by Penny Kline
‘Don’t!’ I ran towards her, ignoring the traffic that was only a few inches from the pavement. ‘Wait!’
When I reached her side she stared at me, her pale face expressionless. ‘I’m not going to jump, if that’s what you’re hoping.’
Jerking at Aaron’s choke-chain I forced him to stay still and the girl bent down, rubbing her knees, then holding out her fingers for the dog to sniff. ‘Retriever, ain’t he? If I had a dog I’d have one like that.’
‘He’s not my dog,’ I said, wanting to keep the conversation going, wanting to see the colour return to her face.
‘You mean like you’ve nicked him.’
‘No, of course not. A friend of mine, a neighbour, he’s sprained his ankle so I’m taking Aaron for a walk in Leigh Woods.’
The corners of her mouth moved a little. ‘Not scared, then?’
‘Scared? Oh, you mean the murder. That was nearly a month ago.’
‘Haven’t got him yet, though, have they?’ She took the dog’s lead from my hand. ‘Old bloke it was, the one that got done in. I reckon he had it coming.’
‘Why d’you say that?’ But I knew what she was going to say next.
‘I saw a flasher once. Running between the trees he was, hoping I’d see his whatsit and scream blue murder. If they catch ’em nothing happens. I reckon like they should lock them up and throw away the key.’
‘Most of them are harmless,’ I said, ‘just sad, isolated people who’ve no one they feel close to.’
She snorted. ‘Always talk that garbage, do you? If you want my opinion men should be castrated, then there wouldn’t be all those wars and that.’
She glared at me, waiting for the obvious rejoinder. When it didn’t come she muttered something about who wanted kids anyway then walked on ahead of me with Aaron trotting by her side.
I had wanted to distract her, make sure she left the bridge, but I had overreacted — because of the Suspension Bridge’s reputation. Now it was proving difficult to get rid of her. When we turned up North Road she asked if Aaron could go off the lead.
‘Not till we reach the woods.’
‘Does what you tell him, does he?’
‘I hope so.’
‘I had a cat once,’ she said, ‘when I was a kid, but it died. Sat up all night, I did, but it wouldn’t stop coughing. Reckon it’d swallowed its fur or something.’
‘What was its name?’
‘Eh?’ She slowed down till we were walking side by side. ‘Nobody asked me that before. Martin — that’s what I called it, don’t remember why.’
‘I work with a man called Martin.’
‘You’ve got a job, then. Mine’s only part-time but if I play my cards right I reckon I can make it last most of the week.’
We were passing the Botanical Gardens. I made a mental note of the name of a side road that looked as though it might lead to the one where Sandy Haran lived.
‘What are you looking at?’ The girl was studying my face minutely.
‘On my way back I have to call in on a friend, only I’m not sure where his house is.’
‘Funny kind of friend.’
I took a scrap of paper from my pocket and she slowed down a little to read the address.
‘Over there.’ She pointed across the road, then stopped, leaning against the stile that led into the woods, short of breath but not nearly so pale. ‘What’s he called, your friend?’
‘Sandy.’
She had a strand of hair wound round her finger. She gave it a twist, screwing up her face as though she was in agony. ‘You an accountant?’
‘Is that what I look like?’
She shrugged. ‘Everyone’s an accountant or a solicitor. What are you, then?’
‘A psychologist.’
‘Let him off now, shall I?’ Without waiting for an answer she dragged the choke-chain over Aaron’s head and he leapt the stile and bounded away into the undergrowth. ‘Don’t worry, still got his collar with his name and that. Dogs have to run free, it’s cruel to keep them on a lead.’
It was pleasant under the trees, a relief to be out of the sun although now it was after six the temperature had started to drop. The girl walked on ahead, kicking a stone with the side of her boot, trying to keep it on the path, muttering under her breath as it bounced into the long grass. I thought about the last time I had walked in Leigh Woods. Strolling, with my friend Chris and her three young kids, passing the precise spot where only forty-eight hours later a middle-aged man called Walter Bury had been discovered with his skull smashed in.
