The Discourtesy of Death

by William Brodrick

  ‘You danced for me,’ whispered Michael, the shock fresh upon him. ‘To thank me for helping you pass from one room to another … into the last room in the house; the quiet room with a door that opens onto the garden.’

  18

  On boarding the Jelly Roll, Anselm glanced instinctively at the noticeboard. All the photographs had been rearranged. They’d been in a line, but now they formed a circle. In the middle, like a hub, was a boy whom Anselm had never seen before.

  ‘He’s the explanation for everything,’ said Mitch.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Timothy Goodwin, Jennifer and Peter’s son.’

  ‘Where did you get the photograph from?’

  ‘I took it.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday.’ Mitch had snapped him coming out of Nigel and Helen Goodwin’s house in Long Melford. ‘I wanted to know who’d been sent upstairs while we talked of murder, so I went back and waited.’

  The doctor – followed discreetly by Mitch – had driven the youth to a charming house near Lavenham, a medieval building that leaned to one side as if it might fall over at any moment. Emma Goodwin had come to the door, smiling wide and woodenly.

  ‘While his father’s in prison, the lad’s staying with his grandparents.’

  So, thought Anselm, with sudden warmth, this is Timothy. Black hair, deliberately roughed up. No sadness or strain around the intelligent eyes and finely drawn mouth. No obvious vulnerability. You wouldn’t know that his mother had died and his father was locked up in Hollesley Bay. A face that hides inner turmoil, concluded Anselm.

  ‘He’s the explanation,’ repeated Mitch. ‘He’s the reason Emma defended her son-in-law – though, of course, we were wrong to assume that Jenny and Peter had married. Emma spoke up for him even though he’d reduced Michael to a dumb waiter holding a coffee pot, even though Peter had abandoned her only child and daughter. And Michael turned up, too, head down, doing his best. They swallowed their rage for Timothy’s sake. They’ve swallowed their belief that their daughter was murdered, because they don’t want their grandson to know that his father killed his mother.’

  Anselm made a murmur of agreement. However, he was very much aware that a key element of this simple analysis was contested. One person, a subdued woman, saw things very differently. As much as she might detest Peter Henderson, she didn’t accuse him of murder.

  ‘What did you make of Helen’s unfinished theory?’ asked Anselm.

  ‘She thinks Michael killed his own daughter. That’s why she won’t tell Nigel. And Nigel, who didn’t tell us about Michael’s breakdown, thinks his brother just might have done it, too, but he can’t begin to say so to his wife. Maybe not even to himself. But he’ll be damned if Michael takes the rap for killing Jennifer, when the person who really killed her, slowly squeezed the life out of her, even before she fell off that stage, even before the cancer set in, was Peter, the decent guy who’d kept absolutely no property for himself.’ Mitch made a wry laugh. ‘He’s a good man, the doctor. He wants someone to pay for cutting short Jenny’s life, before they could have that chat. But he knows – if his worst fears are true – that the law would condemn his brother, leaving Jenny’s husband without a stain to his name. He knows that such a result would be unjust. He finds it ungodly. So, deep in the shadows of his mind – among the regret at losing his brother and the guilt at losing Jenny – he begins to see things simply. He closes his eyes to the complications. He cuts to the quick. He believes that Peter killed Jenny – because the chances are, he did – but he removes his doubts as a daring act of faith in Michael. He remembers the mediator of his childhood; and the man who’d do anything to bring about peace at home and abroad.’

  This time Anselm was genuinely impressed by Mitch’s thinking. There’d been no flights of fancy. Furthermore, Anselm – brooding among his bees – had come to an identical conclusion. Strange, really: the one member of the family whose photograph he did not possess now stood clearest in Anselm’s mind. Listening to Helen and Nigel had summoned part of Michael’s soul.

  ‘He loved her, in a way, like no one else,’ said Anselm, quietly. ‘She’d been his salvation, though the girl probably didn’t know it, didn’t know that her grace and talent had reached into her father’s secret crisis.’

