by Baker, John
False alarm, Sam said to himself. He glanced again at the girl and her giant. The big man was accosting passers-by now, out of Sam’s earshot but gesticulating histrionically. Looked like he was reciting poetry or passing on the achieved wisdom of his years.
I’m back, Sam said to himself. This is the place. My home town.
He took the steps up to the office two at a time. As he walked in Geordie, one of his assistants, got to his feet and held out his hand. ‘Good to see you, boss,’ he said. Geordie was in his early-twenties. Recently he’d let his hair grow and it turned up on his collar. He had a scraggy moustache seemingly painted on to the face of innocence. Geordie had been orphaned and had spent time on the streets before Sam had taken him on, but to look at him now you would think he had never left the maternal nest.
Sam took his hand and placed an arm around his shoulder. ‘Everything all right? We still solvent?’
‘You are,’ Geordie told him. ‘Me and the rest of the wage-slaves can’t make ends meet, but that’s not for you to worry about.’
‘Yeah, it was great in Nottingham, Geordie. Like Amsterdam or Venice, really. No, I’ll tell you what, it reminded me of the time I was in Florida. So hot you can’t sleep. I spent every day on the beach.’
‘I’ve been to Nottingham,’ Geordie said. ‘Never saw a beach when I was there.’
Sam cocked his head. ‘There’s this street with palm trees. All the guys there are Cuban exiles, they’re selling girls, dope, aloha shirts, anything you want. Nottingham rock. Pie and chips. Anyway, you go to the end and take a right and there’s the ocean. Bright blue. Everybody’s stretched out half-naked, they have beach umbrellas to keep the sun off. Thongs, know what I mean?’
‘Fuck off, Sam.’
‘It’s true. The hotel I stayed in had a swimming pool and I got propositioned every morning by a different rich widow.’
‘You stayed in a guesthouse, Sam. Celia told me. You’ve been away for three days and you haven’t talked to anybody. OK, you had a job to do, so you didn’t actually go out of your skull, but you’ve had time to yourself and you’ve been digging up memories and worrying about the business and about Angeles. This is how you are, Sam. I know this because I’ve known you for years. Now you’re back you’ll be talking non-stop for a week, trying to catch up on all the talking you missed while you weren’t here.’
‘How’s Angeles? She all right?’
‘She’s fine. But you know that because you’ve phoned her every night. And if you’re so worried about her, how come you get off the train and come to the office? If it’d been me away in tropical Nottingham the first thing I’d do is go and see Janet and Echo. I’d’ve left the office until tomorrow.’
Sam sighed. ‘She’s at work. If Angeles’d been at home I’d’ve skipped the office altogether. There’s nothing to do here, apart from talk to you. You got any work on?’
‘Nothing that I can’t leave for a game of snooker.’ ‘On pay? I’ll bet you can leave it. You wanna play snooker with me while I’m paying you to work?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Geordie said. ‘Of course, the final decision is yours.’
‘Get your coat,’ Sam said. ‘I’m in the mood for you.’
After the game (two frames to Sam - highest break twenty-seven - one to Geordie), Sam Turner walked home. He’d got rid of the big house that his ex-wife Dora had left him and moved into a small house off Clarence Street. Bought it for cash, straight out, no mortgage. Had a guy come in and decorate it. Celia, his secretary, and Marie, another operative in Sam’s business and an old friend, had helped him buy the furnishings, make sure the colours went together. They told him what he liked in the way of a table and chairs, a second-hand chaise-longue which had woodworm in the legs but which the woman who sold it had treated with chemicals. He brought some shelving out of Dora’s old house to store his paperbacks and a new CD player; and he kept the double bed because he’d never been able to sleep in a single one. And because Angeles stayed over at least once a week. Except last week. And the week before.
