BLOOD DRUGS TEA (A Dark Comedy Novel)

by Saunders, Craig

  Her boyfriend hadn’t seemed to know the real Tracey. He’d seen the Tracey that worked as a secretary, tapping keys quietly and bidding her time until she could break free. Maybe the lie had become too powerful, crushing her under its weight. Maybe she just had to break free. On the Saturday night she’d broken free. The boundaries between her real life and her pretend life had broken down. And it hadn’t worked. Something had gone terribly wrong.

  I had to find out who the real Tracey was.

  The muffler, hanging over the side of the car park, flapping in the breeze that night. Why had the muffler been tied to a pole after the fact? Surely if she’d been strangled with it the killer would have left it around her neck, not tied it up in the car park?

  The muffler must have been used to strangle her, then her neck had been broken, although Reb hadn’t said that there’d been hand marks on her neck. So her neck had been broken when she’d been strangled. It was a strange way to go about her death. It had been cold. Premeditated. I wondered why the killer had thrown her off the top floor of the multi-story in the first place. It was a good spot. It wasn’t overlooked by anything else. There was no CCTV. The ideal location for a murder. But why would she have gone to the top of the multi-story in the first place? There was no car. She must have known her killer. She wouldn’t have gone to such a private place for just anyone.

  It didn’t feel like a random killing. There was too much effort invested in her death. It felt personal. It felt like a crime not of passion but of love. There had been love in the way the body had been arranged. Her killer must have been sad afterwards.

  Her legs had been neatly arranged. There had been a fingerprint on her cheek, and the ring. All afterthoughts. Not part of the murder itself but parts that made up a tapestry of the whole. I thought the legs had probably been arranged purposefully after the death. A risk for the killer to be seen with her but they obviously couldn’t face having her defiled, legs splayed like they undoubtedly would have been. It added credence to the theory that her killer was known to her. But it wasn’t Peter, her boyfriend. Of that I was sure. And so were the police. He was honest with us. I could tell that much about him and if he’d fooled the police he was more cunning than I gave him credit for.

  It wasn’t James Tamerlain. He didn’t have the stones to commit a crime. He was too weak to have killed Tracey by strangulation. I thought if that were the case there would have been signs of a struggle, like a broken fingernail or something, but there were none. She had died quickly. It wasn’t him.

  Then there was Joe. Everything pointed to Joe and the only mitigating factor was my trust in him as a friend. He had the strength in him to snap someone’s neck with the muffler and to throw the corpse over the side of the multi-story. He had no alibi like the other men in Tracey’s life and he’d been out at around the right time. He’d shown up on my doorstep before Reb would have had a chance to call him on the night. It looked bad for Joe. He’d kept it a secret that he’d known the girl, but then secrets were something Joe was good at. He’d also broken a girl’s jaw for no good reason, and he was suffering from increasingly more serious bouts of psychosis. Everything pointed to Joe, but the ring.

  But I didn’t think he did it. I had something more to go on than the police. I knew about the fingerprint and the ring. Both pointed to someone else’s involvement. The ring was definitely a girl’s, but then if it was Tracey’s why hadn’t she been wearing it? The fingerprint was a woman’s, too. At first I’d thought it was Reb’s, but then his fingers were too large. He’s odd. But not that odd. Surely?

  I came back the beginning and did my final lap of the park. My lap of victory. My hair was soaked but I barely noticed. I felt I was getting somewhere.

  How had Reb found the body? He said he’d been out walking. Was Reb a suspect? Why? He had no connection to the girl. I put it from my mind. One friend down was enough for now. I could think of no reason for Reb to be involved. He was right; suspicion naturally fell on the person who found the body.

  So if it wasn’t any of them it was someone else. Someone else had to be there. I thought I knew who. It was time to find out for sure.

  *

  21. Stirrups

  The time had come. I needed to go back to the beginning. I made myself tea and settled into my couch. I steeled myself over the cup of tea and a cigarette. Time to call before I got cold feet. I picked up the phone and the note I’d scribbled after my last call to Johnny Markham. I dialled the number and waited.

  A woman answered. She sounded petite.

  “Mrs Hardingham?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Jake Black, Mrs Hardingham. I’m sorry to call at such a difficult time but I’m investigating your daughter’s death and needed to ask you some questions.”

  “I’ve already spoken to the police. Can’t you just leave us alone?”

  “I’m afraid some things have come to light in my investigation and I may need to go over some new ground with you. It would be a great help.” I didn’t come out and say I was a policeman but I let her do all the assuming. It wouldn’t hurt. After all, there was no way she’d talk to me if I told her the truth.

  “Now’s not a good time.” She didn’t sound like she was grieving, she sounded brusque, like the call was putting her out.

  “I won’t take much of your time.”

  “Very well then, if you insist.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Now, I understand that Tracey wasn’t close to you and her father. Is that right?”

