A Confusion of Murders: There's murder on his mind...

by Marina Johnson

  ‘It’s him. That Brendan. He’s put that lock on and those curtain things. Thinks I’m daft.’

  So, he hasn’t forgotten about his neighbour. Brendan just took a backseat while MI5 moved in.

  The long grass around the shed is trodden down and flattened so I’m guessing Dad has been pottering around here quite a lot. He’s doing it now, walking round and round, scrutinising it as he goes.

  ‘Okay Dad,’ I say, putting my hand under his elbow and steering him back towards the house before he starts to speed up and do the pacing thing again. ‘Not to worry. We’ll get Nick to have a look at it next time he comes down. He can crowbar the padlock off or something.’ He allows me to almost push him towards the house and is silent as we trudge back up the garden. I can tell he’s annoyed.

  We go back into the house and Dad shuts the backdoor then carefully locks and bolts it and draws the curtain across. He then closes the window blinds.

  ‘That’ll stop him spying,’ he says, ‘and when I get his padlock off I’m going to put mine on there and that’ll sort him out.’ He then rechecks that the backdoor is locked and walks to the window to check the blinds are closed. He then goes back to the door and checks it again then the window, then the door. I need to stop him doing this pacing thing; he’s going to wear himself out.

  ‘Come on Dad, let’s put the telly on. Antiques Roadshow will be on soon.’

  He’s bewildered as he stares at me and I can tell that he’s trying to remember who I am. I put my arms around his shoulders and steer him through to the lounge and into his armchair. I put the TV on and Dad picks up the TV Times. We then have a completely normal conversation about what to watch and for the next hour Dad’s his old self again. I begin to wonder if I’ve imagined it all, no more mention of secret messages or sheds at all.

  When I leave I give him a kiss and get his usual ‘drive carefully’. He seems quite content sitting in his armchair watching Antiques Roadshow. I let myself out of the front door and pause for a moment on the front step. I don’t like leaving him, maybe I’ll come and stay with him for a while. As I walk away I hear the sound of the deadlock being clicked down and the bolt pushed across.

  Dad has locked himself in.

  I slept really badly last night, tossed and turned and in the end, gave up trying, turned the alarm off before it went off and got up. I must have been dreaming in the little bit of sleep I had as snapshots come back to me as I’m showering. I was in the shed making perfume out of padlocks and Nick was there and Mum too, but not Dad. Don’t know what it all means but it suddenly hits me that I miss Mum and I wish she was here. We didn’t have the easiest relationship, I always felt imprisoned by her rules and regulations, about having to be home much earlier than my friends if I went anywhere. I sometimes think I got married young so I could do what I liked. There were different rules for Nick, he had more freedom than me, maybe because he was a boy. I don’t know, maybe if I had children of my own I’d understand more. But for all that I know I only had to ask and she would have done anything for me, given me anything. But I never did ask. Self-sufficient that’s me, always have been.

  I roughly towel dry my hair, rubbing briskly to get rid of my maudlin mood. Too late now. Get on with it.

  Dressed and ready for work, Sprocket fed and harnessed up, I look at the clock and realise that I’m ready a whole hour early. I’ll go to Linda’s, she always up ridiculously early, she won’t mind.

  Anyway, I want to find out why she didn’t tell me she knew Nick.

  ‘You’re early.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, following her through to the kitchen, ‘bad night.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘So what’s up?’

  I tell her a condensed version of the shed and MI5 episode.

  ‘It’s alright I don’t mind if you laugh.’ I can see the corners of her mouth twitching. It does sound comical, if it wasn’t so bloody tragic it would be hilarious.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny at all, your poor dad. But MI5?’

  I smile. ‘I know, you couldn’t make it up. I’m going to ring Nick later, see what we should do because I really don’t have a clue.’

  At the mention of Nick’s name Linda turns around and busies herself wiping the already clean work top.

  ‘So why did you never mention that you were at school with Nick? I’ve talked about him loads, you must have realised you knew him.’ I’d meant to say it in a casual it doesn’t really matter way but somehow it came out all wrong and sounds like I’m accusing her. Perhaps I am.

