I lowered my brows. ‘What girl?’
‘Mark never told you? I thought he would, you being his closest friend and all.’
I shook my head. ‘Told me about what?’
She gave a small shrug. ‘Perhaps it’s not for me to say.’
‘Is it to do with that groupie remark Joseph made?’ It had been bothering me from the moment he said it, the way he said it, and Mark’s reaction.
Sharon offered a slow, thoughtful nod. She looked so sad, I thought. I never thought I’d say that about her, but she appeared to have the weight of the world on her narrow shoulders at that moment.
‘Don’t tell him I told you…’ she ventured.
‘I swear,’ I said.
‘It’s to do with a girl.’ She gave a humourless chuckle. ‘It’s always to do with a girl, eh? When he was younger, Joe used to play drums in a band. That’s where we first met. I saw him playing at a pub in Dorchester one night. They were very good, actually. Joe was a bit of a catch back then, too, so I fell for him, being young and impressionable. But there were lots of girls always hanging around out back. Groupies, to use a crude term. He had his choice of who he could have. There’d been this one girl in particular who Joe had fallen for, just before my time, I should say; she was still a young teenager and Mark was in his late twenties. But he was besotted with her.
‘Then on New Year’s Eve, 1999, Joe invites his kid brother – Mark had just turned eighteen – to come along to see the band and celebrate the new millennium with him. To cut a long story short this young girl falls for Mark. It caused a huge rift between them. That would have been bad enough. But she died.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How did she die?’
She stared me in the eyes, blinked. ‘She’d been beaten up. So bad she died of internal injuries. Whoever did it dumped her in a river. They blamed Mark for it.’
‘Mark? He wouldn’t do anything like that!’
‘I’m not saying he did, but have you seen his temper?’ she said.
I had, first hand. ‘But to beat someone to death… Not Mark.’
‘Ever wondered why he’s twice divorced? I know things about Mark. Heard things from one of his ex-wives. She said he had a short fuse and liked to throw his weight around.’
I shook my head, refusing to believe. This was all new to me. ‘So what happened? Did he get arrested?’
‘Yes, the police arrested him on suspicion of murder. Mark was the last to see the young woman, you see, but there was no evidence they could bring against him. Mark maintained she’d been fine when he left her outside her parents’ front door. What happened between there and the river she was found in remains a mystery.’
‘So he wasn’t convicted?’ It came back to me; the time there was a communication blackout between Mark and me. I thought he’d dumped me as a friend because I didn’t hear a word from him for months. That must have been around the time of the girl’s death. It started to explain a few things. How his personality subtly changed the next time I saw him.
‘Nobody was convicted,’ she said. ‘But the experience has haunted them both ever since. Joe can’t forgive Mark for taking the woman he’d first fallen in love with and her dying like she did, and Mark can’t forgive Joe for failing to believe in his innocence. But that was a long time ago and I thought it was time they patched things up. All this hurt is only eating them both up. It was foolish of me to even try to bring them together, I suppose.’
I was dumbfounded.
The ride home in Mark’s car was painfully silent. At last he decided to speak, his knuckles glaring white from where he clutched the steering wheel.
‘So what did Sharon say?’ he said.
‘She didn’t say anything,’ I returned guardedly. I could see he was still fuming inside and I didn’t want to stoke it up further.
‘She said something, I know she did.’
‘She mentioned a girl, a long time ago when you were a teenager…’
He expelled a breath that appeared to cause him pain. ‘It’s not true,’ he said. ‘It’s simply not true.’
‘I believe you,’ I said, though my voice can’t have been convincing enough, because he turned to me again.
‘I loved her,’ he said emphatically.
‘You don’t believe in love,’ I said.
His eyes were tortured. ‘I don’t anymore,’ he said. And with that he fixed his eyes on the grey ribbon of tarmac caught in the car’s headlights. ‘And you’d be a bloody fool if you didn’t believe the same,’ he advised.
6
Empty
You can always spot a single person. They invariably carry a small shopping basket bearing a small bottle of milk, small loaf, small tub of butter, that kind of thing.
