The Screen

The detective who took her statement about the pavement came up the outside stair at ten on Monday with a laptop and a bag of pastries from the one bakery in the town that was still open, and said, “I thought it’d be rude not to.”

She was from Kofi’s team, a woman of about Esther’s age with a Bristol voice, and she typed with two fingers faster than most people typed with ten. Aled let her in, and saw the laptop, and went into the front room without a word. The door closed.

Esther told it in order. The gate. The man from the right. The anorak, the hood down, the hands. Esther, like a neighbour. And then the rest of it, which she had now said to Kofi, to the analysts, to a lawyer from the Crown three times slowly, to herself in the pool one word to…