by Daniel Cole
Winter was pretty distracted with his breakfast at this point, which, on closer inspection, had most definitely come into contact with something else in there.
‘Did you find Coates?’ Chambers asked her.
That was an easy one.
‘No,’ replied Marshall. ‘He spends Wednesday’s at McDonald’s.’
‘McDonald’s?’
‘McDonald’s,’ nodded Marshall.
‘Then let’s go. Wait, where’s Winter?’ Chambers asked her.
‘Over there,’ said Marshall, pointing in his direction.
He raised his bin breakfast in greeting.
‘I really respect that guy,’ Chambers might have said. ‘He’s the best.’
Marshall nodded in agreement: ‘Yeah, Winter’s the coolest.’
‘I am the coolest,’ smiled Winter, binning the sullied bap for good this time and getting to his feet as they crossed the road. ‘Morning,’ he said conversationally.
‘Sorry about last night,’ Chambers told him, sounding better, but without the aching heart bit, which didn’t feel quite as sincere somehow. Winter waved it off. ‘This yours?’ he asked, frowning at the U-Drive van he seemed to be clambering into.
Winter patted the dashboard proudly and then wiped his sticky hand on the seat:
‘Rented this morning … In case we needed to transport a prisoner in the back.’
Seeing as they’d only just made up, Chambers diplomatically bit his tongue. Following Marshall up into the cabin, he strapped himself in, the three of them sitting in a row like an audience watching the dullest movie ever.
‘We’d better catch you up on what we were discussing,’ said Marshall.
‘No need,’ said Winter knowingly. ‘McDonald’s anyone?’
Both Marshall and Chambers looked blank. Suspecting his lip reading skills still needed more work, he started up the engine.
‘Perhaps you’d better catch me up.’
The parking bays at Tall Oaks Nursing Home hadn’t been designed with poorly driven, long-wheelbase rental vans in mind.
‘You’re going to hit it,’ warned Chambers, peering down at the shrinking gap between them and a new Fiesta.
‘No, I’m not,’ insisted Winter.
‘Why would I lie?!’ Chambers asked him.
‘Just reverse and try again,’ Marshall told him.
‘Fine!’ huffed Winter, searching for the gear. ‘Give me a break; I haven’t driven in a while.’
‘Caution: vehicle reversing. Caution: vehicle reversing …’
‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Chambers, shielding his face. ‘If Coates spots either of us, we’re blown. Just park out on the road.’
Finding a space directly across the street from the nursing home, the three of them climbed out and then bundled into the back to finalise their plans.
‘Notice the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier Winter almost backed into?’ Chambers asked them. ‘It’s Coates’s. He’s in there.’ He removed something from his coat pocket.
‘Is that … a wire?’ Winter asked excitedly.
‘Didn’t want you going in there alone alone,’ he told Marshall, passing it to her.
Feeling a little foolish for not thinking of it herself, she set about feeding it under her shirt.
‘We’ll be listening,’ Chambers assured her. ‘First sign of trouble, me and Winter will come running.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, lifting her collar towards her mouth, Chambers holding a set of headphones up to his ear: ‘Testing: One. Two. One. Two.’
He nodded: ‘So, what’s your “in”?’
‘I’m looking around the home with a view of moving my mother there. Taking care of her the past year has finally got too much and prevented me going to uni to study my one passion in life …’
‘Sculpture,’ the three of them chimed together.
‘I like it,’ said Chambers.
‘Do we know what condition his mother is suffering with?’ asked Marshall.
‘Afraid not.’
‘Shame,’ she sighed. ‘Could’ve used it as common ground. Oh well, wish me luck,’ she said, getting up and jumping out without a moment’s hesitation, sliding the door closed behind her.
‘Bye then,’ mumbled Chambers.
He handed Winter a pair of headphones, who eagerly put them straight on.
‘Good thing you came back!’ he yelled across the van while playing with the volume controls.
‘I’m not back,’ muttered Chambers, more to himself than the man who quite clearly couldn’t hear him, as he pulled his own headphones over his ears.
