Alice

This is a story. It’s not a tale: telling tales is for sneaks, grasses and model citizens in New Labour’s self-policing state. And it’s not my story, not exactly. Nor is it a lie, although it’s about one. This is a story; a story about… Well, you decide.

- ‘Good day to you,’ he said, as he passed me on the stairs.
- ‘Whatever,’ I answered. I mean, who talks like that?

I turned and watched as the back of his greasy suit-jacket receded down the stairs. The trousers didn’t match, mind you: maybe the scarecrow had put up more of a fight over the trousers.
The Yale key was easy in the lock, a dull brass cylinder the same colour as the door. I barged in and threw my holdall to the floor. One bag, not much to start a new life with, after fifteen years. I flicked on the light switch; brown, bulky and bakelite. Nothing happened. No credit on the meter. Well, I’d expected that. It was easy to find; bare on the wall, no cupboard to hide its modesty or salve my pride. It took my last pound coins. Lucky the flat had no gas.
I didn’t bother unpacking the holdall. Just unzipped it and took out a photograph in a cheap frame. It looked sad on the bedside table. My only souvenir from that other life: a man and his daughter on a sunny beach, an uncertain smile on both faces. I expect the flat had been advertised as a studio apartment; it had a toilet, sink and shower behind a modesty curtain in one corner and a tatty sink unit and two ring hob in another. A tired bed and one armchair as lifeless as the carpet. The whole flat probably skirted the limits of legality. The probation had found it anyway; that wasn’t down to me.
I lifted a limp curtain, opened the sash window and leaned out. A park; a children’s play area behind a grafitti-covered bandstand. It looked empty, in the dark; but the railings were keeping no-one out. Those with nowhere else to go had found their way in, judging by the glow of cigarettes and the occasional slurred shout. I’d visit that park in the morning, sit on a bench: I’d nothing else to do.
The park didn’t look great in the morning. Neither did I. August rain kept the visitors down. Only a few smoke-addicted single mothers on the benches watching their children practise the skills required for an asbo on the monkey bars and swings. One girl, about 5, was sitting on the bench alone. Blonde, long hair, sad looking; like my daughter 15 years ago. I watched her for an hour or so. Then I went to sign on. I was glad to, routine is good for offenders returning to society. Routine and boredom; it’s what we’re used to. I bought a local paper at Patel’s, practising the social interactions that are no longer natural after so long inside. Back in the flat, I scanned the classifieds, looked for a job. One that an ex-con might be offered, but nothing to do with hospitals. I was done with medicine now.
So a week of this. Boring and routine, like I said. Another Friday, another local paper. The girl from the park was on the front page, and on an autopsy table. Sad. I broke off reading at the knock on the door. A diffident knock, a servile knock. It was my neighbour, in the same jacket. He pointed at a briefcase-sized bag in his other hand:
- It’s just… a favour. Could you, you know look after...?’
- ‘What?’ I was annoyed. I liked being alone.
- ‘I’m going away for a few days. My laptop. Burglars. You know.’ He shrugged.
- ‘Okay.’ I took it from him.
- ‘Thanks’. He said. I never saw him again.
I put the laptop in the cupboard under the sink and forgot about it, until the police came.
The dead girl had made the nationals by the weekend. Nothing sexual, just physical abuse until she died, they said. I became used to seeing her picture on the TV screens in Dixon’s. I wondered how her father felt, if he knew. Late on Saturday night, another knock; the knock of authority this time. Unmistakable, a precursor to entry, not a request for permission.
- ‘ I am DS Tate’ the dumpy, dark haired woman said. ‘This is DC Lyle.’
- ‘And they say the police have no sense of humour! Can I help you officers?’ I asked.
I knew the levity was a mistake, but I sensed trouble anyway, CID visiting a probationer? Come on!
- ‘ May we come in, sir?’ asked the skinny and lugubrious DC Lyle.
- ‘Look, what’s this about? What do you want?’ Asserting myself.
- ‘If we might come in, Sir. Not on the stairs, hey?’ Good cop Tate, I supposed.
I let them in.
- ‘Mr Dodgson, Lewis Dodgson, isn’t it?’ Tate said.
- ‘You know it is, now what do you want? I haven’t missed the PO, so it can’t be that.’
- ‘No, it’s something else… look maybe we could do this at the Station?’ Lyle looked uncomfortable.
- ‘ Am I under arrest? Is that it?’
- ‘Why? Should you be?’ This was Tate, a nasty smile on her lips.
- ‘No, not at all,’ Lyle puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. ‘We’d just like to eliminate you from our enquiries.’.
- ‘And take a look around your home, if you don’t mind, sir?’ A dollop of sarcasm from Tate.
What could they find, I thought? There was no point quibbling about a warrant. They could have waited in the flat for the twenty minutes it would take to get one biked round,for a search of a known offender’s domicile.
Tate lifted the counterpane between finger and thumb and looked with distaste under the bed:
- ‘Biff, look in that sink unit, I get nauseous near kitchens.’
- ‘Righto, guv.’ And he brought out the laptop bag.
- ‘That’s not m-, ‘ but I got no further.
- ‘Save it, Dodgson.’
They gave me the speech and it was off to the station. I knew the routine, even though it had last happened 15 years ago. The little room, the arresting officers, the tape recorder. But this time, I had no idea what it was about. After two hours, Lyle said:
- ‘ Come on, you know why you’re here, the girl, the one from the park. You were seen.’
- ‘You’re joking! You think..?’ I was horrified.
But I hadn’t been seen. They had nothing, and they released me eventually, as they had to. They kept the laptop. In the local papers, I had been helping the police with their enquiries and been released without charge. They had acted on information received. I thought it was over.
It wasn’t. Poison pen letters began arriving, a flaming shit parcel was left outside on the landing; I began to be jostled on the street. And Tate and Lyle came back.
- ‘Good evening, Mr Dodgson. We’re returning your laptop,’ Lyle was taking the lead.
- ‘I’ve told you, it’s not - ,’ again, I couldn’t finish.
- ‘Don’t you want to know what we found on it?’ Lyle went on.
- ‘Why would I care? I told you, I was looking after it for the bloke next door!’
- ‘Ah, the phantom tenant,’ said Tate. ‘ 1C has been empty for six months, you might like to know.’ A bitter, knowing smile.
- ‘Nothing, we found nothing on the laptop,’ Lyle allowed a tiny grin onto his misery mask.
- ‘But we did find this!’ Tate brandished a USB pen triumphantly.
- ‘So?’
- ‘So someone had saved an e-mail to it. It was addressed to you.’ She handed me a folded piece of A4 taken from her pocket.

