Dead Time

by Anne Cassidy

  ‘You think it was him?’ Rose said, her voice low.

  ‘We don’t know. We’re still looking for the weapon. It could have been thrown anywhere in the cemetery or kept by the killer.’

  They were standing on the corner. Neither of them spoke. Eventually Henry broke the quiet.

  ‘About the other night? When I mentioned the Sundown Club?’

  Rose stiffened.

  ‘I probably didn’t describe it very well. We meet once a week, on a Wednesday night. There’s music and table football. And sometimes we have speakers.’

  Rose looked at Henry in consternation. Did she really seem like the sort of girl who would want to hang around with a load of misfit teenagers playing table games?

  ‘I know that this isn’t a very good time. What with all this stuff going on. I just wanted you to keep it in mind. Some of the kids who come say that it’s a cool place to be …’

  ‘Henry,’ she said, interrupting him.

  ‘I could do with some help, you see. Someone to help me run it, decide on activities and so on. I think you would be great.’

  ‘Henry, stop …’

  ‘Yes?’

  When would adults realise that as soon as they pronounced something as cool it ceased to be so?

  ‘I will never want to go to your club. It will never be the right time.’

  He was quiet for a minute, his eyes looking further up the road.

  ‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘Thanks for being straight about it.’

  She’d hurt his feelings. Henry was all grown up, at least he had a proper grown-up job, but underneath the uniform and the bicycle clips he seemed young. He got on to his bike and pushed himself off from the pavement with a foot. She wanted to be able to say something nice to him but he rode off without another word. She felt guilty. She watched him join the traffic on the High Street, then she walked back up the road towards her grandmother’s house.

  The police were still looking for the knife.

  She imagined a line of policemen walking across the cemetery, stepping gingerly across graves, gently sidestepping headstones, walking round mausoleums. She pictured a row of faces, stern, concentrated. Only the stone angels’ faces would remain unperturbed, peaceful, their eyes staring blindly around. Silent witnesses to what had happened.

  ELEVEN

  Rose knocked on the door of the Camden Flat. She glanced towards Lettuce and Stuff and saw that it was busy, the queue almost to the street door. She felt hungry and wondered what Josh had for them to eat. Footsteps sounded from inside the flat and she waited impatiently for Josh to open the door. Lunch and a walk across the Millennium Bridge. She’d looked forward to it. It suggested a kind of normality. An afternoon out with her stepbrother. It was a million miles away from Parkway East Station and St Michael’s Cemetery.

  The sound of the bolts being pulled back interrupted her thoughts. She started to smile as the door opened but frowned instead. It was Skeggsie.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Josh told me to come round,’ she said, giving a momentary fake smile.

  ‘He’s not here. He had to go out.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t he say anything?’

  Skeggsie shook his head. Rose noticed then that he was holding the door in front of his body as if to shield himself. She sighed and looked round.

  ‘Can I come in and wait?’

  Skeggsie seemed to think about it for a moment.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  He held the door back and she walked in and went up the stairs. She heard him lock the door and rolled her eyes. She stood at the top of the stairs as her mobile beeped. It was a text from Joshua. A last-minute tutorial came up. Be back in 15 mins or so. Sorry.

  Skeggsie got to the top of the stairs. He was a little breathless.

  ‘He sent me a text. He’ll be here soon,’ she said.

  Skeggsie blew through his teeth.

  ‘You want a drink?’ he said. ‘A tea or coffee?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘It’s all in the kitchen. Help yourself,’ he said, hooking his thumb towards the kitchen and walking off back into his room.

  Rose stood in the hallway for a moment. Her foot tapped on the floor. Would it have killed him to make her a drink? She walked towards the sitting room. She sat down on the sofa and picked up the remote from the top of a pile of books on the coffee table. She clicked it on and watched a programme for a while. Then she turned it off. There was music playing, a band she liked. It was coming from Skeggsie’s room. She got up and walked aimlessly into the hallway. She had a peek in Joshua’s bedroom and saw the duvet half on, half off the bed. There were clothes strewn around and a plate on the bedside table with a piece of toast on it. He had obviously got up and left in a rush. She glanced into Joshua’s study and saw his chair turned away from the computer. She walked over and looked at the desk. There were pens and Post-its, paper clips and highlighters. She sat down in his chair and immediately saw a strip of photographs attached to his console.

  It was Brendan and Josh in a photo booth. Josh was younger than she’d ever known him, perhaps nine or ten and Brendan had more hair than she remembered. His face was thinner too.

  ‘What you doing in here?’

  She swivelled round.

  ‘Waiting for Josh.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d like it if you were in here.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. He won’t mind.’

  ‘It’s his private stuff.’

  ‘I’m his stepsister. He won’t mind.’

  Skeggsie huffed when she said stepsister. She was immediately irked.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  But Skeggsie had turned and walked out of the room. She pushed the chair back and followed him.

  ‘What?’ she called after him.

  He went into his room and closed the door. Now she was angry. What was wrong with him? She pushed open the door and stepped inside. Loud music was playing but Skeggsie turned it off and looked round at her.

