by William Shaw
‘Right.’
‘Are you looking after yourself? You and Zoë? Perhaps you should come round for dinner some time?’
DI McAdam’s wife Colette was a brittle woman who made Alex feel anxious whenever she was around her.
‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ she said, and turned away before he could start suggesting diary dates.
Work finished earlier than she was used to. On the kitchen table, a note. Gone to Folkestone. Z. Xxx.
Without Zoë in the house she could eat meat. She cooked some sausages, looked at them on the plate for a while without touching them, then opened up her laptop and scrolled through emails until she found the one from Georgia Coaker. She clicked on the photograph, peered at it, zooming in until the shapes dissolved into pixels, trying to understand what she was looking at.
After a few minutes, she put the cooked sausages back into the fridge and pulled her car keys out of her bag.
Ten minutes later, Terry Neill was opening his front door in shorts and a blue T-shirt.
‘This is a surprise,’ he said.
‘You said you went to his birthday.’
‘What?’ He blinked at her, confused, then opened the door wide for her to come in.
Twenty-seven
‘Were there balloons?’ she demanded.
‘What?’
‘When you went to Callum’s twenty-first-birthday party at Loftingswood Grange, did Ayman and Mary bring balloons?’
He looked at her with a bemused look. ‘You don’t know how pleased I am to see you. Would you like a glass of wine? I’ve already had more than I should.’
He led her through to the back of his house again. ‘Shit day?’ she asked.
‘I’m on my third glass,’ he said. ‘Alcohol releases dopamine and serotonin. None of that is having the desired effect right now. Would you . . . ?’
‘I’ll be glad to help you in your research. Just one, though.’
‘The thing about alcohol is it’s supposed to increase the release of gamma-aminobutyric acid, which is an inhibitor. That’s why you drink to blot things out. Alcohol can literally do that. Only it’s not really working yet.’
She stopped. ‘You heard the latest about Ayman and Mary then?’
‘Yes. They’ve arrested the man who murdered them. There was stuff on the news. It’s all a bit raw.’ He made an attempt at a smile but it was less than convincing.
‘Sorry. I should have been more thoughtful. I didn’t mean to butt in.’ For once she held her thoughts in her head; now was not the time to suggest to him that they had arrested the wrong man.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. I’m glad of company.’ He poured Zinfandel into a mammoth glass. ‘What was it you were saying about his birthday?’
‘I wanted to know if they brought balloons.’
‘Balloons?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a weird question. Yes. They did. He blew them up himself. He brought all the gear with them in the boot of his car. A cylinder of gas. They loved that boy a great deal. Was that it?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Why balloons? What’s all this about?’
She ignored him and looked out towards the grass that grew between them and the sand. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me about vigilance. I thought someone was trying to kill me on Sunday by pushing me off a boat. I’m still not sure if they were, or whether it was just my brain imagining it.’
‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you?’
‘Sort of. I want to know more about this. I need something rational to hold on to right now. Are there books you can recommend?’
He took a while to answer. ‘Can I give you a bit of advice?’ he said. ‘I’m a scientist, Alex. Like you, I tend to think if I understand the mechanisms behind things, then I am in control. Trauma isn’t like that. There’s a danger you’re using science to push away the unpleasantness of it rather than dealing with the problem itself. Your brain has rewired itself in a way that is harming you. It’s one thing to know that, it’s another to deal with it. I’m a big believer in counsellors. You should talk to him about this.’
‘That’s what my daughter says.’
He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to her. I would like to meet her properly one day. How was her starfish dissection?’
‘Utterly gross.’
‘Good. What about her father? Where is he?’
Always beware men who ask your marital status, she thought. ‘Amicably divorced. He lives in Cornwall.’
‘Why doesn’t Zoë live with him?’
‘I used to think that she stayed with me because she liked me more, or that she didn’t like his wife, which wouldn’t have surprised me at all. His wife runs a business making handmade herbal beauty products. But now I realise that she stays with me because she thinks she has to look after me.’
He whistled. ‘Self-pity?’
‘I’m not sure I am capable of it. Maybe she just prefers it here. He’s a university lecturer at Falmouth.’
‘Poor bastard.’
‘Because he has a wife who makes herbal beauty products?’
‘Because he’s a university lecturer. Universities are doomed. I’m lucky to be out with a pension.’
‘You’re young. I thought university people stayed in the job until they died. How come you got out?’
He smiled a little sadly again. ‘It was not a choice I made. They asked me to retire, if I’m honest.’
‘Oh.’
He put down the wine and interlocked his fingers. ‘I had a problem with drugs. I don’t try and keep it a secret. It became an issue. We worked out a severance package and though I thought I’d be miserable, the change made me happier than you can imagine. I’m clean now, by the way. Alcohol is still a vice, obviously.’
‘That’s why you’re a fan of counsellors?’ She heard crickets in the marram grass.
