by RJ Dark
‘How much did you get for the car?’
‘Seventy-five.’
‘You owe me twenty-five quid then.’
‘Put it on my tab.’ I held out the money for him, and he waved it away. ‘He didn’t have the van out the back with the others.’
‘I know.’
‘How?’
‘It was in the workshop, mostly stripped down, but the body was there, painted with house paint like you said. Underneath that paint it was blue.’
‘Callum says they picked it up for Mick Stanbeck. If that’s the van that killed his boy, why would he protect whoever did it?’
‘Cos he’s an arsehole,’ said Jackie. ‘Now, come on – there’ll be a bus along in a minute. You’re flush, you can pay.’
8
The bus was stifling. The Edge got the worst of everything and the heating on this bus was stuck on full. Despite all the windows being open it was still like sitting in an oven. The Edge was only ten minutes by car from the city, but in its own way was cut off and we passed through long tracts of green farmland. The scent of cut grass boarded the bus with a group of pensioners who complained loudly about the heat. Jackie, for reasons known only to Jackie, decided to get off the bus in, as far as I could make out, the middle of nowhere.
‘Got some business to do,’ he said, standing up and ringing the bell as the pensioners sat down, grumbling, and the bus set off again.
‘Here? It doesn’t stop here.’
‘Need to walk for a bit, clear my head. It’s too hot on this bus.’
‘I thought you liked the heat?’
‘Don’t be racist.’
‘I’m not being …’ but he was already gone, throwing me a grin as he vanished down the steep stairs of the bus. Then I heard him, speaking in a thick Indian accent, charming the bus driver into letting him off despite the fact there was no bus stop and they weren’t really allowed to.
Once Jackie had got off, the bus continued on until it hit the suburbs, stopping and starting, never picking up enough speed to get a breeze going to blow the sweat from my skin. I sat dripping and wishing I’d worn fewer layers while the pensioners carried on complaining about the heat.
In my bag, I had Beryl’s printout of all the information from the internet on Lawrence and Janine Stanbeck. There wasn’t much about Lawrence, he was on the Scouts website a few times but that was it. I knew more about Janine, mostly cos her sister was almost famous. Her sister, Helen, lived in London, but her mum and dad lived just off the bus route in one of the more well-to-do suburbs of the city. You could never have too much information, and I really wanted to get off the stifling bus as quickly as possible, so I decided to go and visit them.
What harm could it do?
They lived in a house on a small 1950s estate. It was much more prestigious than living on the Edge, but because the streets had no trees, to me, it had the same sort of stark and lifeless air. The grass verges were better maintained, and there were fewer sofas rotting in gardens, but the rows of almost identical houses weren’t really that different and it made getting lost in the maze of streets surprisingly easy. I had phone reception here, but no internet so couldn’t connect to a maps app either. As I walked, I tied my hair back; I wanted them to talk to me, and older people generally responded well to people in positions of authority. I wasn’t ever going to pass as a police officer, but I didn’t intend to. People found the police intimidating and clammed up anyway. Instead, I would use my Insurance Investigator guise. It is a really good way of getting into people’s houses if there’s been some misfortune. It’s also official enough to give me some authority, but at the same time no one is really sure what one does. There’s a lot of wiggle room in ‘insurance investigator’.
Eventually, I found the house. It wasn’t part of the housing estate. It was one of four huge detached Victorian houses with four floors, steep slate-covered roofs and sash windows. Huge and beautifully cared-for gardens surrounded each house. Everything about it said ‘money’ to me. It was probably half a million pounds’ worth of property. I wondered how a girl brought up somewhere like this ever ended up on the Edge. Her house on the estate was well cared for and everything, but it was definitely a step down from this.
An elderly man answered the door. He looked like he was in his eighties, stooped over. White hair and papery, liver-spotted skin. A mouth that looked like it struggled to smile. If he was Janine’s father, he could only be in his sixties, and I wondered if he had some sort of disease that had prematurely aged him.