Checking the time, I realized I was regretting my decision to call in at Sandy Haran’s house, even though Aaron provided me with a ready-made reason for not staying too long. Why had Sandy invited me round? Presumably it was because he wanted me to see where he lived, a fairly impressive place if the address was anything to go by. I would say hello to his wife, exchange a few pleasantries, drink a quick cup of coffee, then leave.
I had known Sandy only five or six weeks. He was attending a counselling course where I had recently completed a series of lectures on Working with Groups. The first time I saw him he had been sitting in the second row — a rather unlikely looking candidate for such a course, with his dark suit and small, neat moustache — but when it was time for questions I had been impressed by his shrewdness, his understanding of how counselling could all too easily become a self-gratifying power game. The third week he introduced himself — in the car park where I was trying to repair my windscreen wipers sufficiently to drive the two miles back to my flat — and when I discovered he was ‘good with cars’ it was such a relief that I remember telling him he was my friend for life. Later, I wondered if he had taken this meaningless remark literally. Waiting for me at the end of each lecture became a habit. Sometimes he had a particular question, other times he just chatted about this and that. There was something about him that intrigued. Some of the others, fascinated by the subject because they had so many problems of their own, appeared quite unsuited to the course. Sandy was sensible, down-to-earth, enthusiastic but realistic. He spoke in a straightforward, unpretentious way, explaining how he had made a fair amount of money as a property developer then become disillusioned with the business world and decided he wanted to do something entirely different. The counselling course was his first step towards a new way of life.
During the next few weeks his physical appearance had begun to change. The suit was replaced with the kind of leisure wear that features in the pages of the up-market Sunday papers, and his short, thinning hair was allowed to grow longer, bushier above the ears. At the end of my final lecture he had come up to me in the car park and invited me to dinner. I hesitated, unwilling to become too involved, seeing him almost like a client rather than a student on the course. It was ridiculous. In an effort to maintain so-called professional boundaries I was in danger of cutting myself off from all but a handful of close friends and my colleagues at work. As a compromise I suggested that since I had to exercise my neighbour’s dog perhaps I could drop by some time on my way home from Leigh Woods.
‘When?’ He wanted a date and time.
‘Thursday? About seven, or is that too late?’
‘Seven’s fine, just right.’
‘I won’t be able to stay long, not with the dog and everything.’
He laughed. ‘Using a dog as protection, eh? I’ll leave that up to you, Anna, stay just as long as you want.’ It was the first time he had used my name. He seemed pleased, out of all proportion, as though my visit meant a great deal to him, as though by agreeing to call round I had taken a great weight off his shoulders …
The girl was standing on one leg, leaning against a tree, watching me. ‘Two kids found the body,’ she said, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘Up the other end where you can look down at the Gorge. Cordoned it off, they did, so you couldn’t get close but I got to know this policeman bloke. Only a kid he was really, told me all kinds of stuff. Like he was guarding the area.’
She shook her head, screwing up her face in disgust. ‘Do me a favour, think I’m made of money? Dressed in white overalls they was, with hoods over their heads and special shoes. Like they wear them so they won’t leave their hairs and that muddled up with clues from the murderer.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it.’
She nodded. ‘Dogs they had too. German shepherds. I’d like to be a dog handler but I don’t s’pose they have women doing it. Bloody typical.’
I pictured the pathologist crouching beside the dead man, a photographer making a video of the position of the body and the surrounding areas, taking stills with close-ups of the injuries. How long had the man been lying there? Two days, a week? The girl could probably tell me although I was sure she knew far less than she wanted me to believe.
‘He come from Abbots Leigh,’ she said, ‘it was on the telly but only the local news. I s’pose there’s murders every day so like it wasn’t important enough for the other.’ She stumbled over a rotten branch that had fallen half across the path. ‘They’ll never catch him now, it’s too late, the scent’ll have gone cold.’
