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  GB: Must have been the Christmas before the murder, so Christmas 2005.

  Me: And did the police ever ask you about this?

  GB: Nobody has until now.

  Timothy Bowden never mentioned to the police, the CPS or at the trial the fact that he knew Khalil Bukhari.

  I would like to ask Timothy Bowden about this. I think it would throw some light on the case. Maybe he would, with hindsight, admit that he knew Khalil and that when he picked him out of the line-up it may just have been because that was the only Asian face he was used to seeing, but the trouble is I can’t do that, ever. Timothy Bowden died eighteen months ago.

  Does this matter? Well, take away the line-up evidence and what is the difference between Khalil and Tom Ellis as suspects?

  Next time I promise I’m going to look at motive and I never break a second promise.

  11

  Fatbergs

  The podcast goes out every Friday at 9am. This one is no different. Each one lasts, with music and ads, exactly thirty minutes.

  At 9.32 the phone begins to ring.

  I ignore it and focus on making coffee and Googling a recipe for dinner that I hope will make Henry happy, but at 9.45 I see it’s Cathy calling so I pick up.

  “Oh my God, you’ve really rattled some cages with this one, hon! The studio has been bombarded. Twitter is in meltdown – Naughty Timothy is trending in the UK!”

  Lil'Bitch jumps onto the kitchen table and rolls over, offering her belly, or rather demanding that it be stroked. I oblige and am rewarded with a purr.

  “Islamophobia is so hot right now,” I say, but Cathy ignores the Zoolander reference, which disappoints me as our relationship runs on the fuel of throwaway pop culture references.

  “I know right, and this opens up a whole can of worms. Loved the Jean Charles de Menezes angle; really put the audience in there as a victim of racist police behaviour. You absolutely nailed it. The Guardian want a follow-up piece, today if possible.”

  “I don’t want this to be clickbait for them. I’m going to have to say no.”

  I hear Cathy light a cigarette. She always does when under stress, and not agreeing with her always causes her stress.

  “I think you should reconsider, I really do, hon. We need to ride this wave.”

  “I don’t want to do it.” I’m curt with her but I know she won’t give up if she thinks there’s a chance I can be persuaded.

  “What do you want, hon? What’s the purpose of all this, then? And don’t tell me it’s just about justice for Khalil.”

  She’s right, of course it’s not all about Khalil. I can see how it might be seen as therapy after what happened and I stay silent as I know this is what Cathy and others think it is too, and there is a certain degree of perceived moral value in that, as well as just enough remaining superstition and fear to make people, even Cathy, not want to ask too many questions about my mental health. Mental illness is also hot right now, but not so hot people want to stare at the subject for too long. So I say nothing and the silence allows her to reach the obvious conclusion.

  “Don’t answer, I get it,” she says.

  She’s wrong though. I don’t do it for therapy. I do it as redemption.

  “Okay, well look, you handle the calls. You can do the article if you want as part of the production team. I’m good with that.”

  A pause.

  “I might well do that, and Sarah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take care of yourself. And I just want to tell you that you’re doing an awesome job there.”

  “Thanks Cath, you too.”

  I click end call, feeling like a total fraud.

  Lil'Bitch takes a nip at my hand, as it’s been absent from her stomach for too long.

  The doorbell goes and my heart, as it always does, goes pop like a balloon pierced by a shiny pin.

  “Get a grip Sarah,” I whisper to myself and then I check the video monitor. It’s Peter the council engineer. He mustn’t have noticed the CCTV camera on his last visit because he’s scratching his arse with his right hand. I make a mental note not to shake his hand if proffered.

  When I open the door it is with relief that he doesn’t go for a handshake.

  “Hello, Mrs Kelly, I was here last week.”

  “Hello again. The fatberg, yes I remember. Hard to forget it really, Marigold.”

  “We’re calling it Adele now.” He leers as though he has just dropped a Wildean bon mot.

