“I’m probably not making much sense.” He made a brief, melancholy laugh and motioned for me to sit down. “When I went in that morning and you’d found the body, I felt immensely guilty for never being anything but cold and impersonal to him and you and everyone at the office really. I wonder whether, if I hadn’t been so quick to criticise and condemn Bob, he could have become a better person. Perhaps none of this would have happened.”
I sat down at the table and he passed me a glass of wine. “That’s a lot of blame to take on yourself. You don’t really think it’s your fault, do you?”
He cleared his throat softly before speaking. “I’m not trying to play the martyr. I just mean that the whole thing got to me. Bob’s life was over just like that and it made me see how much of my own time I’d been wasting. That photo you were looking at was taken five years ago and I’ve done nothing but work and sleep ever since.”
“So, basically what you’re saying is you’re on the rebound?” I smiled. He smiled. It was sweet. “That still doesn’t explain why you asked me. After all, we’ve got some very pretty colleagues at work. Wendy’s still single for one and she’s got a great sense of humour.”
He leaned back in his chair and sipped his drink for the first time. I guess I’d been too nervous at first to notice how nervous he was. “You’re pretty.” I think my stomach might have eaten itself when he said this. “And you’re ridiculously funny – funnier than Wendy even.”
I raised my glass to him. “Well that is quite a compliment, thank you.”
“And you’re just about the ballsiest person around.”
I let out one of my trademark cynical laughs. “Shows how little you know me. I’m about as brave as–” It was good that he interrupted me because I hadn’t actually come up with a comparison.
“You’re wrong. You’re not afraid to be yourself and that takes courage.”
“So, you’re saying I’m weird?”
He twisted the stem of his wine glass back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. “Fine, if you want to put it like that. But I’m tired of boring people. And anyway, I’ve always thought you were kind of great.”
“I didn’t think you even knew my name until last week.”
We fell silent for a moment but, for once, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was as if we’d finished the opening notes of that evening’s conversation and needed a moment to process the fact that this was just the beginning. There was more still to come.
“Nice touch with the charcuterie board by the way,” I said when the silence had lingered too long and I was worried my brain might tell me off again. “It’s the kind of thing I’d make if I ever had a dinner party; fancy looking, but no effort whatsoever.”
“That’s just what I was going for.” Another half silence was filled with more reciprocal smiling. “All right. Enough small talk. I will trade you facts that no one in the office knows about me for ones about you.”
Nothing about this evening was how I’d expected it to be. I was nervous but in a good way, talking nonsense as ever but it seemed like he was enjoying it. I was having fun and I guess now we had a game to play.
“You go first.”
“Okay.” He tucked his lip in between his teeth to consider. “Okay, got one. When I was at school, kids called me Squiddy for my long, gangly arms.”
“No way. You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“Better about what?”
I threw a piece of chorizo at him. “Fine, my turn. My whole life people have told me that I must be good at basketball but the one time I played I scored in the wrong net.”
I’d made him laugh. In all truth, he was howling away at my teenage misfortune.
“Hey, easy there.” My phone was buzzing in my pocket but I ignored it. “This is bringing back a lot of childhood trauma. It’s not funny.”
“It is. Are you saying you took a shot at the wrong basket? That’s practically impossible.”
“Well, first up, I knew nothing about the game and I wasn’t paying attention. My psycho P.E. teacher Mr Bath subbed me in as some sort of deranged punishment. So, when I got the ball, I just ran to the closest net. Everyone was shouting my name and for a second I thought I must be amazing. I tuned out all that noise, focussed on the basket and let the ball fly. I was so pleased with myself when it went in but, then I turned around to celebrate with my team and they were staring at me like I was the worst human in history.”
My phone started buzzing again, but I was hardly going to spoil our wonderful conversation by whipping it out like a pervert in a subway.
“My turn.” I could tell that he’d already got his next story cued up. “I once went to the bathroom on a packed train. I thought it had a self-locking electric door until some bloke came along and pressed the button. There I was, sitting on the toilet with my trousers round my ankles as fifteen people peered in on me, and that still wasn’t the worst of it. The guy kept trying to close the door but it wouldn’t go. He was really hitting the button, getting more and more worked up. In the end all I could do was finish my business and apologise to the poor fella for what I’d put him through it.”
“Wow.” The buzzing in my pocket had started again and I took a quick peek under the table. It was only Ramesh so I rejected the call. “You know I thought this was your idea to get to know me but this has quickly escalated into a competition to see who can tell the most embarrassing story. I’m sorry to tell you, that is one area where I am world champion, buddy.”
We scoffed down all the sausagesy stuff as we talked. The chorizo was a bit spicy for me.
“Try this one. In my very first job, working in a fried chicken take away, I spent a whole day flirting with my new colleague Adam. At the end of our shift, as we walked home together and I thought it was super romantic and sweet, he said, “I’m really flattered and everything but I’m afraid I’m not gay.”
David accidentally dribbled his wine as he laughed at me. I found it insanely cute.
