Laughing Boy

by Stuart Pawson

  Tim Roper had written a song called ‘The Property Developer’. We stared at the words, expecting them to blossom before our eyes into some multi-coloured fire-breathing shape with horns and a tail. Dan broke the silence. “Want to hear one?” he asked.

  We did. It took nearly a minute to download, then the tapping of a cowbell slowly filled the room, followed by a twangy guitar and a keyboard. When he started singing he had a strained contralto voice like syrup being squeezed through a syringe. Neil Young on a bad day. He sang:

  This is the eye of the storm

  Watch out for that needle, Son

  ’Cos this is the eye of the storm…

  We’d been crowded around the computer in Dan’s bedroom, and it suddenly felt oppressive in there. I stood up and went downstairs, the high voice following me until I closed the kitchen door and shut it off. I filled a cup with water from the tap and drank it. As the first words of the song came out of the little speakers the sweat on my spine had changed to ice. It was a voice from the grave, and thirty-two years later and six thousand miles away someone had been inspired by it. Inspired enough to kill seven strangers.

  I went through into the front room and sat in an easy chair, waiting for the others to come downstairs.

  By lunchtime next day we had our own Internet access in the incident room, plus transcriptions and photocopies of every lyric and poem Tim Roper had composed. We even had recordings of the songs themselves, kindly downloaded by Daniel and put on CD ROMs for us. He was probably breaking all sorts of copyright law but I granted him a dispensation. I shared out the song sheets and several of us spent the rest of the day poring over them. There was no contact address on the website and nobody in the office knew how to trace such things, so we handed that little problem to our technical department.

  Most of the lyrics were fairly typical Sixties anti-establishment stuff that I’d happily have sung along with back in those days. Some of the later stuff was more poisonous, advocating bombing schools and shooting politicians. When I listened to them performed, however, the anger came over but the actual words were lost in the wall of sound. Most modern rap records were probably just as violent, had you been able to hear and consider the words. One or too had an uncanny topicality. What goes around comes around:

  You’re dead, Mr Businessman

  Your shares won’t repair

  The hole in your brain

  And the Oval Office

  Will make a place

  For dogs to sleep

  An’ feel at home.

  The phone rang, startling me. At the back of my mind was the fear that another body was lying somewhere, waiting for an unsuspecting jogger or dog-walker to find it. Every time the phone rang I hesitated, my hand hovering over it as I said a little prayer. This time it was the lab, and I heaved another sigh of relief. They told me that the letter from the killer had probably been printed on a Hewlett Packard 600 series printer. The paper transfer rollers leave evidence of their action behind and the paper rack leaves indents on the bottom edge of each sheet. The spacings were consistent with the HP, and that’s all they could tell me. No DNA. No prints. When we caught him it would be another piece of circumstantial evidence, but it wouldn’t help us catch him.

  Five minutes later it was ringing again. This time I learned that Naomi had been positively identified as Norma Holborn, aged 33, a convicted prostitute who worked in Manningham Lane, Bradford. I gave our press office permission to release her name and sent someone to collect the CCTV tapes.

  Tim Roper had written a series of short poems called What Did You Do In The War, Dad? My favourite was called #23, although there were only eight of them. It read:

  You never saw a German or a Jap,

  but you had to zap someone

  You spread your seed from a lower altitude

  And ignored the moans of only one.

  Put Tim’s mother in the family way, that’s what Dad did in the war. Dr Foulkes might find something of interest in that fact and the effect it could have on an impressionable small boy, but it wasn’t much help to me. I was working at a spare desk in the main office, because my little one gives me claustrophobia and it’s noisy if I have the window open. I can’t hear myself think for the pigeons cooing. Pete Goodfellow came over and asked me if I’d like a coffee.

  “Please,” I replied.

  “Any joy?”

  “Nah, not that I’m expecting any. His dad didn’t go off to fight in World War Two, and he’d have liked him to have been a hero. Big deal. You?”