  “Yes, we hadn’t been close for years. She moved to Bridgend after dropping out of college and we hadn’t seen her or spoken to her on the phone since.”

  “Can I ask you why she dropped out of college?”

  “She had enough of it I expect. I couldn’t tell you why Tracey did the things she did. She didn’t make sense most of the time.”

  This sounded more like Tracey than all those people saying she was such a good girl. I was guessing she hadn’t been able to hide her nature from her parents as easily as she’d been able to hide it from everyone in Bridgend. She’d left the past behind. It was time to find out what it was.

  “Why did you stop talking to each other, Mrs Hardingham?”

  “It was a family matter.”

  “I really need to know.”

  “I’m afraid that’s none of your business.”

  Time to plunge in feet first. “Was it a life style choice that you perhaps disagreed with?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Was your daughter a lesbian, Mrs Hardingham?”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “But was that why you fell out with her?”

  “If you must know, it was. My husband found out she’d been seeing her school teacher, her history teacher. We thought it was abuse but it turned out Tracey was the one who instigated it. We couldn’t believe it at the time but Tracey taunted us with it. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  “So you kicked her out?” I couldn’t believe parents would kick out their daughter just because they couldn’t face the fact that she was batting for the other team.

  “No, nothing like that.” She sounded offended.

  “Then what made her leave?”

  “An argument with her father. He’s got very strong views on the subject. He just couldn’t accept that Tracey had been a willing partner in the relationship. He called the police and she went mad at him. They had a huge fight and Tracey said she never wanted to talk to him again. I tried to contact her but she wouldn’t have anything more to do with us. You must understand, Mr Black, that we would have done anything to see her again. It was her who refused to talk to us, not the other way around.”

  “So you didn’t make her leave, she left of her own accord?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It didn’t matter that she was seeing another woman. It wasn’t me, you understand. It was my husband. They were so alike. Intractable in their v
iews. Tracey left soon after the fight. We tried to persuade her to come home but when she’d set her mind on something there was nothing anyone could do to dissuade her. She made a new life for herself in Bridgend soon afterward. I know she went to night school and worked to make up the fees. But I’m afraid we lost touch after a while. She didn’t want anything to do with me either.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  “Yes, it was a terrible time, but not so terrible as losing you only daughter.”

  “I understand. Just one more thing. Was Tracey ever into anything else that you disapproved of?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I steeled myself. “Like drugs?”

  “No, we’ve already told your colleagues that. She was never involved in drugs, Mr Black.”

  “OK, thank you. I just had to check.”

  “Is that all? I really don’t want to talk anymore.” Could have fooled me, I thought. She sounded like she’d talk about her daughter all day, but I had what I wanted.

  “I see. Thank you very much for your time. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  *

  I remembered something Joe had said about Stonehenge once.

  ‘What a marvellous feat of engineering. That’s our architectural hero is it? For fuck’s sake, no wonder we can’t build anything decent. It’s wonky and half the stones won’t even stand up straight.’

  The case against him was beginning to sound the same way. It was all wonky and the stones didn’t stand up straight. I was beginning to see the bigger picture.

  *

  I knew I had to go back and meet with Mary. That was what I’d smelled on her. The fact that she wasn’t interested in men. It had all been a cover up, her work, as a prostitute. She’d been covering up what she’d really felt. Repulsion that I was a man. She hated men. She was hurt about Tracey’s death but hadn’t showed it. Those two were something more to each other. I was sure of it. I didn’t know how I knew but it was the little things. The call to Tracey’s parent had confirmed what I’d thought all along. Holding hands with a prostitute. Holding hands was intimate. Something a prostitute knew nothing about with the men she rolled. Tracey hadn’t been into men at all. The affair with James Tamerlain hadn’t been about love, it had been about need. The need to be held. I thought she’d been searching for something she needed but looking under the wrong rocks. In Mary Hunford she’d found what she needed. Another woman, someone in pain like her. A kindred soul.

  I could of course be flying off at the handle. I was a romantic at heart but it didn’t mean everyone else was. It could be they were just good friends. But I really didn’t think so.

  But then if they’d been doomed lovers, why would Mary Hunford kill Tracey?

  I’d go and talk to her tonight. Resolve the matter once and for all. For now, I’d earned myself a break. I called Harry.

  “Can you meet me in the pub tonight?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I thought you were working today.”

  “I am, but I’m celebrating. Plus, I’ve got some time to kill.”

  “Oh thanks, so I’m a time killer am I?”

  “No, of course not. I’d love to see you.”

  That seemed to mollify her. She went quiet for a moment, like she was thinking about it, but she said, “I’d love to see you, too.”

  She sounded like she meant it.

  *

  I’d meet her in the Partridge for a beer or two. Perhaps I could get Harry to come with me down to the wharf. I thought for the experience I’d had with Mary last time it might do her good to see a feminine face. I got the impression she didn’t trust anything with a dick.

  Harry was good at inspiring trust.

