Death and Faxes

by Julie Howlin

  ‘You fainted, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. You’re going to be okay - just sit quiet for a while. I’ll leave you the bowl in case you need it. If you feel faint again, just put your head down between your knees until you feel better.’ She squeezed my hand and left me.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ asked my dad, sitting down in the seat the nurse had just vacated and holding my hand.

  ‘I think so,’ I said, weakly. ‘It was just the thought of... seeing... oh, God...’

  ‘You don’t have to go in and see her,’ he said, gently. ‘I’m sure she’d understand. Don’t listen to Caroline. Nobody’s forcing you.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad. Would you take me home, please?’

  He dropped me at my door and declined my offer of a cup of tea. He must have known I wanted nothing more than to be alone. I still felt faint and slightly sick.

  My flat looked exactly as it had done when I had left it that morning. My world was so different, but the flat was the same. The estate was still the same. I have a little one bedroom apartment all to myself, and I’m allowed to keep my cat, Thumbelina. (Every self-respecting psychic must have a cat, after all). Thumbelina is so called because she was the runt of the litter and was so tiny she could sit in the palm of my hand when I got her. I think Thumbelina is psychic, too. Occasionally she hisses at things in the shadows that even I cannot see. Most of the time, though, she’s very loving, though often when I don’t need her to be - when I’m trying to meditate or read, or when I’m with Daniel...

  On the down side, the flat just happens to be on one of the roughest, most run down estates in London. It's cosy and warm inside, and I've made it my own as far as I can afford to, but outside is a concrete jungle. There’s no nature, save for a tiny patch of grass with signs saying people mustn’t let their dogs foul it (but they do anyway) and that kids mustn’t play ball games (but they do anyway). That sign is pretty redundant since once the kids round here are old enough to read, they aren’t into ball games any more. It’s drugs and gang warfare. I hate coming back here after dark. I know plenty of protection spells but still feel extremely vulnerable if I have to walk past a gang of kids on the landing. Just before I get off the bus I always imagine I’m in a bubble of white light and ask for protection from the angels. Sounds loopy, I know, but it helps. I like to imagine that as I walk through the estate, I’m flanked by two very large and very hunky guardian angels. I imagine them as tall, broad, blond, with chiselled features. I have to say I have never been bothered by the gangs. I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve really manifested some cosmic minders, or if I just look too impoverished to have anything worth carrying out a mugging for.

  The battered old sofa still stood under the window, covered with a leopard print throw. Thumbelina was curled up on it. Opposite the sofa was the TV and above the TV my poster of the Canadian Rockies which I liked to imagine was my view from the window instead of all that concrete.

  Two mugs, one with a picture of a tabby cat wearing a crown from a Christmas cracker and one with a picture of ‘Little Miss Messy’ still sat on the coffee table, beside the remains of the fish and chip supper Daniel had brought last night. There was a copy of the local paper, a menu for the Indian takeaway and a copy of Psychic News.

  In the far corner, my little meditation space had not changed, either. The low table covered with a velvet cloth, some crystals and candles, an incense burner and a large white feather, had not moved. The large cushion still lay in front of it.

  The telephone, a modern cordless handset, Caroline’s housewarming present to me, sat on the floor beside the cushion. It seemed to be mocking me for my actions the previous day. Although I was exhausted I went over and plugged it back in. I was never going to make that mistake again.

  I could see through the door to the kitchen - Thumbelina’s bowls and litter tray were still in the corner. On my right, the bathroom door lay open. I could see the olive green sink and toilet Daniel always said was naff, but I couldn’t afford to change it. The bedroom door was open but I couldn’t see into it. I knew that the bed would be unmade, the sheets wrinkled and twisted by my tossing and turning and my strange dreams.

