Exit

by Belinda Bauer

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Reggie. ‘I don’t see her anywhere.’ He turned and gave Calvin a thumbs-up and then left.

  Calvin stepped outside after Reggie and watched him hurry down the hill and turn into Mill Street.

  He wasn’t sure he believed him about the car. Or about the girlfriend . . .

  He flinched as Shifty puffed smoke and the single word Women! into his ear – as if the two of them were above all that nonsense.

  But Calvin wasn’t above it at all. For the first time he wondered if spending so much time in a place where women didn’t like to go might be a bad way to find one.

  He had time to have a bet, but headed back to work instead.

  Halfway down the High Street he nodded to Dennis Matthews, who was lumbering up the hill with his piles cushion under one beefy arm.

  Calvin fingered the black tie in his pocket and thought about death.

  The Wire

  The coffee shop on the M5 was a Starbucks, not the greasy-spoon caff that Felix had imagined. He ordered a tea and a slice of Victoria sponge that was so big that when it was handed to him he remarked that it was enough for six men and a boy, which only confused the girl behind the counter, who asked him if he wanted another fork.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said, but she continued to frown at him anxiously until he told her he was only joking.

  ‘Ohhhh,’ she nodded, and smiled as if she’d suddenly got it, and a little of the spy excitement left Felix as he was reminded that he was a very old man in a very young world. That was confirmed when he realized that the tea wasn’t going to come in a pot, but was just a bag dropped into a mug of hottish water. He sat down and watched it bobbing on the surface like a corpse, and hoped very much that Delia was not a young woman.

  He was in luck. Delia was at least sixty, and as broad as she was long, with wild grey hair, and a string of pearls so tight around her thick neck that they made her look like an escaped bulldog.

  ‘John?’ she said and then, as he half rose, ‘What a huge piece of cake!’

  ‘Six men and a boy!’ he said.

  ‘You can say that again!’

  ‘Shall I get another fork?’

  ‘Lovely,’ she said.

  Felix was relieved that she seemed more friendly in person than she had on the phone. He came back to the table with a cup of tea and a fork, which she immediately put to good use.

  ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Well,’ she nodded, ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea. You could be a plant.’

  ‘A plant?’

  ‘Undercover police or something. Wearing a wire.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Felix reassuringly, but inside he quivered at the very idea. Maybe he should have worn a wire? Maybe Delia was wearing a wire!

  ‘Are you wearing a wire?’ he asked.

  ‘Goodness, no!’ She laughed loudly. ‘Why would we want to wear a wire? We’re not doing anything wrong!’ Then she looked around furtively and leaned into him and hissed, ‘Are we?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Felix cautiously, ‘this is what I wanted to speak to you about. Things that go wrong . . .’

  He looked at her meaningfully but she only shrugged. ‘Things do go wrong. They’re bound to sooner or later, aren’t they? Sod’s law.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Felix, relieved.

  Delia went on. ‘Back last year, I was on a job in Bath. Chap I was working with stole the ring off a dead woman’s finger.’

  A week ago Felix would have been shocked beyond belief. Now he just said, ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing official because I didn’t see it happen. But it was on the client’s finger before she died, and afterwards it was gone. I always notice a nice ring.’

  Felix glanced down at Delia’s hands. They were small and delicate for such a large woman, and she wore a diamond that would have choked a horse.

  ‘Did you tell Geoffrey?’

  ‘You bet your bottom dollar I did! He was absolutely fuming. He said he’d take care of it, and he did. Called me not even a day later to say that the ring had been returned to the family.’

  ‘And what about the thief?’

  ‘Said he’d taken care of him too. It was the first and last time I saw him. I imagine he was, you know . . .’ Delia jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

  ‘I certainly hope so!’

  ‘Dreadful affair,’ said Delia. ‘Put me off for a bit, but then, you get bad apples everywhere, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose you do.’ Felix frowned.

