by Graham Joyce
I supposed that a murderer’s accomplice did trivial, quotidian things like anyone else. I mean, murderers peel potatoes and watch quiz shows on the television. But I think it must be quite rare that a murderer’s accomplice has to organize a Glamorous Grandmother competition.
And my mind was slipping from the job. I had command of the microphone and before a small audience in the ballroom I had to conduct, in turn, an “interview” with each of about fifteen ladies of a certain age. I would ask them where they were from and a number of stock questions. One of these questions was to ask the lady what is the best piece of advice she had ever received. Halfway through the show I was about to ask this question to contestant number eight and my mind went blank.
When I say blank, I don’t just mean I forgot my words. My mind drained. I stalled. My jaw became paralyzed. I was aware of the audience waiting for me. Contestant number eight turned toward me with an expectant expression on her face. Everything went silent. Someone coughed. Then there was a nervous laugh from somewhere. I actually had the microphone held to my lips, but it was as if time was passing for everyone except me. I couldn’t progress time in my own world, and therefore I couldn’t speak. A bead of sweat ran down the side of my face. Contestant number eight smiled awkwardly, turned away, and gently patted the hair at the nape of her neck, then she looked back at me again. Someone in the audience made a comment.
I saw Gail come toward me, her eyes huge. She gently took the microphone from my fingers. “There’s been a bit of a bug going round the staff,” she said into the microphone, “and I think David’s got it.” There was a murmur of sympathy from the audience. “He doesn’t like giving up but if we can get him to sit down a minute then I’ll carry on.”
I took the cue. I patted my stomach a little theatrically perhaps, but enough to confirm for the audience that what she said was true. I made my way out of the ballroom and went to the gents, where I stood at the sink throwing cold water on my face.
I quickly pulled myself together and went back into the ballroom, ready to reclaim the microphone, but Gail indicated to me that she was fine. Pretty soon we had a winner: a sixty-three-year-old school-dinner lady from Mansfield who was not only a grandmother but a great-grandmother. And a big round of applause, please.
After the show I cleared the gear away with Gail so that the afternoon tea dance could start. I apologized to her for making a hash of the show.
“We’ve all dried up onstage,” she said. “It happens.”
“You were brilliant. Thanks for giving me a way out.”
“You’re sweet!” she said.
Sweet, I thought. But was that all that had happened? I’d dried up? Got stage fright? It felt like much more. It felt like something terrible was coming to get me. Some spirit or nemesis. We made the room ready for the afternoon tea dance, and as I made my way out I saw one of the barmen pointing in my direction. He was directing toward me a man in a scruffy beige suit. The man made his way to me across the ballroom floor, passing between dancers who had commenced a slow fox-trot.
“David Barwise?” said the man. He had sandy hair and freckles and a sad-looking face. His suit was crumpled and his collar was a little grubby. He had an offbeat air about him. He stared out at the world like a herring on a fishmonger’s slab.
“Yes.”
“Could we sit down somewhere and have a chat? I’m Detective Constable Willis.”
“Of course,” I said. “What’s it about?”
He put a finger to his ear to suggest the ballroom music was making it difficult for him to hear, and gestured that we should go out into the lobby. There we found a couple of hard chairs and sat down. He pulled a small notebook out of his suit pocket. A pencil was inserted into the metal spiral binding the pages of the notebook. He took the pencil out and licked the lead tip. Then he leafed through the pages of the notebook, stopping when he appeared to find something interesting. His brow corrugated for a moment. Then he went back to flicking the pages until finally he arrived at a blank page. He laid the notepad on the table and wrote my name at the head of the page. “It’s about Terri Marchant.”
I blinked.
“She’s gone missing.”
“Terri the cleaner?” I asked.
“Yes, Terri the cleaner.”
“You should ask her husband, Colin.”
“We can’t find him.”
“Well, he got fired from here.”
“No, he didn’t. He got suspended. But he’s gone missing, too, and normally that wouldn’t be a cause for concern, but Terri’s brother says she’s taken nothing with her. Nothing from the flat she shares with Colin, no money, no clothes. All her things have been left behind. Which is odd. Do you know where she might have gone?”
I kept flashing on the night we had dumped the condemned meat, and the fact that Colin had worn gloves while I hadn’t. I wondered if I was being carefully set up. “Why would I know?”
“Well, you’re a friend of theirs. So people tell me.”
“I’m their friend? Who says that?”
“Look, you’re a member of the same political party as Colin and Terri, right?”
“You’re crazy. They are the National Front. Or rather he is.”
“Look, I’m not interested in your politics, son. But I’m told you’re in the same party.”
“No, I’m not! He’s like a fascist!”
“I’ve told you, son. I don’t care if you’re in the Chairman Mao Party. It’s of no interest to me.”
“Chairman Mao?” I said. “I think that’s the other end of the spectrum, isn’t it?”
“You’re not listening to me: I’m not here to talk politics. I just want to ask if you have any thoughts about where she might be.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“But you went to some meetings with her?”
“No. Who have you been talking to? I went to one. One meeting, but with Colin, not Terri. And I didn’t even know what that was.”
