Wink Murder

by Ali Knight

  ‘Come on, Bloodhound, what clue are you going to give me for this?’ We’re circling each other on the bank, panting and silent. I’m in too much shock to even speak.

  A man runs up and puts his hand on Lex’s arm. ‘You must wait for the ambulance!’ Several more people are closing in and our battle of wills is interrupted.

  ‘You need to learn an important lesson in life, Kate.’ He holds the bag high, Melody’s pale blue Forwood file unseen just inches from his eyeline. ‘Never come between a man and the millions he stands to make.’ He throws the bag at my feet and turns back to face the music.

  26

  I once grew germs in a school science class. I scraped them out from beneath my fingernails and watched them multiply in a Petri dish. I was told by whiskery Miss Dobbs that their number doubled every hour. These little buggers were quick off the mark. I peer into my bathroom mirror, gingerly tracing the wound across the ballooning skin of my temple.

  Paul’s face is reflected in the mirror. ‘For the last time Kate, you need to go to hospital. Something could be ruptured inside. I can’t believe you walked all that way home and didn’t wait for the paramedics—’ I try to ignore him, try to make space to think about Lex’s rants. I have been stupid, focused as I was on Paul’s dick and where he might have put it, when other possibilities now multiply in my mind as vigorously as those microorganisms on my skin. And there is no antiseptic to stop these ideas, no possibility too outlandish that I don’t consider it. ‘See, I think you’ve got concussion, you’re not listening.’ I look at my husband, lit by the halogen spots in our bathroom ceiling. ‘You need to phone the police and report this.’ I shake my head. ‘He as good as kidnapped you and tried to kill you!’

  ‘No he didn’t.’

  ‘This behaviour is central to the case—’ I close my eyes to block it all out and when I open them Paul pulls me down on to the edge of the bath. ‘Oh come here. Thank God you’re OK.’ He starts to massage my shoulders and even after all the years that have passed, the present suspicions and our recent distance, I thrill to his touch as he kneads away my tensions and trapped adrenalin. He blows on my cut as tears channel down my cheeks.

  ‘I’ll frighten the kids.’

  ‘Sshh.’ He kisses the top of my head. ‘They won’t even notice.’

  We rock side to side on the hard ceramic and it reminds me of Josh’s birth nine years ago. A hideous travesty of what I’d read in magazines and dutifully noted in antenatal classes, the day after I wobbled to a bathroom festooned with safety handles for half-dead women to cling to. Paul had to partly carry me there and under the yellow glare of the strip lights and saturated with unfamiliar post-birth hormones I sat one bum cheek on the bath edge and wept that I couldn’t look after a baby, I was a fraud. Paul rocked me then, too. ‘I’m so proud of you, Eggy,’ he soothed, running his palm up and down my spine, the only part of me that wasn’t aching. ‘You’ll be a brilliant mother.’ After a while he stopped rubbing and peered at my bloodied clothing. ‘These gowns are weird,’ he’d said, pulling at my open-at-the-back institutional robe, ‘your arse is on show to the world. Look! It’s even got bows.’ I scolded him for making me laugh when I was so sore. ‘Bloody hell, when can we do it again?’ he’d whispered. I spent most of my time in the shower with its bumpy floor trying to bat him off. I took the luxury of fast-forwarding forty years and saw the two of us, stooped and doddery in upscale residential care where Stannah stairlifts and non-slip surfaces are de rigeur, and imagined him washing me then. The world was romantic enough then for me to see it as an odds-on certainty.

  ‘If he comes here don’t let him in the house. I want you to call the police.’

  ‘He thinks he’s been set up.’

  Our slow rocking stops. ‘By who?’

  ‘There seem to be lots of candidates. You, mainly.’

  Paul swears softly. ‘Bloody Lex! He always did have an overactive imagination. He won’t talk to me on the phone.’ He glances at his watch. ‘He’s avoiding me and everyone else at the office. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Livvy wants to put him and Gerry on the next Crime Time show. We still haven’t found Gerry, no one has any idea where he’s gone, Livvy thinks the programme lacks drama without him.’

  Paul makes a dissatisfied noise. ‘He’s only just got out of jail, there must be a clue in those programmes as to where he’s gone. It’s hardly like he’s got a lot of friends, is it?’ Paul stands. ‘If Lex isn’t careful he’ll be as friendless as Gerry.’

