The Art of Interrogation
Leading the majority of their youth as a petty criminal and then graduating to armed bank robberies in his thirties meant that the suspect was most likely aware of his presence behind the glass. He had often wondered how it worked, the one-way glass, as a young constable before the rise of the internet. A quick Google search on a mind-numbingly dull Tuesday afternoon twenty years later had promised to provide him with answers, yet had only confused him further with pages of detail about reflective molecules and different levels of light. Still, all he needed to comprehend was that it provided the police with a perfect insight into the drama unfolding in the room before them, organised like the set of some minimalistic play, between four very interesting characters: the suspect, their lawyer and the two detectives. The former two were already present; the latter were most likely discussing their lines before entering stage left, as it were.
The door opened suddenly, heralding that it was time for the suspect to face the music. The lawyer fell silent. The star in this case, then, was Sandra; it was clear from the way she entered first, yet without any air of over-confidence, deliberately appearing as just another police officer. The understudy, then, was Gerry, entering immediately behind her, ready to step in at a moment's notice. They assumed their positions; Sandra directly opposite the suspect, Gerry facing the lawyer.
A small click pierced the growing silence as the Detective Superintendent flicked on the tape machine, deliberately pausing for a few seconds before opening her monologue, announcing her own presence, then Gerry's. Another tense few seconds followed as she looked at the documents in front of her, before she again broke the silence, perfectly timed just before it became oppressive.
"So, Mr Palmer. Where were you on the night of the 21st September 1993?"
"How the hell am I supposed to remember that far back?"
"At least try," she drawled, "it's important."
"It was twenty years ago. And I ain't getting any younger." The suspect answered firmly, meeting Sandra's steady gaze with equal intensity.
"Neither are we." Gerry interjected, from his relaxed position leaning back in the chair.
Palmer smirked. "Maybe we are but I don't know about her," he nodded at the only female in the room. Years of practice meant she didn't flinch; there wasn't a single flicker of irritation behind her blue eyes.
She decided to change tack. "Do you know of a Margaret Goodman?"
"Nope." He responded after a couple of seconds, the normal length of time that somebody would take to mentally flick through their address book. Clearly he was almost as skilled at acting as the pair facing him. Almost. From his vantage point he could see the small beads of perspiration glistening at the back of the man's neck, yet this wouldn't be visible to the detectives. Dramatic irony at its finest, he thought, allowing a barely perceptible smirk to fleetingly cross his features.
"Oh." Sandra replied softly, looking almost disappointed as she broke the eye contact she had maintained since first entering the room. "Well," her voice built in strength as she produced an evidence bag. "This, Evidence G38, suggests that you do know Margaret Goodman. You know her so well, in fact, that she is the mother of your child."
The suspect was no longer a suspect by the time he greeted the leading actors outside the confines of the set, shed of their roles. He had been arrested and charged with murder, although the last act had been quite ambiguous. He had confessed easily, too easily, surprising the others with his honesty, their instinctual cynicism telling them that he must be disguising someone else. Yet it all added up. His guess was that Palmer thought it was time. Nobody could evade the law forever without guilt slowly and steadily infiltrating every miniscule vessel within their brain, spreading to their heart until it became imperative to confess, in the desperate hope that the truth would serve as some echo of redemption. And it would, for a while, until it was cast into doubt by the burning regret that the prison cell could be a comfortable living room, the stolen twenty minute visits a lifetime together, all if he had just kept his silence. For the police, that was real justice.