by Ian Martyn
‘How do you know?’
‘Never mind that. Not important. You need to see Harold Longcoat.’
‘Harold Longcoat?’
‘That’s what I said, wasn’t it, sonny boy?’
Sonny boy?
‘You’re Inspector Kirby.’ Again it was a statement rather than a question. He searched his memory, which was excellent for faces, this one wasn’t there. He would have remembered those eyes if nothing else.
‘You know me?’
The old woman’s face moved a few inches closer to him. It only struck him later that those eyes were on the same level as his, whereas when he first saw her he was sure she was a good foot shorter than him.
‘I named you, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘For a detective you ask some stupid questions. But enough of this. Harold Longcoat. The corner shop on Eskdale Terrace.’
Before he could ask anything else, he was looking down at grey hair and the grey patched cardigan as she turned and shuffled away from him, blending in with all the other grey-haired and grey-cardiganed ladies out on Clayton Road that morning.
Harold Longcoat?
Seven
Kirby reached his car with his mind turning over the encounter with the old lady. She knew him? But then he’d occasionally had his photo in the paper and given the odd talk around the place so there was no reason she couldn’t know of him without him knowing her. One thing was for certain, he was sure he would have remembered her if they’d met before. What was it she’d said? She’d named him. What was that supposed to mean? More riddles. He glanced at his watch, put the keys back in his pocket and decided to heed that old police adage, “if in doubt follow your nose”. Eskdale Terrace was just around the corner.
Kirby entered the shop to the sound of another tinkling bell. It was a standard corner shop, moderately stacked with a range of food and household goods, the kind that people ran out of and couldn’t be bothered to go all the way to the supermarket, or into town, for. It smelled faintly of polish, disinfectant and peppermint. Tucked away in corners, as if forgotten, were random items from decades ago, the sort he hadn’t come across since childhood, such as red step polish, Brasso and mothballs.
At the end of the aisle, an elderly man in a grey cardigan was intent on stacking a few tins of beans onto a shelf. Grey seemed to be the in colour for the elderly of Jesmond this season. As Kirby watched, the man shuffled down the aisle towards the back of the shop. Kirby waited for a few seconds, still wondering quite why he was here. Well, he was here so…
‘Can I help you?’ came a voice from behind Kirby.
Kirby’s heart leapt. ‘Jeeze, do you practise that? he asked as he turned around.
The elderly grey-cardiganed man, who had a slight stoop, was smiling at him.
‘Harold?’ Inspector Kirby asked.
The man raised his eyebrows in response.
‘Harold Longcoat?’
The man looked Kirby up and down and narrowed his eyes. ‘Who wants to know?’ he said.
‘I do, why?’
‘And who are you when you’re at home?’
‘Why the suspicion?’
‘Why not? Can’t be too careful these days.’
Kirby tutted. This was turning into the opening for some old B-movie detective story. He produced his warrant. ‘Look, do you go by the name of Harold Longcoat?’ he asked, sticking with the genre.
‘Might do.’
Kirby growled and waved the warrant. He’d never liked the way old B movies portrayed the police force. It was always some smartarsed, down-on-his-luck private investigator who solved the crime. One that he would have seen through in the first five minutes. He played the waiting game.
‘Alright, yes. I am sometimes known as Harold Longcoat. But before I say any more, tell me, who gave you that name?’
‘Why, do you have others?’
The shoulders inside the grey cardigan shrugged. ‘I’m just known as Harold around here, that’s all. The Longcoat bit is only used by a few people.’
Kirby parked the idea that Harold was a criminal mastermind with a series of aliases. To the best of his knowledge, they didn’t tend to hang around in corner shops in old grey cardigans, although he had to admit it would be one hell of a cover. ‘An old lady whose eyes hold more history than the local library.’
Harold scowled. ‘It’s closed.’
‘What?’
‘The library, it’s closed. Damn shame if you ask me.’
‘I didn’t ask you.’
‘You mentioned the library.’