  I drag a hand across my tired face. ‘He’s just very angry.’

  ‘So am I!’

  ‘Never judge a man till you’ve walked a mile in his shoes,’ I counter.

  ‘Oh! So you’re trying to understand now! And this from the woman who finds it so hard to forgive! Well, I’m not forgiving him.’

  Lex’s bad-leaver comment rings in my head. Look hard enough and you’ll find a thousand motives. We cling to outlandish scenarios because they’re so much more comforting than believing those close to us are capable of the greatest atrocities. But I also know from experience that ninety per cent of the time, the most obvious motive is the real one.

  Josh cries out in his sleep and I hurry in to comfort and console.

  27

  Two days after his dad died Paul went back to work. I stood barring the front door, pleading with him to take more time. ‘Work is the only way I’ll get through it,’ he’d said. ‘It keeps me sane.’ This morning our roles are reversed. Paul’s insisting he can take the children to school, that I don’t have to go out ‘looking like that’. He half points at my head as if something weird has grown out of it in the night, which in a way is what’s happened. Josh looked at me over the breakfast table, Rice Krispies clustered at the corner of his mouth like flies on cattle, and said, ‘Eugh.’

  ‘I’m well enough to work, I just look a bit weird, that’s all.’ I crack a smile, keeping silent at the pain it causes me to do even that.

  Paul goes to the living-room window and pulls back the curtain. ‘The press will think I did it to you, knowing our luck.’

  ‘Are they out there now?’

  ‘No. It seems we’re not important enough to stand in the cold all night for.’

  I wave Paul and the kids off and make to gather my things for work, but that’s not where I’m going. I’ve got a hunch and I need to pursue it alone. Last night I didn’t sleep. I lay awake staring at a crack in the ceiling, processing every detail I could remember about Gerry. An hour after Paul fell asleep I came downstairs and examined our collection of Inside-Out DVDs, lined up neatly on the shelves behind the television. I watched bits of episodes and fast-forwarded through large chunks. Passively watching was a way to stop thinking about Lex and his motives, his fears and his anger. Three hours after I started, a short conversation – one line really – between Gerry and a prison warder on disk seventeen made me pause, and several minutes later I moved from the TV to the internet, the seed of an idea forming. Two hours after that I was stealthily rooting through a cupboard in Josh’s bedroom for binoculars. I had the makings of a plan; foolish and irrational maybe, but a plan nonetheless. Lex’s confrontation has worked like a call to action – I’ll show him how much of a bloodhound I can be.

  Now I’m being jostled by thousands of horse-racing fans, having just paid a tout with a missing front tooth an extra-ordinarily inflated price for an all-areas ticket to the Cheltenham Festival. Gerry liked a flutter on the horses, I heard him say it once on Inside-Out. He loved the swell of the crowd, the swearing and the shouting, the joy and pain all rolled up in those few intense moments as the horses are driven to the finish line; and so I wondered last night whether Gerry would be able to resist the Cheltenham Festival after all that time. Because I also saw from those hours of watching that he took quiet pleasure in the small prison kindnesses that were available: a new book in the library; a cooking class. He wasn’t an attention seeker, and what better way to protect your anonymity than being
part of a throng of thousands.

  But as I’m bumped this way and that, I’m realising that even if my hunch was right, proving it is going to be almost impossible. The tannoy provides a ceaseless and incomprehensible backdrop of noise as the runners and riders are announced for each race. I’m using sunglasses to cover my battered face and I push through the swaying multitudes to try to get my bearings, map in hand. For two hours I walk all round the main stand, scanning faces in a random way, and get elbowed in the hospitality tents with increasing frequency. Lakes of booze are being consumed at a gallop by the punters, the noise of their conversations and laughter gets louder and coarser with each passing hour. I struggle to the champagne bar in the main stand as it’s high up, and stand by the window, looking down at the huge crowd. At least from here I have some space to search. I remove the sunglasses and take the binoculars from my bag. Faces jump into sharp focus, their eyes narrowed against the gusty wind. From this vantage point I can see almost the whole racecourse but there are so many people, so many thousands of faces and postures, and I’m looking for just one. I don’t know what Gerry’s wearing or whether he’s changed his appearance. After ten minutes I sit down, the impossibility of finding just one person, even if they are here, finally confirmed.