“You went to a National Front meeting without knowing what it was?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Exactly.”
He smiled. If you could imagine a dead fish smiling, that was how it looked. “There are some National Front members in the police force. One or two. But I’ve never been to one of their meetings by accident.”
“Really? Well that’s what happened.”
“So you’re saying you don’t know Terri Marchant.”
“No, I do know her. She used to work here.”
“Still does.”
“Yes. I mean I know her. And I know Colin, her husband. But I’m not his friend. He’s a nasty piece of work.”
Willis chewed his thumbnail and stared hard at me for what seemed like a long time. “Was there anything between you and Terri?”
“Why on earth would you suggest that?”
“Don’t get excited.”
“Excited? I’m not excited.”
He smiled. “Perhaps you have a guilty secret.”
“Is that a joke?”
“You tell me, David. You tell me.”
I was determined not to look away from his beady-eyed gaze. He weakened first. “Right,” he said. “Is there anyone else I might talk to?”
“There are a couple of lads in the kitchen who were at that meeting you just referred to. Though Terri wasn’t there. I don’t think she’s a party member.”
“She is.” Willis consulted his notebook. “Pete Williams and Dan Hanson?”
“Yes. That’s them.”
“I’ve already spoken to them. Anyone else?”
I thought about mentioning that Tony was a party member, but I guessed Willis already knew that. “No. What do you think has happened to her?”
Willis got up from the table. “They had a violent row. After that, no one seems to have seen her, though according to the brother Colin is still around. So we’re guessing.”
“Who is the brother?” I asked him. I didn’t even know
that Terri had a brother. I wondered if that was who had told DC Willis that Terri and I had a relationship. Perhaps Terri had confided in him.
“John Talbot. I think he’s another of your Blackshirt chums.”
I ignored the jibe. I remembered John Talbot. I’d met him when Colin introduced me to Norman Prosser at the meeting. He was also the man who’d seen me coming out of the pub with Nikki the day we’d gone into town. So that was Terri’s brother. It was a tight circle.
A couple of young girls in halter tops and tiny shorts waddled by on high-heels carrying glasses of lager. Willis watched them go. Then he looked at me. “You have an easy life,” he said. I didn’t know whether it was a description or an instruction. He nodded, almost microscopically. “So you had nothing to do with her?”
“Who?”
“Terri.”
“Look,” I said, “I barely knew her. If I were you I’d be asking myself who exactly suggested that I was her boyfriend when I’ve had nothing to do with her. Who would want to deflect your interest onto me, I mean. If I were a detective, that’s the question I’d be asking myself.”
“I don’t know why you’re getting steamed up,” DC Willis said. “I’m just trying to work out what’s gone on here, that’s all.”
“But you’re saying I’m her boyfriend!”
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m just asking a few questions. I’m just looking for help. That’s all. You’re reacting like someone with a guilty conscience.”
“In that case,” I said, “it must be possible for people who are not guilty to behave as if they are guilty. Have you thought of that?”
He looked at the page of his notebook on which he had written my name and nothing else. He closed the notebook, inserted the pencil back into the spiral binding, and put it in his pocket. Then he stood up. “I think about it all the time,” he said. “Thank you for helping me.”
I watched him walk out of the ballroom lobby. I don’t know where he went or whom he spoke to after me. I stayed in my seat for a while afterward, trying to think what the heck it had to do with me. The slow fox-trot in the ballroom had given way to a rumba.
EARLY THAT EVENING I had to supervise the theater for a screening of The Sting, a film with Robert Redford and Paul Newman that had come out a couple of years earlier to great acclaim. But because it was repeated every week I had by now seen it a good few times and it held no surprises.
Distracted, I made my way across the car park to the theater. I should have been paying more attention to where I was going, but as I passed in front of one of the parked vehicles someone sounded a horn loud enough to make me jump out of the way. It was just Pinky, climbing out of his car with a lot of shopping bags.
“You’re in a world of your own,” he said. He came over to me and pulled a carton of No. 6 cigarettes out of one of the bags and shoved it into my hands. “Here, have one of these. Say nothing. You okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Sure.”
“You don’t look okay.”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks for these.”
I went off to the cinema and did my usher’s job. I sat away to the side of the auditorium, gnawing my hand. The fact is that I’d been trembling since the run-in with the detective constable. My guts were in a state of riot. I was falling apart, and I still hadn’t a clue about what had happened to Terri.
I knew I needed to get some help.
After the film was over I went to the sing-along bar. It was there that you could find many of the kitchen staff drinking. I found Williams and Hanson, the two skinhead kitchen porters with whom I’d traveled to the National Front meeting. Williams, the bucktoothed one who’d called me a puff, looked up from his pint and scowled.
I spoke to the other one, Hanson. I handed him the carton of No. 6 cigarettes. “I came by these but I don’t smoke. Split ’em with your pal.”
Williams looked baffled and showed me a bit more of his teeth, but Hanson was very glad to have the ciggies. “Nice one, mate. Can I get you a pint?”
“Another time. I’ve got stuff to do.”
