by C. J. Tudor
“It’s Ed Adams, Mrs. Hopkins,” I say now.
“Who?”
“Eddie Adams. David’s friend.”
“He’s not here.”
“Oh, d’you know when he’ll be back?”
A long pause. Then sharper. “We don’t want any of it. We’ve already got double glazing.”
She slams the phone down. I stare at it for a moment. I know I shouldn’t take too much notice of what Gwen says. My dad would often lose track of conversations and come out with completely random things.
I call Hoppo’s mobile. It goes to voicemail. It always does. If it wasn’t for the fact that he runs a business, I would swear he never even turns the damn thing on.
I swig the remains of my fourth coffee then walk into the hallway. It’s a cool day for mid-August and the wind is sharp. I look around for my long overcoat. It’s usually hanging on the coat stand near the door. I haven’t worn it for a while, due to the clement weather. However, now I need it, it doesn’t appear to be here.
I frown. I don’t like misplacing things. It was the start of my dad’s decline, and every time I lose my keys I have a minor panic attack. First losing the objects, then losing the names for the objects.
I still remember Dad staring blankly at the front door one morning, mouth working silently, brows furrowed in a deep frown. And then, suddenly, he clapped his hands together like a child, grinned and pointed at the door handle.
“The door hanger. The door hanger.” He turned to me. “I thought I’d forgotten it.”
He was so happy, so pleased, I couldn’t contradict him. I just smiled. “Great, Dad. Really great.”
I check the coat stand again. Maybe I left the coat upstairs. But no, why would I have worn my coat upstairs? Still, I trudge up and look around my room. Back of my bedside chair? Nope. Slung on the hook behind the door? Nope. Wardrobe? I sort through the clothes on hangers…and then I spot something bundled into a corner, right at the bottom.
I bend down and pull it out. My coat. I stare at it. Creased, crumpled, a bit damp. I try to think back to the last time I saw it. The night Mickey came round. I remember hanging his expensive sports jacket on the peg next to it. And afterward? I can’t remember wearing it after then.
Or maybe I did. Maybe I slipped it on later that night, strolled out into the cool, slightly damp night air and…and what? Pushed Mickey into the river? Ridiculous. I think I would remember pushing my old friend into the river in the middle of the night.
Really, Ed? Because you don’t remember coming downstairs and drawing chalk men all over the fireplace, do you? You’d had a lot to drink. You have no idea what else you might have done that night.
I silence the niggling little voice. I had no reason to hurt Mickey. He was giving me a great opportunity. And if Mickey did know who really killed Waltzer Girl—if he could exonerate Mr. Halloran—I’d be pleased about that, wouldn’t I?
So what is the coat doing stuffed into the bottom of your wardrobe, Ed?
I look back down at it, run my fingers over the coarse wool. And then I spot something else. On the cuff of one of the sleeves. Several dull, rusty-red splodges. My throat constricts.
Blood.
—
Being an adult is only an illusion. When it comes down to it I’m not sure any of us ever really grow up. We simply grow taller and hairier. Sometimes, I still feel amazed that I am allowed to drive a car, or that I have not been found out for drinking in the pub.
Beneath the veneer of adulthood, beneath the layers of experience we accrue as the years march stoically onward, we are all still children, with scraped knees and snotty noses, who need our parents…and our friends.
Hoppo’s van is parked outside. As I round the corner, I see Hoppo himself, climbing off his old bike, two carrier bags full of sticks and bark hung over the handlebars, a bulging rucksack on his back. My mind flashes back to sunny summer days when we’d often come back from the woods together, Hoppo laden down with bits of wood and kindling for his mum.
Despite everything, I can’t help a small smile as he swings his leg off the bike and props it against the curb.
“Ed, what are you doing here?”
“I tried calling, but your mobile was off.”
“Oh yeah. Just over at the woods. Not a great signal.”
I nod. “Old habits die hard.”
He grins. “Mum’s memory might be going, but she would still never forgive me if we actually paid for firewood.”
Then the smile fades, perhaps as he sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Have you heard about Mickey?”
“What’s he done now?”
I open my mouth, my tongue flounders around and, eventually, my brain shoves it in the direction of the most obvious words: “He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
Funny how people always repeat that word, even though they know they’ve heard it correctly. A kind of denial by delay.
After a moment Hoppo asks, “How? What happened?”
“He drowned. In the river.”
“Jesus. Like his brother.”
“Not exactly. Look, can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Hoppo heaves his bike up the short pathway. I follow. He unlocks the door. We walk down a dark, narrow hallway. I haven’t visited Hoppo’s house since we were kids and, even then, we didn’t go inside much, because of the mess. We played in the back garden occasionally, but never for long because the garden was small, not much more than a yard. Often there was dog poo that hadn’t been picked up, some fresh, some white.
The house smells of sweat, stale food and disinfectant. To my right, through the open living-room door, I see the same worn floral sofa, the white lace covers a grubby nicotine yellow. In one corner, the TV. In another, a commode and a walking frame.
