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Back I Know What I Saw
Chapters (59)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for I Know What I Saw
  3. By the Same Author
  4. Dedication Page
  5. 1
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  54. Now read on for a preview
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  59. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There is the hollow formed from dead branches and twigs, still unmolested. I made this a few weeks ago as a shelter, before all of this. Before Squire, when the world was clearer. There is slime and rotting mulch now under its awning, but I am alone here.

I shut my eyes and catch Grace’s hand as she holds it out to me. She leads me somewhere deep inside a memory. The flames kick out at the wall. They glow and dance and crackle to the sound of a hissing turntable. I glance out from behind the edge of the sofa. He is standing over her, his legs steepled on either side. Can I see his face?

There are thoughts that are running through my head which feel as if they are chasing me or leading me somewhere. But they are there, with me.

I can’t go back there to Seb yet.

I have the QC to see on Monday. It’s Saturday now. Until then I can wait here.

Untangling. Collecting. Connecting.

If all the while, unravelling.

43

Monday

Nasreen’s chambers are exactly as I had pictured them. There are clerks in a clerks’ room busy on telephones and computer screens. The waiting room that I’m shown to has prints of hand-drawn caricatures of barristers on the walls. Through the glass door I see what must be the barristers, rushing past in smart suits. Then after a few minutes of waiting, a teenager in polyester comes to take us through to the conference room.

‘Can I get you some tea or coffee, Miss?’ he says to Jan as he leads us through a panelled corridor.

‘A coffee would be great, Mike,’ she says. ‘Xander?’

‘I’m fine with water, thanks.’

The words dry in my mouth. I am nervous here. This place is secluded like a Cambridge college, serious in a way that Cambridge wasn’t.

He shows us into a handsome room where a woman is waiting with a restrained smile. I glance round. More wood panelling. Sash windows open out on to a cobbled courtyard, making the place feel like a parody.

‘Mr Shute, I’m Nasreen. Do have a seat,’ she says to me, before turning to Jan. ‘How lovely to see you again, Janine.’

Jan smiles and sits next to me at the large glass table. Nasreen taps her laptop shut and leans forward to me.

‘Mr Shute. Let’s get to it, shall we? I’ve been through what the prosecution has served in terms of papers. There’s good and bad news from what I can see.’

I find myself nodding even as I am dangling by a thread in her fingers.