Tales for the Fireside - Five Stories of Love and Friendship
Page 8
She pushed the statement back. The uniformed officer looked at her name.
“You’re Maggie Hanson’s girl, aren’t you?”
Scarlett bristled at hearing her mother’s name. “What of it?”
“These blokes anything to do with what she was into?”
Scarlett was a little long on the pause.
The plain clothes officer decided to take a different tack. “We're going to need you to take part in a couple of ID parades.”
Again, her silence was telling.
“Is there anything else I should know, Miss Hanson?
Scarlett glanced at Robbie.
“My name is Robbie Smith; did you never think to ask?”
Scarlett felt a surge of guilt. She had never even considered his name. He was a blip, a nuisance on her radar.
“Ever heard of a Robbie Smith?”
“Should I have?”
“He used to hang out with Reg and Sammo. I heard...there was a rumour going around, that's all.”
Plain Clothes gaze was penetrating.
“I heard that he disappeared, that’s all.”
Plain Clothes seemed pretty relaxed about it. These types move on all the time. No one cares, no one misses them.
“I heard....” Scarlett sucked in air through her nose and swallowed hard. She was about to open a can of worms and she knew it. “I was told that Sammo shot him.”
Now Plain Clothes was interested. “And who told you that?”
Scarlett shrugged and Plain Clothes’ experience told him that she’s not going to spill. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “We’ll make some inquiries.”
***
Scarlett exited the station, glad to get out of the place, happy to smell the diesel and petrol fumes from the cars waiting at the traffic lights. She lit up a cigarette.
“Thank you.”
Scarlett barely glanced at him. She chucked the unsmoked cigarette into the gutter and put on her helmet. Without acknowledging his presence, she started the scooter and rode away.
***
Scarlett had received a call a few days later asking her to attend the police station to do an identity parade. Dr. Fielding had been most concerned that she had been a victim of some kind of crime that she had not disclosed and Scarlett had reassured her that it was not the case and promised to make up the hours she was about to lose.
“No,” Dr. Fielding reassured her. “No, need, I’ll square it”
Scarlett scanned the line-up and glanced at Robbie who held up four fingers.
“Four.”
This was repeated in the second line up where Robbie indicated to number two – Sammo.
Neither of them looked as she imagined and yet every bit so. They weren’t ‘hard men’ pushing drugs; they were as much victims as she or Robbie had been. Their sallow, spotty complexions testament to abuse. Dirty hair, dirty teeth, lack of hygiene. Not caring about what they looked like just where the next fix was coming from.
It was those higher up the food chain that were to blame for this mess, for her mother, for Mrs. Muir. Preying on the weak; those who were unable to stop, feeding their habits with a freebie to reel them back in once they’d got clean.
She didn’t feel guilty at naming them. Perhaps she’d done them a favour.
***
On the blackened, swollen toe, which poked out from under the hospital sheet was a tag ROBERT SMITH. Scarlett approached the covered body and with a growing sense of trepidation about her, and gingerly pulled back the sheet.
***
Scarlett flushed the toilet chain and laid her head, just for a moment, on her arms.
“I wasn't a pretty sight, was I?”
Scarlett dragged herself up and exited the stall. She went to the mirror and stared at Robbie through it.
“I'm sorry I made you puke.” He sounded genuinely remorseful. “Why'd they need a post-mortem anyway? Pretty obvious how I died.”
She ran the tap and splashed her face: “They needed to formally identify you. Get a precise cause of death.”
“Which was?”
“Single bullet wound to the stomach causing massive haemorrhaging. It was slow.”
Robbie seemed shocked by this and withdraw into his memories.
“I remember watching a fly caught in a web. Struggling, fighting for life. It seemed like hours.”
He looked at Scarlett. She had tears in her eyes.
“Robbie,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “You've been dead for over two months.”
Robbie felt the world collapse in on him, like being sucked into a tunnel.
“That's...that's not possible.”
“I’m sorry. Dr. Fielding is sending official confirmation through to CID tomorrow.”
Robbie was stunned into silence. Two months? Where had he been? He remembered fighting his way out of the blackness, if knowing somehow that he had to find her but why? What on earth was Scarlett Hanson that he should be so drawn to her? At last he found his voice.
“Why the change of heart? Why'd you tell them about me?”
Scarlett didn’t know the answer.
“I suppose it doesn't matter now. Sammo grassed up Reg, the other gang, and then spilled the beans about the night he shot me. Seems he and I had been talking and I'd already made contact with someone inside the police.”
“And that's why Sammo shot you?”
“Yes and no. Sammo's a bit daft in the head. Too much weed. Reg found out and set me up. Course, he wasn't going to pull the trigger.”
He looked at Scarlett and she noticed a change come over him.
“What's the matter? What is it?”
“I don't know. I feel...peaceful.”
He levelled his gaze at Scarlett; a new kind of maturity shone in his eyes.
“I've got to go.”
In the corner of the room the psychopomp was waiting.
“I'll see you around, Scarlett Hanson.”
He smiled for the last time and then faded away, leaving a huge silence over the rest room.