  It was a drab little flat which I did my best to cheer up, but my pathological untidiness always seemed to negate my efforts. I did not have the energy to deal with that today. I stumbled through to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

  Too grief-stricken to cry and too tired to sleep, I lay there, numb, wishing Daniel was there, but he wasn’t. He was cheering West Ham on somewhere. I couldn’t even remember where he had said he was going. Even if he had been here, he wasn’t comfortable talking about death. He’d never told me that one of his ex-girlfriends had died tragically just a few weeks before, a victim of that serial killer my mother constantly worried about. One of his mates had taken me aside and told me, quietly, saying I shouldn’t mention anything to do with dying in front of Daniel for a while.

  The people I usually turned to in a crisis were my best friend from school, Jess, and Simon, a friend from university. He’d been a mature student, a bit of an outsider, and having been there myself, I’d made the effort to get to know him, and had found him to be fun, kind and generous to a fault. Just what I was looking for in a man, but it became clear very quickly that I wasn’t his type. Nevertheless, we became friends and shared student digs in our last year.

  Jess's answerphone kicked in quickly with a bubbly message. ‘I can't come to the phone right now, because I'm out on a DATE! Yes, you did hear that right! And yes, it was a bit sudden. I only met him yesterday. Leave a message and I'll call when I get back!’ Out on a date? At eleven thirty a.m.? That probably meant the date had gone very well indeed and it was anybody's guess when she'd surface again. It was all right for some, I thought, and hung up.

  I tried Simon. A strange man answered. ‘He's in the shower. Who shall I say called?’

  ‘Never mind,’ I mumbled, not wanting to explain to a complete stranger why I wanted to speak to Simon just now. He'd clearly got lucky as well and I didn't want to spoil it for him.

  I tried tuning in to the spirit world, but nothing happened. No one came. They come when it suits them, not when I really need them.

  I had wished to be alone, but now I felt abandoned by everyone I loved. I wept until my head ached, and finally fell asleep. This time, there were no dreams.

  **

  I woke up all alone in my double bed, and the dream I'd had the previous night came back to me, the one about the jigsaw. It had been quite detailed, and I wondered what it meant. I wanted to run it by the one person in my life who totally understood this stuff. I reached for the phone. I was halfway through dialling her number when I remembered that she wasn't going to pick up. Ever again.

  As I hung up, another horrible thought popped into my head. What if the shock and stress of Becky's parents threatening legal action had killed Gran? That meant that, in truth, I had killed her.

  5 jamie swan

  Sitting in front of a white-haired lady gazing into a crystal ball was not exactly what I’d imagined I’d be doing when I joined the force. I’d imagined it would be varied, exciting, challenging, and let’s have no illusions here, sometimes boring, frustrating and frightening. But weird and bizarre never quite came into it.

  I first wanted to be a detective when I was really small and imagined I would be like Kojak or Starsky or one of those guys in the 70s US cop shows. Running around with a gun; shooting bad guys; driving fast cars and smashing them up; having a partner who would die for me - what small boy wouldn’t find that appealing? As I got older, I realised that being a detective in the UK would never be quite that exciting, but I was drawn to it just the same.

  It felt like what I was always meant to do. You couldn’t say my family had anything to do with it - far from it. I’ll never forget the day I told them I was joining the police force. We were having a family meal together - unusual in itself. My mother had dished up stew and mashed potatoes and t
he meaty aroma was making my mouth water.

  ‘Graham, will you put that paper down, please?’ she said to my father. ‘When I said I wanted us to eat together, I meant together in mind and spirit, not just in body. Can’t we be a family for once?’ My dad tutted and reluctantly put his copy of The Sun aside.

  ‘And Debbie, could you try not to look so bored? And stop playing with your hair at the table.’

  My sister screwed her face up and flicked her ponytail over her shoulder. ‘Can’t I eat in the other room, Mum? I’m missing Top of the Pops.’

  ‘No,’ said Mum, firmly, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘We’re going to spend time together as a family, and we’re going to talk to each other like adults. I’m sick of all the bickering and I’m sick of not knowing what’s going on in any of your heads and any of your lives.’

