It wasn’t like the old days, Stan thought. When people who fell behind with their rent did a moonlight flit back then, they’d take their furniture with them – aye, and sometimes even furniture that wasn’t theirs at all.
He wondered, briefly, where they were going, and why they were leaving at that time of night. They could be going on their holidays, he supposed – he’d read that, these days, aeroplanes took off at some bloody funny times.
He finished his pee, carefully replaced his withered organ back in his pyjamas, and shuffled back to his bedroom.
By the time he was climbing into his bed, he’d forgotten all about the Jones family.
Mrs Brown suddenly became aware that there was someone there in the bedroom with her.
‘I can hear you breathing,’ she said. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s only me,’ said a familiar, reassuring voice. ‘I’d like you to put on your bedside light.’
‘Why have you come, Trus—?’
‘Shush, don’t call me that,’ he interrupted her. ‘Call me Mr Smith.’
‘Even here? Even now?’
‘We can never be too careful.’
‘Of course not. Why are you here, Mr Smith?’
‘I have come to tell you that we are leaving,’ he said.
‘I thought that might be it,’ she replied. ‘Is it my fault?’ she asked, with a tremble in her voice.
‘Yes, it is your fault,’ he said. ‘The girl was put into your care, and you did not take the care of her that you should have taken.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Brown said. ‘But when you saw how happy it made her when I—’
‘We are not put on this earth to be happy,’ Mr Smith said, perhaps a little harshly.
‘No, no, of course not,’ Mrs Brown agreed.
‘I want you to know that what I have to say next is in no way a punishment for your sins,’ Mr Smith said. ‘How could it be, when they are already completely forgiven?’
‘Thank you.’
‘No, what I am about to say is much more practical – more concerned with matters of survival.’ He paused. ‘We are going, but this time, we cannot take you with us.’
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I am too old. I would only slow you down, and that would be fatal.’
Mr Smith smiled. ‘It would indeed. We cannot let the fate of the universe be dependent on the thin shoulders of one old woman.’
‘I know that,’ she said.
‘Then do you also know this?’ he asked. ‘We cannot take you with us – but we cannot leave you behind, either.’
‘Yes, I know that too,’ she said.
He walked over to her bedside, and placed a small brown bottle on the table. ‘I supervised the making of this myself,’ he said. ‘You must wait for an hour, and then you must take it.’ He paused. ‘You won’t fail me, will you?’
‘No, I won’t fail you,’ she promised. ‘Will it hurt?’
‘When compared to the suffering you have endured from your arthritic joints, it will be as nothing,’ he promised. ‘And it will be quick.’
‘Will God blame me for taking my own life?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said, ‘God will know – as we all know – that you only did it for His greater glory.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘I must leave you now.’
‘But we will meet again in glory?’
‘Yes, if we are successful in our quest, we will certainly meet again in glory,’ he said.
And then he was gone.
NINE
Tuesday
Given all the coverage on the television, and the front page headlines in the morning papers, there wasn’t anyone in the CID suite – not even those who had nothing to do with the investigation – who didn’t feel a sense of dread about the imminent arrival of DCI Dixon.
When he did finally arrive, the walls did not actually shake, nor did the overhead lights flicker – but it certainly felt as if they did.
‘Last night, I took part in a raid on a house in Birch Avenue,’ he told his team – and anyone else within fifty yards. ‘The reason I authorized that raid was because DI Marsden and DS Higgins had assured me that we’d find Mary Green’s killer there.’ His angry eyes swept the room. ‘Where is DI Marsden?’ he demanded.
For a moment, no one spoke, then DS Higgins sighed and said, ‘He’s with the telephone team in the incident room, sir. We’ve made an appeal for information regarding the motorbike and we’re expecting—’
‘Now that really is convenient for DI Marsden, isn’t it?’ Dixon said. ‘Talk about a gutless wonder. But he can’t hide away forever.’ He paused. ‘Now where was I?’
