by Neil White
I left the shop as quickly as I had gone in. I needed to see Eric Randle again, before the police got there.
Chapter Twenty-five
The town centre faded quickly in my rear-view mirror as the Triumph Stag climbed the long lines of terraces, with dusty windows and stone doorways right by the pavement. The streets were busy with Pakistani women in billowing silk clothes, some with veils, glittering brown eyes peering out. The cars on the street were mainly new, with alloys and chrome, spoilers and bright paint, magnets for the young men who stood around talking.
Once the terraced grid faded, I turned into an estate, a collection of cul-de-sacs coming off a circular road. One route in, one route out. The faces on the pavements became white, and hostile eyes glared out from under the peak of a baseball cap or a hood, with tracksuits wrapped around skinny legs and tucked into socks. No one walked. They either bounced or they slouched, some attached to vicious-looking dogs with bow legs and jaws like bolt-cutters.
The houses were mainly semi-detached and well-spaced, with dark brick at the bottom, grey pebbledash at the top, behind straggly privet hedges with beer cans wedged at the bottom, blown there by the wind, the colours faded by the summer sun. England flags hung from some of the windows, dirty with the rain, almost like a warning. The cars along the kerbsides were old and worn. Pool cars, the police called them, ragged old Vauxhalls used by local youths, none with insurance, most without even a driving lesson let alone a licence.
It was a desperate sight, but one that made me realise how lucky I had been. I hadn’t grown up wealthy, but I had grown up loved. On this estate I saw just hopelessness and anger. But then I saw something else, something which made me think that maybe there was some fear as well.
Among the collection of grimy semis were the occasional spots of colour, flower baskets and double-glazing, with well-kept gardens and neat brick walls. They were islands, pockets of hope, but their children hung around in the same neighbourhood, were bothered by the same dealers, made to run in the same pack, their dreams of a better life stolen by those who didn’t dream at all.
I found Eric’s street eventually, tucked away at the top of the estate, backing onto fields. I crawled up slowly in the car as I tried to work out the address from the numbers on the doors.
I stepped out of my car and looked around. I noticed a small group of teenagers leaning against a wall, looking like they weren’t interested, passing a cigarette between them. But I could tell they were watching me. I patted my wallet and phone subconsciously.
I looked back at the address given to me by Randle. The brickwork was splashed with paint and someone had painted ‘peedo’ in large red letters over the board. It would have had more impact if it had been spelled correctly. As I looked up, I saw every window was boarded up, no sign of life anywhere. The numbers on the door were chipped and broken, and the letterbox was nailed shut.
I heard the teenagers approach me.
‘Nice car,’ said one, in a way that told me that it might not stay nice for long.
‘Looking for Dirty Eric?’ another asked, blowing smoke towards me, the cigarette almost down to the filter.
I turned around. ‘Does someone still live here?’
They all laughed. ‘Yeah, the fucking nonce,’ one said, and another said, ‘We tried to torch the fucker’s house,’ and then threw a stone at the boards as if to emphasise the point.
‘You the police?’ It was a girl, her eyes bagged by dark rings, her tracksuit stained and grimy.
I shook my head. ‘No, I’m a reporter.’
‘What’s the dirty perv done now?’
‘Nothing. I just need to see him.’
Some of the group walked off and picked up pieces of brick from the front garden. They made thuds as they threw them on the boards over the windows.
I looked back towards the house. ‘So he’s got it all boarded up because you little wankers keep on breaking his windows?’
They stopped what they were doing and looked at me, surprised. Then they started to look uncertain. They were in a pack, but I was bigger than all of them, fitter than all of them, and older than all of them.
‘Who you calling wankers?’ said one, but he was at the back of the group, and mumbled it quietly.
I smiled, but I packed it full of menace. ‘Work it out. Now, tell me what Eric Randle did to make you want to burn his house down, and then watch my car while I’m in there. A tenner if it’s good, and my car is still how I left it when I come out.’
The girl at the front held out her gold-ringed hand. ‘Money first.’
I shook my head. ‘Info first, and then look after my car. Then you get your money. You’ll get enough cider and fags with that to see out the rest of the afternoon.’
The group started laughing, flicking their fingers and bouncing on their heels.
‘He got locked up for murder, man,’ said one, a skinny blond kid with his head shaved around the sides and a fringe gelled flat.
I tried to bluff my surprise. ‘Shit, and you want to mess with him?’ I said, my voice filled with sarcasm.
‘Yeah, but he got off with it.’
‘So he’s not a paedo?’
He looked sad. ‘I don’t know. But he’s not right,’ and he jabbed his temple with his finger.
‘How long ago was this murder?’
