The Scribbler

by Iain Maitland

  Gayther shrugged. It was all he could do to show interest.

  He wished she would go away.

  Then he could go home and go to bed. Forget about it all, for a while anyway.

  Carrie smiled as she reached across and brushed crumbs from his shirt. “We’d better go and get some then, guv, hadn’t we?”

  He looked at her, suddenly touched by her response, but then shook his head. “Bosman will have me out the door. You need to steer clear of Barry Johnson and the Williams case. He’s not happy. And don’t go back to Sally or Jen at the care home. They’ve complained too. And don’t make that trip to the caravan park. Halom would kick up a storm if he found out.”

  “So,” she asked, sitting back in her seat, “that leaves me with … what … what to do? Burgess. You said it was him for sure. Your instinct.”

  Gayther rubbed his forehead, could feel a headache coming on. He knew he needed to go home, get some sleep, come back again tomorrow in a better mood. “No, leave him be. Just … go through the files. See what else there is … something you can look at online … that doesn’t tread on anyone’s toes … or piss people off. I don’t know.”

  He shook his head and then carried on, “Maybe someone called someone else a big fat fairy at work thirty years and they’re both now dead … that’s perfect … case closed … write up a report on that saying how we’d press charges if only they were still alive.”

  “There’s no point being …” Carrie ground to a halt seeing Gayther’s expression, but then added, almost defiantly, “Where’s that sense of outrage, guv … your brother, my great-uncles, righting wrongs … There’s a murderer on the loose who might kill again at any moment.”

  She looked at him, frustrated.

  He stared back, now angry and edgy.

  They sat there in silence for a moment.

  “And give Thomas and Cotton some files to look at … shuffle them about a bit … and tell them not to bother tracking down Wade and Wilkerson … and Burgess for that matter … although Burgess troubles me. Something’s not quite right there.”

  “That’s it then, guvnor, is it? For The Scribbler? We’re just giving up?”

  He shrugged, knew he was being unreasonable, taking his frustration out on Carrie, who he liked a lot. He couldn’t seem to help himself. “Yes, until that compelling new evidence turns up, Carrie.”

  “And what will that be, this compelling new evidence?”

  Gayther got to his feet to go. “Another murder, Carrie, with some scribbling all over the corpse. Is that compelling enough?”

  “So, we just leave it then, let the criminals go free … let the families who have never known what happened to loved ones carry on with their suffering … leave them without dignity. Just give up. In spite of everything you said. Just so many empty words.”

  They looked at each other.

  Both angry.

  Carrie turned and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

  15. THURSDAY 15 NOVEMBER, LATE MORNING

  A line of men with axes, each man sweating with exertion, chopping down a row of Christmas trees.

  The two brothers, one smart, one slow, were among them, one at one end, one at the other.

  “Break!” cried the smart brother, the man with the gloves, the man in charge. Barking instructions like his father used to do.

  All of the men stopped what they were doing, put down their axes, and made their way to a trestle table topped with holdalls and carrier bags full of flasks and foil-wrapped sandwiches. They then sat at various fold-away chairs dotted around, stretching, cursing and eating. One or two fiddled with mobile phones.

  “Good, this year,” one man said, wiping his brow.

  “Always is here,” replied another.

  “Fucking hard work,” an older man said.

  The men, all bluff camaraderie, barely knew each other. They turned up, for cash in hand, from postcards in local newsagents’ and supermarket windows. Ever-changing faces, year after year. Days of cutting, getting the trees ready for various local garden centres, and they were gone, folded notes in their back pockets to be spent in betting shops and pubs.

  They knew who the boss was, the smart brother, and nodded respectfully at him, one or two old-timers even touching their fingers to their foreheads as if lifting caps. They were wary. There was something about him. And they knew they had to be respectful of the slow brother, listening to his nonsense and trivia, if they wanted a pocketful of cash to spend without telling the benefits office.