There was another silence, then Beresford said, ‘You were talking about the raid, sir.’
‘Ah yes, the raid! We didn’t catch Jim Coles, did we, DS Higgins?’
‘No, sir,’ Higgins mumbled.
‘I can’t hear you, sergeant,’ Dixon said. ‘Speak up!’
Higgins raised his head. ‘No, sir, we didn’t,’ he said.
‘And why was that?’
‘Because he was dead.’
‘Because he was dead! And don’t you think, sergeant, that you should have checked up on that before we went into his parents’ house mob handed?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Higgins said.
‘Oh, there’s no need to apologize,’ Dixon told him. ‘I love being made to look a bloody idiot in the papers and on television. It’s a lifetime ambition which – thanks to you – I’ve finally achieved.’ He paused to light a cigarette. ‘I suppose you’d better brief us on developments since that monumental cock-up, sergeant – if, indeed, there have been any developments.’
Yesterday, I was the golden boy, Higgins thought miserably – and now, as far as the boss is concerned, I’m less than dog shit.
He was going to have to climb back into Dixon’s favour very quickly, he told himself, because if he didn’t, the rest of the team (who had always resented his favoured status) would attack him like the wounded animal he was and rip him to shreds.
‘Jim Coles’ bike was a write-off,’ he said, ‘so what we saw going through the West Gate on the CCTV film was almost certainly a stolen bike, which was using Jim Coles’ registration plates. So what we’ve done is to appeal to all riders of Honda 250cc bikes to come and register with us. We’ve also appealed to any members of the public to ring the hotline if they notice that somebody who used to ride a Honda 250cc suddenly isn’t riding it anymore.’
It would have been nice to get a grunt of approval at that point, but Dixon said nothing.
‘We’re also approaching it from the other angle,’ Higgins ploughed on, ‘which is to trace the route of the licence plate from the dead boy’s motorbike to the one in the closed circuit television pictures.’
Dixon snorted. ‘Anything else?’
Higgins shifted uncomfortably. ‘We’ve examined the picnic basket for prints,’ he said. ‘There are three sets on the metal parts, though one set has been virtually obliterated by one of the others. Of the two good sets we have, one belongs to the dead girl and the other set is unknown to us, which means that our prime suspect has either been a very good boy up to now or a very lucky one.’ He hesitated, wondering whether or not he dared to inject a positive note into the briefing, then said, ‘If it’s the latter – if he’s just been lucky – I think we can say that now we’re on his trail, his luck is about to run out.’
‘Maybe,’ Dixon said, ‘but of course, when the people chasing you are the Keystone Kops, your luck can sometimes hold out for ever.’ He turned his attention to Beresford. ‘And what about you, Colin?’ he asked, his voice suddenly much milder and friendlier. ‘What have you got planned for your little team?’
‘If it’s all right with you, sir, we’d like to find out more about Mary Green’s family and their associates,’ Beresford said.
‘Excellent idea,’ Dixon told him. ‘Juries love background material, because it tells them a story, and while the background might
not have that much to do with the case that’s being presented, it does help persuade the twelve good men – or do I say persons, now?’
‘I believe it’s correct to say persons, sir,’ Beresford told him.
‘It does help persuade twelve good persons that we actually know what we’re doing – and that can only strengthen the prosecution’s case. Do you agree with that, Colin?’
‘Yes, sir, I do,’ Beresford said.
But what he was thinking was – I’ve just been given permission to choose any toys I like, as long as I take them into some quiet corner, and play with them by myself.
Winifred Goodman was built (to use a phrase that was still popular in the all-male bars of the working men’s clubs) like a brick shithouse. Her arms were thick, her thighs were sturdy, her hips were designed to balance sacks of sugar on, and her backside could fill a telephone box all on its own.
Winifred had always been of an optimistic nature. When she’d been a little girl, back in Jamaica, she dreamed of becoming a doctor, and though she’d never achieved that ambition – had instead, attained the much less exalted position of home help – she felt all right about that, too. She liked looking after people, and she was very good at it. And why would God have given her such a fine strong pair of arms, if not so that she could turn over mattresses and help her old people in and out of the bath?