It was mid-morning coffee; perfect timing. No one even gave Marshall a second look as she ambled among the residents and assorted relatives in the crowded recreation room. Quickly discovering that Coates wasn’t there, she edged towards a set of doors labelled Residential Wing.
Waiting for an opportune moment, a conveniently timed Scrabble dispute broke out, distracting several of the staff as she hurried through unnoticed, a scruffy whiteboard on the wall proving useful:
Room 20 Judith Hart
Room 21 Meredith Coates
Room 22 Carol McNiell
Distressed shouts filled the corridor, growing louder as the room numbers ascended. By the time she passed room seventeen, Marshall was able to decipher occasional words:
‘It’s poison! It’s all poison!’
There was a loud crash and then a healthcare worker emerged a few doorways along, wearing both a cup of coffee down their uniform and a pissed-off expression. Marshall froze guiltily, but the man stormed by without paying her the remotest bit of attention.
Passing rooms nineteen and twenty, she stopped outside the open door to room twenty-one, the commotion inside jarring with the soothing sound of someone singing:
‘If all … we have … is the time… we share … then I … have all … I need.’
The shouting subsided as a frail voice joined the first:
‘And if I … could spend … all my time … with you … then time … is a friend … to me.’
‘Is that better, Mum?’ the man asked, Marshall able to see him take the woman’s wrinkled hand in his. ‘Come on. Shall we sit you up and get some of this coffee into you?’
Deciding there was no way to engineer a ‘chance’ encounter under the circumstances, Marshall turned back and hurried out before she was seen, something about the exchange she’d witnessed niggling away at her as she climbed back into the van.
‘Forget what you went in there for?’ Winter asked jokingly. ‘Serial killer. You went in there … for a serial killer.’
‘It wasn’t the time,’ she bit back. ‘He was feeding his mum in her room. She seemed confused.’
‘Think we’ll get anything out of her?’ asked Chambers.
‘Based on what I just saw: not likely. But she could be different later.’
He nodded: ‘Let’s see where he goes next.’
Another forty minutes passed before they watched Robert Coates come out of the nursing home, whistling as he spun his keys on his finger. His hair was shorter now, his insect-like features softened considerably by modern glasses that suited him far better.
‘Looks like someone found some swagger since we last saw him,’ said Winter.
Marshall frowned, the same nagging doubts returning as she watched the university professor get into his car and drive away.
‘OK,’ said Chambers. ‘Follow him.’
Winter crunched the van into gear.
‘Caution: vehicle reversing …’
‘He’s going home,’ Chambers told them, recognising the area.
‘Can you get ahead of him?’ Marshall asked Winter, who turned the corner and put his foot down, the sound of his security deposit rattling into the road as he hit the speed bumps at forty-five miles an hour.
‘What are you thinking?’ Chambers asked her in interest.
‘Chance encounter … of sorts.’
‘We’re here!’ announced Win
ter, stamping on the brake and pointing towards the house. ‘The one with the gnomes.’
Grabbing her rucksack, Marshall flung the door open.
‘Hey,’ Chambers called after her. ‘We’ll be listening.’ She slammed the door and hurried through the front gate. ‘Again: goodbye,’ he muttered, Winter parking them a little way down the street, both ducking under the dashboard when the familiar maroon car rolled by.
Winter was first to put his headphones back on.
‘… One. Two. Testing: One. Two,’ Marshall whispered through the speakers, sounding uncharacteristically anxious. ‘I really hope you can hear me …’ They watched in the wing mirror as Coates climbed out of his car, pausing as he approached the open gate. ‘… Because he’s coming.’
CHAPTER 19
‘What are you doing?’
Startled, Marshall dropped her sketchbook, which landed open on the apparently ironically intended Welcome mat. She spun round, looking both guilty and embarrassed.
‘I asked what you were doing?’
‘I ummm … Mr Coates?’ she asked timidly. ‘Sorry. I should say Professor Coates.’
