"Why did you do it?"
The man sitting across the table from Detective Saunders raised his hands as far as his shackles would allow. "Do what?" he asked.
"This." Saunders pushed a glossy colour print across the table. The picture showed the battered body of a man, his injuries highlighted in the glare of a camera flash.
"He wouldn't let me help him remember," the prisoner replied.
Saunders took a deep breath and tried to control her emotions. "So, you just decided to beat him to death?"
The prisoner lowered his eyes until he was staring at the bare metal of the table top. "All he had to do was tell me he remembered. I remembered him." His voice was husky and full of phlegm.
Saunders studied the shackled man's reactions, trying to recall the psychology classes she had sat through so many years ago. From the way that the man held himself, his demeanour and the set of his shoulders, he was either genuinely shocked at what he had done or he was a very good actor. Saunders tried to sound as sympathetic as she could. "Tell me what you remembered."
The man shuddered, and the chains holding his wrists jingled. "I remembered what he did to me. When I saw him in the street, it just came flooding back." The words were halting at first but, as he continued speaking, they became more and more fluent. "it was like some block had been lifted from my mind. I felt ashamed. Curious. Angry. So, I went to him. I asked him if he remembered me. He said he didn't, then he tried to push me away. But he was lying. I knew it was him."
"Then?"
"Then I grabbed him. I wanted him to look at me - to acknowledge me. I thought that if he would look me in the face, then he would remember. But he didn't. So, I started to shake him. I don't know - I thought that I might be able to shake something loose inside him, unblock his memories." The man's voice faltered, and his eyes dropped back to the table top.
"Do you think he remembered in the end?" Saunders asked. She was torn. Part of her wanted to reach out to the man across from her, bring him close and comfort him. Part of her could only remember what he had done.
"I hope he did."
The change in the man's tone - from vulnerable to flat and emotionless - made the detective pull back.
"I hope he did."
