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SIXTY-FOUR
It was after that afternoon at Ferko when Matty noticed the woman’s cardigan and made the slip about what the Shadow did to the victims’ toes.
I waited till my mother was in the bath, ‘Hey Jude’ pumping through the door. Her favourite Beatles song, the one she and Matty used to dance to back in the days they danced.
I wasn’t sure I was going to do it. Even as I dialled the tip line number, I didn’t believe I’d actually go through with it. That I’d be able to.
The detective manning the phone sounded tired. A bored voice roughened with a smoker’s rasp. Every so often he’d take a drag, blow it out.
‘North London Murders tip line. . .’
The police never used the Shadow nickname, the hyperbolic moniker likely beneath them.
I glanced over my shoulder, worried that my mother would come out of the bathroom and catch me.
‘I, er. . .’
I’d planned what to say but now it was time to say it, the words wouldn’t come.
‘Do you have information?’
‘I think so,’ I whispered.
‘Well?’
He was irritable, no idea what was at stake– for either of us. The murders had been going on for over two years, the investigation team privately wondering if the perpetrator would ever be caught, as I know now from all the documentaries I’ve watched.
‘I think I know the killer,’ I said, barely audible.
The detective must have thought it was a hoax, or maybe he’d just heard the line a few too many times before. Both Matty and Bea had spoken about a bottomless barrel of cranks each after their five minutes of fame.
‘Name?’ the detective asked.
I didn’t realise he meant mine.
‘Matty Melgren,’ I said. ‘He’s my mother’s boyfriend.’
He didn’t correct me.
‘Address?’
I gave it to him, mentioned the proximity to Hampstead Road Lock. That got his attention. So did my reference to the fact Matty had been in Brownstone at the time of the murder there. And that he’d joined the search to find Niamh’s body.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked more gently, the kid gloves going on.
I hesitated a moment, then hung up. Giving Matty’s name was bad enough.
The phone rang again seconds later. Some animal instinct told me not to answer.
When my mother came out of the bathroom, she found me sitting by the receiver, hugging my knees to my chest, rocking backwards and forwards.
‘You’re white as a corpse,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’
Quickly I changed the subject.
‘Have you ever seen a corpse?’
‘What a funny question. . . Now how about fish sticks for supper?’
Ever since I’d made that fateful phone call, I’ve agonised over what I set in motion. Matty was convicted on evidence that was largely circumstantial, the key piece of which was footprint evidence that recent studies have since called into question.
If it weren’t for me, he’d still be a free man. If I’d got it wrong, I was as guilty as he was supposed to be.
Now at last I have the answer I’ve longed a lifetime to hear. But rather than giving me closure, it’s raised yet more questions, even more terrible than the first.
