The New Neighbors

by Simon Lelic

  “Like Al Capone,” Elsie declared.

  “What?”

  “Like Al Capone. I saw a documentary. He was like this massive gangster and in the end they couldn’t get him for all the bad stuff he was doing, so they arrested him for not paying his taxes.”

  I had to smile, at the thought of Elsie watching documentaries as much as anything.

  “So that’s when you left?” she said. “When he went to prison?”

  I wiggled my head. “More or less.”

  “Do you think my father will go to prison?”

  “Do you want him to?”

  Elsie didn’t answer right away. She turned and looked out across the common. “Sometimes I hope he rots in there,” she said, with a steeliness to her tone that frightened me. But then it softened. “Other times,” she went on, “I just wish it could be like it was after he hurt me. That time all he was doing was looking after me.”

  I wanted to hold her then, to wrap my arm around her narrow shoulders. It would have made me feel better . . . but it wouldn’t have helped Elsie.

  “You know why he was doing that, don’t you?” I said to her, my voice even firmer than I’d meant it to be. “Why he was so desperate for you to heal?”

  She looked at me then almost pleadingly, the way she would have had she dared to show me her favorite toy but instead of admiring it I’d snatched it away. It took all of my self-control just to wait for her to answer.

  “Because he didn’t want to get in trouble,” said Elsie at last.

  “Right,” I said. “Because he was worried about himself. Not you, Elsie. He doesn’t give a damn about you.”

  Elsie dragged the heel of a palm across each of her eyes. “I’m scared,” she said, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

  This time I reached for her hand. I almost flinched, it was that cold.

  “Do you know what?” I said. “You remind me of the bravest person I ever knew.”

  She looked across.

  “My sister,” I told her. “She was about your age the last time I saw her. She even looked like you, a little bit.”

  My sister: two words I’d avoided uttering virtually since the day I’d left home. I’d told Jack about her, again when I was loaded and because I’d recognized that if I wanted to be with him I would have to. But Jack had been perceptive enough afterward to know never to mention her unless I did and I hadn’t ever spoken about her again. To anyone. I only brought her up now, talking to Elsie, because I thought it would help. I truly thought it might help.

  “Now, my sister was beautiful,” I said. “She was slight like you and had these cheekbones, and big brown eyes you couldn’t look away from. They were just . . . they were bottomless.”

  “What was her name?” Elsie asked me and I replied before the syllables could stick.

  “Jessica.”

  “Did you call her Jess?”

  I laughed at that, unexpectedly. The laughter also brought a tear. “Only if I was trying to annoy her. She hated it when anyone called her Jess. She said it made her sound like a cartoon cat.”

  Elsie frowned.

  “Postman Pat,” I explained. “It . . . Never mind. It was just a stupid TV show.”

  I wiped my eyes the way Elsie had, hating myself for having fallen to pieces. For going back on a promise as well. I’d spent the best part of a decade crying about my sister. It was weak, and self-indulgent, and one day I simply decided it had to stop. It was the same with the drugs. I didn’t need them, not chemically, not to the extent some people do. I’d just wanted them because for a short while after I took them they made things easier. I’d given up both—the crying, the coke—at exactly the same time, the same time that I’d got serious about my relationship with Jack.

  Elsie seemed as surprised as I was that I was crying. “What happened to her?” she asked me, once again in a voice that was barely a whisper.

  It was obvious to us both that I didn’t have to answer. Elsie wouldn’t have been offended and Christ knows I’d already said enough. But somehow I didn’t feel like I had any other option. That door I’d unbolted was open wide now, all the dark things inside tumbling out. And it was like I said before: it was something I felt Elsie needed to know. Like a parable. A lesson that would help her make her own choice.

  And so I told her.

  I told her and almost killed Elsie too.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JACK

  KAREN, SHE SAID her name was. Detective Inspector Karen Leigh. She was here today. This morning. It’s Wednesday, and normally on a Wednesday I’d be at work. On any weekday, actually, but that’s not the point. The point is, Detective Inspector Karen Leigh called by “just on the off chance” she’d find me in, when under normal circumstances there was no way she would have. Which means she knew exactly where to find me. Which means she would have had to ask around. Which means . . .

  Shit.

  I don’t know what it means.

  Maybe it means I’m just being paranoid. But there’s that line, isn’t there, that thing people say, about how just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean no one’s out to get you. Something like that. The first part, the “just because you’re paranoid,” it’s been running round and round my head today like a song that’s snagged. It’s tuneless, though, more like a taunt. And for some reason—a reason that I can guess—the voice taunting me belongs to a little girl.

  Just because you’re paranoid . . .

  But the police.

  They asked about everything. Literally, everything. It’s as though they’ve been thinking along the same lines Syd has, except somehow they’ve reached a different conclusion. Or the same conclusion, actually, if you think about it. Which is nuts. It’s just . . . I mean it’s totally nuts.

  But I don’t think I helped myself. I opened the door and right away I was on the back foot. This probably sounds stupid, but part of the problem, I think, was that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing when they knocked. I was supposed to be finishing up some paperwork, but instead what I was doing was watching Murder, She Wrote. Just to take my mind off things (probably not the best choice, I realize), and only for the past five or ten minutes, but even so it felt like I’d been collared in the act.