‘Everything I knew about the physiology of addiction was just an excuse not to quit. But yes, I had a good counsellor. In fact, one of the things he encouraged me to do was to take some exercise. I took up golf. You should try it.’
‘God, no. So you shifted one addiction for another?’
‘Exactly so. And Ayman took me under his wing here. He was kind to me when I needed it the most. He helped teach me. And he was genuinely delighted when I started to beat him at the game. And I am obsessed, now, unfortunately, though very healthy.’
Other people’s lives were always so various and strange, she thought to herself. ‘I have a question. It’s about Ayman. Do you mind if I ask? Did you ever hear about Ayman arguing with anyone?’
‘No . . . Your colleague asked me that. They say he argued with the homeless man who killed him.’
‘But you never heard about it. He never talked about it?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’ Another smile. ‘I’m glad you came, actually. I was hoping to invite you round. I’m quite a good cook,’ he said.
‘I bet you say that to all of the lady golfers.’
‘Most of them. Look, I know I’m sounding like a bit of an arse, but cut me a little slack.’
‘You’re desperate?’
He nodded. ‘I suppose I am, really. How would tomorrow be?’
She stood. ‘No. I’m sorry. I actually have to be somewhere tomorrow evening.’ Tomorrow evening it would be two weeks exactly since the deaths of Ayman and Mary Younis.
‘But another day then. Saturday?’
‘I don’t think so, Terry. I’m not really in the right place for this.’
‘What about the weekend after?’ he asked.
Irritated at his persistence, she replied, ‘I’ll promise to think about it. OK?’ in a tone that was supposed to imply ‘no’.
On the way home s
he passed Bill’s house and noticed there were no lights on again, and she realised, with a start, that she had not talked to Bill at all this week. In fact, she thought, she had not even seen him. They were friends; they might not talk to each other every day, but she was normally conscious of his presence, and yet she had been so wrapped up with disliking her new job that she hadn’t reached out to him once.
She stopped the car, got out and banged on the door. There was no answer.
She walked around the back in case he was there, but the bench was empty, so she peered in through the rear window into the main room. The place was deserted.
She dug out her phone and called Zoë in Folkestone. The first time she didn’t answer. The second time she picked up. Alex could hear music in the background.
‘Did Bill say he was going away anywhere?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Think. Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure, Mum.’
‘Have you seen anything of him?’
‘No. Not for a few days in fact.’
‘Me neither.’ She was suddenly worried. ‘Do you think something might have happened to him?’
In the background she heard Stella and Tina’s chattering. Some laughter. ‘Maybe he’s trying to get away from that bird bath,’ joked Zoë.
‘He liked it.’
‘So you say.’
‘I’m serious. Do you think something happened to him? I’m worried, Zoë.’
Zoë sounded suddenly concerned too. ‘Are you all right, Mum? Do you want me to come home?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, making an effort to sound less anxious.
‘I mean, I can. If you want. I don’t mind.’
‘It’s OK. It sounds like you’re having fun.’ She changed the subject. ‘I wanted to ask, are you volunteering at the Wildlife Centre tomorrow?’
‘I’ll wear suntan lotion, Mum, I promise. And a hat.’
‘I want you to do me a favour,’ Alex said casually.
‘What?’
‘I want you to tell Kenny Abel to meet me for a drink. Tomorrow at half past nine. At the pub.’ As she said it, she opened the lid of Bill South’s bin and peered in. It was completely empty.
‘What?’
So was the recycling box. But the refuse lorries had only come on Monday so maybe there was nothing out of the ordinary about that.
‘Mum? Are you still there?’
She would stop by again in the morning. There would be a simple explanation for his absence, she assured herself.
Twenty-eight
Each minute ticked past more slowly.
At her desk first thing on Wednesday, Alex left four messages for Bill South; there had been no sign of him when she left for work this morning, either. She called Jill three times and each time it went to voicemail. And the work was not enough to hold her attention. She spent the afternoon distractedly learning how to explore the granularity of the crime data they compiled, looking at it by date and location, trying to see what the men in the room next to hers were seeing in it. She was used to crime as unfolding narrative, not as plain numbers. She was logging off her computer when Jill finally called back, apologising.
‘Can you help me do something tonight?’
‘What?’
‘It’s about the Younis killings.’
She heard her friend sigh. ‘Whatever it is, no.’
‘Please. It’s important. I think I’ve got something major.’
‘Even if I didn’t have a Bumble date tonight with a very nice-looking man in the Ashford Fire Service, I can’t, Alex. McAdam has had a word with us. He knows you’re . . . kind of interested in the murders and he’s told us all to avoid talking to you about them.’
‘He what?’
‘I’m sorry, Alex. He says it’s for your own good. I mean . . . I can see that, too. Besides, it’s operational stuff. I can’t share it with you.’
She thought of how she had told off Colin Gilchrist for leaking details of the case; it came as a shock to realise how much on the outside of this she was now. Like Georgia Coaker, she was someone who didn’t have the right to know all the facts. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I get it.’