  ‘Which means that when Jenny stopped dancing, something must have stopped in Michael, too.’ Mitch meant the beating of the heart. Long before Jenny’s accident, Peter had brought the taste of dying to the young woman and, through her, to Michael. She’d stopped dancing; and he’d stopped healing. Neither of them had complained – Jenny out of love for Peter, and Michael out of love for Jenny. Which made subsequent events all the more unbearable. ‘Michael must have been devastated to see her paralysed,’ said Mitch. ‘Devastated again to be told of the cancer. And what could be more devastating than to watch her being cared for by Peter.’ Mitch turned away from the noticeboard and addressed Anselm directly. ‘Helen knows all that … knows that father and daughter were bound together … so why does she think that Michael might have killed his own child?’

  As if in answer Anselm pulled at Mitch’s elbow. He wasn’t going to be led astray by an enquiry into motive. People really did do strange things for the strangest of reasons.

  ‘Let’s talk to a man who repairs classic cars, shall we?’

  Mitch parked the Land Rover near the centre of Newmarket. Emerging onto the High Street, he strode ahead, purposefully.

  ‘Can I question this guy?’ he asked, over his shoulder.

  ‘Sure.’

  At the Bar a QC often entrusts a minor witness to his junior counsel, so in giving his consent Anselm felt a sudden frisson of self-importance. It was the nearest he’d get to professional distinction. And Vincent Cooper wouldn’t have that much to say …

  Mitch strode on, leading the way, finally entering a narrow alley that opened onto a broad forecourt. Ahead, beneath a framed wooden sign – graceful gold lettering on a deep navy-blue background – stood the specialised business of Vincent Cooper: ‘Vintage Automotive Services’.

  The work bay was open and brightly lit. In centre stage, leaning into the gaping mouth of a sleek olive-green sports car, was a man in loose cotton trousers and a baggy white T-shirt. Like a surgeon on his rounds, he shone a lamp into a dark cavity tutting concern and mirthless know-how.

  ‘Jaguar, E-Type,’ said Mitch, nostalgically. ‘Simply beautiful.’

  The man hung the light on the bonnet and stepped away from the vehicle. His hair was straw blond, his eyes china blue. Oil stained his forehead. Wiping his hands on a rag, he glanced uncertainly at Anselm’s habit.

  ‘Elegance itself,’ continued Mitch, admiringly. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Wish she was.’

  The man looked powerful without being muscle-bound. His voice was rich and moist, like cake, his tone careless, reminding Anselm of a silk who’d been expelled from Eton. He’d worn the disgrace like a pink carnation.

  ‘Nothing compares with her shape,’ declared Mitch, one hand drawing the shape of the long bonnet with a reaching paw.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thing is,’ said Mitch, slipping his hands into his back pockets, ‘she wasn’t that good at taking corners. Not at speed. Something wrong with the design, there. Came off the road too easily.’

  ‘Depends on your idea of beauty,’ objected the mechanic. He roughed up his hair with a practised flourish. ‘Depends on how you handle the wheel. You can’t separate shape and movement … they complement each other. They make style and poise and grace.’

  ‘You talk like a dancer.’

  ‘I was, once …’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Really?’

  The man laughed as if preparing himself to receive a compliment – some accolade for a past performance – but then the moment of communion snapped because Mitch’s voice turned rich and careless: ‘Yes, but – no offence – we’re not that interested in your career. We’d like to talk about Je
nnifer Henderson’s.’

  The man continued to wipe his hands on the rag, but his face was still.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said, Vincent,’ pursued Mitch, scratching the back of his head. ‘The woman who once danced for a living. Like you. My friend here has received a letter saying she was murdered. We’re not policemen. But we’ve still got questions. Questions for you, because you were there the night she died.’

  Vincent Cooper kept wiping his hands, though the activity was, by now, quite without purpose. He stared at Mitch, unblinking.

  ‘Sure, we can talk,’ he managed, finally. ‘Let me get my coat, okay?’

  ‘Absolutely, I’ll just admire the Jag. Always wanted one, but in the end, I went for something strong and sturdy, just in case I hit a rhino.’

  Cooper retreated to a door at the end of his workshop, throwing the rag on the floor as he stepped out of view.