“Hold up a moment, I’m not finished. Though I blame the misunderstanding on Chick ‘o’ Mansion’s poor-fitting uniforms and the dreadful haircut my mother had given me, I was so horrified that, rather than telling him I wasn’t a boy, I quit my job and never went back.”
I’d left my mobile face down on the table but it hadn’t stopped vibrating so I finally decided to deal with it.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I’d better get this. If Ramesh watched Glitter with Mariah Carey again, he might be having daymares. He won’t leave me alone until I tell him that everything is okay.” I walked over to the front window and accepted the call. “What is it, Ramesh? You know I can’t talk now.”
His voice was faint and he was breathing really heavily. “Yeah, sorry about that. I just didn’t know who else to call. The police are at my house and they’re going to break the door down if I don’t open it now.”
“What are you talking about, Ramesh?”
“No biggie, but I think they’re here to arrest me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ramesh’s whole family lived up north (Watford) and his girlfriend was in Scotland so, killer or not, I couldn’t just leave him to rot in the police station. Inevitably, David was really nice and insisted he drive me down.
“You really didn’t have to do this.” I’d already said these words about six times before we got into Croydon.
“Continue not worrying about it, please.”
We were sitting in his car outside the station. What I hadn’t considered before we got there was the fact that police stations aren’t like hospitals. You can’t just hang about there waiting for news. So when I’d run nervously up to the front desk and explained that my friend had been arrested, the officer on duty had fixed me with a definite look of what do you want me to do about it? on her face.
Two hours had gone by since then and the easy, relaxed atmosphere between us had long since dissipated. It was my fault. David had tried to continue the conversation to help keep my mi
nd off things but that’s not really my style. Mum likes to say I’m a thinker, which is a polite way of saying I massively overthink everything I do.
It’s not always a bad thing. Take solving Bob’s murder for example. I’d been brooding over the details for almost a week and I could feel the links steadily forming, a clearer picture coming together. What I’m not so great at is decision making. I couldn’t be sure whether to go back to the police station and let them in on what I’d discovered on Ramesh. I couldn’t decide whether to talk it over with David or ring Mum for advice. I didn’t know whether to stay right where I was or head home. I couldn’t even be sure whether I was desperate for the loo or not.
So it was a relief in more ways than one when Ramesh walked out of the police station with a big smile on his face.
“What the hell happened?” I’d bolted from the car with David just behind. Standing in the road in front of the police station, I hadn’t brought a jacket so I shivered through every word I spoke.
“It’s fine.” Ramesh seemed amused by the whole thing.
“What a relief.” Having sounded a bit fed up in the car, David was just as energised as I was by Ramesh’s unexpected appearance.
“It’s nothing. They thought I’d killed Bob but I told them it wasn’t me.”
I gave him a slap around the arm. It was a perfect expression of my love and anger. “And they believed you?”
“Course they did. Wait, don’t you?”
Ramesh and David were looking at me like I was the one who’d done something wrong. Which I suppose, in a way, I had.
“Urmmm…” I couldn’t think of an excuse. “Well… I might have come across the webcasts you did.”
“You thought I’d killed Bob just because I had a cry about him on the internet? Really, Izzy, if every fanboy who’d shed a tear online went out and committed a murder, there’d be no one left on earth.”
David listened but wisely stayed out of our psychodrama. I kept going all the same.
“But I saw the video you recorded a few days before he was killed. You said you wished he was dead and that you were going to do something about him ‘once and for all.’”
Ramesh laughed at me then. He threw his head back and really went for it. “I did do something about it. Just after we ate Amara’s birthday cake, I fired off fourteen different e-mails saying what I thought of him in excruciating detail. I explained how he’d made my life hell and the number of times I’d gone home feeling worthless and defeated. On the very last day of Bob’s existence, I told him that I could finally see what a petty man he was.”
“I had no idea he upset you like that, Ramesh.” David put his arm on my friend’s shoulder. “You could have to come to me. I would have done what I could to make it stop.”
“I appreciate you saying that, David, but I didn’t have the strength. If I’d thought for a second that–”
“Wait a minute.” As they spoke, several new pieces of the puzzle fitted together but there were still so many gaps I needed to fill. “Why did the police let you go? How could you prove to them that you hadn’t murdered him?”
Ramesh stopped what he was saying and the smile on his face ironed itself flat. “On the night that Bob was killed, I was livestreaming from my bedroom. There were about thirty people watching me describe how I’d finally stood up to him. It’s a little support group we put together. The police have got the video on a USB drive I gave them along with the names and e-mail addresses of some of my online friends.”
“I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me any of this.” It still stung a little.
“I’m sorry, Iz. But, to be honest, I was embarrassed. You never let Bob get to you and I always wished I could be strong like that.”
The proof of Ramesh’s innocence hit me almost as strongly as the idea that he was a murderer had. It was like someone slapping me back and forth across the face.
It was David’s turn to ask questions. “So why did they arrest you in the first place? What did they think they had on you?”
