Exit

by Belinda Bauer

  She hasn’t asked where Felix is, thought Calvin. Isn’t surprised we’re searching his house. She knows what’s going on . . .

  ‘Are you Miss Knott?’ he said, and when she nodded curtly, he said, ‘Felix asked if you might look after his dog, ma’am. Would that be OK?’

  She softened a little. ‘Of course,’ she said and – right on cue – the dog trotted in from the garden and made a fuss of her.

  While she did, Calvin picked up the pill and swapped glances with Pete.

  ‘Does Mr Pink take any medication?’ Pete asked.

  Immediately Miss Knott looked concerned. ‘Not that I’m aware of, no. Why? Is he unwell? I was a nurse . . .’

  ‘Maybe you can help then,’ said Calvin. ‘Do you know what this is?’ He held the pill out to her.

  ‘It looks like Oxycodone,’ she frowned. ‘But Felix shouldn’t be taking anything that strong. He has a bit of a hip, but nothing too serious.’

  ‘Do you know why he’d have it in his possession?’

  She frowned and then shook her head warily.

  ‘Have you heard him mention a man named Albert Cann?’ said Pete.

  ‘Look, young man,’ she said briskly, ‘I’m old and I can’t stand here all day answering questions. I need to get Mabel some food and get home.’

  And with that she shouldered between them and opened a few cupboards until she found one stacked with little metal trays of dog food. She piled half a dozen on to the counter and looked around for something to carry them in. ‘Could you pass me that bag, please?’

  She pointed at the string bag hung on a hook. But Calvin just stared past her into the open cupboard full of dog food. He walked over and shone his torch into the back of the cupboard. There, exposed by Miss Knott’s raid on the dog food, were four steel cylinders – each with a mask and rubber tubing coiled neatly beside it.

  Either Felix Pink wanted to make absolutely sure of killing himself, or he was planning a slow, funny massacre.

  ‘So much for not providing the instrument of death,’ said Pete grimly.

  ‘But he didn’t do it!’

  They both looked at Miss Knott.

  ‘Didn’t do what?’ said Calvin, heart thudding.

  ‘Felix didn’t kill that poor man,’ she blurted out. ‘It wasn’t his fault. He was set up by that girl he was with. He promised to keep her out of it because she’s young and he’s old, which is all very noble of course, but I tell you, I think she’s a bad apple! And now Felix is taking the blame for something that he didn’t do!’

  She stopped talking and shut her mouth tightly, as if she hadn’t meant to say any of that, and certainly wouldn’t be saying any more.

  ‘This girl who was with Felix,’ said Calvin, ‘you don’t happen to know her name, do you?’

  Miss Knott wrestled gallantly with her mouth for a moment or two, and finally lost.

  ‘I most certainly do,’ she said. ‘It’s Andrea.’

  Amanda

  MAN, 75, QUIZZED IN ABBOTSHAM DEATH

  ‘All right, maid?’

  Amanda blinked.

  She looked away from the Devon Live headline scrolling across the TV screen and back at Dickie Richards, who was waiting at the rough chipboard counter for . . . what? She couldn’t remember. Had he told her? Also a blank.

  Amanda was a parts assistant at LecCo, an electrical supplies firm in Barnstaple. It was a dreadful job, on the face of it. She worked in a gloomy warehouse with ceiling-high shelves filled with big boxes containing smaller boxes containing wire and screws and bulbs and relays. She’d been nervous when she’d got the job a year ago, as she’d turned out to be the only woman in the place. However, instead of being objectified by a bunch of sexist tradesmen the way she’d expected, Amanda had found herself adored and protected. They did tease her, of course, and they’d all – whether married or single – asked her out at first, and she’d had to invent a boyfriend called Mark to rebuff them without hurting their egos. She’d done a good job, though – Mark was not sporty, and was thinning on top. He also was rather tight and bought her very poor gifts: a lumpy woollen scarf, a photo of himself in a plain wooden frame, and a Grand Tour box set for Christmas. Once they’d gone for a meal at a mediocre restaurant where he’d embarrassed her by refusing to leave a tip after the waiter had declined to honour an out-of-date voucher. All of this allowed her LecCo colleagues and customers to feel superior to Mark and sympathetic to Amanda, even as it forced them to keep their distance.