  One worker, several years back, not knowing the brotherly connection, had taunted the slow brother, “So, they’ve let you out again this year then have they … from the loony bin?”, his exact words. Another, more recently, had shouted, “Holy mother of Jesus, it’s the Phantom of the Opera.” Last year, a man had mocked the collection of men’s rings that the slow brother, looking around to check the smart brother wasn’t within sight, had shyly shown in his extended hand. “You fucking gannet, where did you get those from?”

  The slow brother, answering back, defending himself, straining for a clever answer, rose quickly to inarticulate anger at the continued banter. The smart brother intervened, stepping between his brother and the other men, dismissing them with cash paid up for the day. “What am I going to do with you?” he said afterwards, turning to the now-contrite slow brother. “Every year, every single year, you do this. From now on, you must stay indoors with Mother when we do the trees.”

  There would be silence, sullen and resentful.

  And then, over time, as the tree-cutting then came round again, the shy comments and the hopeful requests and the solemn promises would come.

  Until, finally, the smart brother would give in and agree, deciding that, this time round, he would keep a closer eye on him. But he never really did. There was too much to do.

  As they gathered around the trestle table, a well-spoken man in a red bobble hat, never been here before and trying to fit in with his rougher co-workers, leaned towards the slow brother, and asked conversationally, “So, do you do this every year?”

  The slow brother thought for ages, for so long that the man with the bobble hat had turned away, taking a sip of tea from a flask. Then the slow brother replied.

  “Yes,” he said simply, “I do it every year.”

  “It’s my first time. Something to do really, keeping busy. I’ve been widowed … and have just lost my job. I was a sales adviser. Replaced by twelve-year-olds. So, I thought I’d get out and about. Fucking kids.”

  The slow brother did not reply. Just turned his head away, towards the row of trees that they’d be cutting down.

  He glanced over at his brother, who had his back to him and was talking to one of the other men about something or other.

  He then went to say something, but, at the moment, his brother shouted, “Let’s go” and, as everyone rose to their feet, muttering and swearing and swallowing their final mouthfuls of food and drink, the words he said were lost.

  The man with the red bobble hat picked up his axe and walked towards the row of trees.

  As he did so, he turned back and smiled at the slow brother.

  He got to his feet, lifted his axe, feeling the weight of it in his hands, and followed the man step by step.

  * * *

  The elderly, bird-like woman, stirring a saucepan full of soup on the ancient Aga oven, looked at the two brothers, her sons, sitting at the table in the kitchen of the farmhouse.

  Hats and coats off, hanging by the door, boots left to the side, hands washed. They sat waiting, the smart brother tense and edgy, trying not to show it, the slow brother seemingly distracted, lost in thought.

  Even now, at their busiest time of year, they still came in and sat down and ate at lunchtime. Had done, at one o’clock every day, for as long as any of them could remember. Since Father was, well, for many years now. Thirty or so.

  She gestured the slow brother over, indicating he should lift the saucepan and pour t
he soup into the three bowls she had placed on the table, spoons to the side of each. She had put slices of white processed bread, spread thick with margarine and cut clumsily in half, on a plate in the middle of the table.

  She eased herself down carefully, through aches and pains, onto her chair and watched as the slow brother fetched the saucepan.

  He poured soup first into the mother’s bowl, then the smart brother’s and, finally, what was left, splashed into his own.

  She bent her head forward, clasping her hands together, saying grace through cough and spittle. The two brothers echoed her final amen.

  “This is the coldest day so far this year … my bones hurt,” said the elderly woman, her voice rasping. She rubbed her arms as best she could and then pulled her worn and faded cardigan across her chest. “And the cold, it gets to me. I hate these winter months. They’ll be the death of me, you wait and see. I’ll be gone by the spring.”

  The two brothers exchanged looks as they sipped at their soup. The smart brother shook his head – say nothing – as he reached for a piece of bread and pushed it slowly, folding it over, into his mouth.