  “Not much. Hogans are what Navajo Indians live in, and Tents of Kedar is a biblical reference, that’s all. Haven’t found any others.”

  “Don’t tell me: Revelations. That’s where all the nutters’ Bibles fall open.”

  “Actually, it’s the Song of Solomon.”

  “Well that’s a change. Have you had a look?”

  “Mmm. Doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

  “Well it won’t to me, that’s for sure.”

  “Have you seen this morning’s UK News?” Pete asked.

  “About Madame LeStrang? Yeah, I saw it.” Julia LeStrang was a self-styled psychic and a charlatan with a taste for publicity.

  “She says she can help find the killer. Claims she told us where to find Georgina Dewhurst’s body.”

  I felt my hands start to shake, like they had the day I’d slit open the bag that contained what had once been a delightful little girl. “The person who put it there told us where to find Georgina’s body,” I said, my voice almost a growl, “and if that old witch starts causing trouble by going round upsetting people, resurrecting ghosts, she’ll be hearing from me.”

  “Right. I’ll, er, make that coffee.”

  I moved back to my office and found an envelope in the bottom drawer. Inside it was a school photograph of Georgina wearing a blouse and striped tie, giving a gap-toothed smile at the camera. She’d been eight years old when her stepfather smothered her, and I’d found her body wrapped in a bin-liner in a rat-infested workshop at a disused coalmine. My wife was pregnant when she left me but I didn’t know. I found out by accident, after her new boyfriend had signed the consent forms at the clinic. Eight would have been the same age as… Ah well, I thought, no point in going down that road again. I placed the picture back in its envelope and slid it under the files as Pete came in with my coffee.

  Things were moving so I rang my opposite numbers at Hatfield and Hendon and arranged a meeting with them at the police training college. Chief Superintendent Natrass was on leave but Martin agreed to represent him. Not wanting to be too outnumbered, and preferring some company on a long drive, I took Maggie along.

  We’d prepared files containing details of the Norma Holborn murder, the Property Developer note and transcripts of everything Tim Roper had ever written. Maggie handed them out as they fumbled in pockets for spectacles and cautiously opened the files.

  “Does the Property Developer mean anything?” one of them asked as he reached that part.

  “It’s the name of a song,” I replied.

  “Property development – location, location, location,” Martin said, presumably because it came into his head and he had nothing else to contribute. I looked at Maggie and she pulled a face.

  It all fell a bit flat. They thanked me for keeping them informed and wished me the best of luck, but the hidden message was that it was on my patch, now. As I negotiated the junction of the M25 with the M1 and settled back for a three-hour blast northwards I said: “Well that was a waste of time, wasn’t it?”

  “I can say I’ve been to Hendon,” Maggie replied, “and that’s about it.”

  “I’ll put you down for a course, any time you want,” I told her.

  “Yeah!” she exclaimed, “and put me down for a divorce at the same time, please.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “No, not really, but Tony gets a bit fed up when he has to cook his own meals. Schoolteachers have pressures on them, too, you know.”<
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  “So I believe.”

  We listened to the news and Maggie tried to find some decent music but couldn’t, so we settled for talking.

  “What about you?” Maggie asked. “Haven’t noticed you coming in reeking of aftershave lately, or wearing your best shirts to work.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “It’s not only the farmers who are having a lean time,” I told her.

  “Have you heard from Annette since she left?”

  “No.” Annette was one of my DCs, and I’d disregarded the golden rule about becoming involved with a fellow officer. She had hair like a forest fire, and freckles and green eyes, and I’d thought: stuff the rules.

  “That’s a shame. I thought you’d found it with Annette. She’s a nice girl.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  Maggie was quiet for a while, then she said, hesitantly: “I, er, never really thought that, you know, Annabelle was for you. She was an attractive woman, beautiful, but, I never thought, you know… I’m sorry. Tell me to mind my own business.”