***
Scarlett observed the funeral from a distance. Robbie’s mother was uncontrolled in her grief and his father stoic in his. After the coffin had been lowered into the ground and the funeral party had begun to depart, she too turned to leave.
As she made her way through the gravestones something distracted her; a movement too quick for her to fully detect but a definite presence. She stopped and looked around. The cemetery seemed peaceful, yet the sense of presence remained.
With her head held high, Scarlett turned her back on the world of the dead but something told her that maybe the dead hadn’t quite turned their back on her
THE END
V
“Hi, Livvie here...”
“Liam…”
“Evie...”
“Jules, Julie...Anderson…that was…”
When Damian had first voiced the idea of a school reunion he’d envisaged a few mates down the pub reminiscing about old times. The Facebook page he’d set up soon attracted likes; a few likes soon became lots of likes and very soon tens of likes. It seemed that he was going to need a bigger venue.
“Andy...”
“Divorced....”
“My job...”
“I'm married to Craig...”
It just so happened that one of his former teachers, Mr. Weston, or Jeff, as Damian now called him, was a
regular in the photography shop and so the idea of hiring out the school hall was run by him over coffee in the back room and a promise was made by Jeff to ‘see what he could do’.
“Bank manager...”
“Property development...”
“Literary agent...”
“Housewife...and, well, I’m mum too”
The School Head was more than happy for Damian to have the hall provided he took responsibility for setting up, taking down and had some kind of public liability insurance going on.
Very soon, the idea he’d
mooted to Leanne, his wife of twenty years standing, was a reality. One hundred and fifty guests had signed up to attend and Damian found himself in a whirlwind of organization.
The idea of a video presentation had come to him one day in the shop. He set up a screen, a camera and some lights in the back room and invited a select few to come in at their leisure to give a quick video presentation of themselves and where they were at with life. Slowly but surely, they popped into the shop, one by one to get filmed.
“I'm the branch manager at the local Barclay's. Andy and I have been together thirty years, married for 25 of them... That's what you get for choosing your lab partners in chemistry 'O' level!”
“Just in the middle of preparing my second spa development. Sadly, divorced but I have a beautiful daughter for the trouble. Looking forward to catching up with a few of the old faces. Check out my webpage. See you there.”
All except one but he had a good excuse. Unlike the others, he’d got out of town, joined the army and now was the owner of his own close protection company. He had, however, agreed to make the reunion. Damian was glad; he hadn’t seen his former best friend in seven years.
The day before the reunion
Ed Moore made his way through the train that had just pulled out of Paddington Station and found a seat in first class. He settled down, pulled his lap top out of its case, a flipped it open. As he composed his thoughts, he starred out of the window as the city began to slowly recede and the sprawling suburbs took over. Soon, even they were behind him as the train rattled along passing open countryside and small villages. His laptop went into idle mode as its owner continued to stare out of the window, seemingly forgetting his vow to do some work before the train arrived back in his home town.
Ed had, at first, decided that attending a school reunion was a pretty lame idea. He’d moved on both figuratively and literally; joining the army straight out of school and rising to the rank of WOI before leaving to set up his own company. He’d got lucrative government contracts in light of the various conflicts that had taken place and was doing very nicely for himself.
He’d sat on the invite for a while, clicking on the Facebook page every now and then to see who was definitely going and who’d clicked on ‘interested’. He never saw her name appear but, then again, he’d never seen her come up on Facebook ever, so he had to assume she’d never fallen in with the whole social media thing.
In the end, he’d decided ‘why not’ and clicked on the button to say he was going. After that it all seemed pretty easy; get an advanced train ticket, book a hotel room for one night, and come away the next day. He wasn’t even going to tell his folks he’d come home. That particular assortment of problems needed to remain firmly unopened.
“After studying Modern English Literature and American Classics at university I joined the team at Peabody, Primrose and Sutcliffe. I was quickly promoted but I took the plunge and started my own agency.
“I have three boys. Craig has his own dental practice and we live down Learmont Drive. Hope everyone has a good time and say 'hi' if you remember me.”
Damian turned off the camcorder and smiled at Jules. He’d always been fond of her. She was still the same meek soul she’d been when they were at school. Never one to draw attention to herself and certainly not as confident as Evie, who’d breezed through her stint in front of the camera.
Evie had come along today in support of Jules.
“Thanks for coming,” he said, helping Jules off the raised stool and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“It's been fun, hasn’t it Jules?” Evie turned to her friend and waited for the inevitable compliant smile. She wasn’t disappointed. “Shame Leanne wasn't here.”
“Yeah, she's off having kittens somewhere,” he replied as he began to dismount the camera from the tripod and carefully pack it all away. “This reunion's been a real challenge.”
“So, it's all coming together?”
“Yeah, it’s all good to go and Lee’s been working really hard to get the food sorted. Reckon she'll do us proud.”
Evie could see that Jules was beginning to get a little restless.
“Right,” she said brightly, hoping that Damian hadn’t noticed. “well, we'll see you tomorrow then.
The two women, firm friends since the first day of secondary school, left Damian to fuss over his camera and made their own way down onto the busy High Street.
