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

by Marina Johnson

  I rip open the garlic bread packet which breaks into a thousand pieces and the bread catapults into the air. I just manage to catch it before it falls into Sprocket’s waiting jaws.

  I throw it into a baking tray. There, all done and ready. Sprocket is sitting looking at me in disappointment, he shuffles from foot to foot and a string of drool drops onto the floor.

  ‘Not quick enough, Sprocket,’ I tell him. Although if he had caught it I’d probably have wrestled him for it and served it up anyway. I check my watch; time for a quick change. I fly upstairs, quickly shower then put on a pair of pale green cropped chinos and a floaty white t-shirt. Pleased with what I see in the mirror I just get to the bottom of the stairs and the doorbell rings. He’s early; must be keen.

  I open the front door with a ready smile to see the Truth standing on my doorstep.

  ‘Oh, hello, Norman.’ How does he even know where I live?

  ‘Hello, Louise.’ He’s holding a bunch of bedraggled flowers. ‘I just wanted to say a proper thank you for finding Lulu.’ He thrusts the flowers at me.

  ‘Oh. Thank you. They’re lovely but you really didn’t need to, it was nothing really.’

  ‘Sorry it’s taken so long but I wasn’t sure where you lived so I asked Linda and she told me.’

  Thanks Linda.

  He’s hovering. I need to get rid of him.

  ‘Well, thank you again for the flowers,’ I say, already closing the door. ‘I’d invite you in, but I expect you’re busy.’

  ‘No. I’m not busy. Mother’s at bingo tonight so it’s my night off.’ By the time he’s finished speaking he’s squeezed through the doorway into the hall and is in the lounge. I curse myself for inviting him in; although I didn’t think I had. I’ll never get rid of him now.

  When Gareth arrives ten minutes later he finds Norman settled on my sofa with a mug of tea and Lulu nestled on his lap.

  ‘This is Norman, he just popped in.’

  ‘Hi Norman, nice to see you.’

  ‘Hello Detective Inspector.’ Norman shakes Gareth’s hand. ‘What a lovely surprise, didn’t expect to see you here.’

  Gareth settles down next to him on the sofa. ‘Louise and I have known each other for years.’ Gareth looks meaningfully at the flowers lying on the coffee table.

  ‘I’m just going to check on the lasagne and put these in water.’ I pick the flowers up and go into the kitchen. I search the kitchen for a vase and can’t find one. In desperation I cut the stems off the flowers and put them in an empty jam jar I’ve fished out of the recycling. They look awful, so I hide them behind the bread bin.

  ‘So,’ I say brightly as I walk back into the lounge, ‘shouldn’t be long now, another five minutes.’ I look pointedly at Norman, mentally willing him to go. Sprocket is sitting on Gareth’s lap looking very pleased with himself. I may as well go out and leave them to it.

  ‘Smells delicious.’ Norman sniffs the air. ‘S’making me feel very hungry. Have to fend for myself tonight. Mother’s bingo night.’ He nods at me. Cheeky sod.

  Gareth raises his eyebrows and looks at me with a little smile.

  ‘Yes, that certainly smells delicious,’ Norman goes on. ‘Lasagne you say? My absolute all-time favourite.’

  I stand by the door twisting the tea towel around in my hands and Norman finally takes the hint and stands up.

  ‘Come on Lulu old girl, there’s a can of soup with my name on it at home.’

  Oh, for God’s sake. I sigh and give in to the inevitable.

  ‘Would you like to stay for dinner Norman? There’s plenty to go around.’ Did I say that? It seems I did.

  ‘Oh well, if you’re sure...’ He’s already settling back down of the sofa. ‘...I’d love to.’

  If Gareth is annoyed, he doesn’t show it and I leave them chatting as I set the table and get the lasagne out of the oven. On the plus side the lasagne looks okay and may even be edible. I’ve managed to incinerate the garlic bread, but I don’t have anymore, so I hack at it with the bread knife and fling it bad temperedly into a basket, hiding the blackened knobby ends at the bottom.

  I put it all on the table and call Gareth and Norman.