Kirby shook his head and blew out his cheeks. What is it with elderly people? Why don’t conversations go in the direction they’re supposed to? This was now morphing from B-movie to Ealing comedy. ‘Never mind the library,’ he said. ‘The old lady?’
The old man nodded and looked Kirby up and down. ‘She talked to you, sent you to me?’
‘That’s right and since I’m a good copper I don’t simply dismiss things old ladies tell me. Although I’m beginning to wish I had. Anyway, I’m here.’
Harold straightened a jar of jam on the shelf next to him and then took a breath, as if coming to a decision. ‘Edna, she’s called Edna.’
‘Well, finally we seem to be getting somewhere,’ Kirby said, picking up a can of mushy peas and checking the sell-by date. When he turned back, the man – Harold – seemed to be a good six inches taller than when he’d first seen him. What’s more, the person he’d assumed was about seventy now looked no more than fifty. This all disturbed him more than the fact that he’d been looking for someone called Harold Longcoat. He prided himself on how he observed things that others didn’t, how he saw through charades, attempts to deceive and the pretenders, even if they hadn’t written the course yet. But he’d been completely fooled by this one. He handed Harold the can, buying himself a little thinking time.
‘You want this?’
‘No, but it’s out of date.’
‘Is it really?’ Harold said and put it back on the shelf.
Kirby decided to let it go. A missing girl was more important that an out of date tin of peas. ‘So who is Edna, or you for that matter, and why is she implying you know something about a missing girl?’
Harold ignored the questions. ‘Have you got a picture of the girl?’
Kirby took out his phone, and after a few seconds cursing and flicking, he showed it to Harold. ‘Her name’s Sarah Cooper.’
‘I didn’t know her name. She comes in here sometimes. Nice girl, polite.’
‘Is that it?’
‘And Edna sent you?’
‘We’ve already been through that.’
The taller, younger Harold, hesitated. Kirby let the silence develop.
Harold frowned. ‘The trouble is, you lot don’t listen. We’ve tried before.’
‘Which you lot?’ Kirby said. It was something that irked him, especially as it was often said by those who had something to hide. ‘People who wear tweed? People who wear sensible shoes?’
‘The police.’
‘Well, we can’t listen if people don’t talk to us. So come on, Harold, humour me.’
‘Edna said that did she? That I’d know something about a missing girl?’
‘Yes!’
Harold nodded. ‘Why don’t you come into the back?’ he said as he turned, headed past the counter and through a beaded curtain, which clacked behind him.
Kirby followed, ignoring the grey-cardiganed, master-criminal idea that popped back into his head and the thought that Edna might be there with a gun in her hand. Maybe he’d been watching too much TV.
He clacked through the curtain. No Edna, just Harold pulling out a chair for him.
Kirby sat back in the chair that Harold had offered him and studied the man for a second or two. No, he didn’t like it when people pretended to be something they weren’t, it generally indicated they were up to no good. One for later. ‘So you know something about this missing girl?’
Harold scratched h
is head. ‘Is that what Edna actually said?’
Kirby searched his memory. ‘No, not exactly. She told me I was looking for a missing girl and that I should come and see you.’
‘Ah.’
‘Does that make a difference?’
‘Yes.’
Kirby put both hands on the old wooden table and leant forward. ‘Then please enlighten me, Harold Longcoat.’
Harold shuffled in his seat. ‘Er, well, things are not quite as they may appear.’
Kirby huffed his annoyance. He was getting tired of what he felt was Harold beating around a whole shrubbery of bushes. ‘You don’t say. In this job I find they seldom are.’ He held up his hand to stop Harold interrupting. ‘Don’t tell me, you and this Edna are part of the master criminal group known as the Grey Cardigan Gang?’
‘No.’
‘It was a joke.’
Harold twitched his mouth into a smile, then studied his fingernails. ‘I know. It’s just that the truth will seem a whole lot stranger than that, harder to believe.’
