Towers of Silence

by Cath Staincliffe

  “We just had tea,” Tom yelled, delighted at this example of adult folly.

  “Oh, great,” Ray retorted giving me a moody glare.

  “They were starving,” I protested. “I’d no idea when you’d be back.”

  “You can have two teas,” Laura told Tom, trying to improve the atmosphere.

  “It’s only twenty past,” Ray continued.

  “Sorry,” I said without sounding it. “If you’d let me know you were getting takeaway I wouldn’t have done anything.”

  “It was going to be a surprise,” he muttered.

  “I love takeaways.”

  Thanks, Maddie.

  Ray stomped about a bit getting fresh plates and cutlery and then we all sat down again. The kids didn’t manage much, and Ray had bought more than necessary. I ate a samosa, a small portion of aloo saag which was so hot I couldn’t taste either the potato or the spinach, and half an onion bhaji.

  Seeing as things were already strained I took the opportunity to push it a bit further; preferable to having to wait for him to stop sulking which could take ages. “We need a big shop,” I said. “And lots of frozen stuff.”

  “Yep,” he said curtly.

  “We could get the Christmas stuff at the same time.”

  “I’m getting the turkey tomorrow.”

  “But we need other stuff too.”

  “Right,” short and crisp.

  I saw Laura’s mouth twitch ever so slightly, just the smallest suggestion that she found his attitude risible. I was getting to like Laura more. At first I thought she was a bit too accommodating but I’d come to see that she decided when and where she’d get drawn into things. I also used to worry she’d be the downfall of our house whisking Ray off to nuclear bliss in a Hartley semi. It was still possible but they seemed quite content for now and she kept her flat on. I’d even reached the point where I could see her joining our household and it working. Though whether she’d ever countenance that I didn’t know. The kids were both very comfortable with her. A few days before she had suggested a trip out once school was finished, somewhere they could climb trees and play hide and seek. Ray had protested that he’d no time until he’d finished his furniture so Laura and I had agreed we’d take them anyway. It would be the first time we’d done something without Ray; a chance to get to know each other better.

  I left Ray and Laura clearing up. Spent some time helping Maddie with her reading and then a delightful hour delousing her head. Bed time followed and I made up the latest instalment of our home-made saga about Smokey, the baby dragon and Silver Moon, the orphaned Indian girl. Maddie or Tom, depending on whose turn it was, detailed the elements they wanted in the story and I joined the dots. Some surreal adventures ensued. But they all ended happily ever after in a world where people showered in waterfalls, rode on dragons and where sweets grew on trees.

  I really had to write some Christmas cards. I found my address book, the stack of cards, a pen and began a list of people to send them to. Progress was slow, I found it hard to concentrate as my mind kept sliding off to speculate about the morning, what my meeting with Bryony Walker would bring. Eddie Cliff had taken me in, just like he had everyone else. I still found it hard to credit.

  My mobile began to chirrup. It was Susan Reeve.

  “I’m sorry to ring you this late,” she said breathlessly, “but it’s Adam. He’s had a row with Ken and he’s just stormed off. He hasn’t even got a coat on and it’s horrendous out there. Ken’s out looking for him now but I thought if you could, if you wouldn’t mind ...”

  Oh, great. Just the ticket. There are times when my job loses its appeal.

  “Okay,” I put her out of her misery. “You’ve no idea where he’s gone?”

  “No, but he hasn’t any money so he won’t have been able to get the bus or anything.”

  “What was the row about?”

  She gave a sigh. “His attitude; he never said a word at tea time, wouldn’t eat his food. It was driving Ken up the wall. I thought it’d all calmed down after that but Ken went up to try and talk some sense into him and he just blew up. Yelling and shouting. The girls got that upset. It was bedlam. Then he ran off. Ken’s gone out in the car.”

  “What if I find him?”

  “Please, bring him home, if he’ll come.”

  “He still doesn’t know about me?”

  “No.”

  “And your husband?”