  ‘Have you got a problem with me?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he said, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘You have. Something is bothering you about me. What is it? Have I offended you?’

  He turned back to his computer and she suddenly thought of something.

  ‘Is it that CCTV photograph you got hold of? Did Josh tell you how angry I was? You had no right at all to get a picture of me. I never asked you to. In any case it’s illegal. I could report you to the police. Apart from all that, it’s downright intrusive to poke your nose into someone’s life just because you can’t pull yourself away from your computer …’

  ‘It’s not the photo,’ Skeggsie said.

  ‘You can’t just go grabbing pictures of people on the street or railway platform, whatever …’

  ‘That’s not it. It’s not the photo.’

  She stopped.

  ‘But there is something about me that offends you?’

  ‘I’m worried about Josh.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you. You lost touch with him for years and now you’re suddenly around. You say you’re his stepsister but that’s not true. What do you want from him?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘He’s my friend. I look out for him.’

  ‘I am his stepsister.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Your mum and his dad were never married.’

  She didn’t answer. That was true but it didn’t make a jot of difference.

  ‘And you never contacted him for years and now you’re around here every day …’

  ‘I’m not around every day …’

  ‘You’re emailing, texting. You want to push yourself into Josh’s life suddenly. Where were you all those years when he was in Newcastle?’

  She was aghast. This complete stranger was talking to her as if he had some right to judge her, as if he had the right to cha
stise her.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ she said, her voice raised. ‘Who are you? Some kid who Josh saved from being bullied. You couldn’t look after yourself so he had to do it for you!’

  Skeggsie’s face hardened.

  She’d said too much. She’d gone too far. Rose, Rose, she thought, think before you speak. Joshua had told her these things in confidence and now she’d blurted them out. In any case she knew about being unhappy at school. Those days in Mary Linton, when Rachel Bliss had been her best friend, were some of the most miserable days she’d known since the disappearance of her mother and Brendan. How could she use Skeggsie’s school experiences as a weapon in an argument?

  ‘Get out of my room,’ Skeggsie said, turning away from her.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that but you’ve been funny with me from the first time you set eyes on me.’

  ‘Can you leave my room, please?’

  Rose slumped. She made a half-turn as if to go but then walked back in and pulled up the spare chair and sat down beside Skeggsie.

  ‘I am really sorry. Josh never said that to me. Those were my words and I don’t really think that about you. I just think you’re really irritating and rude and you’ve obviously taken a dislike to me and that’s your choice and I don’t give a toss but …’

  ‘Is this meant to be an apology?’ Skeggsie said.

  There was a glint of something in his eye. A hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. Whether it was genuine pleasure or some sarcastic ploy Rose wasn’t sure. She stared at him for a second.

  ‘I suppose it was pretty clever to break into the Network Rail site and steal an image.’

  ‘More than one image.’

  ‘Two images.’

  ‘And the cemetery,’ Skeggsie said.

  She frowned. The cemetery? Did he not know when to stop?

  ‘Is there anything else you don’t like about me?’ Rose said, moving back to the main subject. ‘We might as well get it out of the way now.’

  ‘I don’t dislike you. I don’t know you,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to see Josh get hurt. When I first met him at school he was suffering badly. His dad gone. You gone. He talked about it a lot. He helped me, yeah, that’s true. I ended up with a lot less bruises because of him but I helped him as well.’

  There was a loud knocking from downstairs.

  ‘Josh,’ Rose said.

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  Skeggsie got up and walked out of the room. Rose was unsure of how they had left it. She wondered if he would tell Joshua the unkind thing she had said. She stood up to go and then noticed something odd in the corner of Skeggsie’s room. It was a giant glass bottle and it was full of asthma inhalers. Blue and purple and red L-shaped plastic inhalers that had been pushed through the neck of the bottle and dropped into a higgledy-piggledy mess at the bottom.

  ‘Hi, Rose.’

  She heard Josh’s voice from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Hi,’ she called.

  He came into Skeggsie’s room and found her looking at the glass bottle.

  ‘Skeggie’s installation. It’s a work of art. We have a flat full of those inhalers. Sorry I’m late.’

  Skeggsie was at the door.

  ‘What you two been up to? Getting to know each other?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rose said. ‘I think we know each other a bit better now.’

  ‘Um …’ Skeggsie said.

  ‘I picked up some salad and bread and cold chicken. Shall we eat? How about you, Skeggsie?’

  ‘I could eat something,’ he said.

  ‘Rose?’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Let’s eat. The three of us,’ Josh said.

  After lunch Rose said, ‘I’d like to see the CCTV photographs.’

  Joshua frowned. ‘I thought …’

  ‘From the cemetery,’ Rose said, focusing on Skeggsie. ‘Can you bring them in here?’

  ‘They’re better on the screen.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You can enlarge them. You can see more.’