  I don’t laugh and his leer drops faster than tools at five o’clock.

  “It’s only a joke, like.”

  “Bit misogynistic though, eh? Why didn’t you just call it Pete instead?”

  Peter looks down at his large stomach straining against his fluorescent tabard and then back up at me. He looks hurt but I doubt he will make the link between his own feelings and naming a fatberg after a woman; men like Pete never do.

  He’s blushing and I’m marvelling how I can be so strong with him yet still be like a frightened mouse when the doorbell rings. Sometimes it feels like I have a hundred different version of ‘me’ inside me at any one time.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realise you were one of them sort.”

  “And what sort is that?”

  Peter, briefly, defiantly looks up and whispers, “A feminist,” before dropping his gaze again.

  I can’t help it but I burst out laughing.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, it must be a confusing time for you what with women having a vote and being able to get jobs. Anyway, what can I help you with?”

  He looks back up and this time I can see in his eyes that there’s something else there, something I’ve planted, but I don’t feel guilty about it one bit. It’s hatred. It’s a look I’ve seen flash across the faces of countless men in all my places of work, usually around the same time a woman says something clever or asks for something: an assignment, a raise or respect.

  “I was just going to tell you, tell all the rezzies, like, that the water will be off this afternoon till about five whilst we get a more powerful jet on Ad – on the Berg. Hopefully that will shift it.”

  “And what if it doesn’t? What happens then?”

  Peter brightens up.

  “That’s never happened; we can guarantee everything is going to be alright.”

  And he believes what he says, I can see that.

  “Okay, well thank you for letting me know, Peter, I appreciate it.”

  This seems to perk him up some more and he beams at me again, but almost as soon as the corners of his lips reach their zenith they are plunging back down as he remembers me scolding him.

  “Yeah, see you later, miss.”

  I close the door and walk back inside. Lil'Bitch follows me, rubbing herself against my legs and almost tripping me up.

  True enough, when I try the taps in the kitchen nothing comes out. A little wave of panic washes through me as it occurs to me it’s only 10am and Henry won’t be in until six and I can’t go all day without water. I grab the fridge door and pull it open.

  “Fuck!”

  There are no beautiful fresh bottles of mineral water with condensation running down them as I had hoped.

  “This is like Ice Cold in frigging Alex,” I say to Lil’Bitch who clearly doesn’t get the reference.

  The corner shop isn’t really on the corner of the street; it’s maybe half a mile away at the end of the street and it may as well be on the bloody moon for all the intention I have of leaving this house.

  I try the taps again and am rewarded with a chugging sound like my father’s old Austin Allegro used to make on a cold morning, but no water.

  I wasn’t thirsty before I was told the water was off but now I feel my tongue turning furry even as I think about it. Sometimes I hate my brain; it often seems that it’s a fifth column waging an inside war against my best interests.

  Work, I tell myself. Distract yourself and this psychosomatic thirst will go away. Want to bet? fires back my traitorous grey mat
ter and supplies me with an image of melting ice as a reminder of who is in charge.

  I pop open the laptop and bring up a new, fresh Word document. The cursor blinks back at me, daring me to start writing.

  Motive. I promised my listeners a motive. But without Emma helping me I can’t see how I can make any progress. And then it hits me. I promised a motive, not Tom’s motive.

  There were other guests present at the party. What if one of them had a motive, a spurned suitor, a jealous but quiet watcher of Lauren and Khalil that the police investigation missed at the time? Think. But of course nothing comes. How can I be expected to find evidence of that if the police hadn’t turned anything up? I lick my lips but my tongue feels dry and I have to swallow to bring some spit to my mouth, which is patently ridiculous as by my reckoning it’s only been less than an hour since I had a cup of coffee.

  It’s not my job to find a suspect, I remind myself, merely to cast doubt on the conviction, which seems to me to have been a lazy job by a police force desperate for a conviction after falsely accusing Brownhill.