‘Oh, I doubt it. For all we know there’s plenty of forensic evidence.’
‘What kind of evidence? Oh, you mean blood and semen and that. Bits of skin under the fingernails, fibres in the wound.’
I laughed. ‘You’ve been watching too many crime programmes.’
‘No, I haven’t. Anyway, the knife’ll be in the river by now, or sunk in the mud.’
‘I thought he was bludgeoned to death.’
She swivelled round on one foot. ‘There you are, caught you out, tricked you into admitting you’re as interested as I am. People love murders, what’s the point in pretending to feel bad about someone you’ve never even met?’
There was no sign of Aaron. At the part of the woods we had reached the trees grew closer together, cutting out most of the light, making it impossible to see much beyond the path. I could try an ear-splitting whistle but more than likely it would come out as a thin breathy puff which the girl would find highly amusing. She ran on ahead and I saw her bending over the sagging fence that protected a small murky-looking pond.
‘Can you see the dog?’ I shouted.
‘What?’ She had a length of slimy green weed in her hand and was swinging it round, threatening to let go so it hit me in the face.
A moment later Aaron bounded up and started pawing the sagging wooden struts that surrounded the pond. The girl held up the choke-chain triumphantly. ‘Think I’m daft or something?’ She returned the weed to the water. ‘If it hadn’t been for me he’d have jumped in, got his coat all mucky.’
‘Well done.’
‘Well done,’ she mimicked. ‘It was down there they found the stiff.’ She pointed at where the path split. ‘If we go that way I could show you.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Why not? Squeamish, are you? I reckon it was someone who lives close by, the one who done it. I reckon I know who it was.’
‘Better tell the police, then.’
‘Think it’s funny, do you?’ She spat out the words. ‘Think I’m joking? He’d only been there a few hours, not buried, just covered in branches and that. First you go stiff as a board, then it wears off and the maggots get started. Where d’you live?’
‘Cliftonwood.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Just up from Hotwell Road.’
‘Lived in Bristol all your life?’
‘No, only a few years. You’re not from round here either, are you?’
She pulled a face. ‘South London, as if you didn’t know. People like you, people who speak like the newsreader on the telly, no one knows where they’re from so they can’t be fitted into nice neat little slots.’
‘Everyone fits into some slot or other.’
‘Oh, very profound.’ She stared into the distance as though she was thinking about another time. When I told her I was turning back she seemed not to have heard.
‘I have to go now.’
‘So you said.’ She handed me the lead. ‘Thought like you was visiting a friend.’
‘Yes, I am.’ I looked away, unnerved by her angry, staring eyes. ‘Well, see you around I expect.’
‘Maybe.’ She took a tissue from the pocket of her shorts and blew her nose hard, contorting her face as if she was in pain.
It was crazy, we had only just met, but she was making me feel I was letting her down. Or perhaps it was all in my imagination. It was Aaron she liked, not me, she made a habit of attaching herself to people with golden retrievers.
‘Where d’you live?’ I asked.
‘Southville.’
‘Look, when you were on the bridge … ’
‘What about it?’
‘There are people who can help, people you can talk to.’
‘What for? What’s the point?’
‘Sometimes telling someone else makes it seem less terrible, helps you to sort things out in your — ’
‘Not if you’d done something really bad?’ The defiant expression had disappeared. She looked wretched, despairing. ‘Something you regretted but it was too late.
What good would it be just talking about it?’
She started walking away, then stopped, holding up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun. ‘Talking’s a waste of bloody time. Doesn’t alter the past.’ Then she turned, pausing for a moment as though she was listening for sounds in the woods, shook herself, like a dog, and began running down the track — back to the scene of the crime.