The moment the words left her lips, she watched the man before her transform into a different person entirely: posture stiffening as he grew another two inches taller, mouth pursing to accommodate the buck teeth, eyes appearing to shrink back behind the glasses. Although playing the part of the flustered student, for a moment Marshall was genuinely rendered speechless.
‘That’s correct,’ he replied, studying her every bit as intensely as she was him.
‘Oh! I was just putting a note through your door,’ said Marshall. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to …’ She extended a hand and took a step towards him. ‘Let me start again. Hi! I’m Laura.’
Giving her a feeble handshake, he immediately took a step back, re-establishing the space between them as he awaited an explanation.
‘… I’m going to be moving into the street. Number sixty-five,’ she lied, having spotted the Let sign in the garden as they’d sped past. ‘I was talking to the lady next door … You don’t happen to know her name, do you?’
Coates shook his head, in no way appearing to warm to his unexpected visitor.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘we got talking about art and the such, and I showed her some of my drawings,’ she gestured to the sketchbook in her hands. ‘And then I said I was hoping to study it at university, at which point, she told me a Birkbeck College art professor lived just a few doors down!’
‘I see,’ said Coates, relaxing ever so slightly.
‘So, being neighbourly … or just brazenly cheeky, depending how you want to look at it, I was hoping we might be able to have a chat over a cup of tea or something? Just to get some advice about the best courses for me to apply for, what I might be able to do to give myself the best chance of being accepted.’ She smiled hopefully.
Coates glanced down at his watch: ‘Regrettably, today isn’t—’
‘Just one cup of tea,’ Marshall pressed him, interrupting his excuse. ‘Everybody needs tea!’
He looked torn: ‘I don’t have long.’
‘Oh my God. Thank you so much!’ He turned back towards the front gate. ‘Actually!’ she blurted. ‘I probably should’ve mentioned that I don’t have any furniture in there yet … or crockery … or a kettle – ulterior motives for accosting you like this!’ she laughed, knowing that she was pushing her luck.
Coates fixed his insect eyes on her, Marshall unable to help but shift uncomfortably, it feeling as though he were staring straight through her laughable charade.
‘Your medium?’ he asked, testing her.
‘Sculpture,’ she fired back.
‘Modern? Abstract?’
‘Classical.’
He nodded in approval: ‘A woman after my own heart … Artist?’
‘Not a fair question. Could you pick just one?’
‘Bernini.’
‘Then I’ll say …’ She took a deep breath, deliberating how far she dared push him so soon: ‘… Cellini.’
A hundred yards down the street, Winter noticed Chambers tense up and close his hands together as if in prayer, for some reason behaving as though she’d given the wrong answer.
Marshall didn’t dare breathe as she watched Coates consider her response, his emotionless features giving nothing away … But then a toothy smile broke across his face:
‘One of the few true masters of the discipline,’ he agreed, the approval as much a compliment of Marshall’s taste as it was of the artist.
He gestured towards the front door.
‘Oh, shit!’ exclaimed Winter, far louder than he needed to. ‘She’s going inside!’
‘She’s fine,’ said Chambers despite the concern painted over his face.
‘Thought about something to say?’ Winter asked vaguely, lifting his headphones.
‘What?’
‘You know, if we have to burst in there,’ he explained. ‘It’s been seven years. Seems like one of us should say something cool, don’t you think?’
Chambers looked at his colleague as though he were an idiot:
‘All yours,’ he told him, trying to focus on the feed from Marshall’s wire as she stepped into the house.
As Coates crouched down to collect up the post and crumpled note, Marshall’s eyes scanned the precarious piles of paperwork, years-worth of bills and correspondence covering every inch of surface along the hallway, one letter in particular catching her attention. But just as she took a step towards it, footfalls came charging down the stairs at her.
The black Labrador almost knocked her off her feet as it jumped up excitedly.
‘Hello,’ she laughed, rubbing its ears. ‘He’s gorgeous,’ she told Coates, who showed no affection whatsoever when the puppy pawed at his legs. ‘What’s his name?’
