Free Dead Wrong by Cath Staincliffe

She tried to close the door again.
    ‘Has someone been threatening you?’ I asked gently. ‘If anyone’s put you under any pressure not to talk I’d be expected to notify the police.’ Not strictly true but it certainly rang bells for Sonia Siddiq.
    She swallowed and stood back. ‘No, nobody has. It’s just so horrible, like you say.’
    The lounge was at the end of the small hallway. It was dominated by several intricately designed rugs on both the walls and the floor, and by a large white leather couch and matching armchairs. An old-fashioned elaborately carved sideboard was covered in silver-framed photographs, candelabra and statuettes. One corner of the room held the consumer durables; CD midi system, video and television.
    The armchair crackled under me. Mrs Siddiq perched on one end of the sofa. She was slightly built, which added to the impression of youth. She wore shalwar kameez in a soft caramel colour with silver threads around the borders. Her hair was shoulder-length; silver globe earrings hung bright in her ears.
    I asked her to tell me everything she could remember from New Year’s Eve.
    ‘We were going home, we’d been in the club. We’d parked in a side street round the back.’
    ‘Who was driving?’
    I wanted to establish whether the Siddiqs had been sober that evening, how reliable they were as witnesses.
    She looked puzzled. ‘I was.’ But she didn’t sound very certain.
    ‘Had you had anything to drink?’
    ‘I don’t drink.’
    I nodded.
    ‘As we came round the corner, there were these two lads arguing and one of them, he had a knife.’
    ‘You could see the knife?’
    ‘Yes, it was quite big. And the other one kicks out and the lad with the knife screams like he’s hurt, and then he swings the knife up and they both fall over.’ She was disturbed by her recitation; her fingers knotting round themselves, her words breathy.
    ‘What happened then?’
    ‘Excuse me.’ She rooted in the sideboard and found what she was looking for, a book of matches, a cigarette.
    ‘Rashid doesn’t like me to smoke,’ she shrugged her shoulders, ‘although he smokes all the time.’ She dragged on the cigarette as if she’d suck all the tobacco out, pulling the smoke in deep and holding her breath before releasing it through her nose. I could recall from my own distant past the gloriously dizzying effect of the nicotine as it charged round the system, the buzzing at the back of the neck, the satisfying hit on the throat.
    She took another drag.
    ‘We went home.’ She spoke with smoke in her lungs.
    I stared at her.
    She exhaled. ‘It’s shameful, I know. We were…I was frightened to get involved. They were drunk, there was a knife, anything could have happened.’
    Anything did. Ahktar died.
    ‘You didn’t ring for an ambulance?’
    ‘I wish I could say different.’ She lowered her voice, ‘Rashid said someone else would get an ambulance or call the police. I think maybe the shock…’ She broke off. There could be no justification.
    ‘But you did contact the police?’
    ‘The next day, the day after. We heard that he’d died and—’
    ‘Ahktar?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did you know him?’ I asked.
    She stared at me. ‘No, no.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘I didn’t know him. We never knew him.’
    ‘I thought perhaps from the club…?’
    ‘No, I’m sure. Neither of us knew him.’ She was rattled. Understandable. Bad enough to walk on by while someone bleeds to death; even worse to think you might have known them.
    ‘How did you hear?’ I asked her.
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘About the death. There weren’t any papers on New Year’s Day.’
    She paused. ‘The radio, there was something on the radio.’
    ‘OK. So you went to the police on New Year’s Day?’
    ‘Yes.’ She took another long drag on the cigarette. ‘We told them what we’d seen and they arranged an identity parade.’
    ‘And you both picked the same suspect?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Had you seen him