  I smiled at the memories. Annabelle was the first long-term relationship I’d had since my divorce. She was beautiful and sophisticated, the widow of a bishop, and far too classy for me. We’d helped each other out of a difficult patch, then gone our separate ways. I said: “Maggie, my love life is your business. You’ve been sorting it out for me for the last twelve years. I never thought Annabelle was for me, either. It was an extremely pleasant interlude, but I always knew it would end. It was just the manner of it that was upsetting. I was very fond of Annette, still am, but it wasn’t to be. She had a boyfriend and he had two small daughters, and she wanted to play happy families. I couldn’t compete.”

  “I don’t think I’d want to take on another woman’s children,” Maggie stated.

  “It was her choice.”

  “It’s a big gamble. Would you have her back?”

  “Annette? Yes, I’d have Annette back. Not Annabelle, though. Annette never cheated on me. I knew the score right from the start.”

  We were streaking past Leicester Forest services when my phone rang, jolting me out of my reverie and sending that familiar trickle of iced water down my spine. I’d left word that I didn’t want any calls at all, unless it was urgent.

  “Priest,” I said, easing into the slow lane.

  “That you, Charlie?” the voice asked. It took me a second or two to realise it was Nigel Newley.

  “Hello, Nigel. What can we do for you?”

  “Hi, Boss. You’re not in at home so I thought I’d chance your mobile. Where are you?”

  I have a reputation for not switching my mobile on. I don’t belong to the instant communications, anywhere, anytime, generation. There’s a time and a place for everything, and telephones should be screwed to desks in offices. Mobiles are tolerable in an emergency. “Coming up the M1,” I replied. “What’s it about?”

  “Just thought you’d like to know that a friend of yours was arrested a couple of hours ago.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Graham Allen.”

  “Graham Allen? Remind me.”

  “Ex-boyfriend of Colinette Jones.”

  “I have him. What’s he done?”

  “Not sure of the details, but nobody from Heckley was available when the call came, so we have him downstairs on an assault with intent charge. He beat up his next-door neighbour. We’ll be holding him until tomorrow so there’s no hurry, but I thought you’d like to know.”

  “You bet I’d like to know,” I said, but expecting me to wait until the next day was like asking an orphan to save his Easter egg until Whitsuntide. I told Nigel that I’d be there in an hour and I’d appreciate it if he’d clear the way for me to have a word with young Mr Allen. I offered to drop Maggie off but she insisted in coming along. Poor Tony would have to wait for his tea again.

  When I joined the force Halifax nick was a Victorian building in the middle of town, built when labour was cheap and ornamentation was included in the price. Proportion erred towards solid rather than graceful, but in the event of an earthquake they would be the buildings left standing. Burgeoning business and increased technology revealed the old building’s shortcomings, and the move was made to a modern police station on the edge of the town centre. Land prices may have been an influential factor too, but I’m not cynical enough to follow that argument. The rush hour had ended and the thought of another meeting with handsome Graham had injected a certain urgency into my driving, so we were there in quicksticks. I parked in the spot reserved for the chief constable’s annual visit and took the steps two at a time.

  The arresting detective had kindly waited for me and he told us what it was all about. Graham had been told not to say a word without his solicitor present, but when I heard his story it sounded reasonable. He’d gone round to his parents’ house to collect any mail that might be for him and seen the next-door neighbour, called Neville Ferriby, locking the door behind him as he left. That was fair enough, because Mr Ferriby had been given a key by Graham’s parents so he could water a rather large magnolia in the conservatory. But Graham claimed he had suspicions that the neighbour was overstepping his brief, so he’d laid a trap for him. He’d left a long blonde hair from his girlfriend across the door to his parent’s bedroom, and when he checked he found it had been dislodged. Graham then went next door to challenge the neighbour, things got out of hand and Mr Ferriby found himself paying an unscheduled visit to Heckley General A & E department with a broken nose and facial bruising.