  “No. But I’ll tell him if it comes to that.”

  I knew my time was pretty much used up but I wasn’t going to be picky about it. I didn’t like to think of the poor lad out on such an awful night. I told her that I’d drive around for a bit, and to ring me again if she heard anything.

  Ray and Laura had gone to his room. I could hear a Marvin Gaye tape playing. My Marvin Gaye tape. Maybe I should get Ray a CD of it for Christmas. I knocked on the door.

  “Yes?” Ray’s voice.

  “It’s Sal,” I spoke through the door. “I’ve got to go out for work.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Someone’s done a bunk, a teenager. I said to his mum I’d see if I could spot him. See you later.”

  I was halfway down the stairs when Ray’s door opened and he came across the landing. He was wearing his dressing gown. “Sal, it’s nothing heavy is it?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

  He raised his eyebrows a fraction giving me the chance to amend my story if I was underplaying it. “Really. Go back to bed.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Thanks.”

  We’d had awful arguments in the past about the risks my job involved. Hence my self-defence classes. But he still worried.

  Chapter Forty

  The storm had hit, gusting wind, heavy rain falling as I unlocked the car. I put the heater on and the windscreen warmer. I put a tape on too. If I was going to cruise the streets of South Manchester on this foul night at least I’d have some decent sounds to accompany me. The Buena Vista Social Club swung into life and I pulled out of the drive and headed for Burnage.

  If Adam had no money then he’d be limited to travelling on foot, unless he tried hitching. I decided to work methodically starting with the streets near to his home and gradually working my way further out. The rain spattered across the windscreen with each surge of wind. It was very hard to see much of anything. I meandered along the roads off Burnside Drive then I drove down Kingsway towards town and circled the roundabout at the bottom and drove in the opposite direction. I scoured the pavements, bus shelters, shop doorways. Nothing. At one point I came across a group of lads outside a boarded up shop and slowed right down but I couldn’t see Adam among them. I wove my way through the council estates that straddled Kingsway. There were lots of cul-de-sacs and small avenues. Plenty of privet hedges to crouch behind and every house had a garden; he could be in a shed somewhere or under someone’s pergola.

  The tape finished. I substituted it for Macy Gray but that made me think about finishing with Stuart so I swapped that for Fat Boy Slim. My mobile went off and I pulled in to the side of the road and answered it.

  “Ken’s back,” she said, “I can hear the car.”

  “Has he got Adam?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t see ... wait a minute. No,” she sounded defeated. “No, he’s on his own. He’ll have had enough. If it was me ... Please will you ...”

  “I’ll keep looking a while longer but if he’s found somewhere out of sight to shelter then it’ll be impossible to find him. He has run off before.” I reminded her. And he came back.

  “But the row. I’ve never heard him like that. I’m really worried. If he did something stupid ...”

  “You could call the police,” I suggested. Though I wasn’t sure how much help they would give her. After all Adam had run away several times even if the circumstances hadn’t been exactly the same. But if she thought he was at risk? Wind buffeted the car and the connection began to break up.

  “I’ll try
a while longer,” I said.

  “Thank you so much.”

  Where would he shelter? Would he pass in a pub? Soaking wet and on his own? He’d draw too much attention. Besides, I reminded myself, he’s no money. I thought of his previous outings. Sitting on the bench at the Arndale Centre, on the bench at the bus stop. The vigil that had left him in tears. Where would he sit down round here. Forget about garden no way could I start looking in them. I’d passed the main bus-stops. I got out my bumper size A-Z and my Maglite and studied Burnage. Kingsway and the railway line divided the area in half. It was heavily built up. The only open spaces were at Cringle Fields which was quite a way away and Ladybarn Park. I couldn’t recall any shelter at Cringle Fields. I’d only ever been there to the travelling funfair. It was a wide, flat, open space ideal for the large fairs. Ladybarn was smaller and nearer. I drove there and parked on Mauldeth Road. The park was fairly open, a large row of poplars marked the southern boundary. It was pitch black, impossible to see if anyone was hiding beneath them. I played my torch over them, the beam rippling over the trunks and saw nothing. A squall of rain hit again and I tightened my hood. There were two deserted picnic areas, tables with fixed chairs, I think they’d been put there as a place for the youngsters to hang out. But not on a night like this. I walked along and round the corner so I could see into the bowling green and the basketball courts. Empty. Thunder cracked and rumbled in the distance and there was a single flash of sheet lightning that lit the sky momentarily.

