Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

The sound of the door opening made him look up and there she was. Colin glanced at the police officer, his mind setting out words to describe her as though she were a character in one of his stories. Today she wore a dark charcoal trouser suit, nipped in at the waist, and a pair of high-heeled ankle boots. The open-necked shirt revealed a single line of pearls at her throat. Pearls are for tears , he remembered his mum telling him, and the memory of her voice made his throat ache with a renewed desire to weep. Just behind the detective inspector was another woman, older and more careworn, wearing a simple black suit over a black and white striped shirt and carrying a matching black briefcase. She came forward looking at him seriously.

‘I’m Mrs Fellowes, the duty solicitor. You may request to have your own legal representative here if you wish, Mr Young,’ the woman said, standing by the side of an empty chair as though waiting for Colin to make a decision.

‘No, that’s all right,’ he said, an innate politeness making him wish for this stranger to be at her ease. She came around the table and sat in the empty seat next to his — not close, he noticed, but near enough for him to be aware of her presence.

‘You remember me, Mr Young?’ DI Grant had seated herself opposite them after fiddling with a box over near the wall, something that Colin recognised as a recording machine of some kind. Colin nodded. His head felt muzzy as he listened to her words, unable to really make out what they meant. Then a peculiar sensation came over him, as though he were outside looking down on these people instead of being one of the figures himself. Small details seemed to loom large, like the piece of sticking plaster curled around the detective’s index finger where she must have cut herself; the way the lawyer’s hair curled around her tiny shell-like ears, and his own sweating hands clasped tightly together as though ready for prayer.

DI Grant introduced herself and Mrs Fellowes to the tape machine and gave the date and time then turned to face Colin.

‘You know why you’re here?’ she asked.

Colin nodded, letting himself be part of this dreamlike state.

‘Speak for the machine, please,’ she told him crisply.

‘Yes,’ Colin said gruffly, then cleared his throat.

‘Yes,’ he said again, more loudly this time, and as if the utterance of the word had broken a spell, he was suddenly aware of the padded seat pressing against his back and the coarseness of the material under his buttocks as though he had landed from a great height.

‘It’s to do with Eva,’ he continued helpfully.

DI Grant leaned forward slightly. ‘We have had results from our laboratory, Mr Young,’ she began, then gave a small smile of satisfaction. ‘DNA results that show that you were the person who had sex with Eva Magnusson shortly before her death.’

Colin nodded once again.

‘Please speak for the machine,’ DI Grant said again with a sigh that made Colin feel awkward and ashamed.

‘Yes, that’s right. We did have… sex,’ he mumbled, feeling his face reddening, not wishing to discuss intimate things in front of these two women. Suddenly he was angry. What right had she to peer and pry into his private life? Looking up he could see DI Grant’s smile continue, though her eyes were hard and cold.

‘We’d done nothing wrong,’ he protested, then swallowed hard, hearing his own voice come out small and shrill.

‘Consensual sex?’ DI Grant persisted. ‘Or did you force the girl against her will? Hit her hard to make her more compliant? Eh?’

‘Detective Inspector-’ Mrs Fellowes began but Colin could see the police officer wave her hand brusquely in the air as though to simply brush aside any possible protest.

Colin’s mouth opened in astonishment, then he closed it again. She didn’t know. How could she? Well, he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her what had really taken place. Eva was dead. It would do nobody any good to reveal to anyone what life had been like for him over the past few months, especially to her father.

He sat back in his seat, suddenly exhausted as though the last vestiges of energy had drained out of him.

‘No comment,’ he said at last, forcing his eyes to remain focused on his hands that were bunched together on his lap, fingernails digging into the palms and making them bleed.

‘Here’s what I think happened, Colin,’ DI Grant continued, leaning forward so near to him that he was aware of a pungent scent that might have been tea-tree oil. ‘I think you fancied Eva, fancied her a lot. A pretty Swedish girl whose warm sunny nature makes her popular with everyone she meets, a girl way out of your league, Colin. Wouldn’t you say?’

‘No comment,’ Colin whispered to his hands again, the scent emanating from the woman’s fingers making him feel sick.

‘Speak up, please.’

‘No comment,’ Colin said again, anger with this stupid woman and her stupid machine making his ears burn.

‘See, Eva could have had her pick of the lads, so why pick you, Colin?’

He kept his eyes down, refusing to rise to her bait, refusing even to answer.

‘Did you force her to have sex? Or was she so sorry for you that she let you have your way? And what happened afterwards? Did you come too quickly? Did she laugh at you? And then did you have a moment of utter rage when you hit her on the head? Such overpowering rage that you had to take her throat and squeeze it so hard that you killed her?’ Grant’s voice grew louder with every question.

‘No!’ Colin sat up suddenly, thumping the table between them. ‘I didn’t kill her! You can’t believe that I did!’ he gulped.

‘Sure about that, Colin?’ The woman was smiling at him still, her cats’ eyes gleaming as though she had scored a point by making him answer her at last.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ he said, clasping his hands together to stop them trembling, eyes cast down to avoid the detective inspector’s stare.

‘You see, we think that you did,’ DI Grant continued. She paused for a moment and he looked up despite himself to see her regarding him thoughtfully.

‘We think that you killed the girl in a moment of… what shall we call it, a moment of madness, if you like. Some killers do tend to use that particular phrase, you know,’ she said drily.

Colin wanted to turn to the solicitor in mute appeal but a sudden thought made his skin prickle with sweat. She had made no noise of objection on his behalf. Was she part of the ‘we’ that the detective inspector was referring to? Was this some kind of conspiracy against him?

Colin shook his head again. ‘I did not kill her,’ he said slowly, enunciating each word as though to make the detective understand. ‘I don’t have a temper. I’m not that sort of person.’

The detective inspector shared a wry smile with the other woman, one sardonic eyebrow lifted as though to say, Well what was all that shouting about then?

‘No? What sort of person are you then, Colin?’ She was sitting back in her seat now, arms folded, looking at him with interest.

‘You’re so sweet, Colin,’ Eva had said, tracing his lips with one finger. Her eyes had looked into his, melting him with that blue gaze. He had smelled her scent, something that reminded him of gardens after the rain, fresh and lovely, just like Eva herself. He had run his hands over her hair, gently, caressing her-

‘What sort of person do you think you are?’ the woman said, rephrasing her question.

‘Don’t know,’ Colin shrugged. Not a killer, not someone who would ever have hurt that girl, any girl , he wanted to scream. But all he needed right now was to get out of this room and away from the persistent voice that was accusing him.