If It Bleeds

by Bernie Crosthwaite

  I daren’t go back home. I couldn’t ring Daniel to tell him where I was — my mobile was in the pocket of my jacket, and I had no money for a public phone. But I had to find shelter before I froze. Who did I know near the centre of town who would offer me an unconditional welcome at nearly midnight?

  It was obvious. I turned towards the river. Towards number 1, Raven Walk.

  Twenty-four

  I was fifty metres away when I smelt burning.

  I ran round the corner into Raven Walk. At the same moment I heard a crack like something breaking. Strings of black smoke began to rise from the roof of Matt’s house.

  His car was parked outside. Which meant he was inside.

  “Matt!” I screamed.

  I shoulder-charged the front door, expecting it to be locked, but it gave way. I nearly fell into the hall.

  “Matt, wake up! You’ve got to get out of here!”

  I was about to run upstairs, but a ball of smoke and flame rolled down from the upper floor, beating me back. The smoke was choking me, the heat already intense.

  “Get out! Jump out of the window!”

  I backed out of the front door, pulling it shut to cut off the oxygen. I began yelling for help. Lights snapped on in the neighbouring houses. A man in pyjamas ran out on to the street.

  “Phone the fire brigade — quick! And get everybody out of their houses!” I dropped to my knees, choking. He ran back inside.

  When I opened my streaming eyes again, the whole house was lit up like a Halloween pumpkin. Tongues of flame whirled upwards into the night sky. I heard more cracks — glass from the windows, splintering in the fierce heat. The small road was crowded with people now, subdued with shock. If the fire spread along the smart new terrace, their homes would go up in smoke too.

  Then came the wail of a siren. A fire engine screeched to a stop, disgorging fire officers. They unrolled a water hose like a big flat elastic band.

  “Is anyone in there?” someone shouted.

  “Yes,” I croaked. “Please hurry,” I said hopelessly. I knew Matt couldn’t have survived the intensity of the fire.

  “Keep back, love!” An officer shooed me out of the way to get to the water hydrant.

  There was a crash that sounded like rafters coming down, and a shower of sparks from the roof. I closed my eyes, but the crazy dancing flames still played on my retina, along with other terrible things I hadn’t seen, only imagined. It was better to keep my eyes open.

  I watched until the flames were guttering feebly and the house was a hissing smoking ruin. Only then did I begin to understand what this meant. What if someone had seen me coming out of Matt’s house last night? Someone who was shadowing me. Who else but Lara’s killer? Having failed to get rid of me, they had turned to my friend. It was another warning, one that even I couldn’t fail to ignore. And I had absolutely no doubt that they wouldn’t stop till I was dead too.

  The crew stood in a weary huddle, talking in low voices, even cracking jokes.

  “Have you found anyone?” I asked.

  A female officer turned to me. “Sorry, love, we can’t go in there, the structure’s too dangerous. But there’s no hope of survivors from this one.”

  I found an empty bit of pavement and sat down on the kerb, noting vacantly that the heat from the fire had melted the snow. I watched the fire crew rewind their hose. Most of the people were allowed back into their houses. But Matt’s next door neighbours were wrapped in blankets and escorted into an ambulance. I had no idea where they were going to spend the night. For some reason it was their bewildered faces that set me off. I hung my head and wept till I was drained of tears.

  It was only when a police car swung round the corner that I got stiffly to my feet. My disappearance from the police station must be well broadcast by now. I wasn’t ready to go back into custody, to face more twisted questions.

  I melted away like the snow on the pavement.

  *

  Stan Roguski lived in a bungalow on the west side of town. I knew plenty of short cuts through alleyways and ginnels, but I stuck to the well-lit streets, busy with cars and people. I kept looking behind me but I couldn’t see anyone suspicious.

  Eventually I came to the quiet suburban estate of trim gardens where life was simple in its predictability.

  I reached the road I wanted. It was a weary trudge up a long slow hill, but my heart lifted when I saw that the lights were still on at Stan’s place. On most Friday nights, he and Carol liked to watch a late film, or if there was nothing good on TV they picked one from their huge collection. But this Friday night I was sure they weren’t staying up late for pleasure. They would be talking about Lara, looking at family snaps, trying to delay the time when they lay sleepless side by side, remembering their beloved niece, and torturing themselves about her terrible death.

  It seemed like hours before they responded to my knock. I wondered if Stan was finally going deaf from the clatter of machinery at the printworks. Eventually the door opened a crack, jerking to a stop on the security chain. Stan’s round ruddy face peered out.

  “Jude?”

  He unhooked the chain and let me in.

  I stumbled across the threshold. He caught me in his strong arms. “Carol!” he called out. She was already standing in the doorway of the living room, looking fearful. Her head cocked sideways, wondering if she really recognised this shivering wraith.

  “Something terrible’s happened!” I stammered.

  “You poor love,” she whispered.

  Neither of them said another word, apart from the usual phrases of tender concern, until I was sitting on the sofa, wearing Stan’s thick woollen cardigan. They watched in wonder as I slurped a steaming mug of tea, noting my trembling hands and my chattering teeth.

