Head Count

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Police tape? It is a crime scene, then?’

  Very carefully, as if wondering how often he ought to breathe, Will said, ‘Yes. Possibly of a serious nature. Very serious. But we don’t know all the circumstances yet. Now,’ he added, sounding more like himself, ‘the reason you can’t just nip into your house is that.’ He pointed at the wall they’d built to keep my part of the row safe and habitable. While once it had been vertical, like any self-respecting wall, now it stood at an angle of about ten degrees from the vertical. ‘Apparently for a load of reasons I don’t quite grasp, a combination of the heat from the fire and the pressure of water from the hoses means it’s collapsing inwards – towards your cottage. The firefighters are prepared to go in and rescue anything you treasure, because they know how to do it and they wear helmets. Right. So you make a list of what you want brought out, upstairs or downstairs, and they’ll see what they can do. Actually, tell me and I’ll write it down.’

  There was something he really didn’t want me to ask, wasn’t there?

  Anyway, the list. ‘Nothing in the guest room. In the en suite bedroom, anything they can retrieve in the way of clothes, shoes and make-up. It doesn’t matter – nothing they should put themselves at risk for. Downstairs my laptop and iPod and anything on or in my desk.’

  He looked me in the eye – professional, not flirty. ‘Is that absolutely all? No books, CDs, whatever?’

  ‘There’s nothing that can’t be replaced. Nothing, in other words, worth risking someone’s life for. But actually, and I’m sorry, I know this sounds really infantile, and I ought to be ashamed of myself and I suppose I am because … well, I didn’t say it before. But on my bed – en suite bedroom again – are two teddy bears. You probably clocked them the other night when you were intruder-hunting. Nosey and Lavender. I’d really like them. Please don’t look sorry for me. Please. Or even compassionate.’ I made a huge effort. ‘That’s Kanga’s job, compassion.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll give this to Dave over there and be back.’

  I hardly had time to sniff and wipe my nose on my hand before he was back. ‘No probs, they say. I said we’d wait in my car. Now,’ he continued, as he held the passenger door for me as if I was a lady, ‘there is something else you’ll learn soon enough, and it might as well be from me. In a situation like this, where the house is unoccupied and mains electricity turned off, and there’s no immediate indication of accelerant – the sort of thing you’d expect with arson – the most likely explanation is an unauthorised intruder. A homeless junkie, perhaps.’ He closed the door gently and went round to the driver’s seat.

  ‘In a city, yes, but surely not in a tiny village? And – no, Will, I’d have noticed. Wouldn’t I?’ I turned to face him. ‘Next door? I’m neither deaf nor blind.’

  ‘What if someone arrived after you left for the match? And tried to make themselves at home? Jane, they don’t think the cottage was empty when the fire started. I’m sorry. I really am.’

  ‘So the smell was burnt flesh,’ I said flatly.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Remember, death by asphyxiation is very quick.’

  ‘And have they any clue who it was who died?’

  ‘There’ll be a post-mortem.’

  ‘That was a very professional thing to say. In other words, you’d rather not tell me.’

  ‘In other words, you’ll know as soon as the autopsy is over. I’ll tell you then myself if you want. Not because this is my case. Nothing to do with me. Someone else’s problem. But you can hear it from me if you prefer. Ah, they’ve got stuff for you.’

  There wasn’t much: I hadn’t asked for much. But one of the firefighters, a woman my height but built as if she used weights a lot more than I did, opened one of the black sacks carefully. ‘Safe and sound. Though they may need a bath. There you go.’

  Will stowed everything except the bears’ sack, which he passed to me, in the boot. ‘Come on, Kanga: you’re tough, you know. And I’ll bet you can go on being tough. Hey, late night Sainsbury’s will still be open – let’s go shop for you.’ He started the car.

  ‘Before we set off: you took quite a few calls this afternoon. Were they all about this?’

  He stared at the steering wheel. ‘Not all. Something’s being set up for tonight I really am not at liberty to tell you about. And after we’ve shopped, you’ll have to get a taxi back to Diane’s. Sorry. Because I’ll be part of the team.’

  ‘And you ought to be there now, oughtn’t you?’

  ‘Actually, yes. I hadn’t realised quite how late it is.’