‘Can I help you?’ The hall he stood in had a Victorian air to it; gloomy, tiled floor, a lot of very dark brown woodwork. I liked it – not everyone’s taste though.
Maybe he was the butler.
‘Oh, yes, Mr Killingham, is it?’
He nodded.
Good start. ‘I’m Mal Jones from Portlife Insurance, we—’
‘Who is it, Arthur?’ The voice that came from within the house was female and enunciated each word very clearly.
‘A man from some insurance company, Alice,’ he shouted back. Though ‘shouted’ is a bit of an exaggeration.
‘Tell him we don’t want any, Arthur,’
‘We don’t want any,’ said Arthur, and he began to close the door.
‘I’m not a salesman, Mr Killingham. I’m here about your late son-in-law.’ I showed him my fake ID. From a room in the back, Alice appeared and strode down the hall to the door. She looked like she might have been a hippy once; her hair, though grey, was long, and she wore it tied back and partnered with large hoop earrings and a dress that was probably sold as ‘ethnic’. She had the pinched face of someone who was wound tight, and from the state of the hall – show-home clean – I suspected Alice might be the reason Arthur looked so old.
‘Lawrence,’ she said, her voice high pitched, her eyebrows too. ‘You are here about Lawrence? Is there some sort of problem with his life insurance?’ And though she tried to hide both her curiosity and her delight in that by pretending to study my ID, she couldn’t quite manage it.
‘I’m afraid there is,’ I said.
She nodded, as if that was exactly what was to be expected. ‘Well, Arthur’ – she reached back and twirled the grey hair of her pony tail around a ringed finger – ‘get the man some tea. Bring it to the parlour. And you,’ she said, meaning me. ‘Please come through. Mr … Jones, was it?’
The parlour had comfortable chairs, well-padded and high enough that it was easy for older people to get up and down without too much bother. The original Victorian décor of the hall had been passed over in here for something a little more (less) pleasant; the walls were painted in muted pinks, and there was a lot of things patterned with flowers. A wooden statue of an African warrior that was almost definitely not actually from Africa stood in a corner of the room, guarding it without giving away whether he thought the décor was as ugly as I did. Arthur brought in some tea in a teapot and placed it on a small, round glass table between me and his wife. He didn’t bring a cup for himself, only sat in a single seat across from us and stared at the floor.
Know your place, Arthur.
‘I just have a few simple questions,’ I said.
‘Are there suspicions?’ said Alice. ‘Because it wouldn’t surprise me. He was a criminal, you know.’ She sat very upright, with her head tilted at an unnatural angle, like she was about to burst into song.
‘I had heard rumours,’ I said.
‘Well, they are not rumours, Mr Jones. Most of them are criminals on the Blades Edge estate – it is not the sort of place you want to think of your daughter ending up.’
‘Did you know your son-in-law well?’
‘Barely at all – he wasn’t welcome here, nor Janine. Not anymore.’
‘She isn’t?’’
‘No, she quite upset Arthur last time she came here.’
Arthur didn’t reply, probably too upset.
‘How?’
‘Oh, just by being her. She was a lovely b
aby, as was her sister, then they got older, and well, they became wilful girls. Do you have children, Mr Jones?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never been lucky enough.’
‘Lucky?’ she laughed without laughing. ‘There’s nothing lucky about it.’ She leant forward, ‘Let me tell you, give them all your love, rip your heart out for them, and they just throw it in your face.’
‘How do you mean?’ I got the feeling I had hit upon Alice’s favourite topic.
‘Those girls of mine were raised right. Manners, dance classes, pretty dresses, everything a little girl could want.’ Her cut-glass accent slipped a little, something more local surfacing. ‘And all I asked was they kept their knickers on.’ She leant back, spoke more softly. ‘At least Janine kept quiet about being a slut, even if she did marry scum.’
‘Would Janine’s older sister know anything about Larry?’
‘We don’t see her. Not after the things she said in the papers. We did not bring up tarts in this house.’