He stopped at the shop and bought himself a frozen dinner - almost fat-free lasagne - and put it in the gas oven to cook while he mended the puncture in the front tyre of his bike. Took the wheel off and brought it into the kitchen. There was a thorn which had gone through to the inner tube and Sam covered the hole with a patch and sprinkled the area with French chalk. When he’d finished he took a fingerful of ecologically friendly heavy-duty hand cleaner and worked it into the muck and oil on his hands. Seemed to work fine, which was part surprise and part relief. He had tried the same brand of stain remover the previous week and ended up with haemoglobin patches on the front of his fake Paul Smith shirt.
Still had time for a shower and shave before the lasagne was ready. He played ‘Baby Blue’ while sitting at the coffee table in the living room and stuck his fork into the food, saw the police car pull up outside the house and the two plain-clothes goons get out and walk along his path. Sam couldn’t help it: the sight of the fuzz coming to his front door made him want to run. It was a physiological response; like he’d downed a handful of French blues, his heart pounded and he looked around for the quick way out of there.
They gave that knock they teach them in training school, four hard thumps with the side of the fist. Designed to make you shit yourself and it worked every time.
And I’m an honest guy, Sam said to himself. He’d been fitted up with a dope cache a dozen years before and served some time for that, and when he was on the booze he’d steal anything from anywhere, but usually he was honest Sam. You would think twice about buying a second-hand car from the man, but that was down to appearances rather than reality. And it didn’t often happen that he had a second-hand car to sell. The last three he’d paid the wreckers a tenner to take away.
There it was again: thump-thump, thump-thump, the hammering on the door synchronized with his heartbeat, as though the cops were demanding access to his soul as well as his house. But he didn’t run. He put on a snake-skin exterior and opened the door. ‘You just delivering something or you wanna come in?’ he asked.
The first one looked along the street, both ways. ‘Mr Turner?’
‘You know who I am,’ Sam told him.
‘I wonder if we could come inside for a minute, sir. It’s a little exposed here on the doorstep. I’m Chief Inspector Delaney and this is my Sergeant.’
Sam turned and led them into his sitting room. He picked up the carton of lasagne and took it towards the kitchen. ‘This’ll have to go back in the oven,’ he said. ‘I’m not prepared to share it.’
He couldn’t see because he had his back to them, but Sam imagined their faces lighting up at his little joke. And if not now, then later, when the penny dropped.
He put the lasagne back in the oven and rejoined his visitors. He’d absent-mindedly brought the oven glove with him and kept it on his right hand as he sat on the chaise, his usual chair being occupied by Chief Inspector Delaney with an open notebook on his lap. Delaney had a long nose which complimented his thin cemetery tie.
The CD player turned itself off and Sam looked from Delaney to the Sergeant. He said, ‘Somebody been breaking the law?’
‘Do you know a Mrs Katherine Turner?’ Delaney asked, glancing at his notebook to see if he’d got it right.
Before they got married she was called Katherine Crouch. Sam had wondered if she wanted to marry him for his name. She’d certainly hung on to it after their separation and divorce, not been at all keen on slipping back into the Crouch identity. Sam didn’t mind. Hell, a woman is entitled to something out of a marriage.
Crouch might not have been such a bad name if Katherine had been tall and willowy. But she was short and tended to walk with her chin tucked into her chest. This was a great pity as she had a nice face, a straight nose and large brown eyes that were completely lost to the world. When he first heard her name Sam had wanted to laugh at the irony.
But back in those days he hadn’t
been much of a catch either. The two of them met over a bottle and their whole liaison, including the marriage, was conducted in an alcoholic haze. Katherine had surfaced first, several years before Sam considered that he might be drinking too much. She’d gone on to another life, leaving him in much the same state she’d found him - halfway down one bottle and plotting how to acquire the next. King of the drunks, only pausing between one swallow and the next to throw up on the world.
It was so long ago it seemed like a different planet. Sam couldn’t work out if his memories of the marriage were recollections or merely constructs of his mind. And he’d never been able to figure out what a memory was; if it related to something held dear, something unforgettable, or if it was a kind of shroud of something that was lost for ever.