  She went on, between measured, almost painful sips, addressing what she thought the slow brother was about to say. “I keep telling you … I’m not going into a home … I’m not going into that care home.”

  “It was a nice home, Mother,” the smart brother said reasonably.

  “They had cakes there,” the slow brother added. “You could have home-made cakes for tea every day.” He raised his hand, counting them off, finger by finger. “Fairy cakes and sponge cakes and …”

  “What do you think I am, a child?” the elderly woman answered sharply. “What do I want with home-made cakes at my time of life. I’m eighty-four, not four.”

  “I just thought, Mother …”

  “Don’t. You don’t think. You do what you’re told … I’m not well. How many times have I told you? I ache all over all the time.” She lurched forward unexpectedly. “But there’s nothing wrong with my mind.” She tapped the side of her head. “I’m still sharp up here. And I’m watching. Both of you. I know what’s going on.”

  The smart brother rested his spoon by his bowl. “Nothing’s going on, Mother; we’re just cutting the trees, same as we always do. We’ve got the men in from the villages to help and …”

  “I’m not talking about the trees. I’m not stupid. I know what you’re doing. The two of you.” She paused and went on, her voice rising and cracking, “I know.”

  The slow brother looked flustered, dropping his spoon into his bowl. He did not seem to notice the soup spattering up onto his hand. Head down, he looked up slowly. “We are not doing anything wrong, mother. We are your best boys.”

  She spoke sharply between sips of soup. “You make sure you are … both of you … because I’m watching you … to make sure … You can’t fool me … I’m not green, you know.” She pulled at her eye. “See, no green there.”

  The three of them fell silent, working their way through the soup and eating the bread.

  The elderly woman looking at them one after the other, tutting to herself.

  The slow brother looking up nervously at each tut and then, as if expecting him to do something, at the smart brother.

  “What’s the matter with you, Sonky?” snapped the elderly woman suddenly, using an old-fashioned word for stupid. The name she often used for her slow son.

  “I am not stupid, Mother, do not say that. Please. I am a good boy.”

  “Don’t call him stupid, Mother,” echoed the smart brother. “He does his best.”

  “Sonky and Chopsy. That’s what the two of you are, always were. A simpleton and Mr Clever Dick with the gift of the gab. Neither of you are worth that much.” She raised her bony hand slowly and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together.

  “Do not say that, Mother, do not say that. It is not true.”

  “Not true?” She stopped as she finished her soup and reached for the last remaining piece of bread. “You should be in a home, Sonky. With your Jack and Jill reading books. And your twitching and grunting and forever fiddling with yourself. We’ll put you away soon enough the way you’re going. Lock you up in the madhouse … and we’ll throw away the key.”

  The slow brother reared up, knocking his chair over in his clumsiness. “Do not say that, Mother, do not say that.”

  He turned to go. But then stopped, uncertain what to do, as he saw his smart brother sitting there, unmoving.

  “Sit down, Sonky,” she hissed at him. “Sonky wonky, the old man’s donkey.” She made a braying noise and then laughed, spittle on her lips.

  He sat back down, angry and resentful, head bowed.

  The smart brother took a last mouthful of soup. Placed his spoon carefully in his bowl. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Went to get up.

  The old woman turned towards him.

  He hesitated and then paused, waiting for her final words.

  “You two remember. This is my home. Mine. Not yours. I say what happens and when.” She coughed suddenly, struggling to clear her throat of phlegm. For a moment, it seemed as though she might choke. They waited patiently until she went on.

  “And nothing happens here that I don’t know about. As God’s my witness. Nothing, do you hear? Nothing. I’m watching you … every minute, every day … now go on, get out of here.”

  The two brothers rose, both taking their bowls and spoons to the kitchen sink.

  Then walking back to kiss, one after the other, her proffered cheek.

  And to the door to put on hats, coats and boots, one brother subdued, the other angry.