  ‘And actually I’m a bit tired. I’ll just get my car and make my own way back to the pub.’ I reached for the door handle.

  ‘Er – Jane … There are drink-drive laws, you know. And they don’t ignore medicinal champagne. And your car is technically part of a crime scene. So I’ll do the driving – OK?’

  ‘OK. So why not drop me back at Diane’s? We can catch up tomorrow.’

  He dropped his hand on mine. ‘I told you you were tough, Kanga.’ He drove the couple of hundred yards in silence. As he pulled up, he added, almost as if he hadn’t paused, ‘Make sure you keep your phone charged. And switched on.’

  ‘I will. Goodnight – and thanks.’ I retrieved the black sacks myself and waved as he drove swiftly off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘My tumble dryer’s got a special setting for cuddly toys,’ Diane said, insisting on emptying the sacks with me and shoving the bears and my clothes in the washing machine, batch by batch. The bears went in first, on the hand-wash cycle, in, at Diane’s insistence, a pillowcase so their eyes wouldn’t get scratched. ‘You don’t want bears with glaucoma,’ she said, so seriously I knew she must be mocking me, only it seemed she wasn’t.

  There were only a few dry-clean-only items, which would spend the night in her garden shed because she insisted they smelt of roast pork. I didn’t tell her what they really smelt of. That could wait till tomorrow.

  ‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t go to Sainsbury’s or Tesco or wherever,’ she declared. ‘I’ve been on the wagon tonight, what with one thing and another. I’ll get my keys. Twenty-four opening,’ she added as if I was dimmer than I felt.

  ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday, so it’s Cinderella closing time tonight.’

  ‘Shit. And they won’t open till mid morning.’

  ‘Not a problem. If there’s anything we’ve not washed and dried, there’s always the spare clothes I keep at school. Both schools. And what I could really do with is a glass of your knockout juice, your special insomniacs’ delight, and your spare bed.’ I plonked myself on the nearest kitchen chair.

  ‘Not until I’ve told you my bit of news. That guy they said nearly killed you. Marcus. Husband to the delightful Grazia and father to the equally sweet little Cordelia and Atticus. Actually, Cordelia was OK. Ten or eleven. Quiet. Very, very thin, with bitten nails. Anyway, I expected the police to come back for Marcus. Attempted murder or something. To be honest, the more beer going down throats, the surer all the team were that you’d nearly had your head knocked off. Literally. Seriously, he can’t get away with that. Can he? No, don’t start on the rules of cricket—’

  She didn’t seem to be making any sense at all. Or maybe I was missing something. So I picked up on one thing I was sure of. ‘Laws of cricket. And no, I doubt if he’d be arrested because he apologised and said the ball had slipped from his hand. The other umpire’s on his case, so let’s forget him. And – Atticus, did you call him? As in To Kill a Mockingbird? The archetypal good guy?’

  ‘Maybe another one. Pretentious, anyway. Little shit. But with parents like that …’

  ‘For your ears only, Diane? Promise? I suspect that it was Grazia who knocked me off my bike. And I think I might know why. When I passed out at the after-match party chez Baker, Marcus caught me before I fell. All very knight in shining armour. So I think she rather took against me. And this afternoon, blow me if he didn’t grab me round the waist as if I was fain
ting again, which I did, very melodramatically. All very stupid. But enough to enrage her.’

  ‘So all the time she was watching the match she was plotting something like that. It’s worse if it’s premeditated, isn’t it?’

  Much worse. ‘She’ll probably say my treatment of Atticus provoked her. Enough speculation, Diane. Let’s free those bears from their pillowcase and pop them in the dryer.’

  ‘On no account. Dryer yes, but in their pillowcase. Or with tape across their eyes. It says so in the manual.’

  Was I convinced by her claim she’d been too busy to drink all evening? Not entirely. But I let her do as she wanted, and then reload the washing machine.

  ‘So what was young Will doing, to drop you off as quickly as if you’d got a Victorian father waiting for you on the doorstep?’

  ‘Work. Something he couldn’t tell me about. Which is fine.’