‘I wouldn’t claim to know her,’ he said. ‘We were married. Long time ago.’
‘Have you seen her recently?’
Sam shook his head.
‘When did you last see her?’
‘I dunno. Twenty years ago? We lost touch. I don’t know what happened to her.’
Most of the women he’d known, Sam could track down if necessary. He’d have an address or a telephone number, or at least a general location. But Katherine had disappeared. She could be anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. She’d spent as much time and energy on staying in contact with Sam Turner as he’d spent on staying in contact with her. No time at all. It wasn’t Sam’s shortest marriage but it was the most ill-matched. There must have been some attraction between them, but try as he might, Sam couldn’t think what it was.
‘Something happened to her?’ he asked. ‘What’s with the questions?’
The cops exchanged a glance. Delaney, the talking one, said, ‘Been to Nottingham recently, Mr Turner?’
There’s a general rule when talking to the police. They’re out to trap you so it’s a good idea to stay as close to the truth as possible. If you were in Nottingham yesterday and they ask you if you’ve been to Nottingham recently the best thing is to say you were there yesterday. Explain what you were doing there. Let them see you’ve got nothing to hide. That way they’ll go away and ask questions of someone else.
But rules are made to be broken. Sam said, ‘Nottingham? Can’t remember the last time I was there. Year or two back, I was on a case, took a day or two. I can’t remember.’
‘Where were you yesterday?’ the Chief Inspector asked. ‘My day off,’ he said. ‘I was here. One of my assistants, Geordie Black, came round late-afternoon. We took his dog for a walk.’
‘Would there be anyone else who could verify your whereabouts yesterday?’
‘Maybe,’ Sam said. ‘But I’m not sure I want to answer more questions unless you tell me what this is all about. Something happened to Katherine? What’s the Nottingham connection?’
‘Your ex-wife was found murdered in her bed this morning, Mr Turner.’
‘In Nottingham? She was living in Nottingham?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ the policeman said. ‘You don’t seem particularly disturbed by the news.’
‘I’m sorry for her,’ Sam said. ‘How did it happen?’
‘She was stabbed through the heart with a long blade, maybe a sword.’
Sam shook his head, tried to recollect the woman he’d been married to all those years ago.
‘Why would someone want to do that to her?’ Delaney asked.
‘I don’t know. It was a long time ago I knew her. I barely remember what she looked like.’
‘Do you own a sword, Mr Turner?’
‘I want to ring my solicitor,’ Sam said.
‘You can do that from the station, sir. I take it you have no objection to helping with our enquiries?’
4
Celia Allison put the phone down and leaned forward on her elbows in front of the computer. She had been Sam Turner’s secretary, bookkeeper and Girl Friday for seven years and she could read him like a book. She was wearing a black lace blouse with a high collar to hide the seventy-odd years’ of wrinkles on her neck. Each wrist rattled with bangles and her ear lobes sported antique jet ear-rings. She wore an ankle-length black skirt and rather sensible chunky-heeled shoes.
She dialled a number and waited with the handset close to her ear. ‘Janet, how are you?’ Pause. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m always fine. Is Geordie there?’
She waited, idly swirling the mouse around on its rubber pad, watching the pointer on the screen as it highlighted the icons on Word’s standard toolbar. ‘Geordie, have you shaved that terrible moustache off yet?’ Pause. ‘Well, you should. It looks awful. Did you see Sam today?’ She tapped her finger. ‘Oh, really, what a charmed life you lead. Who won?’ She listened patiently as he described a game of snooker.
‘Little problem,’ she continued when Geordie had potted the last black. ‘Sam rang me from the police station. Helping with a murder inquiry. He wants me to contact his solicitor, George Forester, and said to ask if you can think of anyone who saw you and him walking Barney along Gillygate yesterday afternoon?’
‘He wasn’t here yesterday,’ Geordie said.
‘Must’ve been if you and he took Barney for a walk along Gillygate.’