When she got to Sebastopol Street that morning, the first thing she did was reach in her bag for her bunch of keys (she had so many of them that she sometimes felt like one of the housekeepers in the old black and white English films that she’d watched in the open-air cinemas back home), and select the right one for Mrs Brown’s door.
She opened the door, and stepped over the threshold into the hallway.
‘I’m coming in, Mrs Brown,’ she said. ‘You just got time to hide your boyfriend under the bed.’
She laughed at her own joke. One of her clients had got offended at a similar remark, and reported her to her supervisor, who’d called her into his office.
‘You just can’t go saying things like that to clients, Mrs Goodman,’ he’d said sternly.
‘Just my bit o’ fun,’ she’d replied, looking down at the desk. ‘Some of de old ladies and gentlemen like it.’
‘And some of them don’t,’ her supervisor had retorted. ‘So in future, I’d like you to think before you speak.’
‘Yes, sir, I will,’ she’d said.
And she’d meant it, because she wouldn’t tell a deliberate lie to anybody, and especially not to her supervisor. But somehow it hadn’t made any difference – whether she wanted them to or not, the words still kept coming out of her mouth.
She stepped into the parlour/bedroom, and looked down at Mrs Brown, who appeared to be quite dead to the world.
‘Well, aren’t you a lazybones today?’ Winifred said. ‘You’re going to have to wake up, you know, because I’m only here for half an hour, and we’ve got a lot to do in that time.’
But her words seemed to have no effect. In fact, Mrs Brown seemed to be more unconscious than asleep.
And then Winifred noticed the small brown bottle on the bedside cabinet, and the cork which was lying beside it.
She picked up the bottle and took a sniff. She didn’t know what it was, but it certainly wasn’t very nice.
‘Lordy, Lordy,’ she said.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used that particular phrase.
When Mrs Hodges put the fried breakfast in front of her son, Barry, he looked first at his plate, then at his mother, and said, ‘Do you actually want me to eat that? Look at it! It’s disgusting!’
‘It was all right fifteen minutes ago, Barry, when I first called you,’ his mother said.
‘Well, if you think I’m going to eat it now, you want your head examining,’ her son said.
Mrs Hodges picked up the plate, took it over to the sink, and scraped the contents into the bin.
‘It seems such a shame to waste good food,’ she said. She paused, waiting for him to apologize, but she had low expectations of his ever doing that, and after a few moments had passed, she said, ‘Would you like me to cook you another fry up?’
‘No time,’ Barry said, pouring himself a large bowl of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies.
‘Yes, you have,’ his mother replied, glancing up at the clock. ‘It’ll only take you ten minutes, on that bike of yours, to—’
‘I’ll be catching the bus,’ Barry said, drenching the Krispies in cold milk.
‘Is something wrong with your bike?’ his mother asked.
‘No, there’s nothing wrong with it,’ the boy told her. ‘I just don’t have it any more.’
‘You surely haven’t got rid of it, have you, Barry?’ his mother asked, shocked.
‘If I haven’t still got it, I must have got rid of it, mustn’t I?’ Barry asked angrily. ‘Unless, of course, it’s run away to join the circus.’
‘But you loved that bike,’ his mother said. ‘It was your pride and joy. Whatever possessed you to get rid of it?’
Not that it’s any of your business, you stupid old bitch, but I got rid of it because I don’t want to end up being charged with murder, Barry Hodges thought viciously.
But aloud, all he said was, ‘If you must know, it was repossessed because I couldn’t keep up the payments. All right?’ He was almost shouting by this point. ‘Are you happy now?’
His mother frowned. ‘But why couldn’t you keep the payments up? You earn good money at the supermarket, and it’s not as if I charge you anything for your bed and board.’
