The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [29]
Jamal and Abu pull up at a safe distance.
The cousins look at each other, breathing hard, wordlessly taking stock. Uninjured. Jamal runs his hand along the side of the Skoda, putting his finger through one of the many bullet holes.
“And you laughed at my armor plating,” he says, with a hint of pride.
Abu glances at the burning wreck.
“They will have friends. We cannot stay here.”
14
LONDON
Holly Knight stares at a spot on the wall, concentrating on a crack in the paintwork because it stops her thinking of Zac. The police took away her clothes for testing. She fought them at first and it took three female officers to undress her. Then she sat in her underwear, refusing to wear the prison overalls.
There was an argument outside her cell.
A man said, “I can’t interview her if she’s half-naked.”
“She won’t get dressed.”
“Get her some proper clothes.”
The voices went away and came back later. A WPC brought a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and Converse trainers.
“They’re not going to let you go unless you’ve been interviewed. You don’t have to answer the questions, but you have to listen to them.”
Holly could see her point.
Now in the interview room the questions are washing over her like background music in a shopping mall. Threats. Accusations. Abuse.
“When did you last see Zac Osborne?”
She doesn’t answer.
“What happened in the flat?”
Silence.
“Did you see his attacker? What did he look like? Are you deaf? Your boyfriend is dead. He was murdered. You won’t say a word. You’re not crying. You’re not upset. Maybe you don’t care.”
Holly doesn’t react. She only turns her head when someone new enters the room, fixing her eyes on them, committing them to memory. Past experience has impressed upon her the need for silence. She has learned to analyze the consequences of co-operating with the police and has come to the conclusion that the best way to get out of her present circumstances is to say nothing at all so her words can’t be twisted and used against her.
The detective quotes from her file. A history lesson. The foster homes, the past arrests, her alcohol and drug abuse. Her mind slips back over some of these events, but most have been forgotten or blocked out.
She has decided that she does not like DS Thompson, who is no longer polite or respectful. He has an undertaker’s face and dandruff on his shoulders.
In Holly’s experience, people tend to talk at her and not to her. They preach or they browbeat and they hear what they want to hear. But that’s not the reason she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t trust the truth. The truth can be a lethal thing.
Her mother used to work nights as a nurse. Her father, Reece, would go to the pub every evening, dressed in his best jacket, smelling of aftershave, whistling as he walked up the street. He left Holly in charge. Aged seven. Her brother Albie was five, epileptic, small for his age. One night Albie left the taps running when he filled the bath. It overflowed and flooded downstairs, coming through the ceiling in a torrent of plaster and dust.
When their father came home, Holly had tried to clean up but the wet plaster dust was like glue and she couldn’t hide the hole in the ceiling. Albie lay mute and fearful in his bed. His cat was under the covers with him.
“It was my fault,” she said. “I should have been paying attention.”
She watched her father’s large callused hand go up in the air and come down hard on the side of her face: harder than Zac had ever hit her. It knocked her across the room.
Albie lay transfixed, holding the cat against his chest.
The skin of Reece’s face was tight against the bone. He dragged Albie out of bed by the neck and took him to the bathroom.
“You want to be clean? I’ll show you clean.”
He pushed Albie’s head into the toilet bowl. Flushed. Did it again. Albie’s socked feet scrabbled on the tiles. He couldn’t breathe. Reece pulled his head from the bowl and bounced it off the cistern before flushing it again. He left Albie lying on the floor, toilet water