‘What about your grandson, Cristophe?’
She appeared to soften a little. ‘Well, he’s one of them, isn’t he, a Stanbeck? But he has our blood too, and all I can hope is that it’s our blood that breeds true, not the Stanbecks’. If it wasn’t for the boy, I’d have cut Janine out of our will too.’ She crossed her hands in her lap, nestling in her own indignation.
‘Do you know of any specific criminal acts Lawrence Stanbeck was involved in? Unfortunately, if he was involved in any such activity at the time of his death this would, I’m afraid, invalidate his life insurance.’
Alice opened her mouth, shut it again. Tried to pretend she didn’t love the idea of her daughter losing out. She licked her lips and I noticed she was wearing a very subtle lipstick. I decided I really didn’t like her very much.
‘Not specifically, but you mark my words, if there’s something dodgy, the Stanbecks will be at the root of it.’
‘This must be terrible for your daughter,’ I said.
‘I imagine it is,’ she said. ‘In fact, when you see her, could you pass on a message for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell her “We told you so” and not to come to crying to us.’
I didn’t really know how to reply to that.
‘Could I see her room?’ I said.
She leaned forward. ‘Of course – do you think she’s done something too?’ It was almost as if she was willing me to say yes.
‘I just like to be thorough, Mrs Killingham.’
‘Arthur, take him up to Janine’s room.’ She turned her head away and stared at her not-African statue. ‘You can search it if you want, Mr Jones. Pull it apart if you need to.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Arthur, and he led me up the stairs.
At the top he unlocked a door, but before he opened it he spoke to me, very softly. ‘Don’t think too badly of Alice – those girls hurt her terribly.’
‘What did they do?’
He smiled to himself. ‘They were too like her, I think. Strong-willed. At some point in life, Alice just forgot who she was.’
He held out a lollipop to me. I stared at it. A small, sad smile crossed his face. ‘It’s for Cristophe, tell him Gramps says hello. Don’t tell Alice about it though.’
I took the lolly from him and put it in my pocket. ‘Do they ever come here?’
‘Not Janine, but sometimes Larry would bring the boy round when Alice was at her book club. He’s a good lad is Cristophe.’
I had a sudden spike of hope, if Larry wanted to hide something from his wife what better place than in the home she had clearly hated. I kind of wanted to give Arthur a hug.
‘Do you mind if I search the room, Arthur?’
‘Not as long as you put everything back – Alice gets upset when things are out of place.’
‘Not a problem, Arthur. I’ll be careful.’
There wasn’t much in Janine’s room. It still looked as it must have when she left though it was strangely spartan for a teenager. There was a bookcase full of DVDs, a small chest of drawers with an old radio on top. A single bed with a poster from the Al Pacino film Scarface above it. I wondered if the room was far tidier and emptier now than it had ever been when Janine lived here. It felt purged, as if only the barest bones of a personality had been left: no mess, no trinkets, no diaries (sadly) and, worst of all, no lottery ticket.
I left the Killingham house feeling deflated, not just because I’d failed to find anything, but because the house was filled with sadness, with mistakes that had somehow never been rectified and had ended up with three people – four, maybe, if you counted the sister – estranged from each other. Arthur aside there was no love in that house. I’d always imagined that other families, the ones off the Edge, had lived boisterously, in houses full of colour and noise and love. Not in old houses, cleaned within an inch of their lives, where people drank tea in disapproving silence.
It’s amazing how many times the same lesson can disappoint.
I picked up the tail as soon as I left the house.
Being able to notice that he is being followed isn’t the sort of skill you may expect a boy who grows up on a council estate and then pretends to be a medium to pick up, but if you spent your early life in fear of other kids then noticing when people are acting strangely or paying you unwanted attention becomes an important life skill. I’ve developed a kind of sixth sense for people who mean me ill.