  ‘Thought we could have this with it.’ Gareth hands me a bottle of red wine as he sits down. I hadn’t even noticed he’d brought it with him.

  ‘Oh, lovely, I’ll get some glasses.’ He gives me a lopsided smile and I see how tired he looks. He could probably do without me inviting random dog walkers in for dinner. I could too.

  I put the glasses out while Gareth uncorks the wine.

  ‘Not for me, thank you.’ Norman holds his hand over the wine glass as if we’re going to force him to drink. ‘Have you got any orange squash? I’ve only got to smell wine and I go all peculiar.’ He pulls a face. ‘Makes me talk all sorts of nonsense.’

  I go back out to the kitchen and rummage around and unearth a dusty bottle of lime juice cordial which is two years out of date. I open it and have a sniff; smells okay, drinks don’t go off anyway. I pour a good glug of it into a pint glass and top it up out of the cold tap.

  The lasagne’s not bad actually; the garlic bread’s pretty hard going but a mouthful of red wine mushes it up a bit and helps it go down. I zone out as Norman does most of the talking. I catch the odd ‘God’s honest truth’ but I’m not really paying attention.

  ‘Isn’t that right Louise?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I was just telling Gareth how you saved Lulu’s life.’

  ‘I didn’t save her life,’ I say. ‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’

  ‘She’s being modest.’ Norman points his fork at me. ‘She went out of her way and I’ll be forever grateful. I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t got Lulu back and that’s the God’s honest truth.’ He looks stricken at the thought of losing Lulu.

  Gareth actually seems interested, ‘So when was this Norman?’

  ‘Let me see.’ he looks up at the ceiling as though the answer might be written there. ‘Must be four weeks ago? Was a Sunday night. I reported it to the police.’

  ‘Four weeks ago, you say? What actually happened?’

  Norman takes Gareth step by step through the story of his attack and Lulu’s abduction.

  I watch Gareth surreptitiously; he appears genuinely interested and I realise what a nice man he is. I take the dishes out into the kitchen and dump them in the sink and run the hot tap on them. They’re still chatting when I go back in, so I suggest we go through to the lounge. Gareth sits on the sofa and Norman sits next to him and I take the armchair. Norman continues his story. How long can he go on for?

  I zone out again.

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ Norman jumps out of the chair. ‘I didn’t realise it was so late. I must go, mother will wonder where I am.’ A panicked Lulu starts to shake.

  ‘Now don’t fret Lulu, don’t fret.’ He pats her on the head and clips her lead on. I quickly get up and go out into the hall before he changes his mind.

  I open the front door and stand aside to let him through.

  ‘Thank you so much Louise. You and the Detective Inspector have made me feel so welcome. This has been one of the best nights of my life.’

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ I say. ‘Anytime. My pleasure.’ What am I saying?

  ‘Goodnight Louise.’

  ‘Night, Norman.’

  He walks down the path waving; I wave back until he’s out of sight then close the door with a sigh.

  Alone at last.

  I smooth my floaty top down and moisten my lips. There’s a faint rumbling noise coming from the lounge, but I can’t quite make out what it is. Ah, Gareth’s asleep on the sofa with a snoring Sprocket clamped under his arm. Not surprising really, Gareth must be absolutely shattered. I watch him for a while, he looks so comfortable I don’t have the heart to wake him. I run upstairs and grab the quilt from the spare room and gently lay it around him.

  I turn out the light and go up to bed.
>
  Chapter 13

  ‘How did it go last night?’ Linda asks, grinning at me.

  I’m barely through her front door. I close the door and unhook Sprocket’s lead and walk through to the kitchen. Linda follows me.

  ‘Well? Spill.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Just okay?’

  ‘Yeah. He stayed the night. He’s just left.’

  Linda’s mouth doesn’t exactly drop open but comes pretty close.

  ‘Stayed the night? Hussy.’

  ‘I wish. He fell asleep on the sofa, so I threw a cover over him and went to bed. On my own.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly. And that was after the three of us had dinner, which incidentally wasn’t half bad, though I say it myself. Thanks for the recipe.’

  ‘Three of you?’

  ‘Yes. Me, Gareth and the Truth.’