  But no Adam. I made my way back to the car. A train rattled past on the bridge above. The station? There was a modicum of shelter there. Only two platforms but express trains ran through all night; this was the airport line. I did a three-point turn and drove up the slope which led to both the railway station and B&Q. I parked by the steps which led up to the platform.

  He was there. Hunched on one of the fixed metal seats in the shelter, his back curved, shivering. The wind was barracking the plastic glass, making the overhead wires sing and the trees roar. A torn poster advertising the Snow White pantomime at the Palace Theatre whipped against the shelter. He didn’t hear me approach.

  “Adam,” I called.

  He started and stood, emotions flashing across his face; confusion, fear, defiance. “Go away. Leave us alone.”

  He didn’t even know who I was but he didn’t want company. He took clumsy steps to the platform’s edge, his shoulders shaking with cold, his lips blue. It was only a few feet down to the rails and the gravel around them but there was a recklessness in the movement that scared the shit out of me.

  “Your mum sent me,” I told him. “She wants you to come home.” It was impossible to talk intimately, the racket of the wind meant that I had to shout to be heard. “She’s worried about you.”

  Behind Adam at the farthest point of the tracks I saw the unmistakable yellow pinprick light of a train appear. My heart stammered. I swallowed. “I’m a private detective,” I told him.

  “She knows?” he said incredulously, shock startling in his eyes.

  “What?”

  He looked as puzzled then as I was.

  “Come and get in the car,” I yelled.

  He shook his head.

  The train light had grown a little larger. I willed him not to look back, not to get any daft, dramatic ideas. He shivered, a violent jerk that made his teeth rattle.

  The wind flung more rain at us, bucketfuls. It sounded like stones hitting the shelter. It ran off my cagoule and soaked my knees, I could feel tiny cold rivulets running down my neck and soaking into my clothing. “Adam, she’s really worried. She asked me to find you.” He shook his head, his brow creasing.

  “Adam.”

  “Is he there?” he said with loathing.

  “Your father? He went out to look for you. He’s back home now.”

  “Did she tell you about him?”

  “She told me that you had a row.”

  He waited as if there was more. He looked down at the track.

  I thought I could hear the beat of the train galloping along the wires. A different rhythm from the wind. The light was bigger. I wiped rain off the tip of my nose and my forehead.

  “Adam.”

  “What’s the point?” He turned away from me. He could see the train.

  My pulse drummed quicker.

  I stepped closer trying to judge the distance so I could possibly reach him if needed but not get so close as to crowd his space and maybe force his move. His sweatshirt was plastered to his back. He was painfully thin, his neck looked white and scrawny, his elbows sharp points, the hand at the end of his arm too big for the rest of him.

  “She cares about you,” I answered him. I inched a bit closer. “She loves you.” The train was much nearer now, I could make out the shape of the cab. It was travelling at great speed, clattering towards us. The Airport Express, it wouldn’t stop here.

  He was standing on the very edge of the platform beyond the white line which marked the safety zone. One of his trainers was gaping open at the side where the stitching had gone.

  I glanced at the train again and its hooter blared like a foghorn, loud and urgent and unending. Adam flinched at the sound. I shifted one foot forward stared at his neck. I’d use my right arm to grab him and pull back. Safer than trying to clutch his sweatshirt which could tip him over the edge.

  “She needs you, Adam,” I yelled. “She needs you.” Remembering how Susan had talked of his protective attitude towards her.

  Was he going to jump?