  ‘Fine? Well, considering what he did tell you about. What a shit. Pat, I mean. Will was just stupid. I really liked Pat, you know. Really liked him. If you hadn’t obviously had the hots for each other I’d have rather fancied him for myself. But why didn’t he tell you himself? Did he want to have his cake and eat it? Bastard.’

  As if I was an umpire again, I held up my hands to stem the flow of words. ‘Stuff happens, Di. My situation was dire most of the time he was supporting me. He never, ever made any sort of sexual move. The only thing he did wrong was not to mention his wife – maybe he’s even got a family. I did suspect. But I was so busy worrying whether I was just grateful or really loved him that I forgot to ask what he might be feeling. He saw me back on my feet and left, making no promises. Yes, he could have done better, but no, he did nothing actually wrong. Heavens, he could not only have lost his job if he’d made a move, he could have ended up in jail. So please, please forget the notion that I was a victim of a decent man as well as that louse Simon. Please.’

  ‘I saw what I saw, Jane. And it wasn’t a lot different from what I see with you and Will, to be honest. Talk about smelling of April and May.’

  I couldn’t place what seemed to be a quotation, but for once didn’t care about literary allusions. Any moment I’d lose my temper with the best friend I had in the village. ‘We’ll talk about Will in the morning, maybe. Meanwhile, I need to charge my phone, and even more, I need your special knockout drops.’

  ‘And your bears. Don’t forget your bears.’

  There was nothing of particular interest on my phone when I surfaced at about eight the following morning. In other words, of course, no text or voicemail message from Will. Perhaps he was still busy; perhaps his own phone was down; perhaps he’d simply fallen asleep and forgotten to call. Whatever.

  The fire was mentioned on a number of news websites, with the dead person described by a police spokesperson as a probable vagrant. So much for Will’s circumspection. But a probable vagrant wasn’t the same as a vagrant so I wouldn’t hasten to judge him.

  A shower. Clothes from Diane’s dryer. A quick bite of breakfast with Diane before I set off for church. Pat had made me go because of village politics; now I enjoyed going for its own sake. Not that the remainder of the day of rest would involve much rest, because the best thing would be for me to work at one school or another. Or – and the idea was terribly tempting – I could sneak some me time with some retail therapy.

  I’d just started on a week’s worth of statistical analysis in the office I shared with Tom when my phone whistled. No, I would not respond to a text like one of Pavlov’s dogs. I would finish what I was doing before I even looked to see who the sender was. I didn’t, of course. Who would? But it was from Diane, not Will. Her lunch hosts had been let down by the original guests, there was plenty of food and they’d love to have me instead. I demurred until she mentioned that they lived in Churcham, home of Justin Forbes, the village overlooking the bay where I’d seen those little boats in the dark. What might I see in daylight? Then she added that they had something they wanted to discuss with me. Discuss? Why me? So long as it wasn’t whether or not we should encourage more grammar schools … Actually, I owed Diane several favours, and if this was one of them I ought to agree. She dismissed my murmured objection that I had no suitable ladies-who-lunch clothes with a brisk promise to pick me up immediately so that we would have enough time to stop off in Canterbury to pick up something appropriate in Fenwick’s.

  Diane’s friends – Robert, so erect he might have been in the armed services but actually an ex-local government administrator, and his wife Yvonne, once no doubt willowy and elegant, but now stooping into sun-blotched boniness – enjoyed a spectacular view over the harbour. They were old-school polite and welcoming, reminding me of Hazel Roberts in their desire to make me at home. Their dog – a mongrel called Tim – greeted me politely, but retired to a basket when eventually we ate, sitting in their conservatory, all windows open to welcome the sun. Lunch involved home-made soup and a fine fish pie, with vegetables from their garden. Throughout the meal I had the sense that there was some subtext I didn’t know about, and since I was careful to avoid the political controversies of the day the conversation became slightly stilted. It was only when I mentioned my house development, neatly skirting round my uninvited guests, that they came alight again – and it was the name Caffy Tyler that did it. PACT had done some work for their niece: over coffee they showed me before, during and after photographs of their work.

  ‘In fact, I was going to phone Caffy,’ Robert said, as I waved away a second chocolate, ‘because she has some friends in the police too. Very senior.’

  I was ready to bristle: had Diane been asking them to ask these friends for a character reference for Will?