  “Mr. Walsh? Jack Walsh? I’m Karen. Detective Inspector Karen Leigh, but Karen’s fine. This here is my colleague, DC Granger. Don’t mind him. He looks like a thug, but really he’s a pussycat. Normally I don’t bring him along when I’m interviewing witnesses, mostly I save him for the suspects, but the problem at the moment is we’re struggling to find any.” A smile then, half a breath’s worth, before “May we come in?”

  It was like being assailed by a Jehovah’s Witness. I mean, I’d barely opened the door and already I felt like I’d been beaten into submission. So what could I do? I couldn’t say no. Who says no to the police when they haven’t done anything wrong? Or maybe that’s the only time anyone says no. Maybe by letting them inside without even double-checking why they were here (like I really had to ask), all I was doing was confirming their suspicions. Assuming they even had any suspicions at that point, and that it wasn’t only after I’d spoken to them that—

  Jesus, Jack. Get a grip.

  What was it Syd said? Think yoga. Which doesn’t actually help me at all, because when I think yoga the only thing that comes to mind is middle-age women in leotards.

  Sorry. Sorry. Now I’m rambling. I tend to do that when I’m nervous. Which is part of the reason I came off so badly after talking to the police.

  So I asked them in.

  I didn’t ask them in. I let them in.

  And then, when I’d let them in, I offered them tea. Just, I don’t know. Just because that’s what my mother would have done. And the guy—the detective constable or whatever—he declined, but call-me-Karen, she asked for milk—just a splash—and two a
nd a half level teaspoons of sugar. Three, she told me, would make her jumpy and two just didn’t taste right. So again, just making the tea, I felt under pressure. I didn’t make a cup for myself, because frankly I was worried about spilling it. But the problem then was I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Plus, when I was back in the living room, I sat down. Which was another mistake, because the police, they didn’t. The woman—Karen; she said to call her Karen so I will—stood by the fireplace holding her tea. And the man, DC Granger—who even if I was related to him I’d probably still call DC Granger—kept his hands in his pockets and sort of wandered nonchalantly around the room.

  “Nice place,” he said.

  I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was mocking me. Us, rather, me and Syd. Because, sure, it’s a nice room, but right now it’s also pretty much an empty cube. There’s the sofa, a couple of chairs, the television, but all the pictures on the walls, all the books, the birds, the stuff Winters left behind—obviously that’s all long gone, right down to the last LP.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It will be. We just need to . . . you know. Paint. Redecorate. What have you.”

  What have you. Who these days says what have you who isn’t eighty? I was; I was turning into my mother. People in authority always made her nervous, too, even though the worst offense she’d ever committed was putting the bin out early before we went away on holiday.

  I wanted to sip my tea, but I didn’t have any. Karen . . .

  I can’t call her Karen.

  Inspector Leigh, she was watching me with this curious little smile, as though she was enjoying me acting like an idiot. She was about half the height of her colleague, and half the width, but—and maybe this is just the authority-figure thing in me again—somehow she seemed to dominate the room. She was in her early forties, I guess, with hair so red it was almost orange, and this intense, inquisitive look in her eyes. That smile I’d noticed lingered, so that by the end of our interview I’d come to wonder if it wasn’t actually her default expression—or at least her default expression when regarding me.

  “The tea’s perfect,” she announced, toasting me. “Thank you. I wouldn’t have asked for one if I’d realized you weren’t having one yourself.”

  “It’s fine, honestly,” I answered. “No trouble.” I reclined, felt like Hugh Hefner, sat forward. I’d never realized until that point that the cushions on our sofa sank so low.

  “Mind if I take a look around?” said DC Granger, a voice from a different conversation. He hitched a massive thumb toward the door and was already starting for the hallway before I could answer.

  “Er . . . sure.”

  Inspector Leigh watched me as I watched him go. Once her colleague was out of the room, she carefully set her cup down on the mantelpiece. “Well,” she said, “I suppose I should explain why we’re here. You’ve already spoken to some of my colleagues, I believe. And you’re familiar with everything that’s happened.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.

  “Well, Jack—can I call you Jack? Well, Jack . . . DC Granger and I, we’re just following up. Just putting some flesh on the bones, as it were. Would it be OK if I asked you a few more questions?”

  “Sure,” I answered. “Of course.” And then I laughed and said, “Do I need a lawyer?”

  It was a joke! Just a bloody joke! But for an instant Inspector Leigh let that smirk of hers sink into a frown.

  “Do you think you need one?”

  “What? No. I mean, I was just, you know. Just kidding,” I finished lamely.

  There was half a beat before the inspector answered. “I see.” She looked around, smiled again. “May I sit down?’

  “Please,” I said, half getting up from my own seat. The inspector carried over one of the dining chairs and positioned herself so that our knees, once we were both sitting, were almost touching. I would have edged backward, but there was nowhere on the sofa for me to go.

