TWO YEARS EARLIER
My hand is shaking.
I will it to stop. I even cover it with the other, in the hope I can stifle the tremble that feels as if its vibrating right down to my bones, but then both hands shake together on the table-top: a clear sign of my guilt.
I'm not stupid. I know it's what they're thinking.
Suspicion is a hard thing to hide. You can try to conceal it, but there's a well of truth in a person's eyes that no mask can ever cover up.
I can see it in their eyes now. In the way they keep glancing at each other. In the way they keep looking at my hands clasped together in front of me, a forever shaking mass of bones and skin.
I've been through the story three times already and each time I'm left with the same images in my head, these constant torturous pictures that keep haunting me, an endless living nightmare I just can't escape from.
Tom brushing his thumb over my knuckles. Feather-light. Like the caress of warm air on my skin. Like the first gentle kiss of the sun.
Tom clutching at the monster that has knocked him to the ground. Its mouth is covering his, not with a kiss, but something else – something that muffles Tom's screams. Its long, thin fingers are pressed against his temples, the digits moving like twitching spider's legs against his skull, as if its feeling for something, searching for something.
Tom's hands – the ones that barely thirty minutes ago had held my own – clawing at the oily-grey flesh of the creature, drawing strange dark blood from where his fingers gouge.
His hands – the ones I always thought so beautiful – scrape and scratch, the fight growing weaker, until finally they release their hold of the creature and fall limp to the ground.
Tom's fingertips stained with blood.
That's what I see now. That's what I see as I look at my own, the skin around my nails reddened and raw where I have bitten and gnawed at them.
My guilt is a hot brand to my flesh. I feel it burning as I sit here, scalded by their suspicion, scalded by the knowledge of what I did and by what I'm doing now. Telling stories. Telling lies. Fabricating everything because the truth is too insane to be spoken out loud. I can't give life to the truth. How can I? How can I possibly ever speak of it?
With a name straight from a prime-time police TV drama, Detective Inspector Eddie McCain has a stare forged from the toughest steel. Its edge is sharp and cuts deep each time, as if he hopes to cleave the flesh from my bones until he finds the truth buried deep within.
He knows I'm lying. He's playing the vaguely-good cop, for now. The benefit-of-the-doubt cop.
But he sees through me, just as I see through him.
'Mrs. Morgan,' D.I. McCain says, scratching at his hairline, which is receding at the front. His head is shaven, and there's a small irregular-shaped dent just above his right temple, a sign of an old injury. It gives him a thuggish look. Even the shirt and tie he wears does little to improve his appearance. He scares me a little, not just because I can tell he doesn't believe me, but because there's something in that stare of his that tells me his hardman image isn't an act. It's who he is, engrained in the stone-worn skin of his face.
'Mrs. Morgan, at this point, is there anything in your statement you might wish to change? Anything you may have omitted before?'
I clasp my hands tighter, desperate to stop them from trembling.
'Why would I have omitted anything?' I say. 'I've told you everything. Three times now. Why are you still here? You should be out there, looking for my husband. You should be checking the CCTV or something.'
I wonder if they'll see him. The creature that stole my husband's appearance. I wonder whether somewhere out there, there's footage of his killer, walking the streets of London, like Tom's ghost haunting the city.
'And, as Detective Constable Kim has already told you, we are still checking footage, but so far we only have you and your husband entering the alleyway at the side of the Cinnamon Kitchen restaurant at 22.25 and then you leaving the alleyway alone...' He flicks through his notepad. '...at 22.47.'
'And, I've told you,' I reply, hearing how clipped my voice sounds and wishing I could reign it in. 'There was another way out. At the back of the restaurant. That's the way he went. That's the way they went.'
'They.'
D.I. McCain nods his head, as if agreeing with me.
Beside him, D.C. Kim is spinning her pen through her fingers, winding it through each one in turn and back again. Her face is impassive, blank, and it reminds me of how the monster had looked at me as it raised its head and I'd seen Tom staring back.
Except it hadn't been Tom at all. It had been like looking into a stranger's face, a stranger that I recognised but who didn't know me.
'And you're quite sure that you didn't know these two men you say attacked you and your husband? You're sure they didn't know Tom?'
'Why would either of us know them? I told you, I'd never seen them before in my life and neither had Tom.'
D.I. McCain sniffs and leans back in his chair. He's feigning a lack of interest, but I can see from the hard gleam in his eyes that he's interested alright. He's on the hunt and if I didn't know better, I'd say he was sniffing to inhale my fear.
