A Search for Donald Cottee

by Philip Spires

  GL And this little word ‘new’ makes such a difference?

  PC Well it does when it comes to York, doesn’t it?

  García López was confused for a moment, but then he sighed and expressed an almost hammed impatience. It was Maria del Mar who giggled, an act that drew a withering glane from García López.

  GL I would ask, please, Señor Crawshaw, that you keep you answers relevant to what is required by the hearing.

  You could feel the tension rising. Peter Crawshaw’s face flushed bright red. He is a small man, mercurial, always on the move. He fidgets, wrings his hands, drums his fingers, adjusts and then readjusts the notepad and pencil on the ledge at the front of the stand. There is an immediate sense that his neurotic manner exists as a compensation for his lack of eloquence. There are words he does not know how to speak.

  GL I take it that you are retired now.

  There was a long silence. Peter Crawshaw crossed and uncrossed his legs.

  GL Señor Crawshaw...

  It is important to realise how unpronounceable this name is for the average Spaniard. I have to relate to you how it sounded in the courtroom, because only then can you understand some of the witness’s responses. If you recall the saying, ‘How now brown cow’, and then rhyme Crawshaw with the first two words, you will be able to hear the name as it was consistently spoken by García López.

  GL ...I ask you please to respond to questions promptly.

  PC It wasn’t a question.

  GL I was seeking information from you.

  PC Were you asking if I am retired?

  GL I was.

  Another lengthy silence followed.

  GL Señor Crawshaw, are you now retired?

  PC Yes.

  GL And what did you do before you retired?

  PC I was unemployed.

  García López was an inquisitor with a short fuse meeting a witness that was impossible to fire up, despite his nervousness. He was incapable of elaboration because the ideas would never have entered his head. The judge banged the table in front of him, a gesture whose only product was the launching of the loose top of his pen half way across the court. His face went bright purple. I think he must suffer from high blood pressure. The plastic pen top bounced a couple of times and came to rest under my chair by the wall on the right. The stenographer was trying her utmost not to laugh, but as in every case when someone tries not to be noticed, the effect is to concentrate attention in their direction. García López turned to her and, for want of a better word, barked.

  GL Quiet in court!

  He used the second person singular, addressing her as one might speak to a child, without the politeness of distance. She was visibly offended. Pérez Molino then intervened.

  PM I remind everyone involved here today that this is not a court of law. It is merely an exploratory and preliminary hearing. A crime has been committed, but this session is not an investigation of evidence relating to that crime, and neither is it a trial. As far as we know, none of the people called before our hearings had anything to do with the crime. And, as far we know, none of the six disappeared people whose possible whereabouts we are trying to establish is a suspect. The fact remains, however, that the day after the crime, six people who had given no prior indication of an intention they were ready to make drastic changes in their lives simply disappeared. In the case of the Cottees, this has also been associated with the destruction by fire of their mobile home. In addition, there certainly has been theft of property and a further arson attempt. What happened and why these people disappeared can possibly shed light on our understanding of the other matter. This is an information gathering session. Mr Crawshaw, there is no need for you to be nervous.

  He looked across at Peter Crawshaw, who offered not the slightest acknowledgement of either the gaze or the expression of interest in his comfort.

  PM Perhaps, Mr Crawshaw, you could help to clear up an issue that arose yesterday. Can you tell us anything about your holiday with the Cottees in 1981?

  PC That was twenty-eight years ago.

  PM Correct.

  It seemed like a volcano was ready to blow. Pérez Molino had inadvertently and, I presume, unintentionally, taken over the proceedings. García López was clearly more than just angry.

  GL With respect, Sir, I would be grateful if you directed all remarks or suggested questions via the chair.

  Pérez apologised, turned back to face Peter Crawshaw, and continued, almost contemptuously as if the request had never been made.

  PM Surely you must remember something?

  PC We came for two weeks in August. It was the last time we came on holiday together. It was not long afterwards that we had the strike and of course after that not many people in Kiddington had anything more to do with Don Cottee.

  PM In the first day of these proceedings, we were told that Susan Cottee did not go home at the end of the holiday. Can you comment on that?

  PC It was a funny time for all four of us. We were all rapidly approaching forty and, in our own ways, we all felt that we had done nothing with our lives. Now I’m sixty-five I still feel the same.

  PM So you came to Benidorm?

  PC We did. And we did some stupid things. We used to get together sometimes, just the four of us, and watch videos. It became a bit of a joke we played with one another when we watched the videos... you know... videos...

  Peter Crawshaw looked around the room. He seemed to be scanning faces to check if people had understood him. The silence was oppressive. Every person in the room wanted to say the words, but no-one seemed willing. Pérez Molino tried to break the impasse.

  PM Yes, we know what a video is, Señor Crawshaw.

  PC I don’t mean just videos... I mean, you know... videos, videos where people do things.

  PM ...where people do things...

  PC Where people do the sort of things that normally get done in private.

  PM You mean that you used to watch sex videos?

  PC Yes, that’s precisely what I meant.