  For dinner I made myself a chilli. I chopped mushrooms and onions and I chopped tomatoes until there was nothing left but tomato spiders, scurrying away from me on the chopping board.

  I hate tomatoes. I put them in anyway. You can’t have a chilli without tomatoes.

  *

  22. Home and Wet

  I lost myself in thought for a while, standing in the kitchen, listening to the gentle plops of my chilli simmering. I didn’t notice the smell as I was standing by the sink smoking. The ash from my cigarette was getting long, leaning, when the doorbell rang and broke my concentration, what little of it I have. That’s the thing about insomnia. You think you’re concentrating but in reality what you’re doing is a kind of daydreaming. Waking and sleeping become mixed, a confluence of states melding together to produce a kind of half waking. I hadn’t been sleeping much lately and the thoughts I believed to be my own often danced away from me playfully like fairies.

  The kitchen windows were steamed up and I stirred the pot, flicking the ash into the sink. I thought the chilli could look after itself for the time being. I went downstairs.

  It was Reb. He’d done his hair with what looked like gel, so it went back from his forehead, making him look greasy. I knew he’d made an effort for me, but I didn’t say anything. I liked Reb just fine but I didn’t want to lead him on with misplaced compliments. It would have been weird to compliment any guy who wasn’t gay. It’s fine to compliment a gay guy, though. Just not this one.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Of course you can. I was just making some chilli if you want some.”

  “Sure, that sounds great.” He took his shoes off in the hall and hung his coat up.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know, just out for a walk and thinking things over.”

  He looked nervous. I tried to put him at his ease. He often looked nervous around me.

  “I find having a dump helps.”

  He laughed nervously. “Yeah, that helps too. I was just thinking about things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “About love, mainly.”

  O-ho, I thought. We reached the kitchen. I put my back up against the sink and Reb leant against the counter by the microwave. I would have offered him wine but if he was thinking about love I didn’t want to move him out of the way to get to the wine rack. I got two beers out of the fridge instead and offered him one. He took it without trying to brush my hand or anything cheesy like that. I took it as a good sign.

  “What about love?”

  “Well, how it’s never cut and dried. There’s no hiding it and no going back once you’ve started.”

  This didn’t sound good. I’d started now though so I couldn’t back out.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Like when you start having feelings for someone and you can’t stop. No matter what you try.”

  I knew he was going to say something about me. I didn’t want to hear it.

  “You want garlic bread?”

  “Yeah, sure. You know what I mean? Sometimes loves just not appropriate but you feel it anyway?”

  It would have been natural to ask him who he was talking about but I didn’t. I didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “Like how you might be in love with someone and never have those feelings returned?”

  “Yesss.”

  “Well, I got to thinking.” He started pulling the label off his beer. A bad sign.

  “Yes.”

  “And I realised something. I think I realised it a while ago but I’ve never had the strength to say it before. It never seemed like the right time.”

  “Well, OK.” Here it comes.

  “You love Harry, don’t you?”

  My mouth hung open. With all the strength I had I slammed it closed. My teeth clacked.

  It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.

  “What do you mean? Of course I don’t.”

  “But you do. It’s really obvious. I’ve known it for a long time. I’ve wanted her to love you too, but I never thought that would happen with Joe in the way. Now Joe’s out of the way you should do something about it.”

  This was a shock. Reb realising and presuming to give me love advice. Perhaps I was wr
ong, perhaps he didn’t fancy me after all. No, I was sure I was right in that respect.

  “I just think it’s really sad when someone loves someone and they haven’t got the courage to tell them.”

  Now I was sure he was talking about himself. At least I thought I was sure. I wasn’t sure of anything right at that point in time.

  “But what if that person doesn’t love them back?”

  “Well, if they know that they should keep it to themselves. But I’ve seen you with Harry. I know she’d make you happy. I’d do anything to see you happy. You deserve it. You’re a good man. You should be with someone.”

  “My love life is so transparent, is it?”

  “Well, it is to me. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  I didn’t want to hurt him but whatever else was going on in his head he was my friend.

  “Yes, it’s true. We’re going to the pub later.”

  “I knew it! You should tell her.”

  “I don’t know if my love life can take it.”

  “What’s your love life like without her?”

  “My love life’s like a wheel, with spokes and stuff on it, that hits a bump, which makes all the spokes fly out and hit innocent bystanders, then the rim, now denuded, rolls down the road (most probably something with cobbles) all alone, listing wildly, until it hits an unforeseen bridge and spins into the air in Catherine-wheelesque grandeur for one final moment, before it reaches its apex and with a buckled harrumph comes to rest with a soggy plop and after a short breathless swim lays buried in ancient, surly, silt.”

  “Fuck me, no wonder you’ve not got a girlfriend.”

  “See? I told you. I mope too much. No girl would want to get involved with me.”

  “What about Harry, then? You could make it work.” He looked eager. “The timing’s right. All you have to do is ask her out.”