  Carol was small and neat in contrast to Stan’s beefy rotundity. They made an odd pair but a loving one. I hated to bring danger to their quiet respectable lives, but I didn’t know where else to turn. And I needed to ask them about Lara.

  “Jude, what is it?” Stan said at last.

  “Stanislaus.” Carol uttered the single word in a clipped schoolteacher voice. Stan had told me she only called him by his full name as a reprimand. Chastened, he leaned back in his huge leather armchair. She took the empty cup from my hand. “You look a bit better now. I’ll get you more tea.”

  “No, really.”

  “It’s no trouble.” Carol actually was a schoolteacher. She taught a reception class at Stockhill Road Primary. I knew better than to argue.

  “You’re a saint,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, I polished my halo only this morning.”

  Stan waited until she’d gone before asking me again.

  “It’s hard to know where to begin.” I paused, wondering how much I should tell him. “The police think I killed Lara.”

  “What? Are they mad?”

  “There’s worse… a fire.”

  “An accident? Were you there? Is that why you smell of smoke?”

  “It was made to look like an accident, but someone’s dead. It’s Matt Dryden.”

  My voice cracked.

  “That young journalist, the one doing the reports about Lara in the paper?

  That’s terrible. You think someone started the fire deliberately? But why? It doesn’t make sense. No, Jude. It must have been an accident.”

  “Maybe.” If I explained that Matt had died because of his connection with me I would dissolve and be unable to function. I needed to function. I still had a lot to do. I also decided not to mention the fact that I had left police custody without official permission.

  There was a photo album on the coffee table. I picked it up. The pages opened stiffly. Lara was in most of the pictures. Even as a young child she had a cloud of red-gold curls.

  “She was a lovely girl,” said Stan. “She didn’t have an easy life, and things were just beginning to come right.” He took the album from me. “There’s one here of her and Daniel.” The pages creaked as he turned
them, then he laid the album flat in front of me. It was a classic pose, wonderfully ordinary — two young people in a bar somewhere, paper hats on their heads, party poppers strewn around, raising their glasses to the future. Now, for them as a couple, there was no future.

  “I wish I’d known her better,” I said, brushing away tears. “I’ve found out a lot about her since she died. And do you know who she reminds me of?”

  Stan shook his head.

  “Me.”

  He smiled for the first time. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. She was full of life but stubborn, downright bloody-minded in fact.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” I put the album carefully on the coffee table. “Daniel said Lara was anxious about something, or someone. Do you have any idea why?”

  He frowned, thinking hard. “None at all. Lara often kept things private. It was to do with her mother, who always wanted to know her business, always trying to force her to be someone she wasn’t.”

  Carol stood in the doorway. “It’s true. I know Pat’s my own sister, but I’m not like her. I’m pretty relaxed about the whole Catholic thing. That’s why Lara liked to come here. Stan and I never tried to impose anything on her. She was always welcome in this house.”

  “I’m sure she appreciated that. In fact she came here for dinner, didn’t she? That last day?”

  Carol nodded.

  “I know her car was in the garage, in fact I’m pretty sure someone sabotaged it so she couldn’t use it.” They both looked shocked. “With no car, how did Lara get here on Monday?”

  “She walked. Stan offered to pick her up, but Lara said she wanted to clear her head after her night out. And it would give her a chance to think. I remember wondering what she meant by that.”

  “And when she got here, did she seem odd or nervous? Did she talk about anything out of the ordinary?”

  Carol put the mug of tea on the table in front of me. “I can’t think of anything.”

  “It might be something quite small, apparently unimportant. Please try and remember.”

  “What’s this all about, Jude? The police have already asked us the same questions. I know you quit the paper — have you started work as a detective or something?”

  “Please trust me. I need to know Lara’s state of mind that day.”

  “I suppose she was a bit jumpy.” Carol picked a cigarette lighter off the table. “When I lit my cigarette with this after dinner she nearly shot out of her chair.” She flicked the Zippo on and off, examining the flame. “I suppose it does flare up a bit. That’s the only odd thing I can recall.”

  I felt a renewed sense of excitement. Lara had blisters round her mouth, like the girl in the film. Her attacker could well have heated a knife in the flame of a cigarette lighter. And if the killer had tried that particular trick before the night she died, she had every reason to be jumpy around flames. It was confirmation that Lara knew her killer.

  “Anything else?”

  Carol and Stan were silent.

  “What time did Lara leave here?”

  “Around nine.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “I think she was meeting someone,” said Carol. “That’s the impression I got because she said she was going into town, and she kept checking her watch from half-eight onwards.”

  I knew it wasn’t Daniel. He’d been at home that evening, working on his A-level portfolio.

  “Did she walk into town?”

  “No. The town centre bus stops right outside here, so she took that. We waved to her from the window as she stepped on. That was the last time we saw her…” Carol’s composure wavered.

  “Jude, we’ve told the police all this,” said Stan. “Why are you asking us about it yet again?”

  “For Daniel’s sake,” I said. “He needs to know as much as possible about Lara’s last few hours. What do they call it… closure?” Carol looked at me oddly. I could tell I didn’t fool her.

