A Long Time Dead

by Andrew Barrett

  He focused his mind, prepared himself for payback, and removed his jewellery. From a sealed box, he put on a pair of latex examination gloves, and removed a single sheet of A4 paper from a fresh ream. He folded it into quarters, then unfolded it and spread it before him.

  Shit! “The bloody mask.”

  He screwed up the paper and tossed it aside.

  From a new 3M box, he took out a facemask; the type used by workers in dusty environments, pulled it on and pinched the metal band across the nosepiece to ensure a good seal. This done, he shook his head, forcing himself to think of the details. After all, it was the details and only the details that would keep him out of jail.

  A new sheet of creased paper lay before him.

  From the black cotton bag, he pulled out a sealed plastic bag, and carefully took out the garment.

  The illuminated magnifying glass cast a clinical light over the faded cloth. Relentlessly, he searched, pulling the material, tugging it, scrutinising it.

  The light caught it, and for a moment he held his breath, brought the lens closer. He saw one hair, one single hair – complete with root. The surgical spirit sloshed around the beaker as he stirred a pair of metal tweezers. “Yes,” he whispered. “I’ve bloody got you, you bastard.” And just then, his eye slipped and he saw another hair protruding from a seam. A root on this one too.

  Using the tweezers, he pulled both hairs from the garment, placed them carefully on the white paper, and folded it back up. Though he tried to keep his hands steady, they shook. A further meticulous search, lasting ten minutes, produced nothing further except a headache. It was a slim harvest, but it would be enough. It would have to be enough.

  Finally, he gathered the equipment he would need, along with three pairs of latex gloves and put them all carefully inside the black cotton bag.

  He put the garment inside the desk, and replaced the tweezers into the beaker of alcohol. Now he felt prepared for the event.

  At last, he removed the mask and gloves, felt the nervous sweat cool his newly exposed skin, and sighed for a moment, closed his eyes and thought of the task ahead. It held nothing more for him than a slight trepidation, since he had already proved himself.

  Then he ran a cold bath and lit the candles surrounding it, one at each corner.

  Chapter Nine

  — One —

  The Scenes of Crime Office was freezing. The heating was still dead and Roger sat alone at his desk with a thick woollen sweater on, head pulled into his shoulders, blowing breath rings through his nose. He detested working nights; sitting here waiting for the phone to make him jump, wondering what abhorrent mess the caller would send him to. Damned nights.

  All was silent. The computer was blank, life signified by a blinking cursor. For once the telephone was quiet, the fax machine also, just one of many inanimate shadows in a room full of hollow stillness. The entire police station seemed asleep as though on standby, waiting for its own abhorrent mess.

  It had been a long night. Roger spent the first two hours spreading dust and lifting fingerprints and footwear impressions at three domestic burglaries in the poorer districts of Wakefield, working by torchlight while the complainants stood over him with their arms folded, stern looks on silent faces, as if they blamed him for the burglary, pointing out every surface the intruder could have touched, every dirty mark they hadn’t noticed until now, suddenly becoming aware of the place in which they lived. He could have written a book on the cunning of burglars. And another two on the complacency of occupants.

  Roger spent a further hour at an aggravated burglary in a Normanton Post Office. He stood outside for a moment and held his breath, listening to the shrieks and wails of the Post Office staff who lived above the premises, and who were sleeping as the attack took place. Upon entering, and learning the details of the crime, his frustration grew; frustration at the people who did this, frustration at those who staggered home from the nightclubs of Wakefield, too drunk to be of any use as witnesses, and frustration at coppers walking through his damned scene. Roger screamed. Everything stopped.

  They locked the doors. The officers took statements from the distraught counter staff in a back room. The examination then went smoothly. Fortunately, the burglars didn’t fire a shot, and fortunately for Roger, they took their weapons with them. The burglars stole £28.10.

  After leaving, Roger wondered where the burglars got their guns.