'Mrs. Morgan, I'm trying to establish motive here. You say these men were already in the alleyway and on hearing the sound of someone who you believed to be injured, you took the decision to investigate and were then set upon by the two men, who neither yourself nor your husband knew. They attacked you, causing the superficial injury to your head when you fell, and then they proceeded to attack your husband, who lured them away by running towards the other exit, which leads to the canal entrance on King Street.'
'Yes, yes,' I say. The trembling is creeping up my arms. The panic seeps into my veins, cold and cruel. 'The canal. He could be in the canal. You should look there.'
D.C. Kim sighs, irritation crinkling her brow.
'Mrs. Morgan,' D.I. McCain says, 'Trust me when I say that we are doing everything within our power to locate your husband and we also know exactly how to conduct an investigation of this nature.'
He flips his notepad shut and slaps it onto the table, making me flinch. This isn't a man who likes to be told how to do his job. I doubt this is a man who likes to be told how to do anything.
'However, there are some details that I'm finding a little... unusual,' he goes on. 'It's unusual for muggers to hang around down the back of a restaurant, indulging in a bit of role play to lure in people who happen to have wandered down there for a bit of... well, for a bit of alone time.'
He smiles and my face heats instantly with a burning humiliation.
'You said yourself, they never followed you into the alleyway. They were already there. You and your husband had ensured you couldn't be seen from the main road, which meant these men could easily have confronted you where you were, without fear of being tackled by any have-a-go-hero who might have been walking by at the time. Instead, they decided to see if you would fall for a bit of play-acting. Even you have to admit, it's a lot of effort just to nick someone's handbag.'
I squeeze my fingers together, practically crushing them with my own hand.
'How am I supposed to know why they were there?' I say. 'I don't know why people do these things. Maybe they were down there dealing. Maybe they were just passing through and heard us. Maybe it was just wrong place wrong time. I just don't know, okay? All I know is that my husband hasn't come home. One minute he was there and the next he was gone.'
Only that's not true. Just like my story isn't true.
Tom didn't leave the alleyway. He was still there when I ran, his body lifeless on the ground, his once-beautiful skin as grey as the creature's had been, except it was as dry as ash. It was like he'd been mummified in seconds. Nothing but a grey husk that would get blown away on the night breeze. Maybe that's what happened to his body. Maybe that's why there was no trace of him when the police went to investigate. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. Everything is so fucked up that I can barely function. I never knew one person could feel this fear. I never knew I could ever end up walking the edge, staring into an abyss of madness and confusion.
The Inspector raises his arms and runs his palms over his shaven head, linking his hands together at the back of his skull. It's hot in the interview room and yet there's not one hint of perspiration on the underarms of his shirt. He's unflustered. Perfectly cool.
'I've been a copper for many years, Mrs. Morgan,' he says. 'Seen all kind of things, met all kinds of scum, worked on cases that'll keep the average person awake for the rest of their life. And in all my years of service, I have to say, those kind of wrong-place-wrong-time incidents are far fewer than you would think. Bad people tend to have a plan. It might not be a good plan. It might not be well-thought out or even took them that long to put together. But it is rare that they're just loitering down the back of a building, waiting for that opportune moment to fall right into their lap, which is why I'm asking if you recognised them, or whether your husband gave any indication that he recognised them.'
'No,' I reply. 'No, I didn't know them.'
Tom's face. Tom's eyes. Tom's mouth.
'I'd never seen either of them before in my life.'
Neither D.C .Kim nor D.I. McCain say anything. They just stare blankly back at me and I'm sure they must hear my heart hammering in my chest, because I can hear it. The sound is rushing between my ears and vibrating through me so hard, that I think I might have to hold onto the table to stop myself from falling apart.
'Okay,' he says. 'Okay. If you're quite sure there's nothing else you can think of, we'll continue our enquiries in the area and let you know if anything comes up.'
I stare wide-eyed at them as they both get up abruptly, the legs of their chairs screeching against the tiled floor.
'And that's it?' I say.
'That's it, for now.'
He smiles again, and I notice then how strange his teeth are. There are small and sharp-looking and there are tiny gaps between each one. When he smiles, it makes him look predatory.
That's what he is. A predator.
And I am his prey.
D.I. Eddie McCain has got my scent now and something tells me he's not going to give up the hunt until he's caught me and torn me to pieces with those sharp teeth of his.
'We'll be in touch, Mrs. Morgan. Don't you worry about that.'