Only the Dead Know

by C. J. Dunford

  “So you’ve said.” Truce rubs his hand over his face. “If they’re not right,” he says, “it's an internal affair. I’m not sure how comfortable I am letting people in on it until I know …”

  “Who’s involved,” finished Wendy. “But you told me.” She smiles gently, parting two glossed lips. Her face is a near-perfect oval, her eyelids faintly shaded with blue. Her shoulders are settled low and her head dipped towards him. She's relaxed. Truce knows she is expecting him to say something about trusting her. Trusting her, he imagines, the way a lot of her clients trust her, because she is beautiful. Good and beautiful go together in all the best movies.

  “Yeah, but only you,” he says. “If anything comes back at me, I’ll know where the leak has sprung.” He keeps a steady gaze and can't help but smile when her eyes widen in surprise.

  ***

  “That was a shitty thing to do,” says Leighton, when Truce relays the conversation back at home.

  “Well, firstly, it’s true,” says Truce, “and I need her to take me seriously.”

  “And secondly, in your twisted little mind, it’s a kind of inverted compliment,” says Leighton. “You’re not sweet-talking her. You’re giving her the unvarnished truth. Tell me, Casanova, with how many women has this tactic got you into their beds?”

  “With the ravishingly beautiful ones,” says Truce bleakly, “it always works. They’re intrigued. But the more beautiful the woman, the less active she is in bed.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Fat girls make the best shags,” says Leighton.

  “I didn’t say that,” says Truce. “I’m not interested in the beautiful ones — they’re too interested in themselves.”

  Leighton scratches his neck and kicks at an empty take-out box on the floor. “You’ve got to vacuum in here. This place is making even my slovenly skin crawl.” He shudders. “So, are you going back to see June? You could bring a piece of that cake back for me. Grannies are always good bakers.”

  “I can’t,” Truce sighs. “It would draw too much attention. I’m going to explore some other avenues. Quietly …”

  “OK. So, when the fuss has died down you’re going back to compare notes with June?”

  Truce nods. “I’ve put up enough backs for now. I need to be seen as a good boy for a while.”

  Leighton snorts. “Maybe Rose will buy you a nice collar.”

  “More likely to send me back to the pound.”

  “Or euthanise you,” says Leighton, joining in the game with more delight than Truce thinks is appropriate.

  “It might be ridiculous, but I don’t want to let June down,” says Truce.

  “Getting kicked off the case would certainly let her down,” says Leighton.

  “She’ll think I’ve given up on her.”

  Leighton leans over and sniffs at Truce’s fish. “I was going to ask if you were going to eat that, but it smells rank.”

  Truce bristles. “It's perfectly cooked salmon.”

  “Again? What did you do? Buy a salmon farm?”

  Truce doesn’t respond. He continues to pick at his meal without eating. Leighton snatches up the local newspaper and leafs idly through it. A heavy silence builds between the two, the only sound is Truce’s fork making little scratching noises against his plate.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Leighton throwing down the paper. “Put it out the back door for the neighbour's cat. I’m sure it’ll appreciate your culinary skill.”

  “Yeah,” says Truce, standing up.

  Leighton sighs. “Look, at her age, it’s Christmas three times a year.”

  “Huh?”

  “I was reading this article,” says Leighton, “about how we experience time as a percentage of the time we’ve lived.” Truce stares at him blankly. Leighton waves his arms about as if he’s trying to conjure understanding from the air around him. “You remember how when you’re six and you can’t wait for the school summer holidays, and even though it’s May it feels like eons away? Or how the time between the first of December and Christmas is like forever?”

  “Vaguely,” says Truce, wondering how this fits into his concern for June's well-being.

  “That’s because you were young and hadn’t lived that long. Now the time between the beginning of December and Christmas is gone in a flash.” He snaps his fingers, startling Truce to flinch.

  “So?”

  “A couple of weeks is nothing to an oldie like June. You’ll be knocking on her doorstep before she knows it. You’ve shaken the tree, give it a couple of weeks for things to fall out. Sit back. Wait. After all, the bloke’s either dead or he’s not. Your name’s not Lazarus.”

  “Lazarus was the one who was raised from the dead,” counters Truce.

  “Whatever. Death. Miracle. Not your bag.”

  “I suppose not,” says Truce and wanders into the kitchen to look for a saucer. Even if he couldn't stomach the salmon, he knew the cat would appreciate it. As he opens the back door, he hears Leighton call: “If you feed that cat much more, it’ll move in.”