  And then the long night became a quiet night. Back here at the office, he completed the associated paperwork: the fingerprint envelopes, the CJA exhibit labels, the exhibit book, the photographic paperwork and the statements to accompany the films, and then fed the Crime Information System computer with the results of his examinations. By a quarter to one in the morning, curiosity overcame him. He convinced himself that Weston was on a treasure hunt tonight, that he was digging up guns now by torchlight.

  He couldn’t sit in the office any longer.

  The slush of dead leaves in the car park was a rigid white mass now; crisped by a sharp frost. He drove the unmarked scenes of crime van up to the wealthy end of town, to a place called Sandal, where the battle of Wakefield was fought sometime around 1490, during the Wars of the Roses. He drove past the ruins of Sandal Castle silhouetted against a dark sky, past grand houses where the councillors and the architects, the surgeons and the solicitors lived. And he tried not to think of his siblings.

  Weston lived there too, able to afford splendour to an impressive degree compared to other Inspectors. Guns bought death, true; but they also bought sports cars and detached stone-built houses near medieval castles. But money never generated decorum or respectability, Roger thought.

  He travelled with high expectations, but two slow drive-bys, with the van lights off, told him that Weston was home. The first showed his and his wife’s cars on the drive, the last saw Weston in person in his lounge, reclining in a brown leather chair, phone to one ear, and the reflection of the TV on his reading glasses. The house was ablaze with lights; even the small attic window glowed, curtains drawn.

  In a dejected mood made more so by the spreading frost, Roger drove back to the station noticing the city’s drunks staggering about near the subway, and wondered if Hobnail were among them; he noticed the prostitutes loitering in the sink estates at the southern entrance to Wakefield. He passed the boarded up ABC cinema plastered in advertising posters, saw, and then smelled, the fast food shops with broken windows, junkies wobbling about outside waiting for someone to mug.

  After a coffee and a natter with the Help Desk staff, he read the remnants of last Sunday’s papers. Pictures of Sally Delaney and an infant looked expectantly back at him. He screwed up the newspaper and tossed it aside.

  A second coffee steamed in front of him. He pondered how long the affair with Alice had been going; three and a half months, and Yvonne hadn’t the slightest inkling of what was going on. You clever, clever adulterer, he concluded. He wondered if it was the shame he felt, rather than the cold, that made him shudder. The coffee skinned over.

  Hands in his pockets, chatter in his teeth, he stared through the rippled glass and out across an empty Wood Street. The occasional taxi drove by, its headlamps illuminating powder-fine snow and the superfluous Christmas lights that still, two weeks after Christmas, swung in a light breeze.

  Roger gazed into the Wakefield night. Golden floodlight bathed the cathedral’s spire, and Alice’s face floated before him like a ghost. Everywhere he turned this evening, she was there beckoning with a finger, lips pursed Monroe-style.

  Time trickled around to one-thirty on Wednesday morning; only eight and half hours until he was back on duty and only half an hour until he dare leave the office, confident that no one would require his services at such an hour. Except maybe Alice.

  But this time he wasn’t looking forward to meeting her.

  “Bollocks to this.” Roger hung up his sweater and his waxed jacket, and buried himself in his overcoat. He collected his car keys, turned th
e lights off and left the building. After scraping the windscreen clear, he closed the car door and all the noises of the night fell silent. A moment later, thoughts gathered, intentions clear, he turned on the stereo to Fleetwood Mac singing Go Your Own Way.

  Back in the dark office, the ringing telephone went unanswered.

  — Two —

  Alice beamed, “You’re early.”

  “I couldn’t wait any longer.” Roger’s response, he realised, sent out entirely the wrong signal. He trudged after Alice as she hurried along the hall, through a grand archway, and into a lounge decorated with red velvet and gilt inlay. His gaze barely left the carpet except to briefly admire her anklet, and the shape of her beneath that white silk dressing gown.

  Alice shook her hair loose, and it fell in waves over her shoulders. “You randy little SOCO,” she smiled.

  “No, when I said I couldn’t wait any longer, I meant—”

  “Shall we...? Or should we begin with coffee?”

  “I’m drowning with coffee.”