‘No, he was in Nottingham, Celia. You know he was.’ Celia had been an English teacher all her previous working life. She assumed the tone of voice that had stood her in good stead throughout that career. ‘Geordie, are you listening to what I’m saying?’
‘Yes, but...’
‘It’s quite simple. There’s no doubt that you and Sam went for a walk along Gillygate yesterday with your little dog. Reading between the lines, it seems our employer didn’t go to that other town you mentioned. He was here all the time, especially yesterday. Now, we know that you saw him and we wonder if anyone else can corroborate that, OK?’
Pause.
Geordie said, ‘Oh, yes. I see.’
Celia hung up and dialled another number. ‘Mr Forester, please.’ She waited, shifting the handset away from her ear when the ‘Dam Busters’ March’ kicked in.
‘George, it’s Celia. Listen, Sam’s down at the police station helping with enquiries into a murder. Can you get him out?’
‘I’m on my way,’ the solicitor said.
‘Just a hint of relief in your voice there, George. Does it get you out of something else?’
‘Jocelyn will be arriving in a minute to take me to our dance-class.’
‘And?’
‘I won’t be here.’
Celia smiled. ‘You don’t like dancing?’
‘What I’d like,’ George Forester explained, ‘is Flamenco or Tango, maybe some Salsa, something with passion. But Jocelyn’s into ballroom. I hate it. It’s like eating dry biscuits. Makes me feel as if I’ve got a number on my back.’
‘You should consider rebellion,’ she told him.
She looked at the phone. George Forester was one of those quiet, unassuming men who had become entangled with a woman who wanted to direct every aspect of his life. Freud or Darwin might have found an answer for men like him. Or perhaps the frequency with which the timid latch on to the bullies was a question too far for the founding fathers of modernism?
Celia got her coat and locked the office. She walked around the corner to the taxi stand on St Leonard’s Place and directed the cabby to Angeles Falco’s house. ‘Wait for me, will you?’ she said. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’
The cabby reached for the morning’s edition of the Sun.
‘Celia,’ Angeles said as she opened the door wider to admit the older woman. ‘How lovely, I haven’t seen you for ages.’ She closed the door behind her. ‘There’s nothing wrong is there? It isn’t Sam, is it?’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ Celia said. ‘No deaths or broken bones. You can relax.’
Angeles was almost totally blind now but if you didn’t know you wouldn’t have guessed. Not in her own house, anyway. She knew where everything was and she focused her eyes so you didn’t feel as though she was
gazing at empty space. She was in her early-thirties with a soft complexion and clear skin; the face of a model and the confidence of a successful businesswoman with a large bank-balance. When Sam had fallen for her he had landed on both feet.
‘Have you seen him since he got back?’ Celia asked.
‘No, I’ve been working all day. He’s coming round this evening.’
Celia shook her head. ‘He might not make it,’ she said. ‘The police have picked him up. I’m not sure what it’s about at the moment - George Forester is on his way round there now - but it seems he wasn’t in Nottingham yesterday.’
Angeles looked surprised. ‘He rang me last night, said he was in a B&B.’
‘That’s right,’ Celia said. ‘He was there for the last couple of days, but the official story is that he was here.’ Angeles smiled. ‘You don’t mind lying for him, do you?’ ^ H
‘I don’t believe in lying, Angeles, and I don’t like people who do. But if Sam Turner tells a lie it’s because it’s closer to the truth than the truth.’
‘Do you want to stay for a drink?’
‘No, thanks. I’ve still got one more job to do. Then I’m going to have an early night.’
The cab dropped her at Sam’s house and she paid the driver. She let herself in with a key from her purse and stood listening in the hall for a few seconds. Nothing. Just the deep silence of a man gone away. In the kitchen she turned off the gas and opened the oven door. The top layer of lasagne was black and brittle. She used the oven glove to remove it from the shelf and placed it in the sink, where it hissed and crackled for a moment.
She shook her head. A grown man and he didn’t even eat properly.