Hoppo’s mum sits in a high-backed chair, slightly to one side of the sofa, staring blankly at some daytime quiz show. Gwen Hopkins was always tiny, but illness and age seem to have shrunk her further. She looks lost within a long flowered dress and a green cardigan. Her wrists poke out of the sleeves like tiny husks of shriveled, dried meat.
“Mum?” Hoppo says gently. “Ed’s here. You remember Eddie Adams?”
“Hello, Mrs. Hopkins,” I say, in the slightly raised voice people always adopt with the elderly and the ill.
She turns slowly, eyes struggling to focus, or perhaps it’s her mind struggling to gain a grip. Then she smiles, revealing even, creamy-white dentures. “I remember you, Eddie. You had a brother. Sean?”
“Actually, Mum,” Hoppo steps in, “that was Mickey. Mickey had a brother called Sean.”
She frowns then smiles again. “Oh, of course. Mickey. How is he?”
Hoppo says quickly, “He’s fine, Mum. Really well.”
“Good, good. Could you get me some tea, David, dear?”
“Of course, Mum.” He glances at me. “I’ll just go and put the kettle on.”
I stand in the doorway and smile at Gwen awkwardly. There’s a bit of a smell in the room. I’m not sure the commode has been emptied recently.
“He’s a good boy,” Gwen says.
“Yes.”
She frowns. “Who are you?”
“Ed. Eddie. David’s friend.”
“Oh, yes. Where’s David?”
“Just in the kitchen.”
“Are you sure? I thought he took the dog for a walk.”
“The dog?”
“Murphy.”
“Right. No, I don’t think he took Murphy for a walk.”
She waves a knotted, veined hand at me. “You’re right. Murphy’s dead. I meant Buddy.”
Buddy was the dog Hoppo had after Murphy. Now also dead.
“Oh. Of course.”
I nod. She nods back. We nod at each other. We would have looked good in the back of a car.
She leans toward me over the arm of her chair. “I remember you, Eddie,” she says. “Your mother killed babies.”
My breath snags in my throat. Gwen continues to nod and smile, but there is something different about it; a sour twist at the corner of her lips, a sudden clarity in the faded blue eyes.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell them.” She leans forward, taps her nose and gives a slow, trembling wink. “I can keep a secret.”
“Here we go.” Hoppo reemerges, carrying a cup of tea. “Everything okay?”
I glance at Gwen, but the clarity is fading, eyes clouding once more with confusion.
“Fine,” I say. “We were just chatting.”
“Right, Mum. Tea.” He sets the cup on the table. “Remember, it’s hot. Blow on it first.”
“Thank you, Gordy.”
“Gordy?” I look at Hoppo.
“My dad,” he whispers.
“Oh.”
My own dad didn’t used to get people confused. But sometimes he would resort to calling me “son,” as if I wouldn’t notice that he had forgotten my name again.
Gwen settles back in her chair, staring at the TV, lost once more in her own world, or maybe some other world. Thin, I think, that fabric between realities. Maybe minds aren’t lost. Maybe they just slip through and find a different place to wander.
Hoppo offers me a brief, bleak smile. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen?”
“Sure,” I say.
If he’d suggested swimming with sharks I would have agreed, just to get out of that hot, stinking living room.
The kitchen isn’t much better. Dirty plates are piled in the sink. The worktops overflow with stacks of envelopes, old magazines, discount packs of juice and cola. The table has been hastily cleared, but I can still see the remnants of some old radio, or maybe the inner workings of an engine. I’m not a “hands on” man, whereas Hoppo was always good with his hands—putting things together and taking them apart again.
I sit on one of the old wooden chairs. It creaks and gives a little.
“Tea? Coffee?” Hoppo offers.
“Err, coffee, thanks.”
Hoppo goes to the kettle, which is at least brand new, and grabs a couple of mugs from the draining board.
He pours in some coffee straight from the jar, then turns to face me.
“So. What happened?”
Once again, I recount the events of the last three days. Hoppo listens quietly. His face doesn’t change until I come to the last thing.
“Gav says you got a letter, too?” I say.
He nods and adds boiling water to the coffee. “Yeah, a couple of weeks back.”
He walks to the fridge, gets out some milk, sniffs it and then adds a splash to both coffees. “I just thought it was some kind of sick joke.”
He brings the drinks over to the table and sits down opposite me.
“The police think it was an accident, though—Mickey’s death?”
I had been a little vague over this, but now I say, “At the moment.”
“You think that will change?”
“They found that letter.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“No?”
“What? You think someone is going to start picking us off, one by one, like something out of a book?”
Actually, I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, but now he’s said it, it seems all too plausible. And it makes me think of something else. Did Nicky get a letter, too?
“I’m joking,” he says. “You said yourself, Mickey was drunk. It was dark; there are no lights along that stretch of the path. He probably just fell in. Drunk people fall into rivers all the time.”
He’s right, but. There’s always a “but.” A nagging, annoying fellow, tying Boy Scout knots in your gut.
“Is there something else?”
“When Mickey came round that night, we were talking, and he said…he knew who really killed Elisa.”
“Bullshit.”
“Well, that’s what I thought, but what if he was telling the truth?”