  She pauses. ‘I know. I feel a bit of an idiot but when I didn’t tell you straight away I thought it’d look a bit odd if I suddenly said I knew him.’

  ‘It does look odd. Especially as you met him last week and basically blanked him.’

  Linda stops wiping the work top and turns around.

  ‘Well there’s no great secret. Glenda pretty much summed it up – I was a complete dork at school. To be honest I had a massive crush on Nick then and I just felt really embarrassed when I met him. I knew he’d never remember me. You didn’t remember me either.’

  ‘No, I didn’t but be honest Linda, do you remember anyone from two years below you? I’ll bet you didn’t because anyone younger just wasn’t on the radar.’

  ‘No... you’re right,’ Linda concedes. ‘It’s just that school was absolute torture for me. I know it was getting on for thirty years ago but put the likes of Glenda in the same room as me and I’m thirteen years old again.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I say. ‘It was the same for me. I wasn’t one of the popular ones and I wasn’t clever enough to be a swot so I was in no man’s land too.’

  Linda puts a bowl of dog food down on the floor while I hang onto Sprocket’s lead to stop him hovering up Henry’s breakfast.

  She stands up and pushes her hair back, ‘Well, you weren’t really were you?’ She raises an eyebrow at me.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you were sort of cool. In an uncool way.’

  ‘Cool? Me? I don’t think so, anyway you didn’t even know me!’

  ‘No, I didn’t, but I knew who you were, maybe because I fancied Nick. I used to see you around school and you always seemed so sure of yourself. You weren’t part of a gang but I never saw anyone pick on you, or take the mickey. You always seemed to be your own person when the rest of us were trying to be like everyone else.’

  I don’t remember it like that at all. I was the same height at twelve as I am now. Five foot seven isn’t very tall now but having a growth spurt a whole year before everyone else made me feel like a giant.

  I shrug, ‘Believe me Linda I wasn’t cool at all. You never saw me in a gang because no one would have me.’

  ‘See. That’s what I mean.’ Linda smiles. ‘You were cool but you didn’t even know it.’

  The clatter of Henry’s empty food bowl spinning around the floor interrupts us and Linda bends down and picks it up. I unhook Sprocket’s lead and he and Henry bound into the lounge. I look at the kitchen clock and realise that I’m going to be late if I don’t get a move on.

  ‘Shit, don’t know where the time’s gone, I‘d better get off to work.’ I pull a face. ‘I’m really not in the mood for it today.’ I’m not in the mood for anything. I feel adrift, as if I should be doing something but I don’t quite know what.

  ‘Okeydoke. Have fun.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ I call over my shoulder as I let myself out of the front door.

  Cool.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been called cool in my life.

  But I like it, I definitely like it.

  I park my car and just make it into the office before it starts raining. The mini heat wave is definitely over and it feels decidedly chilly. There’s something different in the office and it takes me a good ten minutes to realise what it is. I can’t smell cigarette smoke. Ralph is definitely in as the light is on in his office and the door’s
shut. I can smell something else though. Something sweet.

  Rupert comes in just after me and Ian and Lucy make their customary last-minute appearance.

  ‘Christ, it’s vile out there,’ says Ian, running his hand through his wet hair and shaking the rain off his jacket. I look out of my window; the rain is coming down with a vengeance and I watch as a pigeon is caught on the wind and flung past at speed. Down in the precinct people are scurrying along clinging onto umbrellas as they battle against the rain. A gust of wind catches a plastic carrier bag and it swoops past the window like a wingless bird.

  ‘Morning, Morning.’ Ralph’s office door is flung open with its usual force and Ralph appears. Normally he appears in a cloud of smoke but today there is nothing. In place of his normal cigarette he’s holding an e-cigarette. So that was the sweet smell. He sucks deeply on it and exhales a stream of mist. A sweet strawberry smell drifts over.

  ‘You’ve finally given up then Ralph?’ says Rupert.

  ‘Yep. Thought it was about time. A lot bleeding cheaper too. Been doing it since Saturday. Aim to get off this eventually but, slowly, slowly, catchee monkey.’

