by Deborah Bee
‘Nah, you don’t have to worry about me, girl,’ he says. ‘I’m tickety-boo, me. Keep on taking the jungle juice and all. On the mend, as they say. Hey, Mrs, can I just give her a hug?’ he says.
‘No,’ Mrs H says. ‘Sally, go back inside.’
‘Look, Mrs, I’m not a murderer. I’m her friend. And I just wanted to make sure she’s alright.’
‘I don’t recommend that.’ Mrs H looks at me frowning, but he’s already squeezing the life out of me, wrapping me in his coat. The smell is just about enough to knock you off your feet.
‘You had a wash recently?’ I say, trying not to cough.
‘There you are, you see,’ he says to Mrs H. ‘She loves her old friend Barney, don’t she? Don’t you love your old friend Barney?’ he says to me.
She gives me a look and nods her head towards the door. ‘Come along now, Sally,’ she calls as she buzzes through the front door and disappears into the foyer. Barney watches her carefully then suddenly lurches forward again, spreading his arms wide.
He leans in and squeezes me tightly and just when I think he’s going to squeeze all the actual breath out of me, he bends down and he whispers in my ear, ‘Sal. Take this for me, will ya?’ and I feel something drop in my pocket. ‘I can’t trust myself with it. I’ve already got through half of it and now it’s driving me mad. You’re the only person I know who will keep it safe. If I have it, you know what I’ll do with it, and for once in my life I want to do the right thing.’
And then he lets me go, before Mrs H has even had time to turn around.
‘Don’t we all feel better for that?’ he says, starting off up the street, in a bit of stagger. ‘Be seeing you, Sal. And you, Mrs. Very nice to make your acquaintance, I’m sure,’ he says.
I put my hand in my pocket and in the corner of it is a roll of notes. And for all his talk, all his honour amongst thieves, I know what he must have done to get it.
*
‘I vote we don’t tell Sue, about the hug,’ I say to Mrs H, trying to stop her nagging at me about how irresponsible I am.
‘I vote you do as I tell you next time, Sal,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what you were thinking. You know I’ll have to make a report.’
‘Maybe you can be a little economical with the truth in your report?’ I say.
‘Maybe you’ve put me in a situation where I’ll have to be,’ she sniffs.
‘You’re way too cautious in life; you should try living a little,’ I say, thinking I’d get on to Sue and tell her about Barney, only this roll of cash in my pocket is not so much burning a hole as setting fire to my entire jacket. I need to get rid of it somewhere safe.
‘And you should try not putting your life in danger, or mine,’ she shouts down the hall. ‘Or anyone else’s.’
‘Now you’re in trouble,’ says Clare, following me up the stairs with a Pot Noodle in her hand. ‘Did you assault Mrs Henry?’
‘Eating that shit will kill you,’ I say.
‘There’s loads of nutrition in a Pot Noodle,’ she says. ‘They said I had to eat a bit of what I fancy, and I always fancy a Pot Noodle. Besides, being poisoned by a fast food snack sounds like quite an attractive proposition, considering some of the other options.’
‘Shh, a minute,’ I say. ‘I need you to help me.’
She closes the door to our flat behind her and leans against it.
‘What?’ Clare says, staring at me and stirring her Pot Noodle with a fork.
‘If you needed to hide something, like something really important, that you didn’t want anyone to find, even big nose Kitty, where would you put it?’ I say.
‘Big or small?’
‘Small,’ I say, holding up the roll of fifty pound notes.
She raises her eyebrows, but nothing else, no questions, no nothing, just like you’d expect from a best friend, and opens her bedroom door.
‘Easy,’ she goes.
‘What, in here?’ I say. ‘What d’ya mean, easy?’
‘Didn’t you ever hear that story about the prawns? This bloke. I don’t know who he was. He traded his wife in for a younger model. Some girl who looked exactly like his wife, but thirty years her junior. Well, on the day the wife had to move out – her home remember, her soft furnishings and scatter cushions – she takes down her lounge curtains, slides out the curtain pole, twists off the ends, then fills the hollow pole with Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Extra Large Atlantic Prawns.’
She snorts. I snort.