  Mum sat down and picked up her knife and fork, and the rest of us followed suit. We started to eat. The silence weighed heavily upon us, and I was thankful that at least we had eating to occupy us and make it bearable. The silence was particularly oppressive for me, because I knew I had something to say. It wasn’t news I looked forward to breaking.

  ‘Right then,’ Mum said. ‘I want to know what you’ve all been doing at school and work today. I’m stuck here cooking and cleaning all day long. The only way I find out what the outside world is like is if you tell me. So does anybody have any news they want to share? Debbie? What did you do at school today?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Debbie replied.

  ‘I don’t somehow think that any school allows a class of thirteen-year-olds to do nothing, Debbie. So what did you do?’

  ‘Maths. English. P.E. Science.’

  ‘That’s better. What did you learn?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad education is free, then,’ Mum said. ‘Or you’d be a total waste of your dad’s hard earned money.’

  Debbie pulled a face. Mum sighed. Her family meal idea was not a resounding success so far. She turned to me. ‘You’ve been very quiet, Jamie,’ she said. ‘What have you been doing at school?’

  I think she hoped that I would save the situation. She was wrong.

  ‘I had a careers interview,’ I said.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Mum, brightening. ‘What happened? Have you decided on a career?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I couldn't put off telling them any longer. ‘I’m going to join the police.’

  There was an explosive splutter from my father’s direction.

  ‘Oh, Jamie - are you sure about that?’ Mum said.

  ‘Yes, I am. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. It’s a good secure job, and I have to do it if I want to be a detective.’

  ‘But Jamie, isn’t it rather dangerous? Chasing criminals? You could get shot or something.’

  ‘Mum, they won’t send me out after bad guys until I’ve done the training course and I know what I'm doing.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jamie. I suppose you have to do what you have to do, but I wish you’d chosen something a bit safer.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mum. They probably won’t have him anyway,’ Debbie put in. ‘They probably don’t take policemen with earrings.’

  ‘I won’t wear them to the interview,’ I said. ‘Or at work.’ It’s not as if I wore them for religious reasons, unless a determination to do anything and everything to annoy my dad could be counted as a religion.

  ‘I never thought I’d see the day,’ my dad said, ‘when I’d have filth in my family.’ He picked up his plate and left the table.

  Nothing I might have chosen to do as a career would meet with his approval, I knew that. I might as well follow my heart. I’d long since given up trying to please him, but it still hurt. I wasn’t going to let that stop me, though.

  Having gone through the accepted route of spending a couple of years as a copper on the beat while attending every forensics course I could find, I finally got where I wanted to be - the guy in plain clothes trying to figure out who did it. The problem is, unlike the TV shows, you can’t always work it out in an hour. Not even in a day, a week, a month or a year. Some cases are not even solved after a decade.

  There are killers out there we know will strike again. Once, twice, three times or more before we catch them. I used to wonder, frequently, whether if I was better at my job, if I’d spotted one extra clue, made one extra connection, some victims would still be alive today.

  My boss, Inspector Fleming, always said you can only do your best. That’s all you can do. We get them in the end, he said, and while any deaths are regrettable, we know we’ve still prevented several more.

  Fleming isn’t the most conventional of coppers. I suppose that’s why I get on with him so well, because neither am I. Like my TV heroes, I’ll bend the rules and do whatever I have to do to solve a case, which is why I ended up talking to a psychic. It was Fleming’s idea. I thought it was a bit whacko at first, even for me, but he said she was excellent. Now he was planning to retire and the end of his career was in sight, he’d begun to delegate a lot of his field work to me, and that included visiting Maggie Flynn. Maggie Flynn was a resource he used whenever he was stuck on a case; one that I was set to inherit once he was gone and enjoying daily rounds of golf in the Algarve.