The group looked between each other, and then the kid at the back said, ‘A few years ago, when I was still in juniors.’
I winked at them. ‘Cheers. Now for the next part. I won’t be long.’
I walked up the path and someone shouted, ‘Do we still get our money if he’s not in?’
I didn’t answer, but I smiled to myself. At least it showed a spark of initiative. I banged on the door and stood there for a while, waiting, and then looked back when I heard the sound of a key being turned. ‘You’re going to have to work for it.’
As I turned back to the house, I saw Eric’s face appear, blinking in the sunlight.
My eyes struggled to adjust to the murkiness as I went inside. I turned around fast when I heard the door slam shut and the key quickly turn.
‘You saw it,’ said Eric, his voice snapping out the words.
‘What did I see?’ I asked, squinting.
I was aware of Eric moving in front of me, like a shadow, the slow shuffle of his feet betraying his whereabouts.
‘You saw the news,’ said Eric. ‘Where that boy was found. It was in my picture.’
I smiled to myself. I had been right. I had started to see through the darkness better, and I thought I could see Eric grinning. ‘Why is your house all boarded up?’ I remembered the words of the teenagers outside and wanted his version.
Eric’s grin twitched and he turned away. ‘The local kids don’t like me.’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘I live on my own. I just sit in here and paint. If I don’t have the boards up, they brick my windows or put petrol through my letterbox.’
I stole a glance towards the front door. I could make out charred floorboards.
‘There’s more to this than that,’ I said. ‘Kids don’t pick on old men because they’re old. You’ve got “peedo” painted on the boards. What’s that about?’
Eric turned away and walked across the room, glanced towards a framed photograph of a young girl. She looked young, maybe fifteen.
‘Because when people go missing, I tell the police about my dreams. But that makes me a suspect.’ He went quiet for a moment. ‘Sometimes suspect number one.’
‘So the police don’t believe you?’
Eric shook his head.
‘But if you went to them again, they might believe you this time.’
‘Or I might just become a suspect again.’
I sighed and began to walk around. The place was bleak. There were no carpets on the floor, and the boards on the windows blocked out most of the light, so it seemed like a cave. The living room contained an old electric fire, a plastic cover with l
og shapes moulded into it, brought to life by the light underneath. Elsewhere there was an easy chair with worn arms, and a table upon which there was a book, open and face down, a lamp, and a small colour television.
‘Why do you stay here?’ I asked.
Eric looked down and spoke quietly. ‘If they drive me out, the house will stand empty. The kids will play in the house, it will become somewhere to drink and take their girlfriends. Some older ones will come along and rip out the bathroom, take all the pipes. It won’t take long to turn this into an empty shell, and I won’t let them do it.’
‘But Eric, why should you care? Ask for a move, get settled somewhere else. You’re too old for this crap.’
‘This is my home’, he said angrily. ‘I’ve lived in this house for forty years. It used to be nice round here, with good people. There are still some good people, but more bad than good now. It’s my home, I’ve got some good memories, and I won’t leave.’
He stood there, his chest heaving with emotion. ‘So are you going to write about me?’
‘I’d like to, if it’s a good story. But a lot of people won’t believe you.’
‘It’s difficult for people, I know that,’ he said, nodding. ‘If I didn’t have the dreams, I wouldn’t believe it.’
‘Do you believe in God?’ I asked.
Eric looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that. Do you believe in a celestial being, a force, something that guides us, determines our life?’
‘That’s not God. That’s fate.’
‘You can’t have one without the other. Fate is a predetermined end. Someone or something has to pre-determine it, some force. If you don’t believe in God, you can’t really believe you dream the future.’
‘I don’t believe in it; that would make it a faith. I just sort of know it. I have dreams, I paint them, and then they come true.’
‘There is another possibility,’ I said, watching Eric carefully.
Eric said nothing, perhaps guessing what I was going to say.
‘That you are responsible for what is in the pictures,’ I continued.
‘If you think you are the first person with that idea, you are wrong,’ he said.
‘I’ve got to ask the questions the readers will ask. Some will be suspicious.’
Eric smiled softly. ‘That depends on how you write it.’
‘Show me where you paint,’ I said, worried that I had lost his trust.
Eric looked at me for a moment, as if he was wondering why he had to humour me, but then he shuffled towards the kitchen. As I followed him, I noticed a small door between the two rooms. I paused for a moment, it looked like a cellar door, but I looked up when Eric shouted, ‘No!’
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, startled.
Eric looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s dark down there, and I don’t want you to fall.’