OK, so I exaggerate, but not by much. And maybe I was just feeling low as I wandered around the local Tesco Express, annoyed that my hand basket was a badge to my lonely situation.
Lonely.
Was I really that lonely? I had friends, a girlfriend-cum fiancé, I saw people in my shop regularly (admittedly, not as regularly as I’d prefer). How can I be lonely?
Maybe this thing with Mark was darkening my thoughts, I mused by the freezers full of frozen peas and battered fish. In fact it was definitely putting a dampener on things. Why hadn’t he ever told me about the episode with the girl? I was his best friend, or so I thought. But there again perhaps it was such a tragic part of his life he just needed to wipe it from his memory. It started to explain a lot about his personality, though. He could be distant, a loner in spite of his need to be with someone; quick-tempered, sure – but violent with it? I’d seen it once before, outside a pub.
We’d been for a drink – to celebrate someone’s birthday or other, I can’t remember – and we were set upon by a couple of drunk thugs outside the pub. They maintained we’d been eyeing up their girls, the usual stuff that sparks drunken brawls. We hadn’t had much to drink so I was insistent we just leave them to their bad-mouthing, ignore them and go home. But it was one line spat out by one of the young drunks that acted like a match to a powder keg.
‘Keep your filthy hands off my girl, wanker!’ he said.
It had been aimed at Mark. What I didn’t expect was Mark to turn around and lay into the youth. He was furious to the point of being deaf to my entreaties to let the man go. Mark is a big guy. When he sent his fists into the drunk I just knew he’d feel it like he was being beaten by twin sledgehammers. The man crumpled quickly, crying out in pain and covering his head with his hands. His companion ran off.
I grabbed hold of Mark’s arm when I saw blood spread over the drunk’s nose and mouth.
‘That’s enough!’ I said. ‘Let him go!’
But he kept on pumping away with those fists, time and time again slamming them into the man’s head. I was fearful he’d smash it to a pulp. When I managed to stop him he turned to me. I hardly recognised him. Mark’s face was flushed red, twisted by fury. His breathing was short and sharp. I hauled him away. We were lucky not to have been arrested for what he must have done to the drunk. Maybe the beaten man was just too drunk to recall anything clearly afterwards.
So I’d seen what Mark could do if pushed too far. He apologised to me later for the incident, blaming the drink. But he hadn’t had that much, I recalled. So something must have got to him for him to react in such an aggressive way. And I’d never seen that side of him ever since, and that was a long time ago.
So why did it bother me all of a sudden? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about that night outside the pub, together with the image of the murdered teenager, sitting on the sullied page of my mind like some kind of lurid and ghastly watercolour wash?
‘So what’s it going to be, Toby? The fish or the pie?’
I was jolted from my bleak thoughts by the sound of her voice. I’d been leaning over the freezer cabinet staring at the boxes of frozen cod, not really seeing them. I stood up straight, and turned to see her, the woman from the shop, standing beside me and look
ing into the freezer too.
I admit, for a moment I was speechless. She was but a foot or so away from me. I could see the pale translucency of her skin, the moisture sitting on her lip, the curve of her eyelashes.
‘I didn’t see you there,’ I said, finally gathering up enough words to make a sensible sentence.
‘You know, all this frozen stuff’s no good for you. You’re not a student anymore.’
‘I was looking for something quick,’ I blurted, feeling faintly embarrassed now by the box of battered cod I had my eye on. ‘Do you come here…’ I trailed away into silence. Almost said it, I thought. Almost came out with the cliché. That would have gone down really well.
She laughed. A charming, chiming thing that made me want to smile. ‘How about a nice piece of lamb sprinkled with rosemary, a few roast potatoes?’
‘Sounds marvellous,’ I said. ‘Better than the fish any day.’ I frowned. ‘Hang on, how’d you know my name? And how’d you know I’d been a student?’
