The Swedish Girl by Alex Gray

the metal strap, recalling the morning of his eighteenth birthday when he had opened up the slim parcel and found it inside. A good-looking grown-up watch, something he’d wanted for ages, something that would last him a lifetime.
    Colin hung his head as the thought of a lifetime twisted itself in his brain. Eva. She’d had such plans for the rest of her life, hadn’t she? And now none of them would ever come to pass. He swallowed hard, blinking away these treacherous tears. What on earth would that detective inspector think if she came in and found him crying again?
    The sound of the door opening made him look up and there she was. Colin glanced at the police officer, his mind setting out words to describe her as though she were a character in one of his stories. Today she wore a dark charcoal trouser suit, nipped in at the waist, and a pair of high-heeled ankle boots. The open-necked shirt revealed a single line of pearls at her throat.
Pearls are for tears
, he remembered his mum telling him, and the memory of her voice made his throat ache with a renewed desire to weep. Just behind the detective inspector was another woman, older and more careworn, wearing a simple black suit over a black and white striped shirt and carrying a matching black briefcase. She came forward looking at him seriously.
    ‘I’m Mrs Fellowes, the duty solicitor. You may request to have your own legal representative here if you wish, Mr Young,’ the woman said, standing by the side of an empty chair as though waiting for Colin to make a decision.
    ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said, an innate politeness making him wish for this stranger to be at her ease. She came around the table and sat in the empty seat next to his – not close, he noticed, but near enough for him to be aware of her presence.
    ‘You remember me, Mr Young?’ DI Grant had seated herself opposite them after fiddling with a box over near the wall, something that Colin recognised as a recording machine of some kind. Colin nodded. His head felt muzzy as he listened to her words, unable to really make out what they meant. Then a peculiar sensation came over him, as though he were outside looking down on these people instead of being one of the figures himself. Small details seemed to loom large, like the piece of sticking plaster curled around the detective’s index finger where she must have cut herself; the way the lawyer’s hair curled around her tiny shell-like ears, and his own sweating hands clasped tightly together as though ready for prayer.
    DI Grant introduced herself and Mrs Fellowes to the tape machine and gave the date and time then turned to face Colin.
    ‘You know why you’re here?’ she asked.
    Colin nodded, letting himself be part of this dreamlike state.
    ‘Speak for the machine, please,’ she told him crisply.
    ‘Yes,’ Colin said gruffly, then cleared his throat.
    ‘Yes,’ he said again, more loudly this time, and as if the utterance of the word had broken a spell, he was suddenly aware of the padded seat pressing against his back and the coarseness of the material under his buttocks as though he had landed from a great height.
    ‘It’s to do with Eva,’ he continued helpfully.
    DI Grant leaned forward slightly. ‘We have had results from our laboratory, Mr Young,’ she began, then gave a small smile of satisfaction. ‘DNA results that show that you were the person who had sex with Eva Magnusson shortly before her death.’
    Colin nodded once again.
    ‘Please speak for the machine,’ DI Grant said again with a sigh that made Colin feel awkward and ashamed.
    ‘Yes, that’s right. We did have… sex,’ he mumbled, feeling his face reddening, not wishing to discuss intimate things in front of these two women. Suddenly he was angry. What right had she to peer and pry into his private life? Looking up he could see DI Grant’s smile continue, though her eyes were hard and cold.
    ‘We’d done nothing wrong,’ he protested, then swallowed