Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
“Interview commencing, 30th April 2025. 9.19pm. Location – Errigal Police Station. Interview Room 2. In attendance is Detective Sergeant Mark Williams. He is joined by officer in charge, Garda Susan Kearns, alongside suspect Laura Roe who has been held in custody since approximately 3.30pm this afternoon. This interview is being electronically recorded.
“Ms. Roe, for the record, can you confirm legal representation has been offered to you for this interview which you have declined, choosing instead to represent yourself? Ms. Roe? The recorder needs to hear you.”
You’ve only gone and done it now, Laur. Just had to cause a scene didn’t we? Yes, he had it coming, no arguments there, but Jesus, a little bit of decorum wouldn’t have hurt.
“Thank you. Can you also confirm you have been read your rights and that you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence. Ms. Roe?”
Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do…
“Garda Kearns, do you want to begin proceedings?”
“Certainly, Sergeant Williams. Ms. Roe, we’ll start with where you were around 9pm last night and how….”
We would need to start a lot earlier than last night, if we’re looking for puzzle pieces. Christ, this one looks fresh off the assembly line. Rent-a-cop. Bet she’s banging your—
“Ms. Roe? Last night?”
“No comment.”
“Ms. Roe, can you confirm for the record how you know the injured party, Tom Watson? Were you romantically linked?”
Can you be romantically linked to someone after a drunken one-night stand? I only did it to spite David. Two years stuck in a lukewarm relationship. Scratch that. Lukewarm suggests it might have been hot at some stage and gradually cooled. Like relaxing in the tub before the chill of air taps you on your shoulder. Time to get out. Should have gotten out after that first date. But, what’s a girl with baggage to do? Gets heavy carrying it after a while. Besides, David had strong shoulders. Bonus. A flat where he charged me no rent helped too. Double bonus. Sap.
“No comment.”
“Ms. Roe, we did take a victim statement from Mr. Watson and he has mentioned that you had been intimate at least twice…”
He’s counting that time in the cinema? Well, that’s embarrassing.
“…and that you had been acting irrationally approximately an hour before the incident in question. Those reports were corroborated by the bar owner, and several staff on duty last night, saying there was ‘a heated argument and shoving’ between you two.”
“No comment.”
“Mr. Watson confirmed that you had agreed to meet for a drink, and according to his testimony, when he spurned your advances, you had acted aggressively toward him. This resulted in the argument before you parted company. This would have been around 10.30pm.”
It’s amazing how beer goggles can affect judgement. Any outstanding boxes from the first couple dates that needed ticking were certainly ticked off last night. I wanted to be sure so decided in advance to go in sober. As expected, he was pretty wasted. Which is probably why I’m still a suspect and not in handcuffs now. It really was a delicate little slice. The blade was razor sharp, and, to be fair, I have gotten pretty good with it. Flick of the wrist.
“No comment.”
“Where were you around midnight last night?”
At that moment, I was actually checking the dating app for someone else. There’s only so many swipes a girl can stomach. Handsome, arrogant, preppy, healthy and uber confident mid twenty-somethings. Shirtless selfies, gym mirror shots, cute uncle or dog-owner snaps and, of course, the obligatory travel photo to show the world ‘I love travelling!’. After all, what girl doesn’t want to be whisked away on a spontaneous romantic trip? Instead, I saw a digital rolodeck of insecure men seeking brownie points off shallow women by borrowing their neighbours dog (or brother’s child), and paying €29.99 to get the redeye flight to Paris on a Friday night, and squeezing in a snap in front of the Eiffel Tower with ½ million other tourists that weekend. C’est original.
“No comment.”
“When you left the pub, did you text Mr. Watson? Did you return to the pub again?”
I may have followed him home, creeping up behind as he took a leak down a sidestreet, before slashing that chubby little cheek of his.
“No comment.”
“We did speak with David Doherty. Your boyfriend until recently. He said you broke up…”
Uh, God. No need for that dipshit to be involved. He’s a footnote in the story.
“…and that you had a history of violence. We did pull up some records from the juvenile detention centre which you entered at seventeen due to a physical altercation on school grounds with a pupil?”
Ah, yes. The first cut was the deepest. An inch from the jugular. Pity. Had the switchblade landed where I intended—had Susan Doherty not been yanked back by the blazer collar at the last second by that bitch posse of hers—things could have been different.
“No comment.”
“The report said that you were former friends, and that there had been a falling out which led to the fight.”
Pretty girls. How they long to be loved, so. I could have been one of them. I was one of them. Until that bitch Susan told the world about—
“Ms. Roe?”
“No comment.”
“We also spoke with your former boyfriend’s sister, Deborah, who you were close with? She said that you knew each other before you started dating her brother and that you were friends for five years. Shortly after dating David, she had moved away from Letterkenny, to work in England but that you had kept in touch over email.”
Deborah. Heart of gold. Gone on to do nursing. Was building a life for herself. Had met somebody decent. Good for her.