Chapter Three
The front door was answered by a woman in her late sixties with short thick grey hair, very pale blue eyes, and a round soft-skinned face. She was holding a baby on one hip.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I was looking for Sandy Haran.’
The woman hoisted the baby against her shoulder then, when it wriggled and let out a disgruntled squawk, turned it to face me, licking her finger to wipe something sticky off its mouth. ‘Round the back,’ she said. ‘There’s a door with one of those microphone things.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ She seemed glad of the diversion. People who stay at home looking after babies probably are.
‘Lovely baby,’ I said, assuming she was the proud grandmother, ‘is it a boy or a girl?’
‘Girl. Seven months.’
‘Anyway, thanks, I’m sorry to disturb you.’
‘You didn’t.’ Then she called after me in a voice that seemed unnecessarily loud.
‘You’re a friend of Mrs Haran, are you? Give her my best wishes, the poor soul.’
Round the corner of the building, out of sight of the front door, I paused to take in the size of the place. Sandy had given the impression that he owned the whole house but it must be divided into flats with a shared garden. I knew the kind of set-up. Luxury apartments with an annual service charge as high as most people’s ordinary rent.
The house was late Victorian, with a steeply pitched roof and sweeping gables. There were masses of windows, all of them fairly small, and the one I was standing next to was round like a porthole, with green and blue stained glass and a central section in the shape of a bird of prey. When I looked up I could see the house consisted of two main floors but also had two attic windows in the large tiled roof. The three chimneys looked in need of repair but were probably perfectly sound or the bout of stormy weather back in April would have brought them toppling down.
I stepped back, almost falling over one of the grey border stones that ran along the edge of the lawn. Staring up at the first-floor windows I half expected to see Sandy’s face pressed against the glass — he had been so keen for me to call round and already it was well past seven — but there were no signs of life apart from a pigeon perched on the parapet of a small balcony. What had the old woman meant when she described Geraldine
Haran as a ‘poor soul’? Perhaps she was an invalid, but wouldn’t Sandy have mentioned it before?
The garden was small for a house that size. It looked as if it had belonged to a keen gardener who had tended it with loving care then suddenly lost interest or moved away. The nearest flower-bed contained about a dozen rose bushes, all with large overblown heads on weak-looking stalks, and in a border nearer to the house I noticed foxgloves with long blackened stems and a few shrivelled flowers. A sprawling St John’s wort extended across a paved area, where someone had left a glossy magazine on an old deck-chair with a torn seat. Sandy’s black BMW, with its distinctive roof-rack, was parked on a strip of concrete that looked as if it had once been the base of a large garden shed.
Aaron, who had been sniffing the grass, suddenly leapt forward, dragged me several yards, and started digging at the base of a magnolia, desperate to unearth what looked like a knuckle bone but turned out to be a large piece of flint. Pulling him away I continued on round the building where I noticed another car, a grey Morris Minor, parked close to the hedge. It was in mint condition. A collector’s item, used only for short weekend drives? Perhaps doing up old cars was one of Sandy’s hobbies, or the car might belong to his wife.
A porch had been added to the back of the house, built to a design that matched the rest of the building, but of newer redder bricks. I stepped inside, holding open the outer door to provide more light, pressed the buzzer attached to the wall, and waited, listening for the crackle that would precede Sandy’s disembodied voice.
‘Yes?’ The woman who answered sounded nervous, as though she had no idea who could be calling round at this time.
‘Anna McColl,’ I said, ‘I’ve come to — ’ I broke off as a hand clasped my shoulder.
‘Good to see you, Anna. Geraldine’s been looking forward to your visit all day. Sorry about the technology. We got a bit sick of running up and down the stairs.’ Aaron was trying to jump up and rest his paws on Sandy’s chest. ‘Did I forget to explain which door? I was working in the shed, saw you having a look round. The house is far too big for us now so I arrange short-term lets for the ground-floor flat. Foreign visitors and such like. At present Bryan Sealey’s staying here.’