  My fingers hover above the keyboard and then I stand up and try the taps again. Nothing but that gurgling sound, balls!

  I open the fridge again. There are two bottles of Sancerre in there, cold and crisp, waiting to be drunk.

  The clock on the cooker says it’s 10.10am.

  No, I’m not going that route, so I close the fridge door and sit back down at the table again.

  The cursor blinks away, mocking me.

  Maybe a quick Internet browse will help spark some inspiration. Even as I think that I laugh out loud at my pathetic attempt at such self-deception.

  I launch Twitter and within five seconds wish I hadn’t. My Twitter feed is full of abuse way beyond my normal high, female-journalist-with-an-opinion quota. Being abused on Twitter is something I’m used to but the volume and sheer vitriol takes my breath away.

  The balance used to be that one in ten tweets I received would be abuse from trolls, but the mention of Islamophobia in my last podcast has added jet fuel to the already seething hatred that surrounds my account.

  The abuse is easy to deal with. I simply ignore it. The dialogue with Frenchie was an aberration and one I shouldn’t have let happen.

  “Never explain, never complain,” I say out loud to Lil’Bitch, who has padded back into the kitchen and is looking at me from her position below the fridge door. “And no you can’t have any treats. I’ve only just fed you and you’re getting fat.”

  I give my stomach a little squeeze; she’s not the only one getting fat. Before my self-imposed exile I used to run every evening after work. That’s gone now and despite trying to work out every day with an app on my phone, the promised seven-minute miracle workout hasn’t succeeded in stopping a ring of middle-aged blubber developing over what was once a firm and taut stomach.

  A thought gate crashes me – what if this is why Henry won’t go near me anymore? – but I know that’s not the reason, in fact Henry used to moan that I was too thin and that he missed the curves I used to have when we first met, when I was padded by the side effects of my drinking days.

  My phone beeps but it’s a different tone from the usual text or email alert. I pick it up and there’s an unfamiliar yellow box in the top corner of the screen. I recognise it as a Snapchat alert, although I haven’t used it since before the incident. What if it’s him? He was the last person to contact me on Snapchat. I have to know and I click it and the Snapchat app opens. But it’s not him, it’s worse.

  I’m looking instead at an image of Finn at the school gates. He’s wearing the grey jumper and blue trousers I dressed him in this morning. The image is close up, as though taken through a telephoto lens or the photographer was close. My heart thumps inside my chest and I stifle a scream.

  The image stays on the screen for six seconds and then goes. It feels like a thousand years.

  I call Henry immediately.

  The phone rings out. He never answers when he’s at work. I leave a message. I call his office number. Mandy, the school receptionist, answers.

  “Hi Mandy, it’s Sarah, is Henry there?”

  Mandy’s tone is always the same, flat and professional even when she must be able to tell from my voice that I am panicking.

  “Hello, Mrs Kelly, hang on for one second,” I hear her tapping keys and I have to fight the urge to scream Come on you fucking bitch! and then: “I’m awfully sorry but Mr Kelly has a free period now and I’m not quite sure where he is. Can I take a message?”

  “Yes, tell him to ring me back the moment he gets in.”

  Fucking Henry!

  I ring Finn’s school and get another receptionist.

  “Hello, Gladwell Primary, how can I help?”

  “My son, Finn Kelly, he’s being watched. Fuck, he’s in danger.”

  I hear a sigh.

  “Mrs Kelly, could you calm down and speak more slowly. What danger?”

  I want to scream at her, tell her she’s a cunt endangering my son, but I breathe.

  “I’ve just received a photograph on Snapchat from a paedophile who has taken a picture of my son as he was dropped off at school two hours ago. I need you – what’s your name?”

  “Ologo.”

  “Listen, Ologo, you need to go and get my son out of his class now and make sure he’s safe right now. Will you do that for me?”

  A pause. I get ready to scream as I can almost hear the sound of the jobsworth part of her brain battling common sense.