“She spoke highly of you but did say you had had troubles a few years ago.”
We met on a night out. She was part of a nerdy group of girls that didn’t take themselves seriously. My first holiday abroad was with her. Ibiza. Last minute flights. Sun, sand, sangria… I was saying yes to all the s’s that weekend. Slashing was an uninvited guest. But, needs must. A group of good-looking rugby lads got a bit too close for comfort in our apartment building and, well…I remember there being a lot of blood. We checked out early the next morning, passing the poor cleaners on their hands and knees. Scrubbing furiously. Not an ideal welcome for guests arriving that day.
“No comment.”
“She said you had been in and out of work. Attendance issues.”
Oh that kind of trouble. That was nothing. Receptionist at O’Driscoll and Leonard solicitors. I was the pretty shop front that greeted visitors. Usually angry little men, fading away under expensive suits, smelling of cheap cologne. More than once I was propositioned. Promises they would leave their wives and lives behind. They held no interest for me, but I did enjoy the reek of desperation.
“I understand you took a leave of absence at the company for a number of weeks. Can you tell us what happened?”
An important client and family friend of the owners, who himself was very influential and had helped secure contracts for the company, did take a paternal liking to me. He buttered me up to meet his son. An oily haired, smooth-talking twenty-two year old. Junior pulled out all the stops to get into my pants. Chauffeur driven cars, expensive restaurants, luxury gifts. I made the mistake of letting him drop me home one evening. What? Not this shithole, surely?
“No comment.”
“We spoke with your former employer, and they confirmed that you took time off for stress leave.”
Lars— if ever a name signposted, ARSEHOLE—surprised me a few weeks later, paying an impromptu visit to my home. I was out at the time. I can still see the text. You didn’t tell me you had a twin. She’s a bit special isn’t she 🙂
“Ms. Roe?”
“What? What the hell do you want?”
“Please, calm down. We just want to know about your time—”
“What does it matter? It was six bloody years ago!”
“OK, OK. We just want to get an idea of your past and any—”
“You just want to get an idea of whether I’m a headcase or not. Well, maybe I am. Or maybe I’m unlucky. ‘Cos the people that seem to suffer around me are usually self-interested, egotistical, superficial twats. Karma has a way of boomeranging back for dipshits.”
Suck it up, Laur. Don’t be getting overemotional.
“Are you saying Tom Watson had it coming?”
If only they knew. If only they saw the messages he had sent. The arrogance. The idiocy. The dick pics. The ego. In person, drunk or not, he was a slime. Cretin of a man. His genes deserved to be weeded out of existence. He, and those like him were a cancer on society. If anything, I should be thanked. With one flick of the knife, I recalibrated his course. Their course. The cost? A simple scar. A battle kiss. A silver facial thread and timely reminder not to judge beauty skin deep.
“No comment.”
“You know Ms. Roe, we went to the same school together. You were a few years above me at the time, but I do remember that the girls did give you a hard time, especially near the end of term in final year.”
If only you knew the half of it.
“I also remember you were absent a lot of the time. Weeks would go by before you would reappear. That must have been hard for you. Missing out on all that schoolwork. Having to resume your studies again.”
School was a distraction. It was nice to pretend for a while.
“You have a sister, don’t you, Laura? A twin sister.”
“Shut off the tape!”
“It’s OK. We just want to get to the bottom of all this. It can’t have been easy having to look after her from an early age. Managing that responsibility. All on your own.”
Jade. My precious Jade. Born with spina bifida. It had grown worse in her teenage years. Too much to handle for my mum who…
“I’m sorry to hear that your sister passed away last year. You must have loved her very much.”
The victims’ scars were skin deep. Mine were deeper. Having a twin sister that was genetically and physically compromised, while I experienced not only no ill effects, but admired for my beauty growing up, was difficult to comprehend. If only they had looked past her condition. Her devilishly wicked sense of humour. I had greedily consumed the vital life-giving nutrients while inside our mother, starving my sister of her fair share. I was the broken one. I was the parasite, filling my belly, while Jade unselfishly sacrificed herself for me, so I could live my life. I was determined to use whatever gifts I had to open people’s eyes. Make them see.
“Laura, do you have any comment to make about last night?”
I still hear him. I don’t know how he found out. But, I hear him.
“Can you tell us anything about where you were at around midnight last night?”
Deep breaths. Boozy breaths. Warm and flush against my ear. The noisy pub chatter. And then, for a perfect second, as if orchestrated off-stage and at once, a clear gap of no-noise. A collective raise of pints to mouths and a pause in the music as he says it. As sharp and sober as a winter’s day.
Christ, you’re no fun at all. Would have been more fun hanging out with your spastic sister.
“I…”
“Yes?”
“I need to speak to a solicitor.”
This story was written for the ambitious creative project, ‘The Weekly Kook’, where I release a brand new short story every week for a year, totalling…yep, you guessed it – 52 stories.
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