Flynn Berry: Under the Harrow

“Attacked?”

“Yes. The charge would have been grievous bodily harm.”

“Did she know the assailant?”

“No.”

“Was anyone arrested?”

“No. The police didn’t believe her.” They would allow that she had been assaulted, but not in the way she described. They suspected that she had tried to rob or solicit someone and been violently rebuffed. They were the last of the old wave of policemen, preoccupied with the amount she’d had to drink, and that she didn’t cry. “It was in Snaith, Yorkshire. I don’t know if they still have a record of it. It was fifteen years ago.”

Moretti thanks me. “We need you to stay in the area. Do you have anywhere to sleep tonight?” he asks.

“Rachel’s house.”

“You can’t stay there. Is there someone who can come pick you up?”

I am so tired. I don’t want to try to explain this to anybody, or to wait in the station for one of my friends to arrive from London. When the interview ends, a constable drives me to the only inn in Marlow.

I hope we crash. A lorry holding metal poles drives in front of us on the Abingdon Road, and I imagine the nylon ribbon snapping, the metal poles falling out, dancing on the road, one of them pinioning me to the seat.

The Marlow high street is curved like a sickle, with the common at one end and the train station at the other. The Hunters is at the bottom of the sickle, next to the train station. It is a square, cream stone building with black shutters. When the constable drops me at the inn, there are a few people waiting on the train platform, and they all turn to look at the police car.

At the Hunters, I lock the door and put on the chain. I run my hand along the papered wall, then press my ear to it and hold my breath. I want to hear a woman’s voice. A mother talking to her daughter, maybe, as they get ready for bed. No sounds come through the wall. Everyone’s probably sleeping, I tell myself.

I turn off the lights and crawl under the blanket. I know what’s happening is real, but I do keep expecting her to call.

WE ARE SUPPOSED TO drive to Broadwell today for lingonberry crêpes and the museum, I think when I wake, angry that our plans have been postponed.

Halfway between the bed and the bathroom, my knees crumple. I collapse, but it’s like being yanked upright. The dog rotates from the ceiling. Rachel lies curled against the wall. There are red handprints on the stairs. There are three clean posts on the banister and a dirty one with the dog’s lead tied around it.

• • •

I don’t know how long I stayed like that. At some point I decide to wash myself. I can’t shower, because I think I can smell her house in my hair. Instead I strip and run a damp flannel over my body, watching its fabric turn pink and brown.

I dress, put my clothes from yesterday into a plastic bag, and carry them to the skip behind the inn. This feels strange, like I am disposing of evidence, but the police didn’t ask me to keep them. They should have advised me more carefully. I walk past a painting of a fox hunt in the hall, with some of the red riders hidden behind the trees.

As I climb the stairs, Moretti calls to say he has a few more questions for me. “I’m doing a press statement in an hour. My statement won’t include anything about the dog.”

“Why not?”

“People fixate on that sort of thing. I can’t prepare you,” he says, “for what it will be like if this becomes a national story. We can’t tell you not to talk to the press, but I can say it won’t help the case. They will get in the way, and then when they get bored they will look for what makes Rachel interesting.”

“What makes her interesting?”

“The worst things about her.”

A constable will collect me from the Hunters at five. I decide to wait in my room. I have six hours on my own until he arrives, and I wonder if I will make it until then.

• • •

A few hours later, there is a knock at the door. “I’ve had some complaints from the other guests,” says the manager of the inn. Behind her, the lamps are switched on in the hall. She wears a scarf of Black Watch tartan, and I want to tell her that I used to live in Scotland. My sister came to visit me there.

“The noise is disturbing them.”

“I’m sorry.” I have to lean on the door frame. I haven’t had anything to eat or drink today. Food is going to be a problem.

“Let me know if there’s anything you need,” she says. “I’m so sorry. It’s been such a difficult time. First Callum and now your sister.”

“Callum?”

“The young man from town, killed in an accident on the Bristol Road. He was only twenty-seven.”

I remember now. Rachel was one of his nurses. I consider sharing with the woman what Rachel told me about him, but decide against it.

• • •

At five, a constable collects me and we drive to Abingdon. In the interview room, Moretti says, “We haven’t been able to find your father. Are you in touch with him?”

“No.”

“Was Rachel in touch with him?”

“No.”

The heating pipes click in the ceiling above us. Outside the night is heavy with clouds. It is already snowing in Lancashire and Cumbria. The detective hasn’t asked about our mother. He must already know that she died a long time ago, soon after I was born.

“When did you last speak to your father?”

“Three years ago.”

“Does he have a history of violence?”

“No,” I say, though I’m not sure that’s entirely true. “He’s also frail. Rachel was much stronger than him. Do you have to tell him about her?”

“Yes.”

They will have a hard time finding him. He stopped collecting benefits after becoming suspicious of the government. Rachel had a postcard from him a few months ago saying he was in Blackpool, which I decide not to tell the detective.

“Have you spoken to Stephen yet?” I ask.

“He was at his restaurant all day.”

The news comes as a relief, and I feel disloyal for suspecting him. He adored her.

Moretti says, “What type of vehicle does your father drive?”

“He doesn’t drive anymore,” I say, and start to explain. He’s an alcoholic, though the word has always sounded too polished to describe him. Moretti must already know some of this. He has a record. Disorderly behavior, trespassing, burglary.

A constable knocks on the door, and Moretti excuses himself. I look into the incident room. One of the detectives is eating chips from a packet of foil and paper, and the air smells of vinegar.

I wish Fenno were with me, sitting on his haunches beside my chair. I want to rest my hand on his soft head. I gave him a bath on my last visit, cupping my hand over his eyes while rinsing the soap from his fur. When I wrapped him in a towel he leaned against me, and we stayed like that for a long time, the warm damp soaking through my shirt.

When Moretti returns, he says, “What we need from you now is an account of anything unusual in Rachel’s routine. It could be as small as a change in her route to work. Any new friends, a new activity.”

“I don’t know. She talked about joining a gym in Oxford so she could swim in the winter, but she hadn’t yet.”

“Anything else? Any changes at the hospital?”

“No.”

“Did she enjoy her work?”

“Yes, mostly.” She had a difficult time early in her career, when she was studying to become a nurse practitioner while already working as a registered nurse. She told me that she would bicycle home hoping someone would hit her so she could lie down. “She said it was demanding, but it satisfied her.”

Moretti studies me, and I wonder if I am trying his patience. Soon our interview will end, and I will have to leave. I can’t imagine what I will do next.