  Our association with Mrs Flynn was strictly off the record. I really wasn’t sure about this psychic lark at first. I’d always relied on my knowledge and deduction skills, but, as Fleming said, my concern to get cases solved as quickly as possible suggested I’d be willing to give anything a go if it meant a killer being caught sooner rather than later.

  I had no idea what to expect but when she came to the door. I was struck by how utterly normal she seemed. She wasn’t very tall - only about five feet or so. Her hair was pure white and framed her face with softly permed curls. There was a faint dusting of powder on her downy cheeks. She was plump, and wore a lilac cardigan, which was a perfect match for her nylon dress. A string of pearls around her neck completed the ensemble. She wore thick American tan support tights and fluffy sheepskin slippers. The general impression was of cuddly softness - except for her eyes, which bore deep into my soul like sapphire lasers.

  ‘So, you’re Inspector Fleming’s right-hand man?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that. I think he’s grooming me to replace him when he retires. I’m Detective Inspector Jamie Swan, by the way.’

  She looked me up and down, appraising me. I wondered what criteria she was measuring me against, and whether I had the remotest chance of passing muster.

  ‘Hmph. He told me he was going. Oh, well. Life moves on, I suppose. You’d better come in.’

  I followed her down the hallway. She made her way slowly, leaning on a stick. She showed me into her front room and waved a wrinkled hand towards a faded sofa. ‘Tea?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ I said.

  I looked around the room as she clattered around in the kitchen. I noticed the small table with a crystal ball and some cards on it. The shelves in the alcoves behind it were full of objects and figurines of angels. It was all quite alien to me, so my eyes rested on something more familiar - a sideboard crowded with photographs of her family.

  Maggie returned with a tray on which rested a teapot covered with a knitted red and white striped tea cosy, two china cups, and two plates with a slice of fruit cake on each. I watched her pour the tea and add a spoonful of sugar to each cup. ‘Er, I don’t actually take sugar,’ I said.

  ‘Oh. Inspector Fleming did,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you another...’ she began to struggle to her feet, with some difficulty.

  ‘It’s fine, really,’ I said, not wanting to cause her any extra work. ‘I’ll drink it as it is. Don’t worry.’ In all the time I was to spend with her, she never got it into her head that I didn’t take sugar in my tea. She would always add it without asking me, assuming that all detective inspectors took sugar in their tea. After a while I gave up trying to correct her.

  ‘How long have you be
en a detective then? You look awfully young to me.’

  I do look young for my age. My hair never darkened from the pale blond of childhood, and unlike many of my contemporaries, I have not started losing it. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a detective, ever since watching Poirot on TV,’ I told her. ‘So I went into it straight from school.’

  ‘That’s good, then,’ she smiled. There was a lull in the conversation and I was aware of her looking at me. Knowing she was psychic, I felt a little uncomfortable, wondering what she was seeing, what she knew about me. ‘You’re not married, are you?’ she said, peering over her reading glasses.

  ‘No,’ I replied, wondering if she was being told this by some dead person or if she’d merely noticed the lack of a ring on my wedding finger.

  ‘Girlfriend?’ she enquired.

  ‘Not anymore,’ I said, regretfully. Lisa had moved out just a month before. I’d known it was over several months before that, but I still missed her. I’d been thankful for my challenging job, which I could throw myself into and put her to the back of my mind, at least until I turned out the bedside light and remembered that there was no warm body next to me to reach for.

  There was an awkward silence. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about Lisa, so I changed the subject by pointing at one of the photos on her dresser and asking, ‘Are those your grandchildren?’ I noticed that one was blonde, one was brunette, and one was a redhead. The redhead was much younger than the other two.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She picked up the picture and put it in my hands. I could tell by the glow on her face that she was very proud of them. The oldest had a plum job in the city, the youngest was going to be really creative and the middle one had inherited her gift. I politely studied the picture. The blonde looked quite haughty and the redhead was plump with puppy fat and covered in freckles. The brunette was very pretty - it struck me as odd that someone who could do what Maggie could do should look so normal, and be so attractive.