  “You wanted me to feed it in the first place,” calls Truce. He doesn’t want to steal someone else’s pet, but this one looks on the thin side. He’s wondered if it was a stray. “At least he’ll have better house manners than you,” he calls back to Leighton. He puts the bowl down, and at once there is a rustle in the bush by the back door. It’s been waiting. Slowly the cat emerges. Then it rushes at him and rubs itself vigorously around his legs before breaking off to eat the salmon. It’s definitely an animal of mixed heritage. Rather like him. Its coat is a patchwork of grey, white, orange, and stripes — all the colours a cat can be — but all four paws are black. “Boots?” Truce tries out tentatively. The little animal lifts its head and meows at him. “Boots, it is,” says Truce.

  “Don’t forget you need your beauty sleep tonight,” yells Leighton. “It’s your ball bash tomorrow.”

  Truce groans. He comes inside and goes straight for the whisky.

  ***

  It's like an oversized coffin. White. Windowless. Stuffy. The following evening, Truce finds himself sitting in a large function suite with two hundred other people. The remains of artificial air freshener mix with the smells of alcohol, sea bass and bad breath. Polite chatter generates a steady hum throughout the room. Every now and then a man guffaws or a woman laughs too loudly. The meal is well underway and most present have been indulging heartily in the wine as well as the pre-meal drinks. It’s a police integration event, which means rubbing shoulders with a load of coppers and the county’s local bigwigs. Shaking hands. Exchanging niceties. Sitting down to a meal and getting to know each other.

  Truce is at a round table of eight. Directly across from him, a Mrs Acorn—blue rinse, highly curled hair, Country Casuals twin set and discreet pearl and diamond ear-rings, lauds her husband's service in the Rotary. Truce is momentarily silenced with the idea of a large, fat man caught whirling in an outdoor clothes line, until he realises she means the charity organisation. He stifles laughter to himself with a hearty cough. Her voice is squeaky and overly young for her age, as are her simpering mannerisms. She points none too discreetly to the top table and a stocky man in an expensive suit, sitting next to the Scottish Chief Constable.

  Mrs Acorn is full of stories, but is most enthusiastic about her expanding garden gnome collection.

  “I'm writing a book about them, you know, my ‘little characters,’” she giggles with a wink, “and how they come to life at night.”

  Before allowing her to elaborate about what the “little characters” do when they come to life, Truce turns to the woman on his right: the overly made up, under-dressed “call me Cindy with a C”. She's the wife of the athlete “you know who” and seems most interested in Truce’s marital status and whether or not he has his handcuffs with him.

  Opposite him sits Cooper, who has a fading trophy wife on either side. He raises an eyebrow at Truce and for once Truce feels a bond between them. He scans the room for Wendy and sees her
several tables away. She is giving the man on her left a forced smile. Her eyes meet Truce’s and for a moment the smile becomes genuine.

  The welcoming speech finishes with the words: “I will leave it to our eminent speakers to enlighten us with their words of wisdom at the end of the meal. Until then everyone, enjoy. Eat, drink and be merry,” the speaker beams with pseudo-enthusiasm. “But behave — the police are watching!”

  Just as Truce thinks it can’t get any worse, the waiter places a starter of poached salmon in front of him. “Hmm, trout,” says Cindy. “My favourite.”

  Hours later, when Truce has foiled Cindy’s advances and can recite the location of the world's third largest garden gnome, the ragged remnants of the unit gather for a lock-in at a local bar.

  Truce squashes into a corner with Wendy and Coop. He’s bought the first round. “Jesus,” says Wendy, “that was grim.”

  “Tell me about it,” says Truce, wincing as he drains his pint.

  “Or don’t,” says Coop. “Did I hear that little old lady asking you about the length of your rod?”

  “Her gnome’s rod,” says Truce. “She wanted to know what I thought would be a suitable length.”

  “Phar! Phar!” snorts Coop.

  “She’s writing a book about her garden gnomes,” says Truce to Wendy. He looks to Coop. “What about you and those two young ladies? Didn't seem to me you could keep your hands above the table.”

  “Young!” says Coop. “Pushing fifty if they’re a day. And my hands were under the table fending theirs off.”

  Wendy smiles down into her pint. “Didn’t know you rated so highly with the locals,” she says.

  “I don’t,” says Coop with unexpected honestly, holding his hands up in surrender. “All I did was wear trousers. These menopausal women’ll try to get into any pair.”

  “You’re an old sexist, Coop,” says Wendy. “You keep talking about women like that and you’ll find yourself either on report or beaten to death by a female kickboxer.”

  Coop shrugs his big shoulders. “Not my fault,” he says, “All I did was say I was divorced and there were more feelers under that table than on a tribe of octopi.”

  “Do octopuses have tribes?” Wendy asks Truce.

  “If they do,” he says with a grin, “they’re very secretive about it.”

  “Do you think they’re a matriarchal society?” says Wendy.