Hoppo takes another sip of coffee. “So you think the ‘real’ killer pushed Mickey in the river?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Look, Mickey was always good at stirring things up. Seems like he’s even doing it now he’s dead.” He pauses. “Besides, you’re the only person he told about this theory, right?”
“I think so.”
“So how would the ‘real’ killer know Mickey was on to them?”
“Well—”
“Unless it was you.”
I stare at him.
Dull, rusty-red splodges. Blood.
“Joking,” he says.
“Of course.”
I sip my coffee. Of course.
—
On my way back home from Hoppo’s I take out my phone and call Chloe. I still feel that things aren’t quite right between us. Like something is hanging without resolution. It bothers me. Aside from Hoppo and Gav, she’s about the only real friend I have.
She answers on the third ring. “Hiya.”
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Right.”
“Contain your enthusiasm.”
“I’m trying.”
“ ’Sorry about my mum yesterday.”
“ ’S’okay. Your mum. Your house.”
“Well, I’m sorry anyway. What are you doing for lunch?”
“I’m at work.”
“Oh. I thought you were off today.”
“Someone’s ill.”
“Right. Well—”
“Look, apology accepted, Ed. I have to go. Customer.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll see you later.”
“Maybe.”
She ends the call. I stare at the phone for a moment. Chloe never makes anything easy. I pause and light a cigarette, thinking about picking up a sandwich on the way home. Then I reconsider. Chloe might be at work, but she must still have a lunch break. I decide I won’t be put off so easily. I turn around and head back into town.
I’ve never actually visited Chloe at work before. I have to confess that an “alternative rock/Goth” clothing store is not exactly my usual habitat. I suppose I was a little scared of embarrassing her, and myself.
I’m not even sure exactly where it is. I wander through town, dodging tourists and elderly shoppers and eventually discover it, up a side street, sandwiched between a secondhand store and a shop selling silver jewelry and wind chimes. I look up at the sign: Gear (the marijuana symbol suggesting more than just clothing). Feeling about a century old, I push open the door.
The shop is dimly lit and loud. Something that could be music—or could just as easily be someone being pulled limb from limb—screams from speakers above my head and immediately makes my eardrums ache.
A few skinny teens lurk around the clothing—staff members or customers, I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that Chloe is not here. I frown. A slight young lady with scarlet hair on one side, a shaved skull on the other and an abundance of silver in her face stands behind the till. As she turns, I see that the T-shirt draped over her skinny frame bears the statement: “Pierced. Penetrated. Mutilated.” Nice.
I walk up to the till. Pierced Girl looks up and smiles. “Hi. Can I help you?”
“Erm, actually, I was looking for someone else.”
“Shame.”
I laugh, a little nervously. “Err, she works here. A friend. Chloe Jackson.”
She frowns. “Chloe Jackson?”
“Yes, thin. Dark hair. Wears a lot of black.”
She continues to stare at me, and I realize that could describe pretty much everyone in here.
“Sorry. It doesn’t ring a bell. You’re sure she works here?”
I was, but now I’m beginning to doubt myself. Perhaps I’ve got the wrong shop.
“Is there another shop like this in Anderbury?”
She considers. “Not really.”
“Right.”
Perhaps seeing the look on my face and taking pity on the poor, confused middle-aged man, she says, “Look. I’ve only be
en here a couple of weeks. Let me ask Mark. He’s the manager.”
“Thanks,” I say, even though that doesn’t really answer anything. Chloe said she was at work today, and, as far as I am aware, she has been coming to work here for the last nine months.
I wait, staring at a row of watches with leering red skulls on their faces and a rack of birthday cards with greetings like “Fuck Birthdays” and “Happy Birthday, you cunt” printed on them.
After a few minutes a lanky youth with a shaved head and an enormous, bushy beard ambles up.
“Hey. I’m Mark, the manager.”
“Hi.”
“You’re looking for Chloe?”
I feel a small measure of relief. He knows her.
“Yes. I thought she worked here.”
“She did, but not recently.”
“Oh? Well, when did she leave?”
“Must have been about a month ago.”
“Right. I see.” Although I really don’t. “And we’re definitely talking about the same Chloe?”
“Thin, black hair, often wears it in pigtails?”
“Sounds like her.”
He eyes me cautiously. “You say she’s a friend?”
“I thought she was.”
“To be honest with you, I had to let her go.”
“How do you mean?”
“She had an attitude. She was rude to a few customers.”
Again, sounds like Chloe.
“I thought that was expected in a shop like this?”
He grins. “Insouciance, not insults. Anyway, then she had this outright screaming match with a woman who came in. I had to step in. Thought it was going to come to blows. After that, I sacked her.”
“I see.”
I let all of this slowly digest, like salmonella. I’m aware that they are both looking at me.
“Sorry,” I say. “It seems I’ve been given some misinformation.” A polite way of saying I have been lied to, by someone I thought I knew. “Thanks for your help.” I walk toward the door, and then I have my Columbo moment. I turn. “The woman Chloe got into an argument with—what did she look like?”
“Slim, attractive for an older woman. Long red hair.”
I freeze, every nerve ending standing to attention.
“Red hair?”
“Yeah. Flaming red. Actually, she was pretty hot.”
“I don’t suppose you caught her name?”