  Anselm didn’t know what to say. He looked at Mitch rather like Doctor Goodwin had looked at Helen. He, too, had come off the leash. After a few long, drawn-out moments Mitch checked his watch.

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Anselm.

  ‘He’s done a runner.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Home, I’d imagine. We’ll just give him another couple of minutes. Time to unearth whatever he’s hidden away.’

  ‘You know where he lives?’

  ‘There’s only one Vincent Cooper in the telephone book. I tailed him from home to work this morning, just to make sure. I’d like to get there just when he thinks he’s safe and sound.’

  Mitch walked briskly out of the garage. All the way back to the Land Rover he kept a few steps ahead of Anselm, a man who knew where he was going and what he was going to do when he got there.

  19

  Jenny was smiling to herself, toying with resistance, putting up a show. Go back to dancing? You must be crazy. But she’d listened to Michael. She’d given in. She’d found excitement and hope in her father’s mumbled suggestion. The recollection of that timeless wavering was burned into Michael’s soul. If he’d said nothing, Jenny might never have walked onstage again. There would have been no paralysis.

  No one is responsible for someone else … for what they do, for the choices they make, for what then happens.

  Michael had often said that to Emma, but it wasn’t always true. Michael felt responsible for Jenny’s fall. Because not so deep down, in the asking, he’d been thinking of himself, too. He’d wanted Jenny to dance again because from her first tentative steps, he’d been at her side … and being there had taken him far away from Eugene and Liam and Ó Mórdha: the ugly universe of brutal, heartless movements. He’d found some grace in a graceless world and he wanted it back.

  After taking the rowing boat ferry once more across the Blyth, Michael tramped towards Southwold. But he didn’t hear the distant breathing of the sea. He didn’t see the trembling heath and wetlands. He was driving a Ford Fiesta into the Blue Stack Mountains. It was the last place he wanted to be. But he had no choice. He was preparing himself to relive another moment heavy with responsibility – this time not for what he’d said, but for what he’d done.

  Michael stopped the car at the side of the road about a mile from Ó Mórdha’s cottage. He’d thought of driving closer but it was a clear night and the engine seemed eerily loud among so much silence. Once the quiet had returned to its overwhelming grandeur, Michael stepped outside. He looked up. The stars seemed to shout out their presence. The moon, reserved and full, stared down upon the butterwort and sundew. He listened and looked harder … there was no still, small voice up there. Just light. An unearthly watching light. Michael set off. The Browning was in his left jacket pocket, the silencer in the right.

  There was no path, so Michael trotted through the flora, stepping on tufts of shadow as if they were stones across a deep, green sea. There were no sounds but the fall of his feet, the sigh of the grass and the suck of the bogland’s moisture. He only stopped to rest when he saw a fine strand of blue smoke spiralling high into the night sky. He’d reached dry ground. Ahead lay the cottage, this side of a molten stream. A dull orange light described a small window. There were wooden fences, marking out the land for grazing. A path wound its way towards a string of three gates. Without thinking about his next move, Michael climbed the first and ran to the second, vaulting it in a single movement. He paused, listened and took out the Browning. On clearing the third, he withdrew the silencer and screwed it slowly onto the gun. Then, like an expected guest, he walked slowly to the farmhouse. Drawing close, he could hear the stream licking the turf and stones of its banks. The sound, hungry and insistent, drowned out his approach.

  Oddly enough, Michael’s meticulous preparations hadn’t included what to do once he’d reached the door so, on impulse, he simply knocked and stood waiting while his heart pumped tension through his veins. Mechanically, his thumb released the safety catch above the pistol-grip. He spread his legs, pointing the weapon at chest height in expectation and a sort of screaming readiness.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway.

  The handle turned.

  The door creaked open and for an instant Michael thought he was going to vomit, but the bile didn’t rise; it turned away, falling back.

  Low-wattage light rolled over the hearth like a worn-out carpet.

  And there was Ó Mórdha peering into the darkness, a hand shielding his eyes from the shocking power of the moon.

