Anxious People

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.

JULES: We were in the apartment the whole time.

RO: Why do you sound so angry?

JULES: Maybe it’s the hormones, Ro? Is that what you’re trying to say?

RO: No, it really isn’t. Well, I certainly didn’t actually say that, in which case it doesn’t count.

JACK: I appreciate that you’ve had a difficult day, but I’m just trying to understand where everyone was at various times. For instance, when the pizzas were delivered.

RO: Why’s that important?

JACK: That’s the last time we know for certain that the perpetrator was in the apartment.

RO: I was sitting on the chaise longue when we had the pizza.

JACK: What’s that?

JULES: That bit at the end of the sofa. Kind of like a divan.

RO: No it isn’t—how many times do I have to tell you that it’s nothing like a divan? Do you know how you can tell that a chaise longue isn’t a divan? Because then it would be a divan!

JULES: Give me strength! Are we going to have the same argument now as when I didn’t know what a commode was? Do you know what a commode is?

JACK: Me? It’s a type of lizard, isn’t it?

JULES: See? I told you.

RO: It’s not a lizard!

JULES: It’s that cabinet in the bathroom, under the washbasin, apparently.

JACK: I had no idea.

JULES: No normal person knows that.

RO: Did you both grow up in caves? Seriously? A commode is a kind of cousin to a vanity. You know what one of those is, presumably?

JACK: Yes, I know what a vanity is.

JULES: How can you know that and yet still call a wardrobe a walk-in closet?

RO: Because a wardrobe is a word used by someone who blogs about juicing and hasn’t pooped a solid turd for three years, whereas a vanity is a proper piece of furniture!

JULES: See what I have to put up with? She was obsessed with vanities and commodes for three months last year because she was going to be a cabinetmaker. Just before she was going to be a yoga instructor, and just after she was going to be a hedge fund manager.

RO: Why do you always have to exaggerate? I was never going to be a hedge fund manager.

JULES: What were you going to be, then?

RO: A day trader.

JULES: What’s the difference?

RO: I didn’t get around to learning that. That was around the time I started to get interested in cheese.

JACK: I’d like us to go back to my question.

RO: You look stressed. It’s not good to bite your tongue like that.

JACK: I’d be less stressed if you just answered the question.

JULES: We sat on the sofa and ate pizza. That’s the answer to your question.

JACK: Thank you! And who was in the apartment at that time?

JULES: The two of us. Estelle. Zara. Lennart. Anna-Lena and Roger. The bank robber.

JACK: And the real estate agent?

JULES: Of course.

JACK: And where was the real estate agent?

JULES: Just then?

JACK: Yes.

JULES: Am I your GPS or something?

JACK: I just want you to verify that everyone else was sitting around the table eating pizza.

JULES: I suppose so.

JACK: You suppose so?

JULES: What’s your problem? I’m pregnant and there were people with guns, I had a lot of things to think about, I’m not some preschool teacher counting knapsacks on a bus.

RO: Is this a candy?

JACK: It’s an eraser.

JULES: Stop eating everything!

RO: I was only asking!

JULES: You know she opens the fridge in every apartment we look at? Do you think that’s acceptable behavior?

JACK: I really don’t care.

RO: They want you to look in the fridge. That’s all part of the real estate agent’s so-called “homestyling,” everyone knows that. Once I found tacos. They still rank in the top three tacos I’ve ever eaten.

JULES: Hang on, you ate the tacos?

RO: They want you to.

JULES: You ate food you found in some stranger’s fridge? Are you kidding?

RO: What’s wrong with that? It was chicken. Well, I think it was chicken. Everything tastes like chicken when it’s been in the fridge awhile. Apart from turtle. Have I told you about the time I ate turtle?

JULES: What? No! Stop talking now, I’m going to throw up, seriously.

RO: What do you mean, stop talking? You’re the one who keeps saying you want us to know everything about each other!

JULES: Well, I’ve changed my mind. Right now I think we know just the right amount about each other.

RO: Do you think it’s weird to eat tacos at a viewing?

JACK: I’d appreciate it if you didn’t involve me in this.

JULES: He thinks it’s sick.

RO: He didn’t say that! You know what is sick? Jules hides candy and chocolate. What sort of adult does that?

JULES: I hide expensive chocolate, sure, because I’m married to a wormhole.

RO: She’s lying. One time I discovered she’d bought sugar-free chocolate. Sugar-free! And then she hid that as well, as if I wouldn’t even be able to stop myself eating sugar-free chocolate, like some bloody psychopath.

JULES: And then you ate it.

RO: To teach you a lesson. Not because I enjoyed it.

JULES: Okay, I’m ready to answer your questions now!

JACK: Wow. Lucky me.

JULES: Do you want to ask your questions or not?

JACK: Okay. When the perpetrator let you go, and you left the apartment, do you remember who went downstairs with you?

JULES: All the hostages, of course.

JACK: Can you list them, please, in the order you remember them going down the stairs?

JULES: Sure. Me and Ro, Estelle, Lennart, Zara, Anna-Lena, and Roger.

JACK: What about the real estate agent?

JULES: Okay, and the real estate agent.

JACK: The real estate agent must have been with you as well?

JULES: Are we nearly finished here?

RO: I’m hungry.