  “Something stronger perhaps, to get you in the mood. Although you sound as though you’re already in the mood...” She stopped by the oak drinks cabinet. It was the size of a small wardrobe. “What’s wrong?” she frowned at him.

  “Nothing. No, I’m fine.”

  “Quiet night, was it?”

  “Listen, Alice, I just wanted to say... I thought I’d come over to—”

  She was on him, not in a vulgar way, but seductively. Lust drove her. He could smell brandy on her breath and tasted it on her glossy lips. She peeled off his coat, nuzzled his neck and Roger caught the odour of that same expensive perfume she always wore.

  He buzzed with the thrill.

  Pathetically, he attempted to fight her off and because it was so pathetic, she saw it as a preamble to foreplay, removing his waistcoat, unbuttoning his shirt, ripping off his tie. She traced a red fingernail down his chest. He said nothing.

  Semi-naked he trailed her like a lost puppy across the room to a large brown leather sofa, its opulence unexceptional, even modest, in here. And whether he liked it or not, he found himself erect.

  The scent of lavender candles lingered in the air, and for a moment it reminded him of Sally Delaney’s bedroom. Her anklet glinted. Alice finished stripping him in a way only she seemed able. She used her teeth and her lips to free him of his garments and then beckoned him to make her naked too. He took only a second to respond. The sight of her full, rounded breasts and glistening thighs made him almost forget the guilt lying within him. Passion gripped them both but for Roger it was short lived, cold and impure.

  Afterwards, the deep-seated shame, the thoughts of Yvonne and even concerns about work, slammed rudely back into his consciousness. He lay there motionless, thinking.

  “Are you okay, Roger?” She wore a frown again.

  He put his glasses on and folded his arms across his chest. He did not look at her.

  “Talk to me,” she coaxed as she tied the belt of her dressing gown.

  Without a word, he climbed off the sofa, pulled his slacks on and found his socks and shoes. He looked across the room at Alice, and her piercing stare made him look away.

  “Why won’t you look at me?” she asked.

  Reluctantly, he did.

  She studied him for a moment. “It’s over, isn’t it?” Her voice began to rise, to take on a shrill quality. “That’s what you wanted to say when you first arrived. Isn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer. Fumbled with his fly.

  “Isn’t it!”

  “Yes.” He continued dressing, now with some urgency.

  “You spineless bastard! You couldn’t go through with it, could you? You didn’t have the guts to call it off. Instead you left it to me to find out!”

  “Alice.”

  “You were going to go and never come back, weren’t you? How dare you use me like that?”

  “Alice... I was going to have a chat with you about it. I was going to—”

  “You were so convincing; all that shit about us being together, about us staying together.”

  “Now wait a minute.” He pointed a finger. “It was never a permanent arrangement. You knew that and you were happy. I’m not prepared to give up—”

  “You bastard—”

  “You’re not prepared to give up all this,” he threw his arms wide, looked at the money dripping from the walls, leaking in large denominations from the stitching in the sofa, “for what I could offer you.”

  “I would—”

  “Bollocks, Alice. I’m sorry you’re hurt, I really am, but I think we both enjoyed ourselves and we should call it quits, go back to our old lives.” He swallowed. “We’re even.”

  She laughed. Cold. “Even? Even? I haven’t begun to get even with you, Roger Conniston.” She marched across the room and stood before him, arms like rods by her side. “Wanting to finish our relationship is one thing,” she said, “but fucking me first? Why was that? Huh? Just as a reminder for when Yvonne turns her back on you? Or perhaps it was for old time’s sake?”

  He promptly tied his laces.

  “You thought this whole thing was a sham, a put-you-on until your marriage got back on line and your ridiculous nightmares went away. Well I’m not going to be used by a waster like you as some kind of fucking sex therapist, or a fucking marriage guidance counsellor!”

  “Look, I can—”

  Alice leapt at him, knocked him onto the floor. Hysterical, hair a thorny nest, lips a dog’s snarl; she threw a fist into his shocked face. The blow skidded from its intended target – his nose – but her thumbnail gouged across his cheek.

