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The detective mutters something and turns away. I reach into the pocket of my jacket and feel the smooth black handle with my fingertips. I should tell Cyrus that I picked it up. I should apologise and plead ignorance. Better to be in trouble now than later, Papa used to say, but I have a secret now. A weapon. I am not defenceless.
‘Let’s go home,’ says Cyrus, wanting to get me away from this place.
The knife is warm from my body, but still feels cold to touch. Papa worked with knives. He died when one of them cut his neck. Turning suddenly, I stride towards the police cars. Cyrus jogs to catch up to me.
‘You can’t talk to him,’ he says.
Moments later, I’m standing beside the open door. The man has his eyes closed and his head back, mouth open, tongue showing pink and slug-like. His hands and feet are shackled.
‘Do you know me?’ I ask.
His eyes open slowly. He blinks and rolls his head from side to side. The scar on his neck moves as he swallows.
‘We should go,’ says Cyrus, touching my shoulder.
I shrug his hand away.
‘Have we met?’ I ask, making it sound like a demand.
The man grins at me with crooked teeth. ‘Nae, lass, but I’m up for it if you are.’
He nods towards the crotch of his soiled jeans. ‘We could do it here.’
My breath catches and my fingers close tighter around the knife. I want to kill him, but I don’t know why. I turn and let Cyrus lead me away.
25
Cyrus
A one-way mirror reveals the interview suite. Two detectives are seated opposite the suspect with the burns on his neck. He has a name now, Angus Radford, aged thirty-eight, a divorced father of two, from St Claire in Scotland.
‘When did he lawyer up?’ I ask.
‘First thing,’ says Carlson.
His solicitor is dressed in a charcoal-grey suit, with trousers that ride up his shin whenever he crosses his legs. Each time he doesn’t want his client answering a question, he taps on the table with his ring finger, as though sending him a signal in Morse code.
Mostly Radford has answered ‘no comment’ to every question. He seems to enjoy watching the frustration on the detectives’ faces, but they know this game. Patience is the key. Building pressure. Brick by brick. Fact by fact.
‘What do we know about him?’ I ask.
Carlson rattles off the details. ‘No priors apart from a drink driving conviction and unpaid speeding tickets. He was arrested in 2018 during a right-wing protest in Trafalgar Square. He threw a traffic cone at police during the riot, which was triggered by the jailing of Tommy Robinson, the former English Defence League leader.’
I remember the protest. Demonstrators took over a tourist bus and threw smoke bombs at police after Tommy Robinson was jailed for contempt of court. The English Defence League believed that Britain was under attack from Muslim extremists and that paedophiles were being allowed out of prison without supervision.
‘What about the other guy?’
‘Kenna Downing. Twenty-six. Says he’s still living at home with his parents in Truro, Cornwall. He was interviewed over the fire-bombing of a migrant hostel in Bristol eight years ago. Wasn’t charged.’
Carlson waits for me to say something. My silence seems to irritate him.
‘I don’t want to automatically make this about race,’ he says.
‘Other people will.’
I understand his dilemma. Whichever way he jumps, certain groups will accuse him of being part of an institutionally racist police force that fails to investigate racially motivated attacks, or that he’s bowing to woke pressure and scapegoating right-wing activists.
‘Is Downing talking?’ I ask.