  “Well, how do I know you’re his mother? We take data protection very seriously here.”

  “Listen, my son is in fucking danger, right now, so you can worry about his data protection rights once he’s fucking safe, do you understand?”

  Even as I am shouting I realise what a terrible mistake I’ve made; she’s going to come back at me with some shit about respecting staff and their right not to be spoken to like this, and then she will put the phone down and time will have been wasted and what will these lost seconds, lost because of my temper, mean for Finn?

  I bite my lip as I hear Ologo take a sharp breath.

  “Let me see. What did you say your son’s name was again?”

  The past tense cuts me.

  “His name is Finn Kelly.” I try and recall what classes Finn has on a Friday but I can’t remember even though he’s probably told me dozens of times in answer to a procedural “what did you do at school today honey?” and I feel the old guilt weigh down on me. “Will you please go and find him, Ologo? Please.”

  Computer keys are hit.

  “Okay, Mrs Kelly. I have found your son’s class. It’s Spanish with Miss Velazquez. Let me see what I can do, but please be clear if you talk to me like that again you will be most sorry.”

  There is a click and then all I can hear is background noise – distant shouts and calls of children lost in their carefree day – and I want to cry but I can’t.

  A minute passes and I see an incoming call from Henry but I don’t answer, as I can’t risk severing the line or missing Ologo’s return.

  Henry’s call ends and then is immediately followed by Henry ringing again.

  My heart leaps as I hear a door slam near to the phone.

  “Hello, is this Mrs Kelly?”

  It’s a man’s voice. He’s going to tell me something awful has happened to Finn, I know it.

  “Have you got my son?”

  “Yes, I have him here safe and sound. Ologo mentioned something about a photograph?”

  “Let me speak to Finn first.”

  My voice cracks as I talk.

  “Darling, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, course. What do you want, Sarah? Everyone laughed and Miss Velazquez asked me to say ‘I’’ll be back’ in Spanish and I didn’t know and Ben was laughing and the others joined in.”

  “Oh nothing, just” – I feel relief replacing adrenaline and my thoughts, without their adrenal supercharge, begin to tumble and collide – “me b
eing a bit of a fuss pot. And when you go back to class you can tell that teacher that I’ll be back is hasta la vista. I love you Finn.”

  “Whatever.”

  The phone goes down and then I collapse on the kitchen floor.

  12

  The Gates

  Finn’s deep rhythmic breathing reassures me. It’s the sound of contentment and rest. If he had been tossing and turning, his breathing shallow and agitated, I wouldn’t have shut the door and gone downstairs.

  Henry is loading the dishwasher with the plates we used for the takeaway food we ordered. He insisted I wasn’t up to cooking after such a stressful day and he ordered in Chinese food. The old me would have laughed off his presumptions of firstly me doing the cooking and secondly that I was too delicate to handle what had happened, but it’s like reading a history book about the First World War. I know it happened but I can’t really remember the touch and texture of the old me.

  “Did you speak to the police?”

  Henry doesn’t look round, he just carries on loading the dishwasher. I notice he isn’t washing off the sticky remains of the rice first.

  “Yup.”

  He volunteers nothing else and so I know he’s pissed off with me.

  “And what did they say?”

  Now, he turns around and he holds a dirty plate up and points at me with it.

  “What did you expect them to say, Sarah? There’s no evidence and where do we start when there’s so many suspects? If we narrowed it down to those who’ve sent you death threats we’d still be left with hundreds of possible suspects.”

  His face is set in the expression I think of as “disgusted”. It’s a look I never really saw on his face until the last year. Since the incident it’s there a lot, even when he’s not aware of it and is actually trying to be nice. I wonder whether I have a similar look; is he looking at me right now thinking she is disgusted with me? And what happens when we only have these looks? Does resignation replace disgust? And when that happens do we split up? But I can’t think of that because we can’t split up, I won’t let it happen, I can and will control this situation.