Страница 45 из 69
The tone between Do
“Do
Susie sounds very a
“How do you feel about these murders, Do
Do
“Did the police come and see you? Did they come and tell you about them?”
Do
Susie takes a puff on her cigarette. The shadow of her exhalation creeps swiftly across the floor toward Do
“I know,” says Do
“She was nineteen and liked line dancing. She lived with her parents.”
“I already know that,” says Do
“You heard about ‘her,’ Do
Do
“Two young girls are murdered and you have feelings too?”
“My husband has been wrongly imprisoned for five years, and it’s only just coming out now. I’m bound to have some feelings about it.”
Susie sighs and a long, thin stream of clear air punctures the swirling shadow of smoke on the floor. “Do you think he’ll get out, Do
Do
“Do you think that Andrew, your husband, will be released?”
Do
“How would you feel if he did?”
Do
“Oh, for fucksake, Do
It’s so unprofessional, so out of character, that I freeze the tape and rewind to see the buildup. It seems to have come out of nothing. Susie is angry, and she isn’t hiding it. “Do you think you’d be safe with him?”
“Who’d care?”
“Do
Do
“Where are you from, Do
“We’ve been through this.”
“Where did you start out?”
“ Leicester.”
“You don’t sound as if you’re from Leicester.”
Do
“What area of Leicester?”
“Highfields,” she says. “The Highfields area.”
“Is that near the middle or on the outskirts?”
It’s obviously a test, to see if she even knows where it is. Do
Suse? Excuse me, Suse? Suse’s shadow can clearly be seen on the floor. She stands up and stubs her cigarette out in an ashtray. Messy tendrils of shadow spill across the floor like ink in water. She takes one step over to the camera tripod and switches it off.
Afterward I wished I hadn’t watched the video. It’s spoiled my optimistic feeling. Now I feel I have a lot of uncomfortable questions to ask Susie when I see her, only this time I really don’t know what they are.
chapter twenty-four
LOOKING OVER ALL OF THE MATERIALS, I’M STRUCK BY HOW MUCH has happened since Do
Box 2 Document 10 News in Brief, Glasgow Herald, 3/6/98
In a disturbing replay of the Glaswegian Riverside Ripper murders of the early nineties, the body of a young woman was found next to the River Clyde yesterday. The woman, whom police have not yet named, was found dead under the city’s Kingston bridge. A team working on the renovations to the bridge arrived for work yesterday morning to find the woman’s body under a tarpaulin. The police had no comment to make as to a co
Andrew Gow, the man convicted of the Riverside Ripper murders, recently hit the headlines when he remarried in Su
I remember these new cases unfolding in the press and on television. I remember us watching the news reports about it. It seems strange, given how significant those events were to become in our lives, but I only really remember two specific conversations about it all.
One exchange was in the front room. It was spring and the room was bright, the window was wide open and outside the garden was very green and lush. I was ironing, and Margie was in the kitchen with Yeni. The television was on for the news, and Susie was slumped on the settee. We’d had an argument about her smoking in the house. Within a few short months Susie’s position on domestic smoking had shifted from regarding it as a form of child abuse to arguing that it was justified if Margie was out of the room or looking away. We had fought about it, and afterward, when we reached a stalemate, the argument hung between us like a bad smell.
Have you noticed, I said, trying to be cheery, how they’re using more attractive photographs of Gow on the telly as the campaign for his release gathers momentum?
She asked me straight out, “Do you think he’s attractive?”
I laughed and asked her whether she was serious.
“Yeah, I’m serious.” She pulled herself upright and looked at me with a face like an angry little fist. “Do you think he’s attractive?”
I put the iron down. I didn’t think he was attractive, but in the old mug shot they used to use on TV, he was scowling, looked very malnourished, and had black bags under his eyes. (He was working nights, she said. Driving the cab. That’s why he looked so tired.) But in the new photos, taken more recently, he was smiling and seemed healthy.