  I got ready to spring then he turned my way, just as the train entered the station. It hurtled past us and we both ducked and moved back as the force of the air pushed at us and the scream of the hooter sounded again.

  It clacked away leaving us with only the moan of the wind. I tried to read his face but I couldn’t. He looked glazed. Would he have jumped? Had he been bluffing? Had it been a show for me or had my arrival thwarted his plan?

  If things were so bad what on earth was going on in his head? He needed help. But first he needed to go home, get warm and dry.

  “Adam, come on.”

  He followed me silently, bowing into the wind.

  We got in the car and I found an old j-cloth in the glove compartment and used it to dry my hands.

  Adam stared at his knees. He’d shut down on me. He shook spasmodically. I drove him home. I was wet through to the skin. I concentrated on the physical not wanting to dwell on the emotional trauma of the last half-hour.

  I drew into Burnside Drive and stopped opposite the house. The lights were on. I wondered if the heating was. If there was hot water. The car was in the drive. Ken Reeves’ car. I stared at it.

  Shock rippled through my cheekbones, made me swallow fast. Silver Mondeo, and in the barley-sugar glow of the streetlight, a crumpled bumper.

  Adam moved to release his seat belt.

  “Don’t.” I started the engine and drove on round the crescent, stopped again.

  “York,” I said to him. “Blandford Drive. It was your father.”

  And he began to cry.

  Chapter Forty One

  I kept the heater running in the car and soon the windows were opaque with condensation and the air redolent of wet hair and male body odour. Adam cried for a while gulping and sniffing. Wiping his face on his sleeve. “She knows?” he had said at the station when I’d told him I was a private eye. Meaning about his father. When he quietened he said in a husky voice.

  “She doesn’t know, does she? You didn’t either?”

  “Not till now.”

  “Don’t tell her.”

  I sighed. “I have to, Adam.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s my job. Your mum wanted me to find out what was happening with you. Now I have.”

  “Please don’t tell her,” he begged me.

  “It has to come out. Your mum knows you went to York and I’ve promised to find out who lives in the house. 21 Blandford Drive.”

  “You foll
owed me?” he said dully.

  “Yes. And we couldn’t work out why you were there.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment then he cursed. “Bastard, fucking bastard.”

  I knew who he meant.

  “How did you find out?” I asked him.

  “Colin, this friend. It was his birthday, in the summer holidays. We went to York. The Viking place. I got him a voucher, you know, for Comet and Superdrug, and there was a Comet in York. Colin was getting a mini-disc player, he’d saved up and he’d enough with the voucher.” He took a long breath in and out, pressed his palms between his knees. “He was there. I saw him kissing this woman at the counter. He goes off and she’s still waiting. I thought I’d gone mad. Maybe it was a double. You get that sometimes, doubles. She was ordering a dishwasher. I wanted to be wrong, so I listened for the name and the address.”

  “Blandford Drive,” I said.

  “Mrs Reeve,” he choked on the words.

  I exhaled. Listened to the rain slapping against the car. Heard an alarm start, a high-pitched keening.

  “I had to make sure. I so wanted to be wrong. You can’t tell her. You can’t,” he was impassioned. “She’ll ... what will she do?”

  “I don’t know. But don’t you think she’s entitled to the truth? Can you imagine carrying on like this? Keeping it from her? Missing college, not looking after yourself, messing up.”

  “I’ll go to college.”

  “It’s not just that.”

  “It’ll wreck everything.”

  “Adam, bigamy’s a serious offence. A crime. I need to talk to your mum. Not tonight but tomorrow when your Dad’s at work. I don’t know what’ll happen but she’ll need your help, you can be sure of that. You go home in a minute, don’t say anything. Go to college tomorrow and come straight home after. Will you do that?”

  He nodded. Stared desolately at the windscreen.

  “I am sorry,” I said to him.

  “Will he go to prison?” he said tightly.

  “I don’t know. I’ll try and find out what the law is before I see your mum.”

  “I hate him,” he said. “I bloody hate him.”