Clare Mackintosh - I Let You Go

A low whistle comes from the bench at the back of the custody suite, and DI Stevens turns to shoot Lee a look of warning. ‘What’s he doing there, anyway?’ he asks of nobody in particular.

‘Waiting for his brief. I’ll get him out of the way.’ Without turning round, the custody sergeant yells, ‘Sally, get Roberts back in trap two, will you?’ A stocky female gaoler comes out of the office behind the custody desk, a huge ring of keys clipped to her belt. She is eating something, and she brushes crumbs off her tie. The gaoler leads Lee into the bowels of the custody suite, and he flashes me a look of disgust as he rounds the corner. That’s how it will be in prison, I think, when they find out I have killed a child. Disgust on the faces of other inmates; people turning away when I walk by. Then I bite my bottom lip as I realise it will be much, much worse than that. My stomach clenches with fear, and for the first time I wonder if I can get through this. I remind myself I’ve survived worse.

‘Belt,’ the custody sergeant says, holding out a clear plastic bag.

‘I’m sorry?’ He is speaking to me as though I know the rules, but I’m lost already.

‘Your belt. Take it off. Are you wearing any jewellery?’ He’s getting impatient now, and I fumble with my belt, dragging it out of the loops on my jeans and dropping it into the bag.

‘No, no jewellery.’

‘Wedding ring?’

I shake my head, instinctively fingering the faint indentation on my fourth finger. DC Evans is going through my bag. There’s nothing particularly personal in there, but still it feels like watching a burglar ransack my house. A tampon rolls on to the counter.

‘Will you need this?’ she asks. Her tone is matter-of-fact, and neither DI Stevens nor the custody officer says anything, but I blush furiously.

‘No.’

She drops it into the plastic bag, before opening my purse to take out the few cards that are there and tipping the coins on to the side. It’s then that I notice the pale-blue card lying amongst the receipts and the bank cards. The room seems to fall silent and I can almost hear my heart banging against my ribs. When I glance at DC Evans I realise she has stopped writing and is looking straight at me. I don’t want to look at her, but I can’t drop my gaze. Leave it, I think, just leave it. Slowly and deliberately she picks up the card and looks at it. I think she is going to ask me about it, but she lists it on the form and drops it into the bag with the rest of my possessions. I breathe out slowly.

I’m trying to concentrate on what the sergeant is saying, but I’m lost in a litany of rules and rights. No, I don’t want anyone told I’m here. No, I don’t want a solicitor …

‘Are you sure?’ DI Stevens interrupts. ‘You’re entitled to free legal advice while you’re here, you know.’

‘I don’t need a solicitor,’ I say softly. ‘I did it.’

There is a silence. The three police officers exchange glances.

‘Sign here,’ says the custody sergeant, ‘and here, and here, and here.’ I take the pen and scrawl my name next to thick black crosses. He looks at DI Stevens. ‘Straight into interview?’

The interview room is stuffy and smells of stale tobacco, despite the ‘no smoking’ sticker peeling away from the wall. DI Stevens gestures to where I should sit. I try to pull my chair closer to the table, but it’s bolted to the floor. On the surface of the table someone has gouged a series of swear words in biro. DI Stevens flicks a switch on a black box on the wall beside him, and a high-pitched tone sounds. He clears his throat.

‘It’s 22.45 on Thursday the second of January 2014 and we’re in interview room three at Bristol police station. I’m Detective Inspector 431 Ray Stevens and with me is Detective Constable 3908 Kate Evans.’ He looks at me. ‘Could you give your name and date of birth for the tape, please?’

I swallow and try to make my mouth work. ‘Jenna Alice Gray, twenty-eighth August 1976.’

I let his words wash over me; the seriousness of the allegation against me, the consequences of the hit-and-run on the family, on the community as a whole. He’s not telling me anything I don’t know, and he couldn’t add to the weight of guilt I already feel.

Finally it’s my turn.

I speak quietly, my eyes fixed on the table between us, hoping he won’t interrupt me. I only want to say it once.

‘It had been a long day. I had been exhibiting on the other side of Bristol and I was tired. It was raining and I couldn’t see well.’ I keep my voice measured and calm. I want to explain how it happened, but I don’t want to come across as defensive – how could I defend what happened? I’ve thought so often about what I would say if it ever came to this, but now that I’m here, the words seem awkward and insincere.

‘He came out of nowhere,’ I say. ‘One minute the road was clear, the next there he was, running across it. This little boy, in a blue woolly hat and red gloves. It was too late, too late to do anything.’

I grip the edge of the table with both hands, anchoring myself in the present as the past threatens to take over. I can hear the screech of brakes, smell the acrid stench of burning rubber on wet tarmac. When Jacob hit the windscreen, for an instant he was just inches away from me. I could have reached out and touched his face through the glass. But he twisted from me into the air and slammed on to the road. It was only then that I saw his mother, crouching over the lifeless boy, searching for a pulse. When she couldn’t find one, she screamed; a primordial sound that wrenched every last gasp of air from her, and I watched, horrified, through the blurred windscreen, as a pool of blood formed beneath the boy’s head, tainting the wet road until the tarmac shimmered red under the beam of the headlights.

‘Why didn’t you stop? Get out? Call for help?’

I drag myself back to the interview room, staring at DI Stevens. I had almost forgotten he was there.

‘I couldn’t.’

25

‘Of course she could have stopped!’ Kate said, pacing the short distance between her desk and the window, then back again. ‘She’s so cold – she makes me shiver.’

‘Will you sit down?’ Ray drained his coffee and stifled a yawn. ‘You’re making me even more knackered.’ It was past midnight when Ray and Kate reluctantly called a halt to the interview to allow Jenna some sleep.

Kate sat down. ‘Why do you think she’s rolled over so easily now, after more than a year?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ray, leaning back on his chair and putting his feet on Stumpy’s desk. ‘There’s something not quite right about it.’

‘Like what?’

Ray shook his head. ‘Just a feeling. I’m probably tired.’ The door to the CID office opened and Stumpy came in. ‘You’re back late. How was the big smoke?’

‘Busy,’ Stumpy said. ‘God knows why anyone would want to live there.’

‘Did you win over Jacob’s mother?’

Stumpy nodded. ‘She won’t be starting a fan club any time soon, but she’s onside. After Jacob’s death she felt there was a lot of criticism levelled at her by the community. She said it had been hard enough being accepted as a foreigner, and the accident was more fuel for the fire.’

‘When did she leave?’ Kate asked.

‘Straight after the funeral. There’s a big Polish community in London, and Anya’s been staying with some cousins in a multi-occupancy house. Reading between the lines, I think there’s a bit of a question mark over her eligibility to work, which didn’t help matters when it came to tracing her.’

‘Was she happy to talk to you?’ Ray stretched out his arms in front of him and cracked his knuckles. Kate winced.