‘Then she hooks back the curtains and ta dah! Three days later, the worst smell in the world and no one can find it for months. Years even. They had to move out in the end.’
‘You’re kidding!’ I say.
‘Not kidding.’
‘I love the fact that they were so specific. Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Extra Large Atlantic Prawns.’
She hops on her bed, unhooks the metal curtain pole, totally wrong for a bedroom but they must have inherited it from somewhere, and unscrews the knob on the end.
‘What you got in there?’ I ask, because the whole way she did it was too practised, too streamlined, like she’d done it before.
‘Well, you may as well see, since you know everything else,’ she says. And she pulls out a dirty piece of cotton wool and wrapped up inside it is something shiny.
‘Gareth’s,’ she says, dangling a gold heart locket and chain in her hand, and my jaw is virtually on the bloody floor. ‘Or rather, Gareth’s mum’s.’
She slides her thumbnail into the side of the locket and it flips open. Inside there’s a tiny photo of a woman holding a baby.
‘Is that him?’ I say.
‘I dunno. It’s a baby!’ she says.
‘My auntie used to have a locket like that’, I say, ‘Is there an inscription?’
‘No,’ says Clare, ‘Not that I could see.’
‘Let me look,’ I say. I push my nail into the side of the locket and after some coaxing, the back clicks open. Inside there’s an inscription.
‘For Geraldine, to celebrate the birth of our son, Gareth Marlon, on this 14th day of October, 1981, With my love.’
‘Gareth Marlon. Gareth Marlon what?’ I say.
‘Dunno,’ she says. ‘He never said anything about his family.’
She folds the locket back into the cotton wool and shoves it into the curtain pole, with the fifty pound notes. Her back’s still turned away from me when she whispers, ‘Fancy you hiding cash.’
She comes and sits down next to me on the sofa. It’s late afternoon and the train tracks are wobbling in the heat.
‘Like you’ve got a leg to stand on,’ I whisper back. ‘What the hell are you doing with Gareth’s mother’s locket – and while we’re on the subject, why on earth haven’t you given it to the police, you absolute moron?’
‘I didn’t know it had his name in it, did I? What we gonna do?’
‘I dunno,’ I say.
We just sit there, with our arms folded, wondering which sack of shite to open first, when one more bowls in: Kitty, back on cloud nine.
‘Look,’ she goes, slightly taken aback that Clare and I are sitting in the darkest part of the room with our arms folded like it’s the most normal thing in the world, not saying anything because we’ve run out of things to say and things to do and things to think about, because nothing’s normal; in fact, everything is so not normal it’s almost funny.
‘Look,’ she goes again, frowning, like we’re the weirdos. ‘Can we try some more photos? Axel says, maybe if I do some without makeup, he can send them to Mario in the morning and Mario’ll get back to us really fast but he needs them ASAP.’
‘Not now,’ says Clare.
‘Not ever,’ I say. ‘Go away, Kitty.’
She slides over the back of the armchair and plops into the seat, ponytail swishing.
‘He said your photography is amazing, Clare. Said the pictures were top quality, it’s just I had too much makeup on and he’d like to see something more natu
ral. Said maybe we should shoot outside. Like we could go on the roof, like I said before. He said, if you like, he could show your shots to a photographic agent to see if they thought you had talent because he thinks you have a real eye. A real eye for composition. I think that’s what he said.’
‘Fuck off, Kitty,’ says Clare.
‘Same,’ I say.
Forty-Five
DS Clarke
In the car park at Camden Road Police Station, DS Clarke, PC Chapman and DC Walker were heading in different directions. DS Clarke was planning on visiting Ms Meering at the wedding dress shop, although, God help her, she has better things to do. PC Chapman intended to pay the doctor on Harley Street a visit and DC Walker was waiting on an urgent call back from someone whose name Joanna has forgotten.
‘She said it sounded urgent,’ says DC Walker, with her phone pressed up to her ear. ‘She said the lady was in a highly agitated . . .’ She stops to listen.
‘It was Mrs Vocking of . . .’
‘Oval Road,’ finishes DS Clarke. ‘What’d she say?’ she barks at DC Walker.