  We sat in silence for a while, leafing through more albums. But half my mind was on what I had just heard. I was beginning to see the order of events unrolling, but there was a hole at the centre of it — the identity of the person Lara met in town. Was that person her killer? If so, how had they persuaded Lara to go back to her flat? From what I knew of her, she wouldn’t have taken anyone there she wasn’t a hundred percent sure of. An old trusted friend, perhaps. An image of Harrison’s gangly frame superimposed itself over the pictures in the album.

  That missing print could be significant after all. I needed to find it. I’d destroyed the negative, and I could hardly ring Harrison and ask for the file name.

  At last Carol looked meaningfully at the clock.

  “Would you like a lift home?” asked Stan.

  “Thanks.”

  *

  Stan drove an ancient but lovingly preserved Rover. He was notorious for driving at a snail’s pace, cruising slow and proud in the middle lane of motorways, and turning left and right without indicating, leaving consternation and howling horns in his wake as he sailed blithely on.

  I let him set off towards my part of town. But I had no intention of going home.

  “Stan, can I ask you an enormous favour?”

  “Well?”

  “I need to get into Photographic. But I don’t have a key card anymore.”

  “You want me to let you in? Can’t it wait till Monday?”

  “I have to go there now. I promise I won’t be long. I left my Nikon camera and I’m lost without it. And there’s something else I need to do.”

  “It’s important?”

  “It could be very important.” My concern was that Harrison had not only removed the print from the wall but had erased it from the system too. But he was a lazy sod, and now that I was no longer working for the Post he might not have bothered. So there was a slim chance the print was still on file.

  “OK, I’ll take you now. I was thinking of going in over the weekend anyway, to check on a faulty gauge. We’ve got a big commercial print run on Monday afternoon, and I don’t want to be held up by a technical breakdown. What better time than a Saturday night when the presses aren’t rolling?”

  Twenty-five

  The roads into the centre of town were quiet and we created no incidents, but the whole time I was silently urging Stan to get a move on. At last we reached the Ravenbridge Evening Post building and drew slowly into the car park. Still wearing Stan’s cardigan, I stood impatiently at the staff entrance, stamping my feet, while he fussed with the car’s lights and switches and locks.

  He finally swiped his card in the door and we took the lift. Stan got out at the first floor. “I’ll go and take a look at that gauge. See you upstairs in about twenty minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  The second floor was deserted. I hurried through the silent newsroom and into Photographic.

  I took several deep breaths while I booted up one of the computers. With no reference number to help me, I had to track down the print I was looking for among several hundred in the system. Assuming it was still there.

  First I called up the photo grid, but the images were so small, and my eyes so sore from exhaustion and smoke, that the patchwork of pictures began to stream together on the screen. I decided it would be quicker to do what reporters did — scroll through the list of file names. I had passed fifty or so without making any connection when I realised what a fruitless method this was. Harrison, after all, had filed a picture of Craig Gilmore, the estate agent, as Boringpic. No doubt he had chosen equally unhelpful names for the three prints I’d asked him to log.

  I swivelled in my chair from side to side. To think like Harrison I had to get inside that dim, fuddled, vacant place he called a brain. I tried scrolling down looking for Riverpic or Ravenpic, but without success. I got up and paced about. I thought back to the day when I’d shown him the prints. He hadn’t thought much of the riverside picture, and when I’d explained the point of the image — how th
e for sale sign made it look as though the river was on the market — he had replied with his usual incisive intelligence, “That’s balls.”

  I rapidly typed in Ballspic, but the system rejected it.

  What had I said to him then? Cojones, that was it, and I’d had to explain that cojones was Spanish for testicles, balls in other words. Understanding had dawned slowly on his face. In fact he’d referred to it again when we were in my basement darkroom. Excitedly I typed Cojopic and when a negative message flashed up I hit the computer with frustration.

  Cojones, cojones…what else could it be? It looked as though Harrison had deleted the print, which meant he was deeply implicated in this mess. I thought about his vacant stare, the way he said ‘Coho-thingy?’ Of course, he didn’t know anything about Spanish pronunciation. He thought cojones was spelt cohones. Wasn’t that what it sounded like?

  I went back to the alphabetical list of picture files. Accidentpic, Alligatorpic, Browniepic, Bus-stoppic, Carbootpic, Cohopic. Yes! I called up the file, muttering through gritted teeth, “Please let it be, please.”

  And there it was.

  “Yes!” I shouted.

  With sweating hands I enlarged the picture on the scanner. I could see the swollen river, pouring over the stones of the weir, frozen by the lens into fine lacework, the for sale sign leaning drunkenly over it. When had I taken it? There were leaves on the trees, but as the picture was black and white I couldn’t tell if it was spring, summer or autumn. Over the New Year holiday I’d processed several rolls of film, some of them quite old. I had to face it, in my own darkroom, my filing system was no better than Harrison’s. I tried to remember going for the walk that had resulted in this image. A blustery day… a lot of small branches snapped off trees… March or April… yes, my wool hat had blown off and I’d had to chase it down the street. A cold windy day in late April. Where did that get me? Abso-bloody-lutely nowhere.