Page 17 of Close to You

‘Does it matter that I’ve not eaten?’ I ask.

‘No.’

The officer is offering his best poker face. If there’s some sort of error, I’ll be tarnished, regardless of my innocence. What would be the point in arguing with science?

It feels like an age until he peers up and says, ‘All clear.’

I start to sigh with relief and only catch myself afterwards when I realise it could seem like I was pleased to be getting away with something.

Police interview rooms on television always seem so much brighter and bigger than the one in which I am now sitting. I was expecting that at least one of the walls would be a mirror with someone on the other side, but there’s none of that. Instead, it’s four concrete walls, a heavy door and a pair of cameras fixed to the wall. The lighting is like something from a grungy 70s movie, leaving everything with a browny hue, as if I’m living in a sepia photograph.

I’ve already been through my story once, but I don’t need to be a detective to understand why they have issues. I assumed the officers who came out to breathalyse me would be doing the interviewing, but I’ve not seen them since they brought me here.

Sergeant Kidman does most of the speaking. She’s a little older than me, though not by much. She’s got one of those faces as if she lost an argument with a wall at some point: a cross between a dumpling and an axe. I can easily imagine her arguing with a supermarket cashier over an out-of-date coupon.

‘I don’t think I understand why you left the hotel in the middle of the night,’ she says.

There’s a table between us, so at least TV police shows don’t lie about everything.

‘Is the victim all right?’ I ask.

Sergeant Kidman looks to the officer next to her. I can’t remember his rank but his last name is Robinson. He’s barely said a word.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ Kidman says.

‘Are they… um…?’ I tail off, not quite able to put it into words. I’ve not been told whether the pedestrian hit by my car was a man or woman. I know almost nothing about what happened.

‘Are they what?’ Kidman asks.

‘Dead.’

She pauses, letting me squirm, though I try to sit still.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ she adds.

‘Can you tell me anything about what happened?’

‘I’m sure we’ll come to that, Ms Persephone. For now, I’d like to talk about everything that led up to it.’

She pronounces my name right, which almost nobody does, and I wonder how much she knows about me. After David supposedly disappeared, I had little option other than to go along with the appeals for his return. Plenty has been written about me in the past couple of years and it’s not like I’ve got one of those names that can be confused with some physicist who lives in Durban. If people Google my name, it is me who shows up.

‘What do you want to know?’ I ask.

‘Why did you leave the hotel in the middle of the night?’

‘The bed was uncomfortable,’ I reply.

‘Did you mention this to anyone at the hotel?’

‘No. I just left.’

‘It seems strange that you’d pay for a hotel and then leave at half past two in the morning.’

‘That’s what happened. I thought I’d sleep better at home.’

‘You’re saying that, at sometime between two and half past two this morning, you decided a hotel bed was too uncomfortable and drove two and a half hours home to get some sleep?’

She makes it sound as if I’d decided to pop to the Moon to buy a KitKat.