I glanced at the door. As Eric nodded his insistence, I followed him into another dark room, wooden boards covering the windows at the rear too. I could see some cupboards around the walls, and then a stainless-steel sink and a grubby gas cooker. Right in the middle of it was an easel. On it was a pad of paper. The top sheet was blank.
‘Ready for the morning?’ I asked.
Eric nodded.
‘Have you got any other paintings involving Sam Nixon?’ I asked.
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ he said. ‘I dream a lot of things. I don’t always know who or what it is.’
‘What about Luke King?’ I asked. ‘He was in the first picture you showed to Sam, the one with Jess. He was interviewed about her murder. Did you know it was him?’
Eric shook his head slowly. ‘No, I had no idea. I knew it involved Sam Nixon, but that’s all.’
‘But you knew it was Jess?’
‘Come with me tonight, to my group. You might understand then.’
I was surprised. ‘Are you sure?’
He looked pleased. ‘Of course. You can meet others like me.’
I smiled at Eric. ‘Thank you.’ And as I pulled out my notepad and camera, ready to begin the interview, I thought that he looked truly happy for the first time since I’d met him.
Chapter Twenty-six
Luke King’s old school loomed in front of me, at the top of a hill, with views over Blackley. It was redbrick, with Gothic ramparts and high lattice windows, large stone doorways marking the ways in. It comprised two blocks, with ivy over the first, so that from the town it seemed to sink into the hills. Long green fields ran in front, with rugby posts on one side and hockey goals on the other. There was a roped-off area between the two pitches, and I could tell from the shorter grass that it was a cricket square.
The school had history and heritage, and had churned out over a century of politicians and lawyers, accountants and industry leaders. It seemed so different to the one I had gone to, with its flat roofs and tarmac grounds, two soccer pitches marked out in wobbly white lines. As I looked around I also realised it must have been different to Jimmy King’s old school, on the rougher edges of town, where all the kids from the children’s home went. Maybe that was the whole point.
I would write up my interview with Eric later, but he had painted something connected to Luke King, so I thought it was time to look into Luke, just in case the connection firmed up. And I knew one thing: people don’t become murderers overnight. There were one-off crimes of passion, or fights gone wrong, but what I had gleaned about Jess’s death was that it was vicious, brutal and coldblooded. So, go back to the start was my theory, just to see what came up.
I parked outside the school gates and walked up the drive, underneath an avenue of trees, sycamore and horse chestnut, which swept around the sports pitches. I could hear the soft hum of traffic, but it seemed rural, tranquil. The breeze made the branches creak, and the leaves rustled as I got near the car park.
I followed the signs to the main entrance and found myself outside the secretary’s office, facing a sliding glass window, the chatter and noise of a school just a corridor away. I could see the secretary on the other side of the glass, and I knew she had seen me, but she made me wait. Obviously, I didn’t look like a prospective parent.
When she slid open the glass, she gave me a frosty look. Glasses hung from her neck on a thin silver chain, gleaming like a necklace against her turquoise jumper.
‘Can I help?’
She said it in a way that sounded like she very much doubted it.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m writing an article on James King, the local businessman, and I’m hoping to build up a family profile. I believe that his children attended this school, and I wondered if the headmaster would be prepared to talk to me.’
She looked me up and down and then placed the glasses onto her nose, just so she could peer over the top of them at me. She pointed to some chairs further along the reception area.
‘Sit down, please. I’ll speak to Mr Hawarth.’
I took my place and waited.
As I looked around I could almost hear the echoes of Blackley’s past. I faced a trophy cabinet, filled with sports awards. Framed rugby jerseys lined the walls, donated by former pupils who had played at a higher level after leaving. A crested wooden board dominated the centre of the wall, a list of honours on one side, head boys on the other, all painted in white. It told parents one thing: pay for your son’s education and great things beckon. I scoured the names quickly.
A caretaker loitered nearby as he collected rubbish in a large black bag. As I waited, he glanced at me and then went outside.
I was kept waiting for twenty minutes; maybe in hope that I would get bored and go away. When it was obvious that I was prepared to wait, a door opened at the other end of the room and a tall man with a grey moustache appeared. He had a military look, from the proud burst of his chest to the firmness of his jaw.
I stood up to greet him and held out my hand to shake. He gripped it and gave it a sturdy pump.
I introduced myself, but
I didn’t get any further than that.
‘I’m sorry, but I cannot discuss former pupils.’
‘So Luke King is a former pupil?’ Sometimes the only way to get people talking was to get them answering questions.
His eyes narrowed. ‘As I said, I’m not prepared to discuss former pupils.’
I nodded acceptance. ‘So the interview is over?’
He gestured towards the door. ‘Please, Mr Garrett.’
