Chapter 3
THREE
The stout, short, dark-haired woman introduces herself as Detective Sergeant Amanda Pritchard.
They’ve sent a female to interview me. This is good.
I figure she’ll be more inclined to listen to what I have to say than any man might.
After all, it’s because of one that I find myself here. Women don’t start wars.
The duty solicitor sitting to my right has just introduced himself as William – ‘call me Bill’ – Roberts, with a lacklustre handshake.
His limp effort does little to instil confidence in me.
I’m sure that once they’ve heard my story, then this horrible mess will all be sorted out. Maybe they’ll even let me go?
Bill advises me to reply ‘no comment’ to the questions the police are about to put to me, advice I have absolutely no intention of following.
DS Pritchard switches the tape recorder on.
‘Start by taking me through the events of today if you can, Erin,’ she says. ‘Whatever you can remember.’
I nod, take a deep breath. I’m genuinely keen to talk.
‘I got a Snapchat message from my friend, Sam – Samantha Valentine – around 4 p.m. today, while I was at work. She was begging for my help.’
I realise Snapchat is generally more popular with teenagers than it is with thirty-somethings like myself, and I find the chirrupy notifications beyond irritating, but it’s that or nothing if I want to communicate with Sam.
‘We have to message in secret, you see, and Snapchat deletes them once you’ve read them. They’re end-to-end encrypted, so there’s no trace. Anyway, that’s how much of a control freak Ari was. He wouldn’t even let her speak to her friends and checked her phone constantly. He was obsessed.’
I’ve always taken the ability to talk and breathe at the same time for granted, but now I’m struggling.
‘I knew it was all going to come to a head sooner or later.’ I fidget in the hard plastic police seat, legs pulsing with adrenalin. ‘I could feel something terrible was about to happen, but this time, this time, thankfully, I was prepared.’
The detective cocks her head at me.
‘Prepared for what? In what way were you prepared, Erin?’
‘I’d been expecting it. Ari was a ticking time bomb.’
‘What did the message say exactly, this message you received from your friend Samantha?’
Instinctively, I reach for my phone in my pocket to show her, forgetting for a moment that they took it from me – and my clothes – when they booked me in.
‘It said something like: “He’s got a knife, he’s going to kill me! Come quick!” She sounded terrified!’ My voice is a little pitchy and I sip some water from the plastic cup on the table.
‘Did you try calling her?’
I shake my head.
‘Too dangerous – if he saw my name or number come up on her phone it could’ve set him off even more.
Ari doesn’t like me, you see.’ I hear the contempt in my own voice.
I cough a little, try to mask it. ‘He thinks I’ve been trying to talk Sam into leaving him, which I have been, so he’s really got it in for me.
Ari’s a liar and a cheat and a bully who has to control through fear.
’ I fold my arms across my heaving chest. ‘Abusive relationships are the hardest relationships to leave, you know? They say it takes a woman an average of seven attempts to leave an abusive partner. Seven!’ I shake my head, blow air through my lips. ‘If they’re not dead already by then!’
Detective Pritchard watches me carefully.
‘Did you take anything with you, when you went to help Sam at her apartment? You said you were “prepared”?’
‘Take anything with me? Like what?’
‘Erin…’ Bill the solicitor leans into my ear. I can smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breath and the oily, unpleasant scent of his scalp beneath his thinning hair. ‘We can prepare to submit a statement if you like, but at this stage, I’m seriously advising you go “no comment”.’
‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ I hiss back. ‘I want to tell the truth.’
‘You didn’t think to contact us?’ Detective Pritchard continues. ‘Why didn’t you dial 999 if you thought your friend, Samantha, was in serious danger?’
I pull back from her into the seat.
‘Are you kidding? After what you lot have done, or, should I say, haven’t done?
You’ve been called to her apartment on numerous occasions now and nothing’s ever come of it!
No arrests, no charges, not even a warning!
’ I feel my cheeks flush hot with anger again.
I’ve been here before. I don’t mean actually here, in the police station, but in a similar situation whereby the authorities have failed to protect someone I love from serious harm.
The police are the ones with previous form. They’re the bloody criminals!
‘Samantha could’ve been killed tonight if I hadn’t been there to stop him. He could’ve killed me too!’
She stares at me blankly before scribbling something down on the notepad in front of her.
‘Erin, does the name Bojan Radulovic mean anything to you?’
‘No. Why, should it? And can someone, anyone, please tell me where Samantha is, or if she’s even OK?’ Irritation and stress prickles hot on my skin.
Detective Pritchard tucks a piece of her black, bobbed hair behind her ear. She has good hair, thick and shiny, and I randomly wonder what type of shampoo she uses to get such an impressive sheen, or if it’s simply down to good genes.
‘Bojan Radulovic is the name of the man you killed, Erin, the man you stabbed to death outside of Pengally Court at around 6.05 p.m. this evening. This man here.’ She slides a piece of paper towards me, taps a short, neat fingernail on it. ‘Do you want to tell us what happened, Erin?’
Who?
I look down at what appears to be Ari’s passport picture and wait to feel something, but in truth, I don’t feel much at all save for relief. I’m glad he’s dead, though I’m wise enough to keep this thought to myself.
‘No, that’s Ari,’ I say. ‘It’s Ari Hussain, Sam’s boyfriend. And I didn’t mean to kill him. I never set out to. It was self-defence, like I’ve told you.’
She taps the picture again.
‘Can you read the name for me there, Erin, the name that’s printed on the passport, next to the photo?’
I lean in for a closer look.
‘Yes, it says…’
Wait! What?
I glance up at her, confused.
‘Is this some kind of trick?’
‘His name is Bojan Radulovic, Erin.’ She repeats herself.
‘A thirty-three-year-old single man, originally from Montenegro. He’d been living alone in apartment 22a at Pengally Court, the address you gave us when you called dispatch, for a little over eighteen months.
He worked for an exclusive chauffeur business in West London as a driver after emigrating to the UK in the early 2000s. ’
‘No!’ I say, shaking my head. ‘You’ve got it wrong.’
I have no idea what or who she’s talking about.
Clearly, there’s been a terrible mistake.