‘She said . . .’ She stops. ‘Joanna, if she said it was urgent, you must surely be able to remember what she said! Oh, OK.’ DC Walker ends the call and looks at DS Clarke. ‘Mrs Vocking said there was something in the garden.’
‘What? A bird? A plane? What?’
‘A knife. She says she saw a knife in next-door’s garden. She saw a knife in next door’s garden glinting in the sun.’
‘Let’s go!’ says DS Clarke. Her visit to Ms Meering at the wedding dress shop would just have to wait until tomorrow.
*
DS Clarke has already seen the garden and forensics had already checked it, although in fairness, it won’t have been with the same level of detail as in the house. They were looking for bloodstains. Indoors.
‘Mrs Vocking, is it?’ DS Clarke says to the frumpy woman who answers the front door of the house next to Clare’s.
‘Harriet.’
‘Harriet, hello. I’m Detective Sergeant Susan Clarke. I’m investigating . . .’
DS Clarke tells Mrs Vocking as vague a story as she possibly can. And yes, Clare was fine, and yes she was sure that Gareth was fine also. And, yes, surely they would indeed both be home at some point. Yes soon.
‘Such a nice girl. Knew her father,’ Mrs Vocking was saying.
‘Could you tell us how you came to discover the knife?’
‘Oh, well, I was upstairs, just sorting out the bedding in the spare room for my daughter, she’s coming to visit today, and I happened to look out of the window and saw a glint, you know, in the sunlight. So, I went out into the garden, not to be nosey or anything, and I looked over the fence, as you do, and there it was, large as life.’
‘And you haven’t been into the next-door garden, Mrs Vocking?’
‘Harriet. Call me Harry. No, I haven’t.’
‘So, you haven’t touched the knife? Can I just be very clear on that point?’
‘Oh no, I haven’t touched anything.’
‘OK, Harriet, I’d like you to stay in your garden, while I go next door, and I’d like you to point out to me where you think the knife is. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, I believe I can.’
‘Good. Just give me a minute while I get through the back gate.’
DS Clarke and PC Chapman retrace their steps.
PC Hall is standing with his back to his patrol car, leaning against it, looking up and down the street like a proper copper. He straightens up when DS Clarke and PC Chapman emerge from Mrs Vocking’s property.
‘All right, PC Hall. Got the key?’
‘Yes, sarge. I’ve opened up already.’
‘Good, OK, stick with me. You got the forensic packs?’
‘Yes, sarge. But forensics are on their way. They wanted to see the scene before we move anything.’
‘Well, good. Even better!’
DS Clarke is aware that forensics will want to search every inch of the garden. Every blade of grass needs to remain exactly as it is. The incongruity of the outside and the inside of this crime scene strikes her as odd. This garden is overgrown, uncared for. People who keep smart houses usually keep smart gardens, she thinks.
‘OK, Mrs Vocking. Please could you point to where the knife is?’ DS Clarke calls over the fence from the patio behind Clare’s house.
Mrs Vocking’s head suddenly appears above the faded wooden fence.
‘It’s over there, in the far corner,’ she shouts. ‘Under the buddleia davidii.’
‘What’s one of them?’ whispers PC Chapman.
‘No, no, the buddleia. Yes, right there. You see?’
DS Clarke stands on the low wall next to the patio. Tucked under an overgrown bush that looks like one of those overgrown weeds you see on a railway track, there’s a kitchen knife, half wrapped in newspaper. The handle is hidden. But the blade, eight inches long, DS Clarke guesses, is maybe one-third showing, and what is visible is mostly covered with dried blood.
‘How’d we miss this before?’
‘Sarge, I wasn’t on the search detail.’
‘I’m not blaming you, PC Chapman. I’m just asking, how did we miss this before? Forensics are either half blind or . . .’
‘They couldn’t have missed it, sarge.’
‘No, they couldn’t.’
And if they did, DS Clarke thinks to herself, my head’s on the block.
At the side gate, DC Walker and PC Hall are talking in low voices.
‘How about . . .’ says DS Clarke, ‘you two stay here while Chapman and I take a little trip to the doctor?’
‘Sarge,’ nods PC Hall.