She wished Jill luck on her date, because despite being young and beautiful and clever, she never seemed to have any, and ended the call.
‘Everything all right?’ asked one of the beards, popping his head around the door before he left for the day.
‘Peachy,’ she said.
At half past nine, Kenny Abel was there, standing outside the Romney Hotel looking apprehensive.
‘And you want me to look and see . . . you know. If I see souls again?’
Alex checked her watch. ‘I’ll buy you that drink.’
The bar was surprisingly empty. It was a hot night. Everyone was outside in the beer garden at the back. She ordered an alcohol-free lager because she needed a clear head; he asked for a pint of Bishop’s Finger. ‘Was that what you were drinking on the night?’
‘What is this? A crime scene re-creation?’
‘Just it’s pretty strong.’ She checked the pump clip. ‘Five-point-four per cent.’
‘I know exactly what I saw.’ When the drinks were poured, she led him out to the back of the pub. A summer weekend had started; the working week was over and the beer garden was packed. The air was thick with smoke and the scent of barbecues. Sleepy-looking children sat with Cokes and crisps while their parents chatted and joked. The multiple murder that had shocked everyone a fortnight ago seemed to have been forgotten. Other people reverted to normal so easily, she thought; unlike herself.
There was nowhere to sit, so they stood at the far end of the garden, looking north, towards the Younises’ house, obscured by a line of trees.
‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘That’s what you were doing a week ago . . . Go ahead.’
He put his drink down on a nearby table and pulled out a tobacco tin.
‘I doubt you know it, but your daughter knows more about the wildlife round here than most people twice her age.’
‘It’s nothing she gets from me.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You seem pretty obsessional too.’
A group of young men in brightly coloured rugby shirts, white collars all turned up, laughed abruptly at something. ‘Is that what I am?’
‘Don’t take offence. Nothing would happen in this world if it weren’t for people like you and her.’
‘Halfway through the dullest week of my life, I suppose that’s a nice thing to hear.’
‘You’ll miss her when she’s gone, I expect.’
Alex turned to him. ‘What do you mean, gone?’
A blush rose in his face. ‘Nothing,’ he mumbled.
‘She’s been talking to you about leaving home, hasn’t she?’
‘I’m just guessing,’ he said, but too hurriedly. ‘I mean. She’s eighteen in a while. She’ll probably want a place of her own.’
She turned her head away. ‘Of course,’ she said, though the thought of her daughter wanting to leave and live on her own had never entered her head before. ‘What has she been saying?’
He shook his head. ‘Bits, you know. Just chat.’ He pulled out an orange plastic lighter and lit the cigarette. Alex was stung. It was not just that her daughter had wanted to leave home; it was that she would discuss it with this man, rather than with her.
‘You’ve been ill then, I heard,’ he said.
Again she turned to him; she could feel his nervousness under her glare. ‘She talks about that, then, too? I suppose she said she’s worried about me and won’t leave until I’m better.’
He fell silent now.
‘I’m fine now, as a matter of fact. I’m feeling much better. I’m back at work.’
Kenny nodded. ‘Right
.’
‘She’s a sweet girl,’ said Alex. ‘But sometimes she gets things out of proportion.’
Kenny raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Alex felt suddenly sad. She had never spent any time thinking what it would be like to live on her own. Of course, she had known that Zoë would leave at some point, just as she had left her own mother and father, but she had never imagined that it might happen so soon. Because she had chosen, against Alex’s advice, not to go to university, Alex had imagined they would have been together longer. There was no reason why Zoë shouldn’t live on her own. She was capable of it. It smarted too to realise that Zoë would probably be perfectly happy without her.
Alex checked her watch and tried to picture herself living on her own in the house by the nuclear reactor.
‘You know Bill South, right?’ she asked.
‘Sure. Everyone knows Bill.’
‘You haven’t seen anything of him, have you?’
She watched Kenny frown. ‘Actually, no. Not for a few days, now you mention it.’
‘I think he’s disappeared. He hasn’t been in his house for days.’
‘He’s almost like Zoë’s dad, isn’t he, Bill? She hangs out with him a lot.’
She nodded.
‘Maybe he’s off visiting friends or relations?’
He doesn’t have any relations, she thought to herself. ‘Almost five past. Keep looking.’
Kenny lifted his pint to his lips and drank; then drew on his cigarette. ‘I don’t know what precisely you’re expecting me to see,’ he said.
‘Was this what it was like two Wednesdays ago?’
‘Warmer tonight maybe. Few more people out here.’
‘What about the sunset?’
He looked around the sky. To the north, where they were gazing, the azure deepened to dark blue. Stars were appearing low on the horizon. Above the Younises’ house, a dim cluster of stars were brightening, shaped in a flat W. ‘Pretty much the same.’
She checked her watch again, then tilted her head up again. ‘Keep looking,’ she said.
The minutes ticked by.