  There was such a sense of relief in his voice that it seemed to raise a cloud of confusion that had affected us all. The witness himself seemed to adopt a new freedom that both loosened his tongue and jogged his memory.

  PC We used to watch them and sometimes Suzie would say something like, Don does this or Don does that or I like this or I like that. And then Paula would join in and we’d all have a good laugh imagining ourselves as the people in the video. Then it would be ten o’clock and Don and I would settle down to watch Match Of The Day while Suzie and Paula went off into the kitchen to talk women’s things. But then we got really silly. We started to lay bets on what we might do, what we could do and who we would like to do it with. We went through all the film stars, all the television personalities, all the famous people we could think of.

  PM And where was Dulcie, the daughter, when you were with the Cottees?

  PC She usually went out. She was a teenager, remember. She had her own friends. She went off to friends’ houses. She went to the pictures. She was already going to pubs, we knew that. She always did look older than her years. But then most of the kids in the village were doing the same. She wasn’t anything special. Sometimes she might be upstairs in her room. Sometimes she had one of her own friends there as well. What we did had no effect on her at all. I have no idea whether she knew what we were doing. I doubt she would have cared.

  PM And when did this fantasy become a decision to go on holiday together?

  PC Well, when we had finished our imaginings of how Felicity Kendall would be in bed, or exactly why attractive young women might fancy Bruce Forsyth, we always eventually had to come home, if you see what I mean. No matter what we imagined, we always had to admit in the end that we were just four ordinary people, Don and Suzie, Pete and Paula, that we
lived ordinary lives in Kiddington and New Kiddington and that things we saw in films and on television didn’t really apply to us. But we didn’t want to admit it. We were individuals with a right to ambition. After all, if the stars do this and that, then why shouldn’t we? The celebrities are the models for all of us. They are the people we admire. We want to have lives like theirs. And we can be like them if we want. Surely it’s our right. It was Suzie that came up with the idea of actually trying to live the fantasy. The idea was to go on holiday together to a place where we could do the celebrity thing, such as drink gin and tonics next to the pool, swim at midnight and generally feel like we were rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.

  PM And so you came to Benidorm.

  PC That’s right. We made our decision and then set about planning what we would do when we got there ... here.

  GL I will take over again now, please. Peter Crawshaw, I do not see how your sexual preferences relate to our investigation...

  PC I was asked, wasn’t I, to tell you why we came on holiday with Don and Suzie Cottee in eighty-one?

  GL And you have not yet told us...

  PM With respect, Don Alonso, he was about to tell us. Please continue, Mr Crawshaw.

  PC Well we had a stupid dare one night when we challenged one another to promise that we would go on holiday and live the life of wife-swapping celebrities, like the escapades we read about every Sunday in the News Of The Screws...

  PM News of the screws?

  A British newspaper, Sir, I said. It’s published on Sundays and is notorious for carrying many stories relating to sex, sexual impropriety, sex crimes and celebrity gossip. It also has a good sport section. Most of the stories relate to television in some way. It’s a publication aimed at social classes C and D and is almost wholly purchased by members of its target audience. It is derided in middle-class society, though many middle-class people buy it and have it folded inside their Observer for the walk home from the newsagent.

  Pérez Molino seemed to understand. Peter Crawshaw, on the other hand, visibly bristled when I offered my opinion about middle-class sentiment, though he had shown no reaction when I referred to low social classes.

  PC We decided that we would go on holiday together as a foursome. We decided to club together and buy a video camera to make a film like the ones we watched on Saturday nights. Except, of course, we would be the stars. The cameras were still quite new in those days and they were still very expensive, so that’s why we decided to share the cost. We never thought we would use it much after the holiday, so we could easily share its use afterwards if we were going to a wedding or a christening or something like that.

  GL And did you do what you promised?

  PC Of course we did. Kiddington people are people of their word. We agreed, we promised and we did what we said. Except, of course, it didn’t work out as we expected. And if we hadn’t done what we said, I wouldn’t be here talking about it would I?

  Bristles were rising throughout the court. Peter Crawshaw paused to check the status of his challenge before continuing. He tugged again at the shirt collar, perhaps to indicate that he was becoming a little warm under it.

  PC We booked a holiday in Benidorm. We came for a full fortnight in August, top whack, top rates, high class hotel. We stayed in the Rio Park. We specifically asked for a pair of rooms linked by an internal door. We told the hotel management, of course, that Don and Suzie would take one and that their daughter would be in the other room, while Paula and I would go in a third room down the corridor on the same landing. What we planned to do was swap, of course, and put Dulcie down the corridor on her own and away from us, so then the four of us could be in the adjoining rooms. We could then do what we wanted to do at any time we wished.

  PM And the project turned sour, didn’t it?

  García López glared at Pérez Molino. The words ‘shut up’ were not spoken, but their meaning was communicated and everyone in the room heard them.

  PM I apologise, Don Alonso. Let me explain why I am so keen to pursue this point. Since our last hearing, I have been doing a little research of my own and some material of interest has emerged. May I continue with Señor Crawshaw for a few minutes?