  I check the Tote queues, the stands, the swarm around the betting posts, the crowd lining the course, the finish line. I know it’s time to admit defeat but the truth is, after a second sleepless night this week, I’m too tired to move. Gerry won’t have much money, where would he be? A roar goes up behind me as three horses gallop towards the finish post. I scan this bar, just in case. Nothing. I return to searching with my binoculars; there’s a melee around the finish line as hands wave and fists are punched skywards. That’s where the action is, that’s where the crowd is most intense. I see a woman snuggled into a man’s shoulder, a guy in a hat craning to see, a jumping woman with a rolled-up piece of paper raised above her head, and a small man in aviator sunglasses, right by the course fence, standing quite still. The stillness gives him away. He stood like that in the dinner line, for cell inspection, sat like that before the Parole Board. The glasses disguise him a bit, but it’s Gerry.

  I’m down the stairs double quick, pressing through a crowd of office workers bent on quenching their thirst. ‘Keep your hair on,’ mutters one as I barge past.

  Once out of the main stand my progress slows as I try to dodge red-faced beer drinkers and an army of people who seem hell-bent on crowding around just me. It’s taking so long, too long, to get to the finish line. I think of Lex and his comments from yesterday, ‘Bloodhound, running after the thrown sticks.’ Will Gerry give me anything? There’s only one way to find out.

  ‘Watch it!’ I’ve made a woman slosh beer over her friend and I retreat from their scowls. The crowd is so thick I can’t see more than a couple of people in front of me and I’m not tall enough to see over heads. I’m five rows back from the fence, the red-and-white disc of the winning post visible a short distance away. It’s impossible to move further forward, so I try to edge sideways, craning to see Gerry’s car coat. The crowd starts swaying, murmuring and craning left. I’m pushed torwards the front in a surge as the pounding of hooves fills the air. A man bellows the name of a horse over and over in my ear, shrieks of ‘Come on!’ ring out. As the horses rush past my feet leave the ground as we press forward to see. As the crowd lets out a collective exhale I lose my footing and fall to the muddy grass, my sunglasses crunched under a wellington.

  Two men lift me skywards by my elbows and inquire as to my well-being before I retreat into a bit more space. I trample the confetti of discarded betting slips, cursing. Gerry could have left this spot as much as ten minutes ago.

  I jostle and contort my way to where the horses join the winners’ enclosure, and then, between two men who are cheering and hugging at their impressive winning bet, I spot Gerry’s coat.

  I put my hand on his shoulder and say his name and he wheels round in a second. He’s shorter than me and I see my face reflected in his sunglasses. I’ve got splashes of mud on my cheek. ‘Gerry, it’s Kate Forman, we met a few times on—’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  I wipe my face with my sleeve. ‘Excuse me, I fell over back there. It’s quite intense, isn’t it?’

  ‘When you’ve been where I’ve been, you love a crowd and hate it all at the same time.’

  I smile and nod. ‘Can I buy you a drink, some food?’

  Gerry shrugs. ‘I’m not going to turn down the offer of a drink now, am I? You know what they say, a drink can sometimes change your fortunes.’

  We walk towards a beer tent. I keep him talking while I buy a round. ‘Are you up or down on the day?’

  ‘Down. If I don’t win soon I’ll be hitching home.’ He turns to me, his face unreadable behind the big glasses. ‘How’d you find me?’

  ‘I remember you said on Inside-Out that you liked horse racing.’ His face is impossible to read so I stumble on, handing him a pint of beer. ‘I’m working on a show called Crime Time and we’re doing a special piece on Melody Graham. We’d very much like you to come on and be interviewed by Marika Cochran—’

  Gerry swears loudly, making me jump. His change in tone from friendly and charming to cold and angry is achieved in an instant. ‘I don’t know who that is and I don’t much care. I just want to be left alone.’

  ‘It would just be this once, because of this unprecedented situation. You did know Melody, after all, and there is such a lot of interest in you and in recent events. You may have useful insights.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing of any use to anyone. Most people have already made up their mind that I did it. Ain’t nothing I can do about that.’ He puts his glass down on a beer mat, taking care not to spill any liquid. He was obsessively tidy in prison, I recall.