Kirby arched an eyebrow. ‘Oh really? I’m a copper, I’ve seen lots of strange things.’ He fixed Harold with one of his best stares. ‘So try me.’
Harold shrugged in a “you asked for it” sort of way. ‘We’re guardians.’
OK, granted he hadn’t been expecting that one. ‘Guardians of what? Jesmond high street? Great, a grey cardigan vigilante group.’
Harold ignored the sarcasm. ‘This is not going to make much sense.’
‘Well at least you’ll be consistent with the rest of my day.’
Harold shrugged. ‘Guardians of the divide.’
Kirby drummed his fingers on the table. He could see that Harold was not deliberately trying to wind him up. However… ‘Yes, I agree that doesn’t make much sense. Now look, I’m losing patience. If you have information, I need to know. I’ve got a missing girl. It was only this morning, but my convoluted subconscious mind believes that because she left a pair of new pink shoes, laced-up, at the side of the road, something is not right. My conscious policeman’s mind is battling with all that. It’s also not that enamoured with me listening to an old lady on the street telling me to find you, that you profess to be called Harold Longcoat and that you are pretending to be something you’re not. So you see my dilemma?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘Good. Now I’m prepared to give my subconscious mind the benefit of the doubt for now. However, I can see where my conscious mind is coming from.’ Kirby stood. ‘So if you insist on talking in riddles we can continue this down the station.’
Harold straightened up, becoming even taller. He glanced around the dusty shelves as if looking for guidance from the spare supply of baked beans and toilet rolls, then up at Kirby. ‘That won’t help, believe me. Please sit down. I’ll do my best to explain, and when I do you’ll understand my hesitance.’
‘Go on,’ Kirby said, lowering himself back into the seat.
‘OK, but I tell you now, you’re going to struggle with this.’
Kirby looked into Harold’s eyes, seeking clues as to what he was dealing with. What he saw was the same intensity, the same dramatic intelligence he’d glimpsed in Edna’s. Those eyes made you believe. ‘All right, I’ll tell my conscious mind to pipe down for now. So?’
‘You said this missing girl was called Sarah Cooper?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well if Edna has sent you to me it’s because there’s every chance she’s not in this world.’
Kirby felt his heart beating in his chest. ‘You mean she’s dead?’
Harold held up a hand. ‘No, sorry. No, that’s not what I mean.’
Kirby shook his head. ‘What then, she’s not in Newcastle, not in the country?’
Harold took a deep breath. It seemed he was finding it as difficult to explain as Kirby was to understand. ‘No, I mean she may be in another world. As in on the other side of the divide.’
Kirby opened his mouth to speak, but there were no coherent words forming in either his conscious or subconscious brain.
Harold continued. ‘I’m not sure how else to put this. She’s not in the world that you and I are currently in. Where she is it’s not the twenty-first century. It’s a world that’s more like the sixth century BC.’
Kirby felt that all this nonsense just about capped his day, topped his week and was heading for his all-time top three with designs on making it to number one. What had started as strange was becoming bizarre to say the least. This was the last time he was going to listen to his subconscious. He rose from the table again. ‘Well, Mr Longcoat or whoever you are, be grateful that I’ve got better things to do at the moment than charging you and Edna, if that is her name, with wasting police time.’
Harold reached out and grabbed his arm. Kirby pulled away but Harold wasn’t letting go. ‘Please, Inspector. I’m telling you things that we don’t normally share with anyone. However, I’m telling you now because if I’m right, you’re going to need our help and not just with a missing girl.’
Kirby stopped pulling. Harold’s eyes were pleading with him.
‘Just hear me out. Edna approached you because she saw something in you. A mind that might be open to possibilities that are beyond the ordinary. And you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t seen something in her that you believed. She did this because things are stirring that could affect the whole of this land – Newcastle, Northumberland and beyond.’
Kirby shook his head. ‘What things? I…’
Harold stared up at him. ‘Look at me. Really look at me and if you don’t like what you find then by all means go. Then Edna and I, and others, will have to do what we can on our own as we’ve done before.’