  ‘I must say it has a very nice odour,’ says Rupert, ‘much nicer than cigarettes.’

  ‘I’ve heard those things are worse than fags for you,’ Ian chips in.

  ‘Like I say, I intend to give it all up eventually. This’ll just help to start with.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what everyone says and they always end up back on the fags.’ Ian is nervous when a fellow smoker attempts to give up. They’re a dying breed, they don’t want their smoking brothers to break ranks and join the other side.

  ‘I’ve got some fags for when you get desperate Ralph.’ Ian doesn’t quite wave the packet under Ralph’s nose but I know he wants to.

  Ralph ignores him and sucks deeply on his e-cigarette and disappears back into his office. I boot up my computer and start the daily drudge. Surprisingly the next couple of hours fly by and I realise that I’ve actually been able to stop thinking about Dad for a while. At eleven o’clock I decide to make a coffee and ring Nick at the same time. I settle down in the tea room and close the door.

  Nick answers on the third ring, ‘Oh hello,’ I say, caught out, ‘you answered quickly, I thought I’d have to leave a message.’

  ‘Na, Sis, day off today. Just got back from the gym. What’s up?’

  So I tell him.

  ‘Christ, MI5? Where did that come from? What are we going to do? Is there a helpline or something we can ring?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think we need to get him to the doctors but I’m not sure how we’re going to do it. Or what they can do when we get him there.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ says Nick, ‘I haven’t got any jobs for the next few days so I’ll come down this afternoon and stay at Dad’s for a few nights. I can keep an eye on him. We could concoct some story to get him to the doctors and take it from there.’

  I feel a huge sense of relief; not just because Nick’s going to stay at Dad’s but because I’ve got a brother to share the worry with. How awful it would be if I had to do this on my own. We say our goodbyes and Nick promises to ring me when he gets to Dad’s.

  I take my coffee back to my desk feeling calmer, more in control. Everything’s going to be okay. Nick and I will fix it.

  An explosive bang disturbs the relative quiet of the office as Ralph’s door flies open and bangs against the wall.

  ‘Fuck’s sake.’ Ralph appears clutching his e-cig in his hand. ‘Three days I’ve had it and the fucking thing won’t work.’ He’s shaking it and clicking it and any minute I expect to see it launched across the office.

  ‘Broken is it?’ Smirks Ian.

  ‘Forty quid I paid for this and look.’ He clicks it several times. ‘Dead, knackered.’

  ‘Waste of money,’ says Ian with authority. ‘Everyone I know who’s had one says they don’t last five minutes.’

  Ralph frowns and bangs the e-cig on the desk.

  ‘Here, have one of these instead.’ Ian offers Ralph his cigarette pack with a look of triumph. ‘Have a proper smoke.’

  ‘Ta,’ says Ralph, reaching his hand out. As his pulls the cigarette from the packet he looks up at Ian’s grinning face.

  He hesitates. ‘Na, you’re alright,’ he says, pushing the cigarette back into the packet and pulling his hand away. ‘Think I’ll pass.’

  He turns and walks back into his office and closes the door. Quietly.

  Everyone is speechless. The impossible has happened.

  Ralph has given up smoking.

  At quarter to five I get a text message from Nick:

  Ring me ASAP

  With a feeling of dread, I pick up the work’s phone and dial his mobile.

  He answers immediately.

  ‘Nick? What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m at Dad’s,’ he’s talking quietly. ‘When I got here I couldn’t get in the house, he’d put the deadlock down and he wouldn’t open the door. Took me half an hour to persuade him. I don’t think he knew who I was, Lou. I said it’s Nick, Dad, and he just kept saying well you would say that wouldn’t you? You’ll say anything to get in here. In the end I got him to look through the letterbox to make sure it was me but I don’t think he was convinced.’

  ‘What’s he like now? Is he okay?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by okay. All the curtains were shut and when he finally let me in he made me stand in the hallway, said that they would let him know when it was safe to let me in. Got to be honest Lou, he frightened me. Haven’t seen him like that before.’ Nick doesn’t take anything seriously but I can tell he’s shaken. ‘After about ten minutes he let me in the lounge but we had to sit in the dark. Then he went out to the hall for a while then came back and said they said it was okay to open the curtains.’