To: LDodgson@yahoo.co.uk
From: Alice@throughthelookingglass.org
Subject: Membership
Hello, Lewis Dodgson
Thank you for joining the exclusive membership of through the looking glass.org. We hope you enjoy the special material available to all our members. Remember to delete the e-mail containing your log-in and password information

Love Alice

- ‘What does this prove? What’s on this looking glass site?’ I demanded.
- ‘Erm, well we can’t find the site.’ Lyle looked sheepish.
- ‘But we know it’s you, Dodgson, and we will get you.’
- ‘You’re being ridiculous…’
- ‘Am I, am I really?’
She picked up the frame with the old beach photo.
- ‘Look at this, Dodgson! You and a girl what? 5 years old. Naked! Is that normal, is it?’ Spittle flew into my face.
- ‘But, but it’s my daughter, it’s a nudist beach, Sylt,Germany. My wife took the photo!’
- ‘And we know what happened to her, Dodgson, don’t we?’
I saw it in her face: she was smug, satisfied and absolutely sure of what she couldn’t possibly know. She spoke again.
- ‘Some of us don’t think the paedo register is enough, you know. I expect you’ll be uncomfortable around here from now on.’
With that, they left me alone in the flat.
Within a day crowds began to assemble in front of the park railings, outside my window. Placards with criminally-spelled threats to my safety were brandished, while shouts of indignation demanded the pervert get out. Several stayed through the night, calling out more specific threats to my person. About two a.m. a rock smashed through that window. I unwrapped the paper.

IT WAS ME DAD, ALICE, YOUR DAUGHTER. I HOPE YOU SUFFER FOR MUM’S SAKE.

Which brings us to here: two days later. I’m typing this on that laptop, when I’m finished I’ll save it to the USB pen. I’ve been typing since I got your note, whilst listening to the planks being nailed over the door. Maybe some of those threats will be made good shortly. I’ll throw the pen out of the window. Maybe I’ve seen you, Alice, at the back of the mob. Anyway, this is my message in a bottle to you.
So, what’s the story about? There is a lie, not your little ones, to the police, with the anonymous calls. Or even your subterfuge with the mysterious neighbour; my, that was clever! No, the lie is mine; a lie of omission. I never told anyone what happened with your mother. Not the courts, not the police, not you. Remember the beach, you on my knee, trying to smile although the bruises hurt. All those bruises, the broken arm: lucky daughter, two doctors for parents, always there to make it better. And I pretended, how I pretended, right up until the day I killed your mother. I came home from the practice, a weekend on call. You and your mother were in the kitchen, she was holding your hand over the gas hob. I beat her to death. We ‘phoned the police from casualty. I kept my counsel; I’m glad I did, even now. So the story was made to fit the facts, their story. This is our story.
So, Alice, what’s it about? Have you decided?