  When the custody officer went to give Graham his routine check Maggie and I accompanied him. He unlocked the cell door and we stood there looking at a young man who was a shadow of the cocksure fellow we’d interviewed three weeks earlier. The hair was greasy and had lost its bounce, as had the rest of him. Prison changes a man, but he’d only been in for four hours. Maybe the problem was the pale blue one-piece disposable suit he was wearing. As far as I knew none of the major fashion houses were making them yet, but stick a decent label on, charge a hundred and fifty quid, and they’ll soon be all over the place.

  “Hello Graham,” I said. “We’ve met before, I’m Inspector Priest from Heckley CID.” I’d never get used to the Acting Chief Inspector bit. “Now I know you don’t want to talk to us without legal representation, and I respect that, but as you know I’m investigating the death of Colinette. Do you mind if I ask a few questions regarding that enquiry?”

  He was sitting on his bunk, elbows on knees, looking up at me. He shrugged his shoulders, which I took as assent. “What made you suspicious that Neville Ferriby was snooping round your parents’ house?” I asked. He brushed a lank lock off his forehead while he wondered if this was a trick question. “This is off the record,” I told him, “and nobody’s writing anything down.”

  “I just thought he was,” he replied, eventually.

  “What put the idea in your mind?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Something must have done.” I started to ask if he’d seen him snooping around or spying on them, then realised I’d be putting my words into his mouth. “Think about it,” I said.

  “Once,” he began. “Years ago. I was still at school. It was a hot day and I knew Mum would be sunbathing in the garden. I sneaked in the back way. There’s a ginnel runs along the bottoms of the gardens. I was going to put the lawn sprinkler on to give her a surprise, or something, but I saw him, up in his bedroom window. He was spying on her, with his binoculars. That’s all.”

  “And you’ve never liked him since.”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever make any approaches or advances to your mother or yourself?”

  “No.”

  “In the summer before you finished with Colinette your parents held a barbecue, I believe.”

  “They were always holding them. That’s how they live in Spain. Dad’s a barbecue freak.”

  “Mr Ferriby
was at this one, with his video camera.”

  “They used to invite the neighbours in case the smoke or the music upset them. They weren’t friends or anything. Ferriby was a camera bore. You know the type, thought he was Lord Lichfield. He keeps fish, as well.”

  “As well as what?” I asked, deadpan. “As well as Lord Lichfield keeps fish or as well as being a camera bore?”

  “As well as being a camera bore,” he replied without a flicker of a smile.

  “Right. He took some film of Colinette,” I told him. “Her mother has it. Did you know about it?”

  “No. He must have given it to Colly sometime when she came round to see Mum. She often did.”

  “But you didn’t know about it?”

  “No.”

  “OK. Thanks for talking to us. I’m sure the magistrate will sort you out in the morning.”

  He called her Colly. It was the only display of any semblance of affection he’d shown towards poor Colinette, and it took sitting in a prison cell, feeling sorry for himself, to drag that out of him. We bought fish and chips and mushy peas and took them round to Maggie’s house. Tony had laid the table for us, warmed the plates and had a pot of strong tea mashing as we arrived. Mobile phones do have their uses.

  “London, was it, today?” he asked as he handed me the ketchup.

  “Hendon,” I replied. “We borrowed an office at the training college.”

  “About these murders?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what do they know about them?”

  “We took them copies of the files, to see if anyone had anything similar in their division.”

  “And had they?”

  “They’ll let us know.”

  I cleaned my plate but declined a slice of fruitcake and another cup of tea and left. My appetite was down and the atmosphere in the house was tense, like there were land-mines under the carpet and one wrong foot would cause an explosion. I have big feet. It was still daylight as I drove home through the empty town centre, and on an impulse I turned into the station yard and went up to the office. One day these impulses will get me into bother.

  I found last year’s diary, jotted down a number from the back and dialled it. After two rings a female voice that might have been at the next desk said: “Federal Bureau of Investigation, how can I help you?”