  Then, a few months ago, she’d met Reggie. A chance meeting, but a wonderful chance. They’d gone for coffee and drinks, and had once seen a movie starring Mark Wahlberg. Despite that, they’d nearly had sex, before she’d decided she was too old to do it in a car, especially as his little red coupé didn’t even have a back seat.

  But she would have sex with Reggie. Amanda had been sure of that almost from the start. She liked him. She thought she might love him. And he had his own house, while she still lived with her parents. The house was a big point in Reggie’s favour, even though she hadn’t been there yet. He’d told her it smelled like a hospital and they’d both agreed that having sex with his grandfather dying of cancer in the next room would be a bit weird.

  She totally understood that. She could wait. His grandfather wouldn’t live for ever, and then they’d have the place all to themselves. So, by April, Amanda had felt confident enough in their future together to invent a girl called Chloe for Mark to cheat with, and a break-up which she bore with great stoicism at work. Her refusal to tar all men with the same brush had only endeared her further to her colleagues. Of course, she’d had to tell them about Reggie pretty sharpish to avoid any of them trying to move into the boyfriend vacuum, but Amanda had been grateful for their very real support of her entirely fictitious predicament.

  Now, however, her predicament was only too real, and she wondered just how supportive her friends and colleagues would be if they knew what she’d done . . .

  ‘Sorry, Dickie. What was it you wanted?’

  ‘Two ten-metre rolls of twin-core.’

  ‘That’s right. You said.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  She glanced back at the TV and Dickie looked at Stevo and Sean, then crossed his arms on the counter and demanded, ‘You pregnant, maid?’

  ‘Me? No! Why?’

  ‘’Cos my wife gone all mazed when she were pregnant. Where was I? Where am I? What the eff am I doing married to you?’

  They all laughed. Amanda didn’t. The TV was showing a photo of Albert Cann next to a giraffe.

  ‘I need a ride to Abbotsham,’ she said.

  The three men gave each other confused smiles. Amanda must have made a joke, but it couldn’t have been a good one because none of them had really got it . . .

  She slapped the counter with a crack like a rifle. ‘Right now!’

  And before they knew it, Dickie and Stevo were driving her to Abbotsham in the van, while LecCo and the displaced Sean dis­appeared in the mirrors.

  They drove in weird silence. Divided from Amanda by the counter, Dickie and Stevo could banter for England; thigh-to-thigh with her on the bench seat of a Transit van, they were mute.

  ‘Can we go any faster?’ Amanda didn’t know why speed was critical, but felt instinctively that it must be.

  Dickie speeded up.

  ‘This Reggie,’ he said carefully, ‘he’s not done a Mark on you, has he?’

  ‘Mark?’

  ‘Mark,’ he nodded.

  Mark. Oh, Mark ! She’d forgotten Mark and how he’d cheated with that girl whose name she couldn’t remember. It was so easy to forget imaginary people. How sweet of Dickie to ask, though, and a useful distraction from what had really happened. So she only shrugged, and was touched to see Dickie and Stevo exchange meaningful glances.


  She looked at her phone. Four fifteen. Reggie left work at four on Fridays. He should be home by now. She imagined him opening the door . . . Didn’t know what she’d say when he did, but she’d say something and then he ’d say something, and they’d take it from there, the way they always did, and everything would be OK. It would be. Reggie had been terribly upset at the café, of course, but he was honest and kind and she knew that he’d have perfectly reasonable answers for all the questions the old man had raised in her mind. Then they could work it out together, and what had seemed like the end would become no more than a hiccup. A shared tribulation. A bonding experience.

  A way back . . .

  Amanda felt a little burst of optimism. The truth could be the making of them. But first they’d have to find it.

  The van reached Abbotsham and pulled up outside the house in Black Lane.