I didn’t recognise the two men following me, but I didn’t need to; they were out of place here, obviously from the Edge. Dressed in sports leisurewear that needed a wash and didn’t quite fit into the suburbs. They had suspicious-eyes, and slouched along in a way I am sure they thought made them look inconspicuous but only served to draw attention to them. I wandered aimlessly for a bit, turning through streets that all looked the same, bungalow after bungalow, just in case I was being paranoid, but my tail faithfully followed me. After a bit it must have occurred to them that maybe they were a little bit less inconspicuous than they had imagined and they had a quick tête-à-tête on the street. One stayed where he was, talking into his phone, or at least pretending to but it was hard to tell the difference, while the other followed me.
I wasn’t sure what to do. If they intended to hurt me, then this was a bad place for it; there was nowhere quiet and there were a lot of twitching curtains in the suburbs, but at the same time it was a bad place to try to lose someone as there were no alleys or hidden places to cut through.
I rang Jackie.
Jackie: Speak.
Me: I’m being followed.
Jackie: Who by?
Me: Two blokes.
Jackie: Where are you?
Me: The suburbs. Somewhere called Alderham Crescent, at the moment, Walking up toward Alderham Avenue.
Jackie: Why are you out there? It’s dead up there, unless you get the hots for grandmas.
Me: I went to see Janine Stanbeck’s parents.
Jackie: Was her mum a hot grandma?
Me: Shut up, Jackie. Let’s just say I can see why she ran away as a kid. The tail picked me up outside.
Jackie: So someone’s watching their house?
Annoyingly, that hadn’t occurred to me.
Jackie: Alright, Mal, listen. Head up toward Alderham Close. It looks like a dead end, but there’s a snicket between number five and number seven – it looks like someone’s gate, but it isn’t. The gate is metal and painted red. Open it, follow the snicket. If they don’t see you go in, they’ll probably think you’ve gone into one of the houses, and I doubt they’ll want to start knocking on doors.’
Me: And if they do see me?
Jackie: The snicket leads into a clearing. Behind a yellow-leafed bush on your right, there’s a break in the fence that’ll let you get into the garden of number seven. Then you can get over their back wall and you’ll be on Clarence Rise. You’d never find the way through if you didn’t know it was there, and as long as they’re not stood behind you, they won’t see
you go through.’
Me: Okay, so you’re not coming?
Jackie: I am, soon as I’m free.
Me: Free?
Jackie: I’m with a hot grandma, bye.
The phone went dead.
I followed Jackie’s instructions and my two pursuers did a kind of amateurish leapfrogging over each other as they followed. One was always leaning against a wall and looking at his phone while the other was walking along behind me. I found Alderham Close and spotted the gate; the houses on either side of it were much older than the rest of the estate and had gardens full of mature trees. I wondered if they were the workers’ cottages for whoever had owned the big houses where Janine Stanbeck’s parents lived.
I turned the corner onto the close, and the second I knew my tail could no longer see me, I ran for the gate, hoping the couple of seconds where his line of sight was broken would be enough to get me through it.
It wasn’t.
From behind, I heard a shout and the slap of shoes on pavement as my pursuer broke into a run. I ran down the snicket, catching myself on a bramble, swearing, and then broke into the small cleared area. It looked like it might have been an allotment once. Sure enough, there was the bush with yellow leaves, just as Jackie had said. Sometimes his local knowledge astounded me – who knew that a real commitment to dogging could be so useful. I rounded the tree and found the fence where Jackie had said there was a hole.
Newly fixed. No way through.
‘Come out of there, mate.’ The speaker had a thick North-East accent. I didn’t really have much choice but to do what he said. I backed out of the bush, branches catching at my hair. The two men walked over. Up close, they were very different; one was tall and wiry with ears that stuck out like handles and the other was bigger, muscular once but run to fat through poor diet and, from the look of his belly, a lot of beer.
It was Jug Ears that was doing the speaking. ‘We need to have a word with you about what you were doing at that house. Didn’t think we’d find somewhere quiet enough round ‘ere.’ He grinned. ‘So thanks for finding somewhere, like.’