  Rose let Skeggsie go first and followed him into his room again, glancing sideways at the bottle of asthma inhalers in the corner. Skeggsie sat down and Joshua pulled out the other chair for Rose. Skeggsie did some fiddling with his keyboard and mouse as one application opened on top of another on his screen. His eyes were glued to it and a second later there was a picture of the entrance of St Michael’s Cemetery. The brick building and wrought-iron posts were visible. She saw her profile going through the gate. The face was hazy but she knew it was her. Skeggsie clicked and a couple of other people went through after her.

  ‘Did you get the boy going in earlier?’ she said, thinking of Lewis Proctor.

  Skeggsie shook his head.

  ‘This system was more difficult to get into and move around on. It was a kind of smash and grab. Get into the Mosaic, get what I could, then scarper.’

  ‘Mosaic?’

  ‘It’s how these CCTV systems are set up. Hundreds of cameras everywhere. The whole system makes up a mosaic of images. You get in, find the cameras you want, steal what you can and get out. You have to be careful in case they catch you. The cemetery security is run by a private company and their firewalls are more sophisticated.’

  ‘Than the railway?’ Rose said, surprised.

  ‘Yes, much tighter. I got in and out for a second before it closed me down. I couldn’t hang around. So I kept going back in every couple of hours and I got various images from the midpoint camera. They’re all from the time period after the crime. I just copied what I could and scooted out of there.’

  Rose had a picture in her head of Skeggsie actually breaking in somewhere and stealing photographs and running away as quickly as he could. Instead he had been sitting at his computer stealing things with the tips of his fingers.

  The photographs came up on his computer. They were low shots as if the midpoint camera was perched on one of the mausoleums. There were a number of them.

  ‘They span a period of fifteen, twenty minutes, after the attack.’

  It was still light and the shapes of people could be clearly seen. She flicked through them but just saw blurry faces. The one or two faces that were clear looked pale and sad. People were dressed in muted colours and in the earlier ones they looked preoccupied, but in the later ones they had puzzled expressions and were looking into the distance. They must have been staring at Rose running towards the hearse, shouting out, distressed. It was normal for the cemetery to be a place of emotion but the dramatic scene that Rose had provided five days before was unusual.

  ‘What about Cuttings Lane? It runs between the cemetery and the railway.’

  Skeggsie shook his head. ‘Tried that. It’s part of some police and local authority public safety initiative and is run by the police authority. Can’t get into that. No way.’

  ‘And the camera on the bridge?’

  ‘What bridge?’

  ‘The footbridge that leads to Chalk Farm Estate.’

  ‘I didn’t know about that.’

  ‘Go on Google Maps and see.’

  Skeggsie tapped furiously. A map came up and Rose pointed to the footbridge.

  ‘That’ll be under Network Rail.’

  ‘A policeman I know said someone was running across it about 6.20.’

  Skeggsie looked as though he was thinking hard.

  ‘Five days ago. I should be able to access Network Rail’s archives but it might take me a while. You’re going out, aren’t you? I should have it by the time you get back.’

  ‘We’ll be back about five,’ Joshua said.

  ‘I should have some stuff by then.’

  Rose picked up her coat. She stood still, hesitating as though she had something to say. What had just happened? Had she just asked Skeggsie to access CCTV footage for her? When she’d been so angry about it a few days earlier? Did she really want this?

  Skeggsie looked round at her. He used his index finger
to push his glasses up on his nose. She noticed then that the cuffs of his shirt were buttoned up just like his collar.

  ‘All right?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Let’s make a move,’ Joshua said.

  She followed him downstairs and stood while he unbolted the door. Once outside, amid the people on the pavement of Camden High Street, she paused to put her coat on.

  ‘Listen,’ Joshua said, leaning towards the front door.

  She frowned, then heard the sound of the bolts being shot. Skeggsie had locked the door.

  Joshua gave a half-shrug and they walked off to the station.

  TWELVE

  Rose and Josh were standing at the middle point of the Millennium Bridge. Josh was talking about the bridge.

  ‘Built for the millennium celebrations. Designed by Sir Norman Foster, famous architect. Trouble was it had to be closed as soon as it was opened. It wobbled. Caused a scandal in the engineering world.’

  On the north side of the River Thames was the dome of St Paul’s. Its curve lay soft against the scudding clouds.

  ‘That was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. It was built between 1675 and 1710 after its predecessor was destroyed in the Great Fire of London,’ Joshua said. ‘And the Tate Modern Art Gallery.’

  Rose looked to the south side of the Thames. There was a giant oblong brick structure with a chimney thrusting up, piercing the sky. It looked ugly and yet solid, powerful.

  ‘Originally built as a power station between 1947 and 1963. It was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. In 1997 it was taken over by the Tate and redesigned by Swiss architects. There was a kind of competition … Er … Lecture over,’ he said, looking sheepish.

  They both stared at the river towards the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. The water below was mud-coloured and Rose’s eye stayed with a tourist boat as it went under the bridge and disappeared from sight. She hugged herself, her arms feeling awkward without a bag. Joshua had told her to leave it at the flat so that she didn’t have to lug it around with her.

  ‘I wonder if Skeggsie has got hold of any pictures,’ Rose said, going back to what they’d been doing hours before in the flat in Camden.

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested! You nearly bit my head off the other day when I told you about it.’