  Stevo jumped out to let her out of the cab but Amanda looked up at the house and faltered.

  Reggie’s dad, choking and pleading.

  ‘That his car?’ said Dickie.

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Fancy,’ said Stevo.

  ‘You want me to come with you?’ said Dickie.

  ‘No!’ she said. Then smiled. ‘Thanks. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘We’ll wait then,’ he said firmly, and suddenly Amanda was at the point of no return. If she’d come alone, she wouldn’t have done it. Would have turned around and walked back to the bus stop. But instead she said thank you and Stevo put up a hand and helped her down and her numb legs walked her on to the driveway, just the way they had on that morning four weeks ago . . . Then there had been an air of unreality about walking into a house to watch a man die. A still, dreamlike state – like the first snow of winter.

  But now the van ticked over loudly, and Stevo’s work boots scuffed the pavement and she was only halfway up the drive before she could hear two people arguing. A man and a woman.

  The man was Reggie.

  Amanda glanced back at the van nervously. Stevo and Dickie were watching her.

  Feeling utterly exposed, she could only stand and listen.

  Bad Day at Black Lane

  Reggie Cann was sitting on the sofa in his underwear playing Call of Duty, because war was less stressful than the web of lies that his life had become.

  He wondered what a nervous breakdown felt like: he thought he might be having one. The woman he loved had killed his father, thanks to his cowardly deception. And Albert’s death had been only the beginning. In the weeks since then he’d lied to Amanda, been punched in the face, and was facing financial ruin – or broken legs. He couldn’t go to the police because Amanda would go to jail, and couldn’t even ask Skipper for help, because knowing that Albert had risked their home would kill him . . . Which was how they’d got into this mess in the first place.

  The whole thing was like juggling jellies.

  Without taking his eyes off the screen or his hands off the controls, Reggie lifted his legs up so that the cleaner could vacuum under them.

  She said something he didn’t catch.

  ‘What?’

  She turned off the vacuum cleaner.

  ‘What?’ he repeated.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said – apparently again – and, for a single blissful moment, Reggie thought she was telling him because she would have to cut back on her hours. That would be great. She’d become terrible at her job and he’d love to pay less for it . . .

  But she was looking at him in a way a cleaner wouldn’t, and an electric jolt passed through him as he realized she must be telling him for a far more dreadful reason.

  ‘What ?’ he said again anyway, because he never wanted to move on past that point in the conversation.

  But she only put a cliché of a hand on her tummy and explained as she might to an idiot, ‘I’m going to have a baby.’

  Reggie stared at her hand. She wasn’t a fat girl but she was no lightweight, and she didn’t look any different to him. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said firmly. He didn’t know the cleaner that well – she might have that kind of sense of so-called humour that meant she thought it was funny to tell men she was having their baby, just to see the look on their faces.

  ‘I’m not being silly,’ she said, and looked hurt. ‘I’ve missed loads of periods.’

  ‘But we only did it once!’

  ‘But I’ve only ever done it once!’ she shouted. ‘With you !’

  And she burst into tears that washed Reggie backwards through time . . . She cleaning and dusting with more cleavage and wiggle each week. A tease here, an innuendo there, and – when he’d driven her home one afternoon with a cut finger and found an empty house – a brief, clumsy shag on a pile of dirty clothes, while a parrot made a noise like a fire engine.

  ‘You said you loved me!’ she cried.

  ‘I did not!’

  He might have, though. It had been a while since he’d had sex. Certainly long enough to be grateful enough to leave the key under the mat for her every day, so she could get away from the mayhem of her own home even when she wasn’t cleaning his. He’d thought it was a quid pro quo.

  Apparently it wasn’t.

  It seemed impossible that something so minor could result in something so major when they hadn’t even taken their clothes off.

  Reggie was dazed. He took her hand. Started to speak. Forgot her name. Hannah. Layla. Hayley. Hayleyhayleyhayley. Phew!

  ‘Hayley,’ he said cautiously, ‘do you want to keep it?’