  Linda laughs so much I think she’s going to choke; her face is bright red and she’s actually crying. Sprocket and Henry look at her in alarm, Henry decides he doesn’t like it and starts circling her legs, yelping.

  Gareth was still asleep when I got up this morning. He didn’t look like he’d moved all night; the only difference was that Sprocket had extricated himself from under Gareth’s arm and followed me up to bed.

  ‘It’s not that funny.’

  ‘It is,’ she gasps, ‘it really is.’

  I wait until she finally stops laughing. Well, she doesn’t stop completely, sort of hiccups into laughter now and then.

  I cross my arms. ‘Anyway, it’s your fault.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You told the Truth where I live – if you hadn’t he wouldn’t have turned up and I wouldn’t have been lumbered with him.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She doesn’t look sorry. ‘But how did he end up staying for dinner?’

  ‘I felt sorry for him. And before you say anything else I’m going now, or I’ll be late for work.’

  ‘Oh, do you have to? Stay a bit longer I want to hear all about it, you’ve got plenty of time.’

  ‘No. Have to go. See you later.’ Small revenge, I’ll make her wait.

  ‘I’ll look forward to hearing all the gory details.’ She calls after me as I close the front door.

  ‘Nothing to tell,’ I shout over my shoulder.

  Not strictly true.

  ‘What must you think of me?’ Gareth had said, blurry eyed, his hair sticking up in tufts. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m such a let-down.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I’d said, handing him a mug of tea. ‘I’d sort of spoilt it anyway, inviting Norman.’

  He laughs. ‘Yeah, he was a bit of a passion killer, bless him.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Me and my big mouth. As you know, I never do know when to shut up.’

  ‘I didn’t mind. It was really kind of you. I shouldn’t think he gets many invitations to dinner, although obviously I’d rather have you to myself. Join me,’ he’d said, throwing open the quilt. So, we had an early morning date, snuggled up on my sofa drinking tea. Deep kisses with early morning breath and tangled hair which shouldn’t have been romantic but somehow was. I’d nearly told him then, about the death certificate. It would have been so easy, I felt so close to him, as if I could tell him anything, but then I stopped myself. He was a policeman, would he be compelled to investigate? I couldn’t take that risk.

  I step out onto the pavement in front of Linda’s house and nearly fall over two men struggling to carry a large brown sofa from the back of a huge removal van into the house next door.

  ‘Sorry love,’ gasps the man holding the front end of it. His large bald football shaped head is beetroot red and looks like it might explode at any minute. I slide nimbly out of their way and walk back to my house.

  There’s something niggling at the back of my mind but before I can catch the thought it flutters away. Ever since I found the death certificate my mind has been constantly jumping from one thing to another and I can’t seem to concentrate properly. At least when I’m with other people I can think almost normally but when I’m on my own the same thought runs through my mind on a loop.

  If Louise Russell is really dead, who the hell am I?

  Luckily, I don’t have a huge workload, so I manage to look industrious while doing very little. Rupert is desk bound today writing his piece on the Frogham Throttler’s latest victim. Sadly, death sells newspapers.

  I’m being completely selfish and have barely given Glenda a thought. I’m more concerned with how to find out who I am. I’m desperate to share the fact that I’m dead with someone, but I’m afraid.

  What about Dad? What about Nick? Will they both hate me? Will I become a juicy bit of gossip in the newspaper?

  I pull an invoice towards me and pretend to study it then tap into Google on my PC. No-one is showing the slightest interest in me, but I feel as if I have guilt written all over my face.

  I tap in the date of my death followed by abduction; it brings up an episode of Bonanza called Abduction. Great. According to Wikipedia lots of things happened on that date but there’s nothing about a baby being abducted. I try the same with kidnap, but the result’s the same.

  Okay. Maybe it’s not on the internet because it was so long ago. I open the password list and look up Rupert’s password for the newspaper archives. He’s busy writing his article for tonight so he’s unlikely to catch me out.