Kirby looked into the man’s eyes. He’d come across more than a few people who were, shall we say, on the borderline of sanity and beyond. What he saw convinced him that Harold was firmly his side of the line. There was a weight and truth in the man that Kirby didn’t see every day. Even the most innocent of people had things to hide, things they’d rather you didn’t know. As a copper, you had to winkle them out. But here was a man offering him everything and this time it was Kirby who wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Harold had let go of his arm, so he was free to leave. Instead he sat down. He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again just to check if he was dreaming. He wasn’t. On impulse he reached into his pocket and took out the smooth stone that was begging to be stroked. He put it on the table. ‘Does this mean anything to you?’
Harold looked at it but didn’t touch it. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It was on the ground near Sarah Cooper’s shoes.’ He shrugged. ‘It… it just didn’t belong.’
‘It must have been dropped. It’s a contact stone. It allows people to find each other when they’re separated.’
Kirby pushed it with the tip of a finger so it rolled over. ‘But it’s just a pebble.’
‘You said it didn’t belong. It doesn’t. If it was just a pebble you wouldn’t have picked it up, kept it and be showing it to me now.’
He nodded. Harold had a point. ‘So what you’re saying, it’s like GPS?’
Harold laughed. ‘Nothing so crude. I suppose it’s sort of like a homing beacon. But it’s more than that. In the hands of the right person it can lead them to people or places they want to be. It can tell them what’s happening to others with compatible stones.’
‘So, assuming I believe you,’ Kirby said, adding the caveat to help with his own feelings of sanity, ‘someone might know it’s here?’
Harold shook his head. ‘No, someone does know it’s here and also, more than likely, who it’s with.’
Kirby focused on the stone and ran a hand through his hair. From anyone else, what Harold was telling him would seem like the ravings of a lunatic. The problem now for Kirby was that he was starting to believe him.
Eight
‘Comfortable, Mephisto?’
Marriane watched as Mephisto opened one eye,
the green one, followed by the blue one. It took a second for them to focus. When they did, they darted from side to side as if his first thought was to leap off the garden seat he was lying on and make a run for it. But in his current manifestation that wouldn’t be cool, would it?
‘Hello, Marianne. Finally tracked me down then?’
Marianne smiled and watched as Mephisto, despite himself, squirmed. ‘Oh, I’ve known where you are for a long time, Mephisto. You’re not the only one who can do disguises. Just thought I’d let you suffer.’
Mephisto licked a paw, feigning indifference. ‘It’s hardly suffering. I quite like it, having someone pampering me. And all I have to do is give a little affection occasionally.’
‘And pose for the camera.’
‘Ah.’
‘Those eyes are a bit of a giveaway. And you never could resist an audience. But I ask you, Youtube?’ Funny she thought, how her instinct was to pick him up. She resisted, it suited her to be looming over him.
The tip of Mephisto’s tail flicked up and down as he avoided her gaze. ‘So, Marianne, I’m guessing since I’m not writhing around in agony or even dead yet that there’s a reason for your visit, other than revenge.’
‘Revenge, hmm,’ Marianne placed a finger to her lips as if thinking about it. She watched the hairs on his neck stand up and his eyes widen in fear. Just as he was finding it difficult to breathe she eased the pressure and grinned. She stroked his ear. ‘Just so you know I haven’t quite forgiven you.’
‘It didn’t mean anything.’
She gave his throat another squeeze. Her voice hardened. ‘It did to me.’
He breathed again and this time he kept quiet.
Marianne smiled and let her tone ease. ‘How could you? A doe-eyed little receptionist with all the backbone of a limpet. I would have thought that was beneath even you, Mephisto.’ Marianne placed a finger under his chin, forcing him to look into her eyes, something she knew he would normally try to avoid. She felt the weight of his head and watched as his eyes glazed. ‘It was her I felt sorry for.’
‘You nearly killed me.’
