The Kindest Thing - страница 12

She describes her role and asks me to tell her about Neil. I explain: his illness, the deterioration, the last morning, finding him dead; every so often she interrupts to clarify a point. She makes notes on a legal pad as she listens.

She frowns. ‘The police have no obligation at this stage to disclose any information or evidence they have so we don’t know what’s prompted them to interview you. It may be that the post-mortem on Neil was inconclusive or they’ve found it hard to attribute cause of death. But I’m second-guessing and, in a situation like this, where we really don’t know what they’ve got, then I strongly advise you to offer no comment.’

‘Won’t that make me look guilty of something?’

‘That’s what the police will tell you,’ she smoothes her hands over her hair, ‘because they don’t like it. But until we know where they’re going with this, I don’t want to put you in a position of having to respond to questions.’ She thinks for a moment. ‘They haven’t arrested you for anything but they do want an interview under caution. If you choose to answer their questions there’s no adequate preparation I can give you. They will want an account from you and they will test that account very rigorously. It will be produced in court, if things ever get to court. I would only ever encourage a client to answer questions in the dark like this if I was a hundred and ten per cent sure that the account was absolutely watertight and that the police evidence wouldn’t compromise it. But if I don’t know what they’ve got, whether it’s medical uncertainty or queries about the timing of events, whether there are suspicions of negligence or recklessness, then my advice has to be offer no comment.’

‘All right.’

‘It won’t be easy. And it means you have to answer the same to everything they ask. Some of the questions will be trivial or mundane or obvious, but you still offer no comment. It will feel like a weakness, it will make you feel pathetic’ She looks up at me from under her eyelids, pressing the message home. ‘Everybody feels like that. But you just persist. The police will be all sweet reason and they will make you feel ridiculous. They bank on that. And they will try to come between us. They might say I’m giving you poor advice, encouraging you to waste their time. Don’t rise to the bait. You’re recently bereaved so they know they must tread gently, but it will still feel horrible. Okay?’

Oh, fine and fucking dandy.

‘I want to rehearse with you,’ she adds.

I stare at her.

‘The no-comments. It helps to try it out before you go in.’

She asks the questions and an edge of hysteria creeps up on me as I repeat, ‘No comment,’ each time. What if I laugh? Cackling inappropriately like some picture-book witch, that’d look really good, wouldn’t it?

‘Deborah?’

‘Sorry, I drifted off.’

‘You sure you feel up to this? I can ask for a few days’ grace. It’s just over two weeks since your husband died – we could raise that as an objection, that you’re not fit for interview.’

‘No, no, I’m fine.’ Why am I so keen to have the interview? I think because it seems the quickest way to get out of the place, to be freed from the confines of the cell and the awful isolation. I will say my no-comments and they will let me go.

‘Have you spoken to your children? Do you need to call anyone?’

I picture Sophie coming in from school, flushed with the heat, slinging her heavy bag down in the hall, drinking a glass of water, Adam peering into the fridge. ‘No, I left a note. I don’t want to worry them.’

‘They may detain you overnight. They’d have to arrest you first but then you can be held for twenty-four hours.’

Shit. I cover my face with my hands. They are cool, though they feel grimy. If I were at home, I could take a shower, stretch out on our bed (new mattress in case you’re wondering. Will that be held against me?) and let the afternoon unspool. Or sit in my workshop and gaze at the bees and the blue tits and the cabbage whites. Let their droning and swooping and flickering fill my mind.

‘Don’t worry about that yet,’ she adds, but now she has warned me I feel it’s bound to happen.