The town was part of the stockbroker belt, commuters who worked long hours in the City and came back to their detached houses, well-groomed spouses, charming children – or at least those still at home and not harvested out to expensive boarding schools, and the usual round of golf club socials to fill out the weekend before it all started again.
It was therefore a prosperous place which afforded it a High Street of family run business ranging from greengrocers, to butchers, to fishmongers, to clothes, to general stores, everything, in fact in one very exclusive street. Small boutiques offered up high end clothing and accessories. Not for this town the usual gaggle of charity shops selling unwanted tat; here those shops were where the savvy shopper could pick up designer labels at fraction of the cost, providing, of course, they could run the gimlet eye of the ladies who lunch who could spot last year’s must-haves a mile off.
Naturally, like most places, there was one area of town that stuck out like a sore thumb and, for this town it was Manor Park, a sprawling council estate built in the sixties. It had a bad rep but that wasn’t because it was a bad place. It was more the affluent locals and their fear of ‘the other’ with the ‘other’ being those who didn’t work in the City and didn’t belong to the golf club or send their kids away, aged four to some exclusive school.
Jules had been born on the Manor, as it was known, and had attended the Manor Park secondary modern as she had attended its streamer school. Evie’s family had come to the town during the school holiday, at the transition from primary to secondary. Whereas most of the kids starting their first year came from the town and mostly knew each other, Evie was a stranger.
An Audi coupé pulled up on double-yellow lines on the opposite side of the road to the women.
“Oh God, its Olivia,” hissed Jules and then, more to herself whispered: “Don't let her see us, don't let her see us.”
Olivia got out of the car. She was groomed to perfection; her shoulder length hair was a glossy curtain of warm tints and lo-lights. She pushed the designer sunglasses up onto her head, swept her hand bag up her arm and onto her shoulder, locked the vehicle and walked away. All without seeing either of the women.
“I don't know why you let her bother you. She’s a bloody bank manager, no, make that a part-time bank manager and she's married to Andy her boyfriend from the fifth year. Bet she's never had an orgasm in her life.”
Jules giggled. “What's that got to do with it?”
“Obviously, that’s why she's like she is - same bloke from the age of fifteen? How'd she know if he's any good? Bet they always do missionary.”
Jules felt herself go a little bit pink and hoped that Evie wouldn’t notice.
She hadn’t. “Listen,” she said. “Let's get a coffee before I get the train.”
“Going to town on a Friday afternoon? You're keen.”
“Snowed under more like,” Evie took the reluctant Jules by the arm. I need a decent coffee so I can resist that muck on they serve.”
Evie felt Jules brace against her arm and waited for the inevitable excuse.
“I’ve got to get to the fishmongers and pick up some salmon.
Evie managed to suppress a sigh and said kindly: “Well, it's dead, it isn't going anywhere.”
Jules wasn’t for persuading: “Yeah, I know but I've got tons to do.
Evie let go of her arm. She loved Jules like a sister but this stubbornness to keep playing the little housewife was just wearing. “Jesus, whatever it is you're making from scratch for dinner buy it in Roberts, he'll never notice the difference.”
“Yeah well, if he was my husband...”
“But he's not. He's mine and I can't complain.”
“Course, you can and you should, loudly and often.”
“My life is fine. I have three wonderful boys. A beautiful home....”
“And a husband that treats you like a skivvy.”
Evie looked at Jules. “Why the hell didn't you marry Ed?
Jules sagged “You know why.”
“Being an army wife isn't that bad. Thousands do it. Okay, so you wouldn't have had the big house at the posh end of town but he loved you, which is more than Craig ever did.”
Jules didn’t respond.
“As much as I love you, Jules, sometimes you can be a crashing snob.”
“That's not fair,” cried Jules, stung by her friend’s words.
“No, what's not fair is that you settled for a man that makes your average anally retentive fuckwit look relaxed just because you didn't want the likes of Olivia sneering at you for marrying a squaddie.”
“Ed understood why I couldn't…”
“Did he?”
Jules felt trapped and decided to ignore that last bit. “I knew what I was doing when I married Craig.”
Evie rubbed Jules’ arm “I know it. I just...I hate to see you trapped. Accepting an allowance like some child. You should have married Ed.”
Jules shot her a look.
“So, sue me for thinking he was the man for you.”
Jules fiddled with her handbag and Evie took it as her cue to shut up.
“I should go,” she said, pecking Jules on the cheek. “I'll pick you up about seven, tomorrow.”
Jules managed half a smile.
“You never know,” said Evie as she glanced down the road to see if it was clear. “Ed might show up.”
With that, Evie nipped across the street and disappeared down the road opposite which led to the train station.
For a few moments, Jules stared after her, wishing that she had a life that meant dashing off to London to meet with clients and discuss the next big book deal; to eat out on expense and be invited to launches and parties. It was all dreaming on her part. She had neither the stomach nor the condition for such things. Her life was her home, her garden, and her family. She pulled her jacket around her slim waist and began the walk to the fishmongers. Around her other, similarly bored suburban housewives, filled their bags with produce ready to be taken home and cooked for when the man of the house returned.