Although he was, to a certain extent.
Dave put the pen down.
“We had Neil Morgan in the other day, just for a chat, you know... And he was telling us about you inheriting the Cottage… nice of you to let us know, by the way… and how the pair of you… big buddies now apparently, had been building a bonfire. And then he told us a little story about how you’d seen Sarah in Amsterdam, a few years back…”
“In 2005.”
“Right… except that Sarah Hartley’s never been to Amsterdam, strangely enough. They’d vaguely talked about it as a honeymoon destination… and Sarah said she’d never been. They thought maybe June would be good, just for a weekend break. Are you following me?”
Paul nodded.
“So when you ‘saw’ Sarah Hartley in Amsterdam in 2005, were you as convinced then as you are now?”
Paul considered it. Dave took his hesitation for an answer.
“No disrespect intended, and Sarah is a beautiful woman, but she is… let’s say… of a type. The slim blonde type. She’s not unique…”
“Probably not…”
“And there are probably quite a lot… relatively speaking… of women who resemble her, to one degree or another. You’ve probably met quite a few yourself, professionally maybe…”
The figure 95% came to Paul’s mind but he didn’t say anything.
“So… because I value our friendship, and believe me, I do… I’ll just say two things to you. One: get some rest. Seriously… Take a break, see another doctor, go on holiday, and forget Sarah Hartley. Two: there was another incident of someone seeing Sarah, that also involved a drowning…”
Paul stared at him.
“It was Greville Hartley’s drowning. We had a witness come forward who swore blind he’d seen Sarah push Greville into the canal and watch him drown. He was fishing by Whitley Lock and saw the whole thing. So he said.”
“You’re kidding?”
Dave shook his head.
“Only Sarah was 2000 miles away on a yacht in the Caribbean at the time, with about 17 witnesses and all the material alibis you could think of to prove it.”
“Who was the witness?”
The look in Dave’s eyes was cool, level and concerned.
“Cracker Booth.”
“Cracker Booth?”
“The one and only.”
“So you’re saying…”
“No, I’m not saying you’re like Cracker Booth. I’m saying people make mistakes. People can believe what they think they see because they want to believe it. And maybe there are certain influences, like drug-induced brain damage or… personal infatuation and obsession, whereby perspective and rational analysis are undermined and over-shadowed by personal interest.”
“Where did you learn to talk like that?”
“I did a course…”
“Fuck you, Dave.”
“Fair enough. As I said, Paul… look after yourself, and this whole business will look after itself.”
“Sounds like we’re done.”
Dave looked at his hands then at Paul. He forced a smile.
“For the moment.”
The two men stared each other down for ten seconds. Then Paul got up and walked to the door. He opened it and turned back.
“By the way, Sarah’s eyes are green. They always have been. Emerald green. There’s no blue in them.”
“Really. Oh, and by the way… Cath’s fine, thanks for asking!”
Paul closed the door behind him quietly and he heard Dave’s telephone ringing.
“Help!”
I hear a voice, and I know it’s Sarah.
“Help!”
I look around, and I know where the voice is coming from.
I move forward, through the trees, and then I stop.
I can hear footsteps… or I imagine I can… I listen to the leaves rustling and I can hear a dog barking…
I know there’s a man out there, and he has a knife. We’ve established that.
I think of Sarah, her hands tied up, praying that someone will come before it’s too late.
I step forward another few yards and there’s a clearing.
I can see her now, but I don’t know if she can see me.
She’s tied up against a wooden stake and her legs and arms are covered in mud and maybe there’s blood on her face.
Sarah, my princess. I can see her blonde curls. She looks lovely in the sunlight, but I can’t think of that now, I have to save her.
I get down on my hands and knees and crawl through some ferns. There are sticks and stones on the ground and they dig into my skin and suddenly there’s machine gun fire and I duck and the firing goes on. I hear a grenade explode and I know it’s time. I have to kill some people.
Two minutes later it’s done and I step into the clearing.
“For God’s sake!”, she says. “Where have you been, I’m dying for a wee!”
I switch off the cassette-player that was making the gun noises and stand in front of her.
Just then, Robbie runs up and he drops a ball at my feet and his tail’s wagging.
“I had to kill half a dozen bloodthirsty armed bandits”, I say. “If I’d come too soon it wouldn’t have been realistic.”
“Just untie me, I drank too much Pepsi.”
“Not so fast… I’ve just saved your life. You’re supposed to cry and thank me and give me a kiss and a big reward.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
I start walking away.
“All right, ok…”
I turn back, trying not to smile.
“One kiss”, she says.
So I step forward and I lean in and I put my face next to hers. She looks into my eyes and purses her lips. And I purse mine.
“Hang on”, I say. “You’ve got ketchup on your cheek.”
“So wipe it off.”
I lean forward and lick it off her face. I laugh and she groans.
“Some hero you are!”
“That doesn’t count as a kiss!”
“All right.”