‘She smiled at me and shook her head. ‘Toby, stop acting the fool and choose your dinner. I haven’t got the time today to mess about.’ She moved away from the freezer and wandered down another aisle.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said moving after her. Then I remembered my shopping basket on the floor by the freezer and went back to retrieve it. I stood upright and said, ‘I don’t know your name…’
I was staring straight into the face of an elderly man with a cabbage in his hand. ‘Frank,’ he said dourly.
‘Sorry,’ I said, squeezing by him, ‘I was talking to someone else.’
But when I looked down the aisle she was nowhere to be seen. The man turned and looked in the same direction. ‘Talking to yourself, more like,’ he said, shaking his head knowingly and taking his cabbage to visit the tinned beans.
‘She was here a moment ago…’ I said. I searched the small shop but she wasn’t there. I took my basket to the counter to pay for my meagre haul. ‘Did you see a woman pass you?’ I said to the woman at the checkout. ‘Tall, blonde hair, brown jacket, long flowered skirt?’ I realised she’d been wearing exactly the same outfit she wore as when I first saw her in my shop.
The woman dragged the carton of milk across the scanner and it bleeped. She thrust the milk into a carrier bag. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Tall, blonde hair…’ I began.
‘Brown jacket, long flowered dress. Yes, I heard. I still didn’t see her.’
‘Maybe you were busy elsewhere.’
‘I’ve been busy here all morning,’ she said tiredly. ‘I didn’t see anyone.’
‘He’s seeing things,’ said the old man behind me, his cabbage under his arm.
‘I’m not,’ I defended. ‘She was definitely here.’
The woman at the till and the old man exchanged a telling glance and the woman raised a brow.
‘I once saw a mirage, in the desert,’ the man ventured. ‘I thought I saw Blackpool Tower.’
‘I spoke to her, she spoke to me,’ I said, getting annoyed. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, slipping my debit card into the reader and stabbing out my pin number.
I’m sure I felt their eyes scorching a hole in my back as I left the store.
I was at a loss to explain it. She had definitely been there. I had definitely talked to her and she’d talked to me. Words had passed between us, I thought. Real words. Words that consisted of fish and lamb and rosemary.
The old man was half-blind, obviously, and the woman at the till had her limited attention elsewhere. Let’s face it, I thought, she had the attention of a gnat (that sort of derision being the nearest I ever came to being nasty about anyone, incidentally). There could be no other explanation.
She knew my name!
The thought both thrilled and alarmed me. How could she know that? She’d asked around, that much was obvious. That she’d take the time to do so also buoyed me up. She liked me enough to take the trouble to do that, and to seek me out in Tesco’s.
Why? Why take all that trouble just to leave it at that, and then shoot off without saying another word? That was bordering on rude, I thought, but quickly scrubbed the notion away. She was too nice to be rude, ever. There had to be another reason for her swift exit from the store. An urgent call on her mobile maybe? I can’t remember seeing her with one, or hearing one go off. Then perhaps she was late for an appointment. I just couldn’t work it out and it frustrated me no end.
She knew I’d been to university. How? Lucky guess? That had to be it.
Or Mark was putting her up to it. I sighed heavily, stopping in the street with my carrier bag and putting a hand to my forehead. What an utter fool I’d been! It was Mark all along who’d cooked something up and he was in cahoots with this woman. They were playing some kind of game with me. Mark liked his little japes when he was younger and never really grew out of playing the odd-trick on people. More often than not it was me that suffered at his hands, but up till then only in small, trivial ways. This was different. This was playing with my fragile emotions. This was playing with my heart.
I chastised myself for falling prey to romantic clichés, and felt myself growing ever more annoyed with Mark. And even a little annoyed with the strange, attractive woman. But only up to a point. I convinced myself she was as much a victim of Mark’s light-hearted duplicitous ways as I was. She was definitely too nice to be cruel, I could tell that.
Mark was waiting for me outside my shop. He was standing all scrunched up against the cold, holding a mobile phone to his ear. He pocketed it when he saw me headed down the hill towards him.