*
Dr Stephen Short is of average height, in his forties, DS Clarke guesses. He’s thin and wiry under a clean-cut beige flannel suit, with large brown eyes. In fact, he’s not bad looking, she thinks, although too thin for her preference, if she could ever admit to herself that she had one.
‘Dr Short,’ says DS Clarke. ‘I believe one of my team has spoken to you on the phone?’
‘DS Clarke,’ he smiles, choosing to ignore PC Chapman. ‘There seems to be some confusion at your end, am I right?’
DS Clarke makes a point of introducing PC Chapman.
For which PC Chapman is grateful, but it’s most probably lost on Dr Short.
He nods at her, without the least embarrassment.
Dr Short’s practice is at the smart end of Harley Street. His room is light and airy, and the main surgery has been painted with a sky scene, clouds and birds and rays of sunshine. DS Clarke hates that kind of thing. You’re paying good money for medical advice, not some art installation, she thinks.
‘Do you mind?’ says DS Clarke as she places a tape recorder on Dr Short’s desk.
‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ says Dr Short, switching it off and pushing it back across his desk. He looks rather grand, sitting there in his high-backed leather armchair, the sort of man who can dispense great wisdom, with enormous confidence.
‘Purely for the record,’ says DS Clarke, her hand hovering over the record button.
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ he smiles, pushing the recorder away. ‘I’ll need my lawyer present if you want an official statement. I had been led to believe this was a little “chat”,’ he says, making little quote marks in the air with his index fingers.
DS Clarke hates that kind of thing too.
‘There is some confusion actually, Dr Short, though I’m not sure whose “end”,’ and she makes little quote marks too, ‘it emanates from.’
Dr Short throws back his head in laughter.
‘Bravo, bravo, Sue – if I may call you that.’
‘No, Dr Short, you may not call me that,’ says DS Clarke. PC Chapman’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. ‘You may call me Detective Sergeant Clarke. While we are currently enjoying an informal meeting, it would be highly inappropriate of you to call me Sue in a more official situation, for examp
le, down at the station, which is where this conversation may eventually lead us, so Dr Short, let’s just stick to formality, shall we?’
He draws the palms of his hands together, in a prayer-like gesture, and lets the tips of his fingers rest gently on his lips.
‘Go ahead, Detective Sergeant Clarke,’ he says.
‘You are Dr Stephen Short, of twenty-three Harley Street, London W1G 6AD.’
He nods.
‘And you have been treating Ms Clare Chambers . . .’
‘No, I have not!’ says Dr Short, bringing his hand down with a slap on the table edge.
‘You have been treating Ms Coco . . .’ begins DS Clarke again.
‘I have been treating Mrs Coco James for the past eighteen months,’ says Dr Short.
‘Mrs Coco James is also known as Ms Clare Chambers.’ DS Clarke gives Dr Short a brief, forced smile. ‘And you also know Mr Gareth James?’
‘I do indeed, known him for years. Great guy. Great, great guy,’ he offers rather too readily, without being asked.
‘And you’ve been treating, Clare, Coco, whatever we choose to call her—’
‘For Bipolar Disorder,’ he interrupts. ‘As I told your colleague on the phone.’
‘Not for nutritional problems and vitamin deficiencies?’
‘Look,’ says Dr Short, getting a little hot. ‘I don’t know where this story is coming from, but Coco knew full well that she was coming here for her emotional instability. She was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I predicted a while back that, with her symptoms, and without taking the correct medications, she was heading for a full-blown psychosis, and if she is saying different to that, well my diagnosis is quite . . .’ His voice trails off and he shakes his head.
‘DS Clarke,’ he says, suddenly standing up. ‘We have got off on the wrong foot. Let me explain a little more fully what is going on here. Your colleague mentioned on the phone that Coco has been saying that she was on a course of vitamins for mood swings. With Coco, we are talking about Bipolar Affective Disorder – you may know it better as manic depression.’
DS Clarke nods.
‘You’re an intelligent woman,’ he says. ‘You know as well as I do that giving someone a vitamin shot, or a mineral supplement isn’t going to touch the sides of Biopolar Affective Disorder. The girl is, frankly, delusional,’ he says.