  I decide to go straight for the nationals, reasoning that a kidnapped baby would be major news. I’m just about to start when an invoice is slapped on my desk from behind me. Somehow, Bert has walked behind my desk without me realising and is looming over my shoulder. I quickly minimise the screen hoping he hasn’t seen what I’m looking at.

  ‘Invoice for payment,’ he gasps, out of breath from climbing the stairs from the print room. Hopefully he’s too busy trying to breathe to notice what I’m looking at.

  ‘Thanks Bert.’

  He eyes the spare chair behind me but before he can sit on it I pick up a file from my desk and plonk it on there. If he sits down, I’ll never get rid of him.

  ‘Oi!’

  Oh for God’s sake, it’s Ralph. He’s marching purposefully across the office towards me.

  ‘What are you doing up here? I told Lev that he’s to bring the invoices up, not you.’

  ‘Sorry Ralph,’ gasps Bert.

  ‘You don’t need to apologise. I bloody told him and he’s ignoring me and I’m not having it.’

  I pick up another file and open it and pretend to study it hoping they’ll take the hint and go.

  ‘Come on. I’ll come downstairs with you, sort him out.’

  Ralph marches across the office and Bert lumbers after him, huffing and puffing.

  Satisfied they’re gone, I maximise my screen and trawl through the newspaper articles, the print is fuzzy in places, so I move my screen a bit closer. Nothing.

  Two weeks after my death and I’m just about to give up and there it is: Baby Abducted from London Garden.

  ‘You’re not on Facebook are you.’

  I jump. For Christ’s sake, what now? Ian is standing in front of my desk smirking. He leans over to look at my screen and I quickly minimise it.

  He looks disappointed. ‘Oh, felt sure you were doing something you shouldn’t, you looked far too interested to be working.’

  ‘We’re not all like you, Ian.’ How many more times am I going to be interrupted? I can come in some days and no one talks to me for the entire day.

  ‘Do you know, they reckon people check their Facebook on average fourteen times day?’

  ‘Is that right.’

  ‘Yeah. So how many times you checked yours today?’

  ‘I’m not on Facebook, I’m working.’

  ‘But that’s probably on their phones,’ he goes on. ‘It’s probably less if it’s on a PC, unless you work on a PC.’

  ‘I’m working.’ GO AWAY.

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  I stare at him.

  He shrugs. ‘I�
�ll go, shall I?’

  ‘Do what you like, I’ve got work to do. Unlike you.’

  He lingers; I watch him impatiently and he eventually saunters off muttering something about the time of the month. Cheeky bastard. I watch him sit down and then wait five minutes just to be sure he doesn’t come back. I maximise the screen and zoom in and read.

  Four-month-old Veronica Elizabeth Howden, was taken from her pram where she was sleeping in the front garden of her home in Ravenscroft Avenue, London, on Wednesday 25th.

  Her mother, Elizabeth Howden, had put her outside in her pram for some fresh air and an afternoon nap at approximately 3:15 pm and when she returned to the pram at 4:00pm the baby was gone.

  Police are appealing to anyone in the area who may have seen anything suspicious to contact the incident room at Leavens Street or call....

  Could it be me? Could it? I scroll through the next week’s newspapers; the story is headline news every night but there is nothing, no sightings, no leads. There’s a grainy picture of Elizabeth and Charles Howden but I can’t make their features out. Could they be my parents? I scroll through the next few weeks’ newspapers. The story gradually gets relegated to the second page, then just a few columns now and then, then nothing.

  I go back into Google and type in Veronica Elizabeth Howden. An article from two years ago in the Daily Mail pops up.

  Mother who will never give up hope

  Baby Veronica Howden was abducted 45 years ago whilst sleeping in her pram in the front garden of her London home. Her mother, Elizabeth Howden,72, has never given up hope that one day she will be reunited with her first-born child. She and her late husband Charles went on to have three more children, Susan 43, Alison 41 and James 38.

  ‘Charles and I coped in different ways,’ she told me. ‘Charles chose to think of Veronica as having died whereas I always felt that she was still alive. My hope is that she was taken by someone who would look after her and love her.’

  The police operation was one of the largest and longest running but no clues were ever found as to what happened to Veronica. The police investigation has never closed and is still subject to review.