‘When was the last time you used your sharp knife?’

This seemed like a strange question. Who could remember a thing like that? And more to the point, why was he asking?

‘I . . . well, I made a lasagne at the weekend. Sunday.’

The day before Anna’s death, assuming she had died the following night. Alex had come over, and afterwards we’d lain awake for hours, talking in the dark, my skin tingling every time his fingers brushed it.

‘And you washed up after that?’

What the hell was going on?

‘Of course.’

Alex hadn’t offered, so I’d done it the next morning when he left. Smiling to myself as the radio played love songs, remembering the night before. Not knowing what was coming my way.

‘So you had a knife about the place, you washed it at the weekend, left it on the draining board, yes? When was the last time you saw it?’

‘I have no idea. I guess Monday. But I can’t be sure.’

I kept the kitchen fairly neat, so I would have put the knife away sometime that day or Tuesday, I was sure. But who could remember doing something so automatic?

‘What brand is it, do you know?’

‘I . . .’ I shrugged. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. Could you answer a question like that?’

He slid over a photograph. It was a knife inside a plastic bag, tagged. Evidence. There were red stains on the tip, and I tried not to think about that.

‘Do you recognise this?’ he said.

I’d said I had no idea what brand my knife was, even though I looked at it several times a week, held it in my hand as I chopped onions or carrots or meat. But once I saw the picture, I remembered. It was a Sheffield steel one, which I’d bought when I ran from Jeremy, determined to start my own life. The wooden handle, the shining blade. All very familiar. This was the knife in the picture. My kitchen knife.

I raised my eyes to him, helpless.

Quite pleasantly, he said, ‘We found this in the undergrowth near where Anna Devine’s body was dumped. Your knife, is it?’

Casey

Casey

NOVEMBER 2003