  Delia sipped her tea. ‘So what happened to you?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, and then stopped and took a long calming breath before going on. ‘A few days ago I was with a new colleague – Amanda, she called herself . . .’ He glanced at Delia. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘Young. Dark hair. Sensible eyebrows . . . ?’ He looked hopefully at Delia but she shook her head.

  ‘Well, it’s probably not her real name. Is Delia your real name?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Delia. ‘Is John yours?’

  ‘No,’ said Felix. ‘Well, anyway, the thing is . . . the client was in great distress—’

  ‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ said Delia. ‘When that happens.’

  ‘And he couldn’t reach the mask, you see?’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Delia nodded warily as if she knew what was coming.

  ‘It was on the bedside table and he couldn’t reach it and he sort of knocked it on to the floor . . .’

  ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘And anyway, to cut a long story short, this Amanda panicked and before I could stop her she sort of handed the mask to him—’

  ‘Well, that’s not good,’ muttered Delia through a mouthful of sponge, ‘but it happens. She’ll learn. No harm done, really.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Felix awkwardly. ‘And no.’

  She looked up at him. ‘And no?’

  ‘Yes. Because . . .’

  He stopped.

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘Because then. Well . . . we discovered it was . . . umm. The wrong man.’

  Delia stopped chewing and looked at him like a deer in headlights.

  ‘The wrong man ?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Felix.

  ‘You killed the wrong man ?’

  Felix blushed hotly and looked furtively about in case anyone had heard. Delia was the first person he’d told apart from Geoffrey, but she wasn’t at all understanding. In fact, she looked aghast. Appalled. Maybe even angry.

  ‘No, no, no!’ he said, backtracking. ‘Not killed ! My goodness, no – that would be truly dreadful. But nearly, you see? I mean, I stopped it in time, but it could easily have happened. And it made me so worried, you see? Because if he had died, then where would we stand? Where would I stand? Where would we all stand? That’s why I called you, because it’s just something I’d never thought of before, but this made me think of it. It made me think of all of us, and how vulnerable we all are if something like that were ever to happen. Aren’t we? And that’s why I wanted to know if – God forbid – something like that were to happen, what would we do? What would Geoffrey do? What would you do?’

  He was babbling, so he stopped, but he’d blown it. Delia’s cheerful demeanour had been replaced by a suspicious frown and she was glancing around as if looking for the exit.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I really have no idea.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Felix. ‘No matter then.’

  ‘Why don’t you call Geoffrey? I’m sure he’ll take care of everything.’

  ‘Yes. Good idea. I’ll do that,’ said Felix miserably.

  ‘I should be going,’ said Delia, getting up. ‘Don’t want to hit rush hour.’

  It was two thirty.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, s
tanding politely. He didn’t try to reason with her or stop her. She wanted to go and he wanted her gone. He wished he’d never called her and felt dreadfully exposed and vulnerable.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Delia,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a big help.’

  She flapped him back down into his seat, and Felix imagined it was because she didn’t want to risk a maniac walking her to her car.

  Following her to her car.

  He demurred and sat – even though he’d only have to get up again in a minute or two – and watched Delia bustle past the big windows and hurry across the car park, head down and bulldog legs working overtime to get away from him.

  So much for all for one and one for all . . .

  Felix was on his own.

  The Funeral

  Two weeks after the death of Albert Cann, DCI King, Pete Shapland and Calvin Bridge walked from the police station along Nunnery Walk to St Mary’s Church and filed in separately. They sat with strangers. Possibly with killers. Hoping for a twitch, a flush, a furtive glance – anything that might indicate guilt beyond that which everybody felt on the death of a loved one that they hadn’t visited enough, or spent enough on, or cared enough about.

  It was a long shot, but Calvin had learned that this job was a combination of methodical slog and ridiculous chance.

  He looked around at the sombre gathering of mostly middle-aged people in their Sunday best. Reggie was in the first pew, alone. Old Charles Cann wasn’t here. Skipper. Poor old boy must be too sick to come to his own son’s funeral.