  * * *

  “I am not stupid, am I? Say I am not stupid.” The slow brother strode back towards the other men sitting waiting for them by the rows of Christmas trees.

  The smart brother shook his head, saying words he’d said, one way or the other, many times before. “You’re not stupid. Mother’s not feeling well, that’s all. She loves you, really.”

  “She loves us both.”

  “Yes, both of us. And she looks after us and …”

  “… we look after her.”

  “That’s the way it always has been …”

  “… and that is the way it always will be.”

  The slow brother dropped back to walk alongside the smart brother and then, as they approached the waiting men, he whispered quietly, anxiously, “I will not have to go into a home, will I? Say you will not lock me away. Say it.”

  The smart brother stopped and looked his brother in the eye.

  “As long as I’m here, as long as I live, I promise that you won’t have to go into a home. I give you my solemn promise.”

  The slow brother nodded and smiled back, shy and lop-sided.

  “Cross your heart?”

  “And hope to die.”

  The slow brother smiled again and then thought of his next question.

  “Can I choose the next row of trees?”

  “The best row of trees?”

  “The biggest and best trees for Christmas.”

  The two brothers looked at each other and smiled.

  They continued walking, but then, as they reached the men, the slow brother stopped smiling and a troubled look spread across his face. He was silent.

  “Okay, listen up.” The smart brother stood by the men and raised his hands. “I want you … you … you … and you, yes you, big lad … to join me to finish this row of trees …”

  “… and you, Where’s Wally …” He pointed at the man in the red bobble hat. “I want you to go with my brother up to the … my brother will show you where, to start preparing … he’ll choose the next batch of trees, and then you’ll clear the path and come back here and help us when you’re finished. Okay?”

  The man with the bobble hat nodded, throwing his holdall over his shoulder, picking up his axe and walking towards the slow brother, smiling.

  The slow brother turned to the smart brother, a look of
something close to panic on his face.

  The smart brother did not seem to notice as he turned, moving towards the remaining men, shepherding them to trees they’d been working on all morning.

  After a moment, as the man in the bobble hat stood smiling and the slow brother stared at the ground, the smart brother clapped his hands towards them. “Come on, come on, lots to do before the sun sets.” His father’s old phrase.

  The slow brother reached for his axe and turned and started walking.

  The man with the bobble hat followed him. “Hold on, hold on … not so fast.”

  The slow brother ignored him and just carried on walking alongside row upon row of trees. On and on he went.

  Then he stopped suddenly at a row of trees, seemingly at random. Turned again and walked along them, looking up and looking down, touching a tree here and there with the head of his axe, almost half-heartedly as if lost in thought.

  The man with the bobble hat followed him, bemused, trying to keep up, wanting to ask questions, what are you doing, why this row, what do we have to do? But the slow brother kept going and did not stop and did not turn round at all. It was as if he had forgotten that the man in the bobble hat was there.

  At last, at the end of the row, they stopped, and the slow brother glanced at the man with the hat and then looked down as he spoke. “You do not like children.” Half-statement, half-question, or so it sounded.

  The man with the hat laughed uncertainly. An odd question. “Me? Yes, I like children. I’ve got two of them, boy and girl, ten and eight. They look so alike, people think they’re twins.”

  The slow brother looked up. “People always thought we were twins. My brother and me. We look alike.”

  “Yes, yes, I noticed you looked similar, I mean apart from your …” He stopped speaking as the slow brother put his fingers to his cheek. “How did it happen?”

  The slow brother breathed out heavily and thought for a minute, searching for a long-ago, well-rehearsed answer that he could barely now remember. “It was a fire … I got burned … Father …”

  “Okay, yes … and is your father still here … or does he have his feet up enjoying a well-deserved rest from cutting Christmas trees? Perhaps he’s Father Christmas, is he?” The man with the hat laughed, to show he was being friendly.