  Time slowed. A dog was watching from the end of a musty corridor, alert and curious. A grandfather clock was ticking heavily like an old dripping tap. A tin kettle was rattling on a stove. During this absurd, drawn-out delay, Ó Mórdha’s eyes got accustomed to the shift in light. He saw the gun. The man who wanted to blow the British out of Ireland was looking at the great reckoning, come a bit too soon.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said, in a childlike voice – the words that had run through his mind before he’d opened the door.

  For a brief second Michael’s eyes met Ó Mórdha’s: and he saw that look of the newborn passing like candlelight behind the wide pupils, flickering with hope and naked supplication.

  ‘You’re dead,’ whispered Michael.

  But just as Michael’s finger began to squeeze the trigger, he heard a very quiet voice … very quiet indeed, sounding within himself, its insistence more terrible than the heavy tick of the clock and the moan of the kettle:

  ‘Michael, Michael, Michael …’

  It was a call … a voice in the night, as if to wake him … but from what? He didn’t want to know.

  BAM-BAM, BAM-BAM.

  Michael was running as fast as he could, racing along the dirt path back to Southwold. He stumbled and tripped over his own feet. He moaned, chased by a dreadful presence inside himself.

  He’d heard that voice again.

  In passing through those three gates again, one after the other, Michael hadn’t simply remembered what had happened in Donegal. He hadn’t simply relived the sensations. He’d approached, in stages, the enormity of what he’d done, passing through the barriers that separated a man from brutality – upbringing, fellow feeling, the commandments. And, in so doing, he’d opened another kind of door … and from the other side, within the darkness of his mind, he’d heard that voice as if for the first time. It had been fresh and urgent and utterly of the moment, addressing him here and now, by the Suffolk marshes, speaking to him from the pit of a numbed soul. And – to his complete horror – he realised that there was more to come than just his name. He’d almost heard the first imploding word when, desperately, he’d pulled that curtain down once more, blocking out any other sound but the staggered report of the gun.

  BAM-BAM, BAM-BAM.

  Michael came to a halt. He was still terrified of what he might have heard. He looked around at the bare marshland, feeling sweat cool on his brow and itch upon his back. He felt hunted and exposed. There was no escape. The voice hadn’t finished. It was going to say something else. If Michael persist
ed with his plan to kill Peter Henderson, then that voice was going to deliver its message.

  Michael began to run again, stumbling once more in a panic. Danny the shrink had said nothing about this kind of thing. He’d encouraged Michael to talk about the past, because the past was dead and it could no longer harm him. He’d never remotely suggested that the past was very much alive; that it might speak to him. That it was more dangerous now than ever before.

  20

  Anselm was forced to admit that the sensation was unpleasant. He felt like a junior to Mitch the QC.

  Having walked silently to the front door of Vincent Cooper’s home – an Edwardian terraced house near Newmarket railway station – Mitch took a key from his pocket, slipped it into the lock and gently pushed open the door. With caution and determination, he walked slowly down the corridor. Anselm, too late to make any protest at the conduct of his leader, shut the door and followed Mitch to the entrance of a back room. Cooper was on his knees by a hastily lit fire, prodding what appeared to be burning letters with a bold finger.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother, if I were you,’ said Mitch. ‘I’ve already read them.’

  Cooper made a jolt and turned.

  ‘What the—’

  ‘I made copies,’ interrupted Mitch, his tone all reassurance. ‘Just in case. But carry on, if it makes you feel any better.’

  Anselm was quite sure that wasn’t true, but Cooper was utterly convinced. He rose in one perfect movement, his features drained of all emotion save fear.

  ‘How the hell did you get in here?’

  ‘I opened the front door.’

  ‘Get out, now, or I call the police.’

  ‘Ask for Detective Superintendent Manning. She thinks Jenny died of bowel cancer. Maybe you’d like to tell her why she’s wrong. Why you ran away from a monk and a layman. And why you made a fire.’

  Cooper swallowed hard. He looked down at the grate and the soot on his hands.

  Mitch entered the room, sauntering towards a bookcase to the right of the chimney breast. Volumes on dance, ballet and theatre gave way to a silver-framed photograph of Cooper and Peter flanking Jennifer, taken long, long ago. Mitch stared at the three of them. Two men and a woman. He had that look of reckless anticipation that preceded every improvisation.