. She couldn’t seem to make her thoughts stand up in order. Her foot hurt from kicking the interview room door, repeatedly, until she’d been restrained once more, adding to her misery. Smog shrouded her vision and she lost sense of where she was. She was aware that a man in a suit was sitting beside her and the policeman referred to him as her assigned legal representation, but she couldn’t join the dots and they were both tiring of her vagueness. Her wrists and ankles stung from the tightness of the cable ties, which had, once again, been removed after her promise to behave herself. The aroma of urine choked the air and she picked at her fingers.
She’d already been charged with assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest.
‘Carrie, you’re going to pull the skin off, and you won’t find the answers there.’
Hunt’s voice.
‘Stop calling me that!’ she snapped. The lawyer jumped, and she felt the draught from the shift in his excessive weight. He was fat, and took up more room than his chair could offer. He’d been supplied by the CPS because she hadn’t been able to call her own. Her privileges had been denied her.
She was surrounded by men.
‘We also have witness testimony that puts you at the address of Henry Nelson in the early hours of Wednesday the fifteenth of July, for at least an hour.’
‘I had no idea that he was going to give me a knife. I just put it there because he told me to.’
‘Carrie, you’re an intelligent woman. Do you really expect me to believe that? I assume you mean Henry Nelson gave it to you?’
She eyed him with suspicion.
‘Did you hide anything else for him, Carrie? A heavy tool, like a wrench perhaps?’
The lawyer remained silent. She saw her mother’s face, disappointment written all over it. Carrie is a difficult child…
‘No.’
‘What about these?’ He held up a clear bag full of tiny blue pills. ‘Found in one of your bedroom drawers.’
‘What? I’ve never seen those before in my life.’
‘And your DNA in Monika Thorpe’s bed, from your hurried liaison with her husband? An act of revenge, perhaps, after Henry killed her?’
Carrie registered snippets of sentences, disjointed and noisy in her already crowded head.
He slid a photo her way. It was of a white sheet, with stains ringed in red. It was, she was told, exhibit C. He showed her another one.
‘A hair follicle belonging to you.’
The lawyer sucked his teeth. The noise grated on her nerves. It was the universal noise of a man’s disapproval of a woman. Click-tut. A memory of Tony convincing her to go upstairs… romancing her better judgement away from her. Tricking her with lust.
‘He planted it!’
‘Who planted what?’
‘Tony!’
It was Hunt’s turn to click-tut.
‘He didn’t have to plant anything, though, did he? We already know you were a willing lover, it’s not news. It’s your motive I’m interested in. I suggest that the business meeting turning into something more amorous was planned by you, to make Mr Thorpe appear the heartless husband.’
The room sucked her in and the walls closed down on her head. She scratched her scalp and rubbed her face. She was aware of a hand over hers, trying to force it away from her mouth area.
‘Carrie, you’re scratching your skin, you’re going to hurt yourself.’
She looked from the lawyer to Hunt. They were plotting against her.
‘The way I see it, Henry moved on to a younger woman, and you hated Monika for it. Then when Henry decided to get rid of her because she wanted to run away with him, you encouraged him and helped dispose of her body.’
‘No!’
‘So tell me your version.’
‘What? Shut up!’ She rocked back and forth and ripped at her blouse. She searched around the room for answers. Her skin was hot and itchy.
‘We have your phone records, and we know Henry called you late last Tuesday night. What did he say? Did he ask for your help? Why did you go to his house shortly after?’
Hunt’s mouth moved but his words were jumbled mumbles.
‘We’ve found men’s clothing, Henry Nelson’s size, in your laundry. Did you take home his bloody clothes and wash them for him? You seem to like making his problems go away.’
Movement behind her melted into one. The hand on hers became two and suddenly she was unable to move. She saw plastic cable ties and realised they were restraining her again. A face lunged toward her in a dreamlike sequence, and it was the face of her father. His eyes were red with fury and she froze, terrified of what he might do if he got really mad. She saw his fists curled up, ready to strike, and she cowered, shielding her head from him. She covered her face and struggled with a body.
‘Carrie?’ Somebody was shouting her name.
‘We understand how unresolved anger can manifest itself even after years of supposed dormancy, in cases such as these. We will take the assessment for mental capacity.’ It was her lawyer talking but she couldn’t see his mouth move. Mental capacity…
‘What did you do to your thumb?’ Hunt asked her.
She stared at her hand and remembered the broken vase.
Hunt gathered his papers, pleased with himself. He was leaving. But she hadn’t been released.
No.
Not again.
She managed to get her bound hands away from those holding them and held them up in front of her eyes, to confirm that she wasn’t going mad. But they were covered in blood.
Hunt stood up. ‘Get help in here, now!’ someone shouted. She didn’t know if it was the detective or the lawyer. What was the difference?
She lunged across the table and went for the detective’s throat.
‘Carrie!’
They landed on the floor. Her fingers wrapped vice-like around his neck and, even with her wrists bound together, she managed to keep a tight hold, with her full weight on top of him.
Her lawyer’s voice boomed. Carrie couldn’t tell who was on her side, if anyone. She held tight and felt hands all over her, but still her grasp held strong.
‘Get her off!’
Knees, elbows, God knows what, attacked her from all angles, but she couldn’t be budged. The blood vessels pumping oxygen to her biceps felt engorged and she tightened her grip. The detective’s eyes reminded her of her father’s. He was turning purple, and it felt good.
‘Carrie!’
A waft of air momentarily interrupted her concentration and she glanced sideways. A figure rushed towards her, holding something. Burning hot rods shot through her and she convulsed, falling sideways, hitting the ground.
Her head shut off and her vision went black.