“What are we waiting for?” she asked the police officer eventually, and the woman ducked her head, shrugged.
“Duty solicitor, I think. Sometimes it takes a while.” Laura thought about her groceries, the frozen pizzas and the ready-meal curries she’d spent her last tenner on, sitting on the counter in her kitchen at home, gently defrosting.
* * *
After what felt like hours but was probably ten minutes, the detectives turned up, solicitor-less. “How long do you think this is going to take?” Laura asked. “I’ve got a long shift tomorrow, and I’m fucking knackered.”
Egg looked at her long and hard; he sighed, as though he were disappointed in her. “It could be a while, Laura,” he said. “It’s . . . well. It’s not looking great, is it? And, you see, the thing is, you’ve got form on this score, haven’t you?”
“I bloody have not. Form? What are you talking about? I don’t go around stabbing people, I—”
“You stabbed Warren Lacey,” Eyebrow chipped in.
“With a fork. In the hand. Fuck’s sake, it’s not the same thing at all,” Laura said, and she started laughing, because, honestly, this was ridiculous, this was apples and oranges, the one thing was not like the other in any way, but she didn’t really feel like laughing at all; she felt like crying.
“It’s interesting,” Eyebrow said. “I think it’s interesting, in any case, that you seem to find this so amusing, Laura, because most people—in your situation, I mean—most people I don’t think would find this all that funny.”
“I don’t, I don’t think it’s funny, I don’t . . .” Laura sighed in frustration. “Sometimes I struggle,” she said, “to match my outward behavior to my emotional state. I don’t think it’s funny,” she said again, but still she couldn’t stop smiling, and Eyebrow smiled back at her, horribly. She was about to say something else, but they were at last interrupted by the long-awaited duty solicitor, a harassed-looking, gray-faced man with coffee breath who failed to inspire much confidence.
Once everyone was settled, introductions made, formalities out of the way, Eyebrow continued. “We were talking a moment ago,” she said, about how you struggle to match your outward behavior to your emotional state. That is what you said, isn’t it?” Laura nodded. “You have to speak up, Laura, for the tape.” Laura muttered her assent. “So, it’s fair to say that you cannot always control yourself? You have emotional outbursts which are beyond your control?” Laura said they were. “And this is because of the accident you had when you were a child? Is that correct?” Laura answered in the affirmative again. “Can you talk a bit more about the accident, Laura?” Eyebrow asked, her voice reassuring, coaxing. Laura jammed her hands underneath her thighs to keep herself from slapping the woman across the face. “Could you talk about the accident’s effect on you—physically, I mean?”
Laura glanced at her solicitor, trying to communicate a silent Do I have to? but he seemed incapable of reading her, so, sighing heavily, she reeled monotonously through her injuries: “Fractured skull, broken pelvis, compound fracture of the distal femur. Cuts, bruises. Twelve days in a coma. Three months in hospital.”
“You suffered a traumatic brain injury, didn’t you, Laura? Could you tell us a bit about that?”
Laura puffed out her cheeks, she rolled her eyes. “Could you not just fucking google it? Jesus. I mean, is this really what we’re here to talk about? Something that happened to me when I was ten years old? I think I should just go home now, because frankly, you’ve got fuck all, haven’t you? You’ve got nothing on me.”
The detectives watched her, impassive, unimpressed with her outburst. “Could you just tell us about the nature of your head injury?” Egg asked, his tone polite, infuriating.
Laura sighed again. “I suffered a brain injury. It affected my speech, temporarily, as well as my recall.”
“Your memory?” Eyebrow asked.
“Yes, my memory.”
Eyebrow paused, for effect, it seemed to Laura. “There are some emotional and behavioral consequences to this sort of injury, too, aren’t there?”
Laura bit her lip, hard. “I had some anger management issues when I was younger,” she said, looking the woman dead in the eye, daring her to call her a liar. “Depression. I have disinhibition, which means sometimes I say inappropriate or hurtful things, like for example that time I called you ugly.”