“It was my fault. I couldn’t tell anyone my alibi without making it look like I had a massive grudge against Bob. I was scared people would think I was the killer, so, on the morning that Izzy found the body, I deleted his e-mails from the previous afternoon. It was a stupid idea and I panicked and did a messy job. It didn’t take much for the police to work out there was a bunch of messages missing. They’re not very happy with me about any of it.”
I gave him another whack. “You’re an idiot, but I’m really glad you’re not going to jail.” We exchanged goofy grins.
“Come on, you two. I’ll drive you home.”
We followed David across the road to his rather nice Audi saloon which I hadn’t been in a frame of mind to admire before. Sleek but sensible, a bit like him.
“Oh, no. I ruined your date, didn’t I?” Ramesh said as he opened the back door.
David and I looked at one another over the roof of the car and he replied for the both of us. “No, you didn’t ruin anything.”
After we’d dropped Ramesh off, David drove me back home. He pulled to a stop outside and we sat there in awkward silence.
“I’m really sorry.” I’d already said it fifty times so I figured once more wouldn’t hurt.
He swivelled in his seat to look at me. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m glad I could be here for you tonight. It can’t have been easy.”
I almost kissed him then. His voice was so warm and kind, his eyes were like tropical lagoons in the moonlight and I was just about to lean forward and plant my lips on his when my seatbelt held me back.
Seriously?
The moment had passed. “I hope we can do it again soon.”
He looked all expectant then. “How about tomorrow?”
“Maybe we could have a night off.” I took a deep breath. “In the last week I’ve been on four dates with three different people. I’ve been insulted numerous times, stood up once and tonight my best friend was arrested. I think I might need a little time to get over all that.”
“Of course.”
Moron, you made him look sad. Do something!
Under the glow of the illuminated dashboard, my brain and I couldn’t stand seeing David so blue, so I unclicked my belt and leaned across to him. My lips were only centimetres from his when a thought popped into my head and I couldn’t let it go.
“David, I hate to ask but, where were you on the night that Bob was killed?”
He put his hand on one side of my face and looked at me up close like he was trying to memorise the details of my face. “I was having dinner with my aunt like every Wednesday. The police have already spoken to her.”
I kissed him and it felt like someone had rubbed tiger balm over my entire body. A warm buzz travelled across my skin from my toes to the tips of every hair. Our lips pressed together and it was as if they’d been anatomically engineered to one day be united in a passionate embrace in a mid-sized car.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said when I finally pulled away.
How I longed to stay in that car. If I could have paused our relationship right at that moment, I’d never have to discover anything bad about him. I’d never get to know his irritating habits that would come to annoy me. We wouldn’t have to have our first argument or any of the ones that followed. We could have lived like that forever, a nascent couple preserved in a magic bubble of time.
I opened the door and ducked out of the car. My smart watch buzzed aggressively to inform me that, as ever, I hadn’t met my step count and that time had not stood still. As I opened the garden gate, I looked over my shoulder to watch him drive away.
I’d already been through far too many disappointing romances in my life to start thinking I was in love. Sadly, my brain hadn’t told my body not to get over excited and that tingling sensation was once more phasing through me.
I suppose I shouldn’t blame my brain. After all, she was too busy going, Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! t
o worry about any future disappointment.
Chapter Fifteen
“Without you guys I’m not sure I’d be here and I know I wouldn’t have managed to stand up to my boss today. I have to say a special thanks to Sally4EVA, Daemon1 and TheScarletPimp, because you’ve taught me so much.”
Ramesh was back in his bedroom, staring into the camera lens, but this time he was all smiles. Stars, hearts and rainbows flashed up on the screen as he said his friends’ names.
“I think back to everyone that Bob has hurt over the years. My first assistant Zoe wouldn’t even talk to me about what happened and there was an intern a couple of summers back who just stopped coming in one day. If I could speak to all the people who he’s hurt, I’d tell them this…” He paused and swept his floppy, brown fringe from his eyes. “We don’t need to be afraid of bullies like Bob Thomas. The only power he has, is the power we give him. Without that he’s a sad little man with a hollow heart and nothing he can do will ever hurt us.”
It was a long video. Ramesh went into all sorts of detail about how he wasn’t going to take Bob’s bullying anymore. I didn’t get to read the e-mails that he sent, and we’ll never know if they’d have shown Bob the error of his ways, but I could see from his expression how much better Ramesh felt just by writing them.
The videos in his folder were arranged alphabetically rather than by date. If I’d noticed that and watched the most recent file, I could have avoided all that suspicion and saved my friend from having his door bashed in by the police. That lucky old biddy Miss Marple never needed a degree in computer science to solve her cases.
And so, Ramesh was not the killer. That left me with five suspects, one of whom I’d recently kissed and whose alibi the police had confirmed. The fact David and I were dating meant there was all the more reason to make sure he hadn’t done it, but every time I spotted him in the office, I couldn’t help but imagine how good he must be with puppies and what a great Dad he’d make.
Which is exactly why we mustn’t let his too cute for school, sweetie-pie act fool us!
A Corpse Called Bob Page 12
