Ian McEwan - Nutshell

‘It’ll be all right.’

‘No, it won’t.’

His silence agrees. I was considering a fourth strike, but Trudy’s mood is dangerous. She might go on the attack and invite a dangerous response.

After a pause, in mollifying mode, he says, ‘We should run through it one last time.’

‘What about a lawyer?’

‘Bit late now.’

‘Tell them we won’t talk without one.’

‘Won’t look good when they’re only coming round for a chat.’

‘I hate this.’

‘We should run through it one last time.’

But they don’t. Stupefied, they contemplate Chief Inspector Allison’s approach. By now, within the hour could mean within the minute. Knowing everything, almost everything, I’m party to the crime, safe, obviously, from questioning, but fearful. And curious, impatient to witness the inspector’s skills. An open mind could peel these two apart in minutes. Trudy betrayed by nerves, Claude by stupidity.

I’m trying to place them, the morning coffee cups from my father’s visit. Transferred, I now think, to wait unwashed by the kitchen sink. DNA on one cup will prove my mother and uncle to be telling the truth. The Danish debris must be close by.

‘Quickly,’ says Claude at last. ‘Let’s do this. Where did the row start?’

‘In the kitchen.’

‘No. On the doorstep. What was it about?’

‘Money.’

‘No. Throwing you out. How long was he depressed?’

‘Years.’

‘Months. How much did I lend him?’

‘A thousand.’

‘Five. Christ. Trudy.’

‘I’m pregnant. It makes you dim.’

‘You said it yourself yesterday. Everything as it was, plus the depression, minus the smoothies, plus the row.’

‘Plus the gloves. Minus he was moving back in.’

‘God yes. Again. What was he depressed about?’

‘Us. Debts. Work. Baby.’

‘Good.’

They go round a second time. By the third, it sounds better. What sickening complicity that I should wish them success.

‘So say it then.’

‘As it happened. Minus the smoothies, plus the row and gloves, minus the depression, plus he was moving back in.’

‘No. Fuck! Trudy. As was. Plus the depression, minus the smoothies, plus the row, plus the gloves, minus he was moving back in.’

The doorbell rings and they freeze.

‘Tell them we’re not ready.’

This is my mother’s idea of a joke. Or evidence of her terror.

Muttering probable obscenities, Claude goes towards the videophone, changes his mind and makes for the stairs and the front door.

Trudy and I take a nervous shuffle around the kitchen. She too is muttering as she works on her story. Usefully, each successive effort of memory removes her further from the actual events. She’s memorising her memories. The transcription errors will be in her favour. They’ll be a helpful cushion at first, on their way to becoming the truth. She could also tell herself — she didn’t buy the glycol, go to Judd Street, mix the drinks, plant stuff in the car, dump the blender. She cleaned up the kitchen — not against the law. Convinced, she’ll be liberated from conscious guile and may stand a chance. The effective lie, like the masterly golf swing, is free of self-awareness. I’ve listened to the sports commentaries.

I attend to and sift the descending footsteps. Chief Inspector Allison is light-boned, even bird-like, for all her seniority. There are handshakes. From the sergeant’s wooden ‘how d’you do’ I recognise the older man from yesterday’s visit. What’s blocked his promotion? Class, education, IQ, scandal — the last, I hope, for which he might take the blame and doesn’t need my pity.

The agile chief inspector sits at the kitchen table and invites us all to do the same, as if the house were hers. I imagine my mother thinking that she might more easily mislead a man. Allison spreads a folder, and clicks repeatedly the spring-loaded button of her pen as she speaks. She tells us that the first thing to say — then pauses with great intensity of effect to look, I’m certain, deeply into Trudy and Claude’s eyes — is how deeply sorry she is at this loss of a dear husband, dear brother, dear friend. No dear father. I’m fighting a familiar, rising chill of exclusion. But the voice is warm, larger than her frame, relaxed in the burden of office. Her mild cockney is the very register of urban poise and won’t be easily challenged. Not by my mother’s expensively constrained vowels. No pulling that old trick. History has moved on. One day most British statesmen will speak like the chief inspector. I wonder if she has a gun. Too grand. Like the queen not carrying money. Shooting people is for sergeants and below.

Allison explains that this is an informal conversation to help her form a fuller understanding of the tragic events. Trudy and Claude are under no obligation to answer questions. But she’s wrong. They feel they are. To refuse will appear suspicious. But if the chief inspector is one move ahead, she may think that compliance is even more suspect. Those with nothing to hide would insist on a lawyer as a precaution against police error or unlawful intrusion.

As we settle round the table I note and resent the absence of polite queries about me. When’s it due? Boy or girl?

Instead, the chief inspector wastes no time. ‘You might show me around when we’re done talking.’

More statement than request. Claude is eager, too eager, to comply. ‘Oh yes. Yes!’

A search warrant would be the alternative. But there’s nothing upstairs of interest to the police beyond the squalor.

The chief inspector says to Trudy, ‘Your husband came here yesterday about 10 a.m.?’

‘That’s right.’ Her tone is impassive, an example to Claude.

‘And there was tension.’

‘Of course.’

‘Why of course?’

‘I’ve been living with his brother in what John thought was his house.’

‘Whose house is it?’

‘It’s the marital home.’

‘The marriage was over?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mind if I ask? Did he think it was over?’

Trudy hesitates. There may be a right and wrong answer.

‘He wanted me back but he wanted his women friends.’

‘Know any names?’

‘No.’

‘But he told you about them.’

‘No.’

‘But you knew somehow.’

‘Of course I knew .’

Trudy allows herself a little contempt. As if to say, I’m the real woman here. But she’s ignored Claude’s coaching. She was to speak the truth, adding and subtracting only what was agreed. I hear my uncle stir in his chair.

Without pause, Allison changes the subject. ‘You had a coffee.’

‘Yes.

‘All three. Round this table?’

‘All three.’ This is Claude, worried perhaps that his silence is giving a poor impression.

‘Anything else?’

‘What?’

‘With the coffee. Did you offer him anything else?

‘No.’ My mother sounds cautious.

‘And what was in the coffee?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Milk? Sugar?’

‘He always had it black.’ Her pulse rate has risen.

But Clare Allison’s manner is impenetrably neutral. She turns to Claude. ‘So you lent him money.’

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’

‘Five thousand.’ Claude and Trudy answer in ragged chorus.

‘A cheque?’

‘Cash, actually. It’s how he wanted it.’

‘Have you been to this juice bar on Judd Street?’

Claude’s answer is as quick as the question. ‘Once or twice. It was John who told us about it.’

‘You weren’t there yesterday, I suppose.’

‘No.’

‘You never borrowed his black hat with the wide brim?’

‘Never. Not my sort of thing.’