  I think I know why he went out to the hallway: he was checking for messages from MI5.

  ‘Anyway, after a while he seemed a bit calmer so I said I’d come to stay for a few days for a bit of a break from London. He was fine with that and he seemed quite normal. He went to make a cup of tea and I took my bag upstairs to put in the back bedroom.’ Nick paused. ‘There were loads of cups of tea upstairs – in the spare room and Dad’s bedroom. They were all full up, Lou. Anyway, I went downstairs and Dad’s still in the kitchen, happy as Larry, making tea. So, I said to him what’s with all the cups of tea upstairs then Dad? And do you know what he said?’

  ‘No.’ But I think I could hazard a guess.

  ‘He says, they’re for the agents. They’ve had me up and down those stairs all night making tea – I think they’re taking advantage of me, I’m not getting any younger, you know. It’s all very well those agents using my house as HQ but I’m an old man. They’ve been leaving the TV on all night as well. I woke up this morning and the TV had been on all night and they’d even put the gas fire on. He was so convincing when he said it, I almost went back upstairs and looked for them.’

  I think we’ve been fooling ourselves hoping he would somehow magically get better. There’s no point in false optimism, he’s definitely getting worse.

  ‘Do you think he’s got a brain tumour or something? I just don’t understand how he can have deteriorated so quickly. I’ll ring the doctors now and get an emergency appointment for tomorrow. We’ll just have to make up some story for him as to why he’s got to go.’

  ‘Okay.’

  We’re silent for a moment and I sense that there’s something Nick’s not telling me.

  ‘And?’ I prompt.

  ‘Yeah, it gets worse.’ Nick hesitates. ‘He says he went round to the new neighbour earlier. Brendan.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He says he feels quite aggressive towards him, says he told him to stay out of his garden and shed and that if he didn’t he’d be sorry.’

  ‘Oh Christ.’

  ‘I know. And the cups of tea weren’t the only thing I found in the bedrooms.’

  ‘What else?’ I ask w
ith a sinking heart.

  ‘Remember that old World War two German Luger?’

  I remember it well. It was wrapped in a black cloth inside a locked wooden box in the bottom of the sideboard. Occasionally Dad would get it out and show it to us but we weren’t allowed to touch it. He bought it from an old junk shop – he wasn’t old enough to fight in the war – and I know he’d had it a long time. We were sworn to secrecy as he didn’t have a licence for it and it should have been handed in, but it wasn’t as if he’d ever even fired it.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘It was on the dressing table. Cleaned. And loaded.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘I’m afraid we have no appointments left for today.’

  It’s only eight o’clock so how can all of the appointments be gone already? I’m tempted to not bother and put if off; pretend my Dad’s not going mad and everything’s alright.

  But I can’t. I feel like crying. I just want my old Dad back.

  ‘Can I have an emergency appointment please?’

  She sighs in a theatrical martyred way. ‘That may be possible but you’ll have to tell me what the symptoms are.’

  I want to scream at her but I don’t, I tell her my father is very confused and behaving strangely. There is silence for a few moments then she graciously says that if we take Dad at 9.30 he will be seen, adding that if he’s late he will not been seen today. I fight the urge to ask her why she’s working as a receptionist when she obviously hates speaking to people but decide this will probably result in no appointment ever, so keep my mouth shut. See, I do know when to shut up sometimes.

  I bang the receiver down with a satisfying thump and flop down onto the settee. Sprocket jumps up onto me and rests his head on my chest and gazes into my eyes. I wrap my arms around him and nuzzle my face into his neck breathing in his dogginess. He smells of warm biscuits and I stroke his ears as we snuggle in companionable silence.

  I could stay like this all day, just sitting, not thinking. Perhaps if I sit here long enough Dad will return to normal and it will have all been a horrible dream. More of a nightmare. After a while I reluctantly get up and pick the phone up again.