  “Get out!” she yelled, pointing to the door. “Get out of my fucking house, now!”

  * * *

  For the second time that morning, he closed the car door and let the silence wash over him.

  He turned the ignition and drove along the drive, the gravel crunching and popping beneath the tyres. Before he even reached the road, he decided to see Alice again; had to. Tomorrow he would finish work early somehow, get into OHU and sort this shambles out. He drove away from Alice’s house.

  * * *

  When he reached home, Roger pulled himself awkwardly from the car, making as little noise as possible. At this hour, putting a key into a lock sounded louder than putting a brick through a window.

  Avoiding the parts of the floor that creaked, he eventually entered the bedroom. He set the alarm for eight, undressed, having already checked his clothes for signs of lipstick and ‘foreign’ hairs, and climbed into bed, pulling the duvet tight around his shoulders. Yvonne stirred and murmured in her sleep.

  The old shadows and the familiar glow of the street lamp through the curtains felt comforting. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, Yvonne’s silhouette acquired distinction against the white of her pillow. The sight was comforting, homely.

  He determined that in future he would treat her as a woman, as his wife and not simply as an individual with an illness.

  “I’ll not let you down again, my love,” he rubbed the graze on his cheek.

  * * *

  Yvonne opened her mouth to make breathing easier and quieter. Another tear dripped into her damp pillow. Tomorrow she would check his collar for lipstick and for hairs to confirm her suspicions. As Roger turned over next to her, a waft of Ysatis stung her nostrils.

  Chapter Ten

  Wednesday 20th January 1999 0100hrs

  Lights off, his car crept over the cobbles of the back street. A faded sign proclaimed it as Thompson’s Yard. Bass thumped from the Westgate nightclubs, and he could feel the vibration through his seat. The music, the shrieks and laughter of the merrymakers flooded into the car when he wound down his window. A stench of burgers and beer seeped inside too; the smell, he thought, of corruption.

  Earlier it had snowed lightly, now ice formed between the cobbles, yet the women saw fit to bare as much flesh as possible without actually revealing nipple or bikini line. He stared i
n astonishment.

  A misty layer of cloud hung low over the rooftops, pierced by the cathedral’s spire two-hundred yards further up Westgate. And its flood lamps shone at the clouds’ underbelly, made it look like the setting for a ghost movie. Concrete, tarmac and plate glass mingled with carved stone, cobbles and stained glass in Wakefield’s blend of modern and ancient. The ambience, the lights and sounds of rowdy but controlled youthfulness, created an atmosphere conducive to his quest: uninhibited, spontaneous even.

  Queues were forming at mobile burger bars, and the pizza- and kebab houses were filling up. More people were emerging from nightclubs than entering them. The streets throbbed with jostling bodies, hot and sweaty from their exploits on the dance floors. Laughter was everywhere, drunkenness followed it around, and then the police followed that around too.

  The nose of his car edged from under the Thompson’s Yard archway. From here he could see the brawl at Biggles’ doorstep across the street. Fists flying, blood spraying onto white shirts, polished shoes scuffed. Police were there in seconds, and battle scarred bouncers gave assistance with filling their liveried transport.

  He noted just how many sexy women there were around, flaunting themselves.

  They’re all the bloody same, he thought. Nothing has changed since my youth except the clothing covers less. And they wonder why they get raped and murdered.

  He looked around those buildings he could see for signs of closed circuit television. Just below the gutter line of the building adjoining Biggles, one camera. Of course, there would be others, certainly one on the front of The Imperial Bank to his right. If he stayed where he was, however, the shade of the arch would conceal him from the camera facing him, and he wouldn’t even be seen—

  “Are you a taxi?”

  He jumped and then caught his breath.

  Leaning in, almost touching his face with hers, was a blonde whose smile at his obvious shock, caused him to stutter, “Christ. I wish I was, dear.” She leaned further in and even in the half-light beneath the archway, he could see straight down her flimsy white top and out the other side to her tight black jeans. To his delight, she wore no bra.