Flynn Berry - Under the Harrow

I let my features slip, to show him my distaste, as an actual journalist might. We stare frankly at each other for a moment, then I signal to the waiter and order a danish. It’s a calculated gesture. I’m not too frightened to eat in front of him.

“Do you want anything?”

“No,” he says, and I study him. Did you hurt my sister? Did you kill her? I think of the woman in Bramley. Both of her shoulders were dislocated by the time he was done.

“Have you heard of Anna Cartwright?” I ask.

“No.”

“She was a forensic pathologist in the US. A few years ago, she was caught falsifying evidence. Her work was used in thousands of convictions, and all of them have to be retried now. I think something similar is happening in York.”

“Who?”

“I can’t say yet. But the person handled materials for your trial.”

“It’s too late now, isn’t it?” he says. “I already served five years.”

“You could clear your name. It must be difficult to find work.”

“No,” he says, “it hasn’t been.”

“The story will go ahead either way. If you want a chance to say what actually happened, all you have to do is talk to me.” The waiter sets down the danish and I start to eat, choking down the sweet cream and pastry. I hate danishes, but didn’t want to ruin a good food.

“How much will I be paid?”

“We don’t compensate interview subjects, but you might receive reparations if your conviction is overturned.” I pause, as though this next part will be difficult to hear. “He’s done very well, this man. He’s risen quickly in the Home Office.”

We talk for the next half hour. He grew up in Hull and attended the comprehensive on Fountain Road. He lived in Hull until he was charged, and I work out that he was there the summer of Rachel’s assault. He spent five years at Wakefield Prison. His brother bought him a flat and furnished it for him before his parole.

“Did your brother collect you on your release?”

“No. He lives in Germany.”

I falter for a moment. His brother thinks he’s guilty. He flew back to buy and furnish the flat, but not to meet him. I would guess he never visited Paul in prison either.

We discuss his treatment by the police. He has some complaints but was treated courteously overall. He mentions his probation officer by name. He tells me about being on parole and about his job.

As we finish the conversation, I mention the name of the commissioning editor at the Telegraph .

He smiles. “Do you live in London?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Clapham,” I say, with a tight smile. He tilts his head. He knows I’m lying, but I think it pleases him that I don’t want him to know where I live. I stow my notebook in my bag. I’m about to pull the straps over my shoulder and stand when he says, “We’ve met before. Do you not remember?”

“No.”

“At the Cross Keys.”

“I’ve never been. Is that around here?”

“Yes. You must have been a teenager. We talked one night. You don’t remember our conversation?”

“No. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

I LEAVE THE CAR in front of the café and walk to Albion Street. The district is familiar, though many of the shops have changed since I was last here, years ago. The name of the pub isn’t familiar, and I was telling the truth when I said I’d never been to it. A group of us often went out in Leeds when we were teenagers, but I remember the names of the bars and clubs, and the Cross Keys isn’t one of them. People go past me, pulling their collars up, the rain too fine for an umbrella. I turn into Red Lion Square.

The pub has an ordinary front — baskets of ivy, a chalkboard by the door — but as soon as I see it I know that the bar is on the left when you enter and there is a square stone patio for smoking. The toilets are down a flight of stairs behind red stall doors that are half the usual height.

The pub has a few patrons inside, stale air, a race on. I go down the steps, and at the bottom of the stairs I push open the door to the ladies’. I still hope to be wrong. The room smells of disinfectant and spilled liquor. The stall doors are red and half height.

I enter one of the stalls and pull the latch across. The glossy red paint shows my reflection, a dark smear. My heart is beating so strongly that when I look down it’s lifting the fabric of my shirt.

At the top of the steps the bartender and the other drinkers turn to look at me, and I realize I’m panting. It was like being where something terrible had happened, where someone had died or where bodies were buried. I don’t know what happened there.

I leave the square and realize the pub is a few blocks from the Mint. We often went into places like it to drink before we went to a club. No one noticed if we brought a plastic bottle of tequila and emptied it into a cup of ice. I think Rachel and I came together. Going out in Leeds was an endeavor and something we rarely did separately.

He may have confused me with Rachel. He may have spoken to Rachel before the attack, on one of the nights when she blacked out. Or he spoke to me, on one of the nights I blacked out.

• • •

Paul told me he works as a clerk at a computer repair shop. I call the manager and introduce myself as Ruth Foley, Paul’s parole officer, and ask to confirm his account of his movements. I ask if he worked on Friday 19 November, and the manager has me hold the line, then says, “Yes, he was here from ten until six.”

The manager promises that he couldn’t have left. He was behind a till and would have needed a replacement.

I call Moretti from the green on Merrion Street. “What will you do if you find the man who attacked her in Snaith?”

“We would consider him as a suspect in her murder.”

“What if he has an alibi? Would you investigate the assault itself?”

“No.”

“Why not? There’s no statute of limitations on it.”

“The victim can’t testify, and there were no witnesses. Even if we charged him, the Crown prosecutor would never bring it to court.”

• • •

On the drive home, I think about the red half-height doors. They were designed, I think, to keep you from doing things you shouldn’t. I have a memory of laughing about this. I think I went into one of the stalls with a man.

WHEN I RETURN TO Marlow, I go to the library. On the landing, there is a drawing of the meeting house, a white lodge on a great lawn. It had a portico with columns and segments of shade, and benches facing the village. I wonder if anyone died when it burned down.

“Why didn’t they rebuild it?” I asked Rachel.

“They all left. They moved to America.”

I climb the stairs to the children’s collection. I choose a book of Italian fairy tales with a green cover and carry it home. As I come up the stairs, I stub my toe on the chair on the landing. Pain bursts up my calf, and I drop the book. I lift the chair and thrash it against the wall. Across the landing the heavy gold mirror rattles. Dust rises from the plaster. My face is wet and my mouth gapes open as I grunt with the effort.

• • •

When I leave my room again, the book of Italian fairy tales has been smoothed and left in front of my door. On the landing, I kneel and brush the plaster dust into my hand. The exterior walls of the Hunters are made of stone. There is a chance no one will notice the dents in the plaster. Someone has already cleared away the broken chair.

That night, in my room, I try to read the Italian stories, but even they are beyond me. For a long time I sit with the book on my lap and my head tilted back in pain. When I finally stand to go to bed, I notice the illustration that has been open on my lap.