  There were thirty or forty people in attendance, but they were lost in the church, which was big on the outside and seemed even bigger on the inside, with towering pillars and arches and vast dark recesses where the light from the tall thin windows could not reach – filtered as it was through a stained-glass Jesus and his many colourful miracles.

  The congregation huddled at the front of the church, which only accentuated how many pews remained unfilled. Albert Cann’s coffin was laid alongside the ornate wooden font, which somehow felt either very wrong or very right – the cradle-to-grave circle of life summed up in a simple, sobering diorama. Like The Lion King, but with songs that were thinly sung and started late. Rise up! Rise up! they all sang loudly, then tailed off into lalalala something something lala something LORD.

  Calvin only mouthed the hymns, and used them as an opportunity to look around him at people reading the words they didn’t know. Everybody seemed to be behaving the way they should if they hadn’t killed Albert Cann.

  The vicar was a large, blue-nosed man in his sixties, with lustrous grey hair in a bouffant unbecoming to his humble calling. He started off talking about Albert Cann in conventional, if impersonal, terms – his long years of service to carpets and his later ill health – but with surprising ease he worked his way up to the coming of the Beast.

  Calvin was taken aback but nobody else seemed perturbed by the apocalyptic turn of events. Most people were examining their fingernails or flicking through the order of service for coming attractions. Spoiler alert: there were none.

  But even pestilence and famine couldn’t outweigh the need to eat free food off paper plates at the Royal Mail, and they all mumbled their last hymn and then filed past the coffin and out of the door, where Reggie stood beside the vicar to shake hands with mourners.

  Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. So nice to see you. Thank you for coming.

  Calvin joined the queue behind a woman who was so short that he could have leaned an elbow on her head. It was only when she stepped forward to take Reggie Cann’s hand that he was stunned to see that it was Old Greybeard – brushed, plucked, scrubbed and de-anorakked for the occasion. She wore a flowery dress under a long navy jacket. She wore shiny blue court shoes with a tiny heel. She wore white gloves, like the Queen, or the Queen’s fussy butler.

  She gripped Reggie’s hand and stared up into his eyes, but Calvin saw no flicker of recognition from him. Thank you for coming, he said, and was already sliding his eyes to the left to see who was next in this awkward line-up.

  But Old Greybeard didn’t let go of his hand and move on to the vicar. She said something that Reggie had to bend to hear. Then he straightened up and looked uncomfortable, and Calvin could tell that their hands were connected now only because Old Greybeard was holding on tight. She put up a hand as if she might touch Reggie’s face and he blinked and swayed away from the contact. She finally released him and moved on – passing the vicar without a glance and walking haphazardly down the drive, like someone who’d forgotten where she’d parked her car. Calvin broke away from the line and started to go after her, but he slowed quickly and stopped. He couldn’t rush in blindly. He hadn’t heard enough to question her as a police officer, and couldn’t call her a friend.

  He turned back towards the church. Mourners were passing him now, heading round the corner to the pub. Kirsty King and Pete Shapland went with them. Listening. Learning . . .

  Calvin walked against their tide and found Reggie standing alone at the church doors, looking grim.

  ‘Reggie?’

  His frown dissolved and he shook Calvin’s hand warmly.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah. You know. Thanks for coming. All of you.’

  Calvin felt bad that Reggie didn’t seem to know they were working. ‘It’s the least we could do,’ he said, so as not to shatter the illusion of caring. ‘Nice turnout,’ he added, even though it was one of the smallest he’d seen.

  ‘Yeah,’ Reggie said. ‘Some people I haven’t seen for years. From school and stuff . . .’

  ‘Funerals are like that.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Reggie said with a nod.

  ‘Skipper couldn’t make it?’

  Reggie shook his head. ‘He hasn’t been downstairs in months.’

  ‘Who’ll look after him now while you’re at work?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Reggie shook his head. ‘I’ll sort something out.’