“No worries, mate.”
“I wondered if you’d seen Colin or his missus.”
Hanson turned to his pal. “We ain’t, have we? Ain’t seen them for a good few days.” His pal shook his head. It was clear they knew nothing. “Been a copper here asking about them.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, if you see Colin tell him I’ve got some ciggies for him, will you?” I knew perfectly well they wouldn’t see him before I would. “Or his missus. If you spot her or hear where she might be, give me a shout, will you?”
“No problem, mate.” Then as I made to leave, Hanson raised a thumb in the air. “Hey,” he said. “You’re all right, you are. Sound.” Then he turned to Williams. “He’s sound, he is.”
Williams said nothing. He lifted his pint to his lips and took a sip through his prominent teeth.
17
SHE COMPLETELY DONE ME IN
I told Pinky that I had a doctor’s appointment and I’d need a couple of hours off.
“Haven’t got the clap, have you?” Pinky said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Joke,” he said. Then he looked away. “At least I think it was a joke. We’ll cover for you. See you later.”
I put my civvies on and took a green double-decker bus into town and visited a doctor’s surgery that dealt with temporary workers from the holiday resorts. I waited about half an hour in the reception area flicking between copies of Vogue and Practical Wireless before finding a newspaper. A fourteen-year-old Sikh boy had been killed in a racially motivated attack in the Midlands and one of the senior figures in the National Front had made a statement, saying “That’s one step closer to a better country.” I was still reading the report when a rather haughty secretary told me to go through to the surgery.
A white-haired GP with half-moon specs and a white coat over a tweed jacket grunted that I should take a seat as he finished making notes in his last patient’s records. He took so long over it I was able to observe his impressive, large, troll-like ears. When he’d finished he sniffed and wheeled his chair round to face me. He said nothing, just peered across the top of his half-moon specs. He also had huge flappy jowls, like a species of bloodhound. I began to tell him that I was having trouble sleeping but he cut across me.
“Which resort are you working at?”
I started to answer and he opened my notes on the desk in front of him. He interrupted me again.
“It says here you’re a student. What kind of student are you?”
I thought the question sounded hostile. I began to tell him what I was studying at college and he spoke across me for the third time.
“Well,” he said, “what’s your problem?”
I suddenly felt cross with the man. “You’re the doctor,” I said. “I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.”
“Can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong with you, now can I?”
“I started telling you and you shut me up. Three times. Is this your idea of having fun?”
“You’ve woken up,” he said. “You’ve come to life.”
I had a family GP at home. I nearly told this patronizing old bastard what a nice, sensitive, compassionate human being my family GP was. Instead I tried again, carefully explaining that I hadn’t been sleeping at all well, for some time, and that on some nights I was only getting maybe an hour or two.
“I’m not going to prescribe sleeping pills, if that’s what you’re thinking, sonny.”
“Did I say I wanted pills? Did I ask you for pills? I don’t want pills, I want some help.”
His brittle manner seemed to relax. “I get all sorts of young men coming from these resorts wanting all sorts of pills,” he said. “Do you use drugs?”
“Emphatically not.” That one occasion in the archery hut might have caused me to blink.
He blinked back at me. “Drink?”
“Moderately.”
&
nbsp; He asked what I meant by that and I told him. He seemed satisfied. He asked if I was getting enough exercise. I described my daily routines and he concluded that wasn’t a problem, either.
“Are you anxious about anything at the moment?”
“I’m anxious all the time. For no reason.”
“For no reason?”
“I’m generally anxious. But I never used to be.”
“Roll your sleeve up. I’ll check your blood pressure.”
Of course I went along with all of this. He told me that my blood pressure was perfectly fine. He looked in my ear with his otoscope and found no signs of anxiety there. He also actually got a hammer and tapped my knee to test my reflexes—something I thought happened only in comedy films. He listened to my breathing with his stethoscope.
“There’s nothing obviously amiss,” he said. “What happens when you try to go to sleep?”
“Nothing. I lie awake for long periods. Then if I fall asleep for a few minutes I get terrible nightmares.”
“Oh? What are the nightmares?”
I heard myself say, “Things to do with children. And a man in a blue suit. Sometimes I wake up paralyzed. It doesn’t make much sense. I feel like I’m seeing ghosts. Obviously there’s no such things as ghosts and obviously I know that, but they keep coming. Plus I’m having dreams that are much more vivid than ordinary dreams, though I expect that has something to do with the fact that I’m not getting enough REM sleep.”
“REM sleep?”
“Yes, REM sleep. Rapid eye movement sleep. If you don’t get REM sleep, it sends you crazy and I’m not sleeping so I’m not getting REM sleep and it’s vital for survival to the extent that prolonged REM-sleep deprivation leads to death in experimental animals. I don’t know if they’ve studied humans, I mean they probably have but I don’t know of the conclusions. Of any studies. You probably know all this—you’re a doctor.”
The doctor stroked his chin and regarded me steadily. “Have you done anything you feel guilty about?”
“No.”
“What about your parents?”
“What about them?”
“Do you feel bad about leaving them? About having left them behind?”