  ‘You’ve left your temporary accommodation.’

  ‘There’s no law against that. It doesn’t break the terms of my parole.’

  ‘Where will you be staying tonight?’

  ‘I can’t rightly say.’ He laughs cruelly. ‘Your house?’

  He can see that I don’t like that. ‘I know that you don’t have to do the interview, like you didn’t have to do Crime Time. You could have stopped at any time, but you didn’t. Something in you responded to the cameras and I know you know it. You were great on TV.’

  He scowls. ‘I’m a media plaything.’ He stretches his arms out ironically, mimicking Christ on the Cross. ‘Are you not entertained?’ he shouts.

  ‘This isn’t entertainment. This is serving the purpose of doing something to try and discover who murdered a young woman. We can do the interview at any place you choose. What’s your mobile number?’

  ‘I don’t have one. They make no sense to me.’

  ‘I’ll buy you one today, show you how it works.’ I realise how bewildering the world must seem to Gerry, isolated from it in 1980 and thrust back into it in 2010. ‘I’ll go in to town now and come back. Where will you be?’

  He shrugs. ‘I’ll be here, and there, most likely.’

  ‘Come on, Gerry, throw me a lifeline, I’m begging you.’ Gerry smiles and I feel uneasy. I don’t like the look of that smile and I wonder whether that’s what his wife used to say to him all those years ago, said to him right at the end of her life. I change the subject. ‘Fame can convict you but it can also protect you. It gives you an opportunity to put your side of the story. This is your chance to show you didn’t kill her.’

  Gerry takes off his sunglasses. Those Irish eyes are smiling now, his mood switching between charm and anger in an instant. He raises the pint in a toast to me, turns and incorporates the swaying, sweating rabble in his gesture, winners and losers both. ‘How much would you bet on that?’

  28

  The rest of the afternoon was a series of tests of Gerry’s predictability. I gave him twenty pounds for some more bets and arranged to meet him right where I left him in an hour. I bought a Pay As You Go mobile in Chelt
enham and stacked it with credit, programmed in my work number, Livvy’s and Crime Time’s, before returning to the beer tent. A cheer of delight greets me as I enter the tent: Gerry is entertaining a section of the crowd with card tricks. He’s very, very good, his Irish patter keeping pace perfectly with his sleights of hand. A hat is on the floor in front of him, the coins building into a little pyramid.

  ‘Here’s a young lady who looks lucky today, to be sure.’ He does something tricksy with a pack of cards near my face. ‘Pick a card—’ He doesn’t finish the sentence but looks over my shoulder and quickly picks up the hat – security are approaching across the tent. ‘Time to go.’

  We weave away together, his hat a clanking bag in his hand.

  ‘People have got to spend money here, not earn it, I guess.’

  ‘So true,’ Gerry replies. He doesn’t seem too concerned that his earnings have come to a halt. ‘I’ve got enough for a forty-five-to-one bet on the three-fifteen. Crystal Clear, she’s called. She’ll bring me luck, to be sure.’

  ‘Please come on the show,’ I say, handing him the mobile. He doesn’t reply. I leave him twisting a ring round his finger and I find myself imagining how he came by it.

  On the train back to London I phone Livvy to tell her my coup. She brings me back down to earth. ‘Let’s see if he shows up. You should have done the interview then and there! I should have got Matt to do it,’ she muttered. ‘I want you down in Woolwich now.’

  ‘Woolwich?’

  ‘Friend of Melody’s called in. She’s got some old video footage of Melody playing a magician on stage. It could be useful.’

  ‘Can’t we send a bike for it?’

  ‘No can do. She’ll only hand it over personally, and that person is you.’ I suppress a groan. Woolwich is miles away, the wrong side of London from where I’m travelling into, a long way from my house. It sounds like a low-priority piece of background colour. My painful eye throbs in silent protest. ‘No one ever said TV work was glamorous, Kate! Off you go, she’s in this evening.’ I sink back into the train seat, wishing bad thoughts on my boss. As the train pulls into Paddington I check the racing results from Cheltenham on my phone. Crystal Clear was brought down at the third fence in the 3.15.