  ‘What about the cleaner? Is she flexible?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘With the hours she can work.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I think so.’

  ‘Good,’ said Calvin. ‘Hey, who was the old woman in the flowery dress?’

  Reggie shrugged. ‘God knows.’

  ‘I thought she was leaning in for a kiss!’ said Calvin.

  Reggie laughed. ‘Me too!’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She asked if Dad gave us the slip.’

  Calvin frowned. ‘By dying?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ He shrugged and squinted towards the pub. ‘But she’s right. He gave us all the bloody slip.’

  Calvin detected an edge of bitterness in his voice.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Reggie. ‘She’s probably just here for a free sandwich.’

  Calvin smiled, but he couldn’t see Old Greybeard taking off her anorak and wellies for a free sandwich. ‘You going to the pub?’

  ‘Yep. You?’

  ‘Just got to have a word with the vicar,’ said Calvin. ‘Be there in a bit.’

  ‘Right,’ said Reggie. ‘See you later. Thanks again.’

  They shook hands once more and Calvin went into the church and found the vicar putting his Bible back in the pulpit.

  ‘Nice service,’ he said.

  ‘Glad you enjoyed it.’

  Calvin wondered if he was being sarcastic as well, but went on, ‘Can I ask you, Vicar, all that fire and brimstone stuff – is that standard? Or specially for Albert Cann?’

  The vicar didn’t look at Calvin. He busied himself with his Bible and notes. ‘I always say that people take from a service whatever it is they need to hear. I merely channel the word of God. He ensures it reaches the right ears.’

  ‘Did you know Albert?’

  ‘I knew of Albert.’

&n
bsp; ‘In what way?’

  ‘In the way people in small towns know of other people in small towns,’ said the vicar.

  There was an uncomfortable silence while Calvin wondered how much the vicar knew about him. Then he thanked him and went outside.

  There was nobody there now, not even in the car park. Calvin walked past Reggie Cann’s little red Mazda. Reggie hadn’t lied about the bump – the Mazda’s offside wing mirror was hanging by wires alone.

  Calvin continued to the pub, where, despite the free sandwiches, Old Greybeard was nowhere to be seen.

  The Stick

  The vacuum cleaner was loud, the TV even louder.

  ‘Look!’ Hayley shouted proudly. ‘I’m cleaning!’

  ‘Well done,’ Felix shouted back. ‘Looks marvellous.’ It didn’t really, but at least she wasn’t sitting on the sofa, crying into her crisps.

  She turned the vacuum off and Felix said, ‘I brought Charles a new stick.’

  ‘Skipper!’ she said. ‘Nobody calls him Charles.’

  ‘Right,’ said Felix. ‘Is he in?’

  ‘Yep. In bed.’

  The vacuum roared back into life as Felix went upstairs. Mabel trotted into the bedroom ahead of him.

  Skipper Cann looked around from his bed at the window and said weakly, ‘And who are you?’

  Felix stopped nervously at the door. ‘I’m Felix.’

  ‘I was talking to the dog,’ Skipper said, and Felix relaxed a little.

  ‘Her name is Mabel.’

  Mabel wagged at the sound of her own name, and the little black-and-tan dog jumped off the bed to greet her.

  ‘Hello, Mabel,’ the old man said. ‘That there’s Toff and I’m Skipper.’

  ‘Hello, Skipper. I was here the other day. When you fell.’

  ‘I didn’t fall. Bloody stick broke.’

  ‘That’s why I brought you a new one.’

  Felix crossed the room and held out the stick. It was Margaret’s, and had been next to the front door since she’d died. Felix hadn’t moved it because sometimes when he saw it, for a fleeting moment he could fool himself that his wife was still in the house, and that if he only walked into the front room he might find her there, reading or doing cross-stitch. He’d miss those moments now, but he felt sure that Margaret would want Skipper Cann to have her stick, because it was part of making things right.