‘I haven’t got round to choosing one yet,’ he replied, leading the way into the kitchen, the Labrador bounding after him.
‘Should I take my shoes off?’ Marshall called, loitering in the hallway.
‘No need.’
The house was uncomfortably hot and smelled old and fusty, time-weathered wallpaper climbing to elaborate Artex ceilings, passé ornaments laying claim to every spare space; an unconventional way for a thirty-one-year-old professional to choose to live. She carried on through to the 1960s kitchen, where Coates was scooping dog food into a bowl.
‘Do you live here alone?’ Marshall asked conversationally.
‘I do,’ he replied, washing his hands and filling the kettle. ‘My mother had to go into a home,’ he explained. ‘I kept it just as she left it in case she ever came back, but that seems unlikely now.’ He lit the hob and placed the kettle on top. ‘May I?’ he asked of the sketchbook in her hands.
‘Oh,’ said Marshall uncomfortably, feeling foolish for not anticipating this eventuality, knowing that the three pictures contained within could obliterate her cover in an instant. ‘They’re not very good,’ she said shyly.
‘Still. I’d very much like to see them.’
‘I’m sorry, but no,’ she laughed, putting it down on the surface behind her.
As the water began to simmer, Coates removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, the Labrador whimpering and taking shelter beneath the kitchen table.
Also sensing the abrupt change in atmosphere, Marshall was tempted to make her excuses and leave, but instead managed to force a bashful smile onto her face:
‘OK. OK. But be nice,’ she said, picking the sketchbook back up and handing it over.
Replacing his glasses, Coates took the book to the table and sat down, the hiss of steam escaping the spout hitting occasional notes, as if still learning to whistle. Marshall watched anxiously from across the room as he opened up the first page to Rodin’s The Thinker brought to life in pencil and negative space.
‘It’s good,’ he told her as the kettle started to sing.
Marshall smiled back nervously: ‘OK. That’s enough. Could I have
it back now?’
Ignoring her, he turned the page, showing no discernible emotion when he was presented with the tragic scene of Michelangelo’s Pietà; mankind’s saviour sprawled pathetically across his mother’s lap.
The kettle began to shake, as if trying to escape the flame. Coates remained where he was, however, as he flicked to the unfinished final drawing: Benvenuto Cellini’s dark imagining of Perseus with the Head of Medusa, the serpent-haired Gorgon depicted in gruesome detail, the decapitation now the trophy of a half-god.
Finding the subsequent pages blank, Coates closed the book and got to his feet, the steam now screaming out of the kettle behind him. Finally taking it off the heat, he stood there looking at her.
Conscious that he had just armed himself, Marshall didn’t take her eyes off the container of boiling liquid in his hand.
‘You’re a very clever young woman, Jordan,’ he told her.
‘Thank you,’ replied Marshall before realising her mistake. With a frog in her throat, she corrected him: ‘… It’s Laura.’
‘I didn’t recognise you at first,’ he said, his repellent little mouth curling into a sneer.
Marshall felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. She glanced down the hall to the front door longingly.
‘It’s not like me at all,’ he continued, still just standing there with the bubbling kettle. ‘I remember everyone … What does that say about you, I wonder?’
You’re just a lost little girl who latched on to the first thing that came along to give her life some meaning – Chambers’ words from the previous evening returning to side with their enemy.
When he took a step towards her, she backed into a unit, sending one of the ceramic figurines tumbling to the floor:
‘God! I’m so sorry,’ she said, crouching down to collect up the pieces but slicing her shaking hand open in the process. ‘I think you’re mistaking me for somebody else,’ she told him unconvincingly as a steady trickle of blood ran down her arm.
‘I think not. Alphonse’s friend,’ he nodded, closing his eyes to revisit the memory. ‘You worked together at the leisure centre. He used to talk about you a lot – not all good things, I’m afraid to say.’ Feeling tears prickling her eyes, Marshall shook her head. ‘Why are you really here?’ he asked, positioning himself between her and the doorway.