There were times when he could strangle her, he thought – times when he felt an almost overwhelming urge to grab his mother by her scrawny neck and then squeeze and squeeze until he heard that rattle which would tell him that she would never annoy anyone again.
‘I’ve got other expenses,’ he said.
‘What other expenses do you mean?’ his mother wondered. And then it came to her. ‘You’ve been wasting all your money on that girl, haven’t you?’ she said, accusingly.
How the hell did his mother know about Mary? he wondered, as the pit of his stomach opened up, and attempted to suck his heart into it.
‘Just what girl are we talking about here?’ he said, defensively.
‘You know very well what girl,’ his mother said. ‘The one you’ve been seeing every Sunday for the last two months or so.’
‘Oh, you mean Joan Mills?’ he asked, cunningly.
‘I don’t know what her name is, but I can’t imagine she’s up to much if you need to keep her away from your own mother.’
He hadn’t kept her away because he’d wanted to, he thought – he’d done it because she’d insisted that was the way it had to be. It had driven him mad at the time that he couldn’t show off such a good-looking girl to his mates, but now he was grateful – oh so grateful – that they had kept their relationship a secret.
If you hold your nerve, you can still get away with it, he told himself. If you hold your nerve, it might still go away.
‘Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you,’ his mother said. ‘Do you know what happened to the picnic basket?’
Oh shit! he thought.
‘Well?’ his mother asked.
‘What picnic basket?’ he said.
And while he was speaking, another – completely separate – voice in his head, a voice that didn’t seem to belong to him at all, was screaming, ‘Why did you leave it behind? Why did you leave it behind?’
‘I didn’t even know we had a picnic basket,’ he said aloud.
‘Yes, you did,’ his mother contradicted him. ‘It’s made of wickerwork, and it has a blue and white check lining inside. When your dad was still alive, we were always having picnics. Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’
‘You must do. Anyway, your Auntie Elsie asked if she could borrow it, and I went up to the lumber room, which is where it’s supposed to be, and it’s not there at all.’
H
is hands itched to throttle her.
‘I haven’t seen it,’ he said. ‘I promise you, I haven’t seen it.’
‘Well, there’s only you and me that could have taken it, and I know it wasn’t me.’
He stood up, and flung his cereal bowl across the room. Milk and Rice Krispies cascaded from it as it flew through the air, then it hit the tiles on the far wall and shattered.
‘I told you, I’ve never seen the bloody basket,’ Barry screamed, ‘and don’t you dare tell anybody that I have.’
Crane was talking to the headmaster’s secretary when the headmaster himself marched importantly through his outer office towards his inner sanctum.
‘Excuse me, headmaster, but this police officer would like to have a few words with you,’ the secretary said.
The headmaster came to a halt, almost at his door, and when he turned around, his face was wearing an expression that could only have been called busy man’s irritation.
‘I’ve got quite enough to do, what with dealing with …’ he began. And then he noticed Crane’s tie. ‘I say, you’re an Oxford man,’ he continued, in a much friendlier tone.
‘Indeed I am,’ Crane agreed.
‘So am I,’ the headmaster said.
‘Is that right?’ asked Crane, who, the moment he’d seen the notice on the school gate announcing that the headmaster was Geoffrey Tideswell, MA (Oxon), had gone home to change his tie.
‘Whatever it is you want, it won’t take too much of my time, I hope,’ the headmaster said.
‘No more than a few minutes,’ Crane promised.
‘Then by all means step into my study,’ the headmaster invited.
Once inside, Crane looked around at the dark panelled walls, rows of awards, framed certificates and sporting trophies.
‘I’m most impressed,’ he said.
And he was not lying, for rarely had he seen pretentiousness on such a grand scale.
‘So what can I do for you?’ the headmaster asked. ‘Is it anything to do with the murder?’
‘In a way,’ Crane said. ‘I’d like to talk to two of your sixth formers – Michael Gray and Philip Jones.’
‘Could you be a little more specific about why you wish to talk to them?’ the headmaster asked.
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