‘Don’t you ever have your bloody phone on?’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to contact you.’
I was, by this time, quite angry at him and it showed in my harsh reply. ‘Why the hell would I want to talk to you?’ I said, taking out my keys and unlocking the shop door.
‘Steady on!’ he said, following me through. ‘Don’t bite my head off.’
I turned on him, stabbing out a finger. ‘I suppose you think that’s funny, do you? Getting that woman to follow me around like that.’
He blinked, his face a mask of incomprehension. ‘What woman?’
‘You know bloody well what woman. That woman. The woman.’
‘You’re rambling…’ he said.
I noticed he didn’t look at all well, pale in the face like he was suffering the onset of a cold or something. Good, I thought. Let the bastard suffer.
‘You know, I’ve taken quite a few things from you in the past, but this time it’s just not funny,’ I said, tossing my carrier bag onto my desk. ‘Lamb instead of the frozen battered fish – nice one, Mark. Nice one!’
‘Are you crazy?’ he said. ‘I always suspected it. Being submerged under all these books, it does something to a person’s mind. It isn’t healthy.’
‘Very funny, Mark. Well the game’s over. You’ve had your little laugh at me so now bugger off.’
‘I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about, Toby. I came round to apologise, and maybe to explain…’
‘Cut the acting, Mark. You sent the woman.’
‘I didn’t send any woman. What woman are you talking about?’
I searched his eyes and I could tell he was telling me the truth. I’d been blinded by my rage. ‘Forget it,’ I said, faintly embarrassed.
‘What woman?’ he pursued.
‘I said forget her. What did you say you wanted to see me about?’
Mark looked down at the faded carpet beneath his feet. ‘I came to say sorry, for the way I behaved the other night at the hotel with Sharon and Joe. I was a bit of a stubborn pig, to tell you the truth. I shouldn’t have dragged you along into what’s essentially a family matter. I knew it was going to kick off, it always does when Joe and me get together, so I shouldn’t have pitched you into the centre of it. And I shouldn’t have stormed off from the table like that, like a petulant kid in a playground, or speak to you in the way I did when we were driving home. That’s what
I came round to tell you.’
‘You obviously had your reasons,’ I said.
He grunted. ‘Sure. But you’re my friend. Some things ought to be kept apart. So, I guess what I’m saying is I am sorry and I ought to make it up to you. Buy one of your grotty old books, maybe.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked quietly.
‘What? Buying a book? It’s no big deal really.’
‘Cut the funny stuff, Mark; you know what I mean.’
He smiled uncertainly. ‘Maybe one day, not today, huh? In fact, forget whatever you heard. It’s none of your business and you needn’t be saddled with it. It’s something I’ve got to deal with.’
He shrugged his coat tighter around him and went to the shop door.
‘Is that it?’ I asked. ‘You’re going?’
‘Got an auction to attend. We’ll catch up one day soon, eh?’
I nodded. ‘Mark…’
‘Yeah?’
‘You never sent her?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re losing it, Toby. I told you to steer clear of the French existentialists – they mess with your head.’
He closed the door after him and I was left all alone in my customer-free shop looking down at my pathetic little carrier bag and wondering what was happening. Things hadn’t been right since I discovered the woman’s body on the beach.
‘How about a cup of tea to warm you up?’ she said from behind me.
I admit I gave a little shriek of alarm as I turned around to see her standing there as large as life right in front of me.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I said to the tall blonde-haired woman in the brown jacket and long flowered skirt. ‘And how’d you get into my shop when I’d locked the door?’
She looked at me in what was fast becoming a familiar way and smiled disarmingly. ‘Dear me, Toby, it looks like you’ve had a tough day already. A nice cup of tea will put that right,’ she said, spinning around so that her skirt lifted slightly as she twirled. ‘That’s what my mum always used to tell me and it always works for me. Tea, milk and no sugar coming up soon!’ She wandered away down the lines of shelves to the rear of the shop where I had my small kitchen.
The D.M. Mitchell Supernatural Double bill Page 25
