The Rabbit Girls(84)

‘The paramedics said I would be okay at home,’ she stammers. ‘I am sorry, my throat is so sore.’ She looks around for Eva, but doesn’t see her.

‘My friend, have you seen her? Was she downstairs maybe?’ Miriam tries to look around the officers. The house is tidy, the kitchen light off.

They both look at each other. ‘No, haven’t seen anyone.’

‘We will be quick, if we can. We are here because your husband made a complaint at the hospital. He says you hit him on the head, he doesn’t know what with, he lost consciousness, is that correct?’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘You called the ambulance, and he was taken to hospital.’

‘Yes, is he okay?’

‘He has some stitches, a broken nose, but aside from a concussion he’ll be fine.’

‘That’s good,’ Miriam says, although not sure what she means when she says it.

‘What did you use to hit your husband?’

‘I didn’t hit him.’

‘Who did?’

‘My friend, she arrived and she hit him and she saved me. Axel was trying to kill me.’

They write judiciously in their books. ‘Can you show me where you were?’

Miriam stands and sways, then shakes.

‘Are you okay, Miriam? Have you taken anything? Drink, drugs maybe?’

Miriam shakes her head. ‘No, I’m cold. I’m not sure I’ll ever be warm again.’ She walks them to the hallway, points to where she was and explains that Axel was on top of her. ‘He was bleeding all over me.’ She looks at the carpet. The beige carpet.

‘Why was he bleeding?’

Miriam turns and gestures to the door. ‘He tried to strangle me by the door, he bent down, so he could see me. I think he wanted me to die, he wanted to watch me die.’ She shivers, not from the cold this time. ‘I made his nose bleed, and I ran away.’

The officer, Nikolls, points to where Snelling has crouched at the end of the hall.

‘Yes. Then what?’

‘I thought about locking myself in the bathroom, but I tripped on the step and he grabbed me, he sat on my chest and . . . and . . . I was about to pass out. His blood was all over me.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘My friend arrived and hit him on the head, he slumped off me and we ran downstairs and called the ambulance.’

‘What did she hit him with?’

‘The intercom phone.’ She turns to look down the hall again, she sees the place where the phone was, but the space is empty. The four screws that held it poke out of the wall, but the phone itself has gone. Miriam looks around her, goes into the kitchen, switches on the long fluorescent lights that flicker and blink. She turns to walk out and away from the kitchen and bumps into the younger officer.

‘Where is the phone now?’ he asks.

She doesn’t answer, she walks into the lounge searching for one thing. Then his room, Mum’s and her own. She opens the study door and it crashes into the bookshelves.

‘Where is the phone?’ The older asks her. Miriam opens the front door and checks down the hall. Nothing.

‘Wait a second, Miriam, please come back inside.’

‘It’s gone,’ she croaks.

‘It’s okay. Come back inside and we can talk further.’

She turns and sways down the hall in a daze, she looks at the floor where Axel had been on top of her.

‘Where’s the blood?’ she asks. ‘He was dripping blood, it was all over the carpet, here.’ She points.

The younger officer bends down again and touches the carpet, ‘It’s damp,’ he says and lifts his fingers. He looks to the senior officer and then back to Miriam.

‘When did you clean up?’

‘I didn’t.’ She pulls her glove off and scratches at her hand, palm to wrist, deep scratches that pull the skin and tear at the air.

The officer places his hand over her own. ‘Come back inside and let’s start from the beginning.’

‘I didn’t, I changed and washed him off me. I didn’t clean the house. It must have been Eva.’

‘This is your friend?’

‘Yes, Eva.’

‘Eva what?’

Miriam can’t remember.

After some time and a lot of questions later, Officer Nikolls, who had kept quiet thus far, says, ‘You don’t know a contact number, her next of kin is a Jeffrey at the library. You don’t know her name. You don’t know anything about her apart from the fact she is at the library, and lives around the corner somewhere, has just come over the Wall from the East? She has translated letters to your father?’

Miriam nods.

‘Where are the letters?’

‘On the table.’ Miriam points.

The table shines like a chestnut. A brilliant brown. Completely empty aside from the shards of paper that Miriam recognises with a start are the pictures of Michael, and the bag of her father’s medications.

Miriam stands and touches the table, runs her fingers across its smooth surface.

‘I don’t understand,’ she says.

‘Let’s go back to what happened tonight, shall we? Your husband arrived . . .’

They ask her questions for what feels like hours. Miriam doesn’t know what to say anymore.