  Yvonne corrected him. ‘They’ve retired now, dear.’

  ‘Anyway, Caffy’s been known to do a spot of detecting herself. But dear Diane here says you’ve got a young man in the police, and I wondered if he’d be interested in something I’ve seen. No, we didn’t phone the police because they’re not interested these days – you dial 101 or whatever it is and hang on ten minutes and leave a message and nothing happens.’

  Yvonne put her hand on his knee. ‘They’re overworked, poor dears. All those cuts. And it’s a long way to come from Essex.’

  I forbore to embark on a long explanation of how the service was operating. Instead I smiled like one of my kids wanting the rest of the story. ‘What would you like me to tell Will?’ I asked. ‘Did you take any photos?’

  ‘I never thought …’ But then Robert peered at my feet. ‘I can show you, if you like. It’s not too far to walk, but …’

  ‘I’ve got some sensible shoes in my car.’

  ‘Excellent. I’ll get Tim. Oh, do you have a camera?’

  ‘My phone.’

  Yvonne and Diane stayed behind, but Robert, limping slightly, and I set off on what appeared to be one of Tim’s regular walks through woodland: he left and collected messages at a dozen or so trees then, trotting ahead, struck off uphill along what was less a path than a track.

  Robert clearly struggled on the uneven ground, leaning against a tree as he paused to catch his breath. When he thought I wasn’t looking he rubbed and then eased his right knee. This adventure wasn’t doing him much good, was it? At last he had enough breath to say, ‘This is new, you see. No one ever used to walk here. Maybe the odd rabbit. Possibly deer. But, as you can see, it’s quite well worn now.’

  I took a couple of photos of it, and we walked on, Robert touching his lips like someone in a Swallows and Amazons book. Quite suddenly he stopped, pointing. Someone had hacked and dragged together enough branches to support a tarpaulin. There were litter and faeces in evidence. I took photos and backed away, nodding to Robert who was doing his best to bring Tim to heel without calling him loudly. A dog treat did the trick, and we headed quite briskly away, still without speaking. A couple of times the descent was steep enough for me to grasp his arm, as if it was me needing support. Once he slipped quite badly, and, worse, quite noisily. We froze.
But no one came crashing after us, and once Robert was ready to move, we set off again quite steadily.

  By the time we’d reached the path Robert’s limp was pronounced, but he made no mention of it, or of his worrying shortness of breath. ‘The thing is, Jane, we think we’ve seen people coming ashore. Dead of night, going-to-the-loo time. No photos, of course. And Yvonne’s heard voices – not me, of course: too deaf.’

  ‘My aunt is too,’ I said. ‘But she’s had her own private miracle: hearing aids.’

  ‘Funny thing – that friend of Caffy’s, the policeman, he’s got some. She says he’s very impressed.’

  ‘Small too. Hardly noticeable,’ I pursued. ‘She can enjoy her bridge club again.’

  His face lit up. ‘Really?’

  By now I was working out what I should do and say. ‘I do hope Yvonne can find us a cup of tea after all this. You know, Robert, if I were you I wouldn’t walk in this direction for a bit. Not until your new neighbours have been checked out. And certainly not till my police friend has seen these pictures. No, there’s no signal here – I’ll do it the moment we get back to your house. And then I can go online and show you some pictures of Auntie Julie’s hearing aids …’

  I don’t know if my casual chatter deceived him at all, but he didn’t cavil. With Tim clearly happy to lead the way, we returned to the house.

  Stuck at work. Can’t respond just now. But don’t go back.

  What I’d call terse and to the point. Not quite the reply I’d expected when I texted Will, attaching the photos.

  Then came another text. Grid references? GPS co-ordinates?

  Thanks to Robert’s dog-eared collection of OS maps I was able to oblige.

  No acknowledging text.

  Diane touched her watch: she had a pub to run and in any case we didn’t want to overstay our welcome. We said our affectionate goodbyes on the broad gravel sweep of their drive.

  Despite her brisk persona, Diane always drove so carefully I often wanted to offer to take over. But today her circumspection was fully justified. She nosed out into the road, ready to turn right, up the hill, like a hedgehog checking it might be spring.