“Do you think the bank robber could have got out this way?” Jim wonders.

“Do you think he’s Santa Claus or something?” Jack answers, with unnecessary cruelty that he regrets at once. But there’s ash at the bottom of the grate, and it’s still warm—there’s been a fire here fairly recently. When Jack carefully pokes about with his flashlight, he fishes out the remains of a ski mask. He holds it up to the light. Looks at the blood on the floor and the furniture around him, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

* * *

In the meantime Jim wanders about apparently at random, and finds himself in the kitchen, where he opens the fridge (which perhaps indicates that it wasn’t entirely random after all). There’s leftover pizza in there, on a china plate, carefully covered with clingwrap. Who would do that, in the middle of a hostage drama? Jim shuts the fridge and returns to the living room. Jack is still standing by the fireplace holding the partially burned ski mask in his hand, his shoulders slumped in resignation.

“No, I can’t see how he got out of the apartment, Dad. I’ve tried looking at it from every possible and impossible angle, but I still don’t understand how the hell…”

Jack suddenly looks so sad that his dad immediately tries to cheer him up by asking questions.

“What about the blood? How can the bank robber have lost this much blood and still—?” Jim begins, but is interrupted by a voice from the hall. It’s the police officer who’s been standing guard.

“Er, that isn’t the bank robber’s blood,” he blurts out cheerfully, picking something from his teeth.

“What?” Jack asks.

“Schusssschfnurschulle,” the officer says, with almost his entire hand stuck in his mouth, as if the blood were nowhere near as important as the souvenir from his lunch that had gotten stuck in there. The hand reemerges with a piece of cashew nut, and the newly liberated mouth laughs and looks remarkably happy.

“Sorry?” Jim says, with rapidly dwindling patience.

The cheerful police officer points at the dried blood on the floor.

“I said: that’s stage blood. Look at the way it’s drying, real blood doesn’t look like that,” he says, holding the piece of cashew nut as if he’s unsure whether to throw it away or frame it as a memory of this great personal achievement.

“How do you know that?” Jim asks him.

“I’m a bit of a magician in my spare time. Well, to be more accurate, I’m a bit of a policeman in my spare time!”

His expectation that Jim and Jack are going to laugh at that turns out to be an optimistic prognosis, so he coughs rather forlornly and adds: “I do a few shows, stuff like that. Old people’s homes and so on. Sometimes I pretend to cut myself, and then I use stage blood. I’m quite good, actually. If you’ve got a pack of cards on you, I can…”

Jack, who has never looked like he just happened to “have a pack of cards on him” at any time in his life, points at the blood.

“So you’re quite sure this isn’t real blood?”

The police officer nods confidently.

Jack and Jim look thoughtfully at each other. Then they each switch their flashlights on, even though the ceiling lights are already on, and start to go through the apartment, inch by inch. Around and around and around. Staring at everything but still seeing nothing. There’s a bowl of limes next to the pizza boxes on the table. All the glasses are neatly placed on coasters. There’s a marker on the floor to indicate where the police found the bank robber’s pistol. Right beside it is a small table with a small lamp on it.

“Dad? The phone we sent in for the perpetrator, where did we find it when we came in?” Jack suddenly asks.

“It was there, on that little table,” Jim says.

“That explains it,” Jack sighs.

“Explains what?”

“We’ve been thinking about this wrong all along.”

45

Witness Interview

Date: December 30

Name of witness: “Jules” and “Ro”

JACK: Because you’re witnesses to such a serious offense as this, I really must insist on being able to speak to you separately rather than both at the same time.

JULES: Why?

JACK: Because that’s just the way it is.

JULES: Sorry, but has your body been taken over by a demon that sounds like my mother? What do you mean, “just the way it is”?

JACK: You’re witnesses in a criminal investigation. There are rules.

JULES: Is either of us suspected of committing a crime, then?

JACK: No.

JULES: Well, then. Then we’ll do this together. You know why?

JACK: No.

JULES: Because that’s just the way it is!

JACK: Christ, if there’s ever been a more difficult group of witnesses, I have no idea where that could have been.

JULES: Excuse me?

JACK: I didn’t say anything.

JULES: Yes you did, I heard you muttering.

JACK: It was nothing. Okay, you win, you can do this together!

RO: Jules is just worried I’ll say something stupid if she isn’t here.

JULES: Quiet now, darling.

RO: See?

JACK: For God’s sake, don’t you two ever stop babbling? I said okay! I’ll interview you both at the same time! But this isn’t how it’s supposed to work!

RO: Do you have to be so angry?

JACK: I’m not angry!

RO: Okay.

JULES: Yeah, right.

JACK: I need your real names.

RO: These are our real names.

JACK: They’re nicknames, surely?

JULES: Please, can’t you just focus on the interview? It doesn’t really matter, does it? I need to go to the toilet.

JACK: Okay, okay, sure. Because “what’s your name?” is a really complicated question.

JULES: Stop muttering and just ask your questions.

JACK: Right, I’m just a police officer, so obviously it’s perfectly reasonable for you to decide what goes on in here.

JULES: What?

JACK: Nothing. I just need to confirm that the two of you were inside the apartment for the entirety of the hostage situation. Were you?

RO: I don’t know about “hostage situation.” That sounds very harsh.

JULES: Please, Ro, pull yourself together now. What do you think we were if we weren’t hostages? Accidentally threatened with a pistol?

RO: We were more just an unfortunate consequence of some bad decisions.

JULES: Because someone tripped and happened to slip inside a ski mask?

JACK: Please, can you both just try to focus on my question?

JULES: Which one?

JACK: Were you inside the apartment the whole time?

RO: Jules was in the hobby room for quite a long time.

JULES: It’s not a hobby room!

RO: Closet, then. Stop being picky.

JULES: You know perfectly well what it’s called.

JACK: You were in the closet? How long for? I mean, how long before you came out of the closet?

JULES: What did you just say?

JACK: I mean, well, no, that’s not what I mean.

JULES: Right. So what exactly did you mean, then?

JACK: Nothing. I didn’t mean “come out of the closet” in any way except in relation to the fact that you were physically inside a… well, a closet.