  “So,” said Inspector Leigh, pulling out her notepad. “Some of these questions you will have answered before, I realize, so I apologize in advance for . . . Jack?”

  I’d been looking beyond her to try to locate her colleague. I’d thought I’d heard him in the kitchen, but from the glimpse of the room I had from where I was sitting, I couldn’t see him.

  “Don’t worry,” said the inspector, her smile extending slightly. “He won’t steal anything.”

  I laughed dutifully. “No. Of course not. Sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry.”

  The phrases she chose, her body language, her sense of personal space—they were close enough to what most people would consider normal that at first I thought it was just her. That it was all just a part of who she was. I mean, some people—some police officers in particular, I would imagine—they’re just a bit socially awkward. That’s not a criticism. For one thing I count myself among them. But it was an act. I realized that about a second after she’d gone. She must have read me the moment I’d opened the front door, seen exactly how best to set me on edge. Needy, eager to please, afraid of authority; probably it was all written on my face. Unless she’d also been briefed by one of her colleagues—one of the ones I’d spoken to before. If so, that meant she had been looking into me, and her finding me at home, alone, there was no on-the-off-chance about it.

  Just because you’re paranoid . . .

  We must have sat there like that for almost an hour. She was right, most of the questions I’d answered before—where I was, what I’d been doing, what I’d seen, heard, witnessed—and I stuck to the same story I’d set out the first time. I even settled into something like a rhythm, and gradually, particularly with DC Granger out of the room, I was beginning to feel slightly less uncomfortable. Until Inspector Leigh abruptly changed tack.

  “Tell me about your work,” she said, setting her notepad face down on her lap.

  “My work? What about my work?”

  “You’ve been having some trouble at work, from what I understand.”

  My smile was a tic. “How do you . . .”

  Maybe because I didn’t finish my question Inspector Leigh didn’t feel obliged to answer. Besides, it hardly mattered how she knew. She’d found out somehow.

  “That’s not . . . I mean, it’s got nothing to do with this,” I said, and at the back of my mind I thought of Syd, saw the incredulity—the irritation—in her eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to imply that it did,” said Inspector Leigh. “I’m just curious. But of course if you’d rather not talk about it . . .”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just . . . there’s nothing much to tell, that’s all.”

  “I heard that you’ve been fired. That there’s the possibility of criminal proceedings.”

  “Criminal . . . no. What? Criminal proceedings? Who told you that?”

  This time when she didn’t answer, she did it openly.

  “No,” I said again, as much to myself this time. “I’ve just . . . I’m on suspension. That’s all. It’s all just a . . . a misunderstanding.” Criminal proceedings. All at once I had a new taunt echoing in my head, the voice still that delighted little girl’s.

  Inspector Leigh watched me for a moment, then shifted angles once again.

  “Tell me, Jack. How long have you known Elsie?”

  “Elsie? Elsie Payne?”

  “Mmm. How long have you known her?”

  “I . . . I don’t know her. Not really.”

  “You know what happened to her?”

  “She’s in hospital.”

  “She’s in a coma.”

  “Right. That’s what I mean. My girlfriend, Syd, she—”

  “Sydney Baker. Your partner. Co-owner of this property.”

  “Right. Sydney, she and Elsie, they—”

  “I know all about Ms. Baker’s relationship with Elsie, Jack. We s
poke to her outside the ICU.”

  “You did?” Syd hadn’t mentioned that. Unless Inspector Leigh meant today, that very morning. I thought Syd had gone straight to the office, but she’s been spending so much time at the hospital lately that it was certainly possible she’d stopped off again on the way into work. That’s where she’s been writing most of her entries, sitting in an orange plastic chair in a hospital waiting room. She’s there so often, in fact, that I’m beginning to wonder whether I should be worried about her. Which I realize sounds ridiculous, given the circumstances, because there isn’t a moment currently I don’t worry about us both.

  “I was asking you about your relationship with Elsie, Jack. How long you had known her.”

  “That’s kind of what I was saying. I don’t know her. Only through Syd.”

  “But you were upset? About what happened to her?”

  “Well . . . yes. Naturally.”

  “And you’re the one who raised Elsie’s case with social services. Is that right?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. I mean, we both did. Me and Syd.”

  Inspector Leigh nodded as though in sympathy. “It’s been a difficult time for you, clearly. With how things turned out with Elsie, with Ms. Baker being so upset. With your problems at work, too, and this big new house of yours . . .” She swept her eyes across the living-room ceiling, which all at once had never felt higher.

  I was waiting for the question. Inspector Leigh seemed to be waiting for me to answer.

  “Right,” I agreed. “Difficult, I’d say, is putting it mildly.” I tested a smile, hoping for another dose of sympathy. I couldn’t tell from the inspector’s reaction whether I’d won any.

  “I imagine you’ve been feeling quite frustrated,” she said. “Angry, too, no doubt.”

  I waggled my head. “I guess so, yeah, I mean . . . wait. Angry?” All at once I saw where this was going—where it had been heading all along. “Not angry,” I said, categorically. Angrily, even, you might have said. “I don’t get angry.”