I move forward a bit but she can’t move forward any more because she’s still tied up. Our lips touch. And then she opens her mouth a bit and I do too. I can feel her tongue with my tongue. It’s warm. I feel warm all over. I open my eyes and her eyes are open too and she’s looking at me and I know she’s smiling, but she isn’t smiling with her mouth because her mouth is busy.
After a while Robbie barks and we stop kissing and we both look at him. He’s looking up at us, still wagging his tail.
“Thanks for saving my life”, she says.
“It’s your turn now.”
And we’re both smiling.
Chapter 30
Saturday, April 27th 2013
The house was a pebble-dashed semi at the end of a short row of similar houses on the crest of a hill overlooking the moors. Paul saw a TV mast rising into the clouds in the distance. He didn’t think it was one he knew close up. The road ended abruptly in a pile of rubble and weeds that looked like it had been there for years, as if there had been plans to extend the road and build more houses, but the project had been abandoned… through a lack of money or dwindling interest from potential buyers.
Paul parked his car and got out and looked at the house. It was well-kept and the paintwork was recent, certainly compared to its neighbour, to the right, which was shabby and rundown and neglected, the front garden a sprawl of broken bicycles and what looked like the shell of a motor-bike, with rusting mechanical parts lying on oil-stained gravel, weeds coiling around them like green snakes. The gutter below the roof was leaking and a steady stream of dirty water dripped down into an over-flowing plastic bucket next to the front door.
The house on the left belonged to Cracker Booth. His roof and guttering looked new. His front lawn was neat and the flower-beds were well-tended. He knew Cracker lived alone now. The minders had gone and his wife, Brenda, had been taken by cancer the year before. He must look after the ho
use himself, but he seemed to be doing a good job.
The rain intensified as he stood there and he turned up his jacket collar.
He hurried up the path and pressed a copper button on the doorframe. A ding-dong chime sounded deep within the house.
A minute later the door edged open a fraction and a face peeked out.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“The name’s Paul Boyd.”
“Boyd?”
The door closed and Paul heard a chain being unlatched. The door swung open again and an old man appeared, his eyes like flint as he took in Paul’s appearance.
“Boyd, you say… Are you Alan Boyd’s lad?”
“Yes, I am.”
He looked Paul up and down and then at the sky and the rain. He looked closer at Paul’s face and his bandages.
“Been in the wars, have you?”
“Cut myself shaving.”
“You’d better come in, it’s pissin’ down out there.”
He turned back into the house and Paul followed him along a short hall into the kitchen at the rear of the house, an extension with a broad glass roof and exposed beams. Cracker Booth was already putting the kettle on.
“Cuppa?”
“Sure, thanks.”
Cracker took two cups and saucers from a shelf and set them down on a smooth black work-top. Slate, Paul thought. The kitchen was expensively furnished, with top of the range appliances and gleaming utensils and gadgets.
He stared at Paul and nodded, as if remembering something.
He was tall and skinny, with cropped grey hair and granddad glasses and his cheeks were sculpted hollows either side of a nose that made Paul think of an axe blade.
He was wearing jeans and an Adidas sweatshirt with a hood.
He indicated a chair at the solid beech table and Paul sat down.
“I knew your Dad. He were all right.”
“I heard you were acquainted.”
The rain was drumming on the glass roof.
“Acquainted? That’s one way of puttin’ it. Are you talkin’ about that story of how I bottled out in the Black Horse?”
“Something like that.”
“I don’t know how folk had the nerve to repeat that crap, it were all a load o’ bollocks.”
“Really?”
Cracker set milk in a jug and sugar in a matching bowl on the table and looked at him, mildly amused. He had a fine set of false teeth.
“What version did you hear?”
“Just that he was defending a mate and stood up to you and you… went away.”
“It was summat like that, but the fancier versions have him kickin’ the shit out of me and me crappin’ me pants… We never even kicked off. And no-one saw fuck all anyway. We were in the alley, just the two of us.”
“So what did happen?”
Cracker filled a stainless-steel tea-pot and dropped two bags into it.
“We had a quiet word. I owed him a flavour…”
“A what?”
“A favour… I let his mate go scot free, even though he deserved a proper goin’ over.”
“You owed him a favour?”
“I just said that didn’t I?”
“Ok.”
“What do you know about your Dad?”
“Less and less as time goes by.”
“You knew he were a Huddersfield Town fan?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
“And how he got skullfucked in Leeds once?
Paul nodded.
Cracker poured the tea and slid a cup across the kitchen table.
“It were maybe a couple of months after that, he’d not long been out of the hostel… the hospital… I were still in Manchester at the time, but I had a bit of business in Halifax, sortin’ summat out…”
Paul had a vision of the business in question and unconsciously played with his fingers. Cracker noticed.
“Aye, that kind of business…”
Paul said nothing.
Cracker put two spoonfuls of sugar into his tea and stirred it. Paul did the same.