  García López threw up his hands in a gesture of powerlessness. He tried to say that he didn’t care, but as always when people try to convey that meaning, he expressed the opposite.

  PM Can you describe what happened during those two weeks?

  PC It all started fine.

  GL What you are telling us, Señor Crawshaw, is that you, your wife and the Cottees came on holiday to Benidorm to make sex videos. Why did you just not stay at home? Why travel to Spain?

  PC You know, Kiddington is a small village. People would notice the comings and goings. Somebody would gossip, and you could guarantee there would be someone warped enough to get it right. You don’t want to do your business on your own doorstep, after all.

  GL You were in business? You never mentioned that you intended to sell these videos.

  It’s an expression, Señor García. To ‘do your business’ in this context means something quite different from hacer negocios. Cagar would be closer. It means to go to the toilet. I realised immediately I had gone too far. García Lopez now seemed offended by everything and everybody.

  GL And so you came to Spain to do what you considered unacceptable in your own home town?

  PC Well everyone did, didn’t they? It was the era of Viva España and songs like it. We were full of Buck’s Fizz. We were making our minds up as Don spoonerised the name and made us all laugh. Everyone was doing the escape to the sun. And when you’re on holiday... Well, you do relax a bit, don’t you? Isn’t that the point of going on holiday in the first place? And remember that we were the generation that missed out on the free love of the sixties. We were already too old by then. We were already married by the time the real sexual revolution got going. And by the time we were approaching forty, we felt we had missed out on some of the good times that had been saved up for people younger than us. Our kids were old enough to look after themselves by then and we - our whole generation - cut loose.

  PM You were going to tell us how and why things went wrong on that holiday in eighty-one, Mr Crawshaw.

  PC. Yes, I was. It all went well at the start. We arrived on a Saturday, I remember. We checked in, took the rooms as planned, unpacked and headed straight for the pub. Dulcie was seventeen then and she wanted to go off and do her own thing, but Don wouldn’t allow her. She complained like hell, saying that they’d been to all the places in town just two years before on their last visit. She said she knew where she wanted to go and that she could look after herself, but Don was adamant. I’ll say one thing, and that is that Don was a very good and caring father, if sometimes a bit rigid.

  PM And Mrs Cottee? A good mother?

  Peter Crawshaw hesitated for some time before trying to answer. He was clearly wrestling with contradictory words and ideas. He had settled down considerably, even relaxed, under the more sympathetic manner of Pérez Molino. But suddenly he was again a bag of nerves and indecision. He made a couple of false starts at an answer before committing himself.

  PC Suzie Cottee can be a strange woman at times. With Dulcie, it was almost as if she didn’t care. Then, the next minute she wouldn’t leave her alone. She was never nasty to her daughter, and they never spoke a crossed word, but there was never any obvious love either. They didn’t disagree, but you always felt that Suzie didn’t give Dulcie the attention she wanted. When they did communicate, they competed. It was never a rejection, from either side, but you felt that any expression of love was just for public consumption.

  PM That is interesting. Perhaps Susan Cottee could not relate to a daughter. And that might explain why she may have done it again...

  The remark from the council left Peter Crawshaw confused. He felt
he was being invited to comment, but he also clearly had no idea whatsoever what Pérez Molino was talking about. In retrospect, this was Pérez Molino’s ploy. He was testing whether the knowledge he himself had discovered was common knowledge in the Cottees’ home town. It obviously was not.

  PC I don’t understand...

  PM Don’t worry, Mr Crawshaw. I should not have raised that issue at this time. Please continue. Your holiday had started well.

  PC We all went to the bar. We had Dulcie in tow throughout that first evening. The four of us kept making references to what we might get up to when we got back to the hotel, but we had to speak in code. It all got silly. We got tipsy...

  PM Tipsy?

  Drunk, Sir. Embriagado, I offered. In just an instant his expression said, “They were British. Do you need to tell me that they were drunk?”

  PC It was as if Dulcie understood what was going on. She had a face as long as a week. But when we got to one particular club - I forget which one, but it was already quite late... It was a place along the Yellow Brick Road. And the moment we went inside, there was a great shout from behind the bar, because Don and Suzie had been recognised. The bar manager was Mick Watson. Suzie cursed. Dulcie laughed. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was as if Dulcie had been waiting for an opportunity to get her own back, to see her mother’s evening ruined because she had stopped Dulcie doing her own thing. The whole exchange happened in less than ten seconds, but Mick’s voice, Suzie’s comment and Dulcie’s reaction was like a scene from Coronation Street or Emmerdale. Dulcie suddenly perked up. She was suddenly sweetness, light and everything else rolled into one. Mick gave her a lot of attention. She said he made her laugh. Suzie told me that on their last visit, just two years earlier in seventy-nine, Mick had taken Dulcie under his wing and showed her round the town.

  PM And was Susan Cottee happy that her former lover showed such an interest in her daughter?

  PC Of course she wasn’t happy at all. Neither was Don. And didn’t Dulcie know it? She positively revelled in it. And that’s why she egged him on.