  ‘Of course! Don’t you?’

  ‘Well . . .’ He pulled a very reluctant face.

  ‘But you’ve got a house!’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I have to have a baby. The two don’t go together, you know!’

  Her weeping turned to anger. ‘Well, I can’t stay at my house with a baby! It’s mad there. Josie plays her music and Rita already takes up more than half the bedroom with her Harry Potter shit! And you’ve got a spare room now—’

  ‘Jesus, Hayley, Albert’s only just died! And anyway, you can’t just move in. What about Skipper?’

  ‘What about him?’ She shrugged. ‘It’s your house!’

  He might have said that too. He’d let Amanda believe it as well. Little white lies to make himself look richer. More manly. And it would be true. Soon! So where was the harm in it?

  He was only just beginning to see . . .

  Hayley apparently took his hesitation as impending victory. ‘We won’t be any trouble,’ she said eagerly. ‘Honest! I won’t even ask you to help with the baby ’cos you’ve already got tons to do, with work and all. And I can look after Skipper and I’ll clean the house for free and it’ll be no trouble, Reggie, I swear.’

  It’s already trouble! he wanted to yell. It had only been two minutes and it was already a fucking nightmare.

  He felt like crying. He really did. Hayley meant nothing to him and he was pretty sure he meant nothing to her. They hadn’t even talked about the sex since it had happened, and hadn’t repeated it because shortly afterwards he’d met Amanda, and had moved ­forward without any desire to look back. So far the only real consequence of having sex with the cleaner had been that, when her work rate had dwindled to zero, he hadn’t fired her.

  And now this. After everything else! There had to be a way out.

  Reggie squeezed Hayley’s hand and said, ‘I think you should see a doctor. Just to be sure.’

  But she shook him off furiously and shouted, ‘I told you! I’m pregnant !’

  She stormed into the kitchen and Reggie turned to follow her—

  And saw Amanda.

  Standing in the driveway. Looking at him through the hole in the window.

  How?

  For an infinite moment their eyes met and Reggie saw in her face all the hurt that the world had to offer. Then she ran.

  No!


  Nonononononono!

  He went after her, out of the door in his socks, across the wet grass. ‘Manda!’ he shouted. ‘Manda, wait!’

  There was a van – and a man standing beside it. And Amanda reached the open door. ‘I want to go!’ she shouted. ‘Please, Dickie!’

  And then the man in the dirty work boots was pushing her into the van like a kidnap victim—

  ‘Manda, please!’

  The man turned and spread his arms to stop him—

  Oi oi OI!

  But Reggie was watching Amanda and never saw the punch coming.

  Right on his previously punched nose.

  The Dentist

  The bright, smiley girl on reception was dressed in blue scrubs, as though she needed to be sterile to answer the phone. A big childish badge told them her name was BECKY.

  When they said they were police officers, Becky’s eyes widened.

  ‘Dr Williams is with a patient right now,’ she said. ‘Can you wait?’

  ‘No,’ said DCI King. ‘Please tell him it’s urgent.’

  The girl disappeared and Pete and Calvin stood looking at the posters of talking teeth, and the overpriced toothbrushes for sale on the counter. Calvin wondered if they ever sold one.

  The girl came back and said Dr Williams would be right out.

  But he wasn’t.

  King gave it thirty seconds, then gave them the nod and they barged in to find the dentist trying to climb out of the window, while a horizontal patient with a spit-sucker in her cheek demanded to know ‘Wha-go-ah?’

  ‘Excuse us, madam,’ said Pete. ‘Police.’

  Calvin moved quickly to grab Dr Williams, who protested loudly at being manhandled and said he’d been going to buy a sandwich.

  Calvin ushered him back to the surgery, where Kirsty King was already going through his accounts with the receptionist.

  ‘Just the nitrous oxide transactions, thank you. Ah. Dr Williams, I presume?’

  ‘He was trying to get out of the window, ma’am,’ said Pete.

  ‘I was going for a sandwich,’ Williams maintained haughtily.