“So I was up at King’s Cross, behind the Coach and Horses, talkin’ to a bloke, and a couple of his mates showed up out of nowhere and I was thinkin’ I was a goner… they said I was on their turf and they were goin’ to teach me a lesson… So out come the Stanleys and a hammer and a crowbar… And then I see this bloke walkin’ up the alley… and they tell him to fuck off, but he keeps comin’. This was your Dad… And they start layin’ in to me, and then your Dad’s there, and it’s like Kung Fu fuckin’ Fightin’… he went berserk. He’d recognised one of the lads in the pub… the bloke who had hammered his skull in at the Leeds game. So between the two of us we get well in there, and the Leeds lads are fuckin’ pussies… They’re down and out and I do what I do and your Dad gets a knife and he starts carvin’ up the bloke’s face. He carves ‘cunt’ on the bloke’s forehead with the Stanley knife and pisses on him. And we left ‘em there cryin’ like fuckin’ babies and we went off for a pint. Couple of pints in fact. I had to give your Dad a couple of ludes, disco biscuits, to get him down, he were buzzin’ that much.”
Paul’s face was white.
“So that’s why I owed him a favour.”
“Fuck…”
“You don’t forget shit like that.”
“No, I imagine you don’t.”
Cracker fetched a sponge from the sink and mopped up a couple of drops of tea he’d spilt on the table.
“I believe you know some of my grandkids?”
He was amused again.
“You don’t forget shit like that either…”, said Paul.
Cracker nodded in agreement as he sat down again and sipped his tea.
“Terry was a dumb fuckin’ bastard, thick as shit, not playin’ with a full deck, that lad… And he ends up gettin’ reamed by a fuckin’ junkie arse-bandit. Top class exit… I never had much time for him.”
“We weren’t close either.”
Cracker laughed.
“Took you for a drive once, up to the marrows….?”
“The what?”
“Up to the moors… That was you, right?”
“That was me.”
Cracker seemed to be a little dyslexic, thought Paul. Flavour and favour, marrows and moors…
“And then Tracy…”
“Yeah, Tracy…”
“Too much E, man… did her head in, and not just her head… she’s all right now, mind, a good lass, but back then! I never did like E myself, turns you into a fuckin’ bonobo… you’d fuck your own shadow…”
“Or somebody else’s shadow…”
“You what?”
“Nothing.”
Cracker put his cup down and folded his arms.
“Anyways… enough of happy wanderings down memory-lane, what can I do you for?”
“A fishing story.”
“You what?”
“I hear you go fishing in the canal, near Whitley Lock.”
Cracker’s eyes narrowed and his left eyebrow twitched.
“Where d’you hear that then?”
“Around.”
“And?”
“I want to know what you saw.”
“You talkin’ Greville Hartley? The bloke your Dad worked for?”
Paul nodded.
Cracker stood up and stepped over to the window. He watched the rain battering a tray of seedlings on the windowsill. He tutted to himself. Then he bent forward to look at a smear on the glass and wiped it off with his sleeve.
“I saw Sarah Hartley push her father in the canal.”
“She pushed him…”
“Yeah.”
“She didn’t hit him… with anything?”
Cracker turned round.
“I would have said so if she had.”
“So she just pushed him?”
“They said he couldn’t swim, and I suppose she would have known that.”
“I knew it, too, when I was a kid.”
“And I saw her stand there and watch him drown.”
Paul saw a green shadow and smelt vanilla.
“And don’t insult me by askin’ me if I’m sure, son, all right?”
He looked at Cracker and saw a wild gleam in his eye that must once have put the fear of God into whoever he was talking to.
“Where were you?”
“I was about 100 yards away, goin’ towards the bridge. I was sittin’ on the edge of the canal, wearin’ camouflage pants and a khaki jacket, in amongst a bunch of bushes and she wouldn’t have seen me.”
“100 yards is quite a long way.”
“You’re not wrong.”
Cracker was amused by his questions. He sat down again.
“So…”
“So how can I be sure it was them?”
“Well, they found Greville’s body… But how can you be sure it was Sarah?”
“I thought I told you not to insult me…”
“I’m just asking.”
“I had bicycles… I mean binoculars.”
“Binoculars.”
“Yeah, binoculars. You know, them things you look through…”
“Right.”
“I watch where the fish are jumpin’, I watch the birds, I watch fuckin’ anythin’… And that day I watched Sarah Hartley push her father in the water and watch him wave and panic and swallow canal water and shout for help and then sink under the fuckin’ water and drown.”
“What happened then?”
“She walked off, not slow not fast, back up to the road.”
“And you told the police this?”
Cracker shrugged.
“They think I’m a fuckin’ acid-head. They think me brain’s fried. They think I’m a fuckin’ barmpot. They could barely keep a straight face. I don’t know why I bothered.”
“And Sarah Hartley was 2000 miles away at the time on a yacht in the Caribbean.”
He shrugged again.
“Alibis are easy to fix. I know what I saw. They can believe what they want. What the fuck do I care?”
“How did you recognise her? Did you know her?”
“Seen her around. Seen her picture in the paper. Saw her cuttin’ a river… I mean a ribbon, at one of her Dad’s opening dos, not long before. I knew her.”
Paul finished his tea.
“Well…”, he said.
“You knew her, didn’t you? Sarah Hartley. You were friends.”
The King's Shilling Page 18