  “Could be,” says Truce. He’s feeling more relaxed than he has for ages. Wendy’s perfume mingles with the stale air of the pub. Roses, with an undertone of lime. Her thigh rests against his — though he realises this is due to lack of space rather than intention. He gives what he suspects is a dopey smile. Even Coop doesn’t seem that bad tonight.

  “I don’t know what you two are blathering about,” says Coop. “I’ll get the next round in. And you,” he points at Truce, “the body language expert, watch how that blonde at the bar reacts — the one from traffic with the big …” he catches Wendy’s eye, “big personality. I want to know what she thinks about me.” He starts working his way to the bar.

  “A lot of it's self-defence,” says Wendy. “His divorce really cut him up. He can’t help seeing women as the enemy.”

  “He likes you,” says Truce, swirling the dregs of his pint. “But then you’re very likeable.”

  “Why thank you, Mr Truce,” says Wendy. “High praise coming from our taciturn army man.”

  “Ex-army,” says Truce. “And is that how people see me? Taciturn?”

  “Taciturn, aloof, stern, quiet, but obviously with a killer-like instinct underneath. In the Middle East, you must have seen some rough stuff.”

  “Yes,” says Truce and redirects her attention to the bar. “Is that Coop’s blonde?”

  “That’s Anne-Marie,” says Wendy. “Nice enough girl. Just about old enough not to be his daughter. Church-going family. Strong sense of right and wrong. Not much ambition. Happy in her work.”

  “In traffic?”

  “It takes all sorts,” says Wendy. “I only know her because she was in charge of directing traffic on my last big case — the one on the M8. She’s cool in a crisis. Ordered. Methodical. More your kind of woman, I would think, than Coop’s.”

  Truce gazes at her in astonishment. Coop appears with several beers wedged in his hands. “So did you see?” he asks. “What does she think of me?”

  Truce is still reeling from Wendy’s wildly inaccurate description of what he seeks in a woman, so he answers without thinking. “She side-vented you.”

  “Side-venting. Is that good?” says Coop, confused. All around them, the conversation lulls to a quiet murmur. Truce doesn’t notice and continues, “It means she turned to keep her genitals as far away from yours as possible.”

  A wave of laughter erupts from the surrounding tables, and Ann-Marie, who is somehow aware of their conversation goes beetroot.

  “Thanks, mate,” says Coop, dumping the beer down in front of Truce so half of it goes in his lap. “I’ll remember this.” He stalks out of the bar, leaving Truce to make his soggy way to the gents. When he gets back to the table Wendy has gone.

  CHAPTER 6

  Much to Truce’s regret, time carries him on downstream. He's starting to put stock in Leighton's the-longer-you-live-the-more-quickly-time-passes theory. Each day blurs into the next. Work at the Big Blue Barn, as Leighton insists on calling it, then home later and later each night after wading through paperwork that Rose tells him will bring him up to speed, but only seems to bog him down further. And every night Leighton is waiting with some sarcastic comment about his preference for alcohol over food for supper.

  Wendy is away on some big case and no one seems willing to tell him what it is about. Rose is no longer paying him any attention beyond emailing him manuals and old cases to read over. She has her door shut and never seems to be off the phone.

  One day Truce finds a warrant card on his desk. Inspector Daniel Truce. Wendy has called him that, but he’d assumed she was joking. He had expected to be ranked as a sergeant and was certain that was what Rose would have wanted. There’s a note — on special headed paper — from Superintendent Rose telling him to catch up on his law exams post haste. He recognises some extraordinary string-pulling here. Fortunately, the law has always fascinated him, and he has, though Rose obviously hasn’t bothered to check, already passed both the sergeant’s and the inspector’s exams with flying colours. He couldn't have been named Inspector without this, and it makes him realise the pull Rose fears his friends in high places must have. He could, of course, correct her, but he decides not to bother.

  ***

  The world moves on, and Truce continues to spend night after night trapped in the furnace-like embrace of his nightmares.

  Then one evening, as Truce walks through the door after work, Leighton throws a newspaper at him. “What the hell?” he protests.

  “What are you doing?” demands Leighton. His hair is even more ruffled than usual, wild and crimson. It looks as if he has been attempting to pull it out by the roots. Truce stares at him blankly for a moment, then closes the door. “I mean for the police? Cos you sure as hell aren’t escorting prisoners around. And so far it seems pretty clear they don’t want you around actual cases. So what do you actually do?”

  Stunned by the vitriol in Leighton's voice, Truce mutters, “I don’t know.”

  “You go in every day, read some stuff, come home, and drink whisky, is that it?” says Leighton. “The Major sure found you a soft spot. I thought you’d have more self-respect.”

  Truce doesn’t have the will to point out Leighton's own lack of professional ambition. He forgoes the charade of making food. Instead he slumps on the couch and reaches straight for the bottle and a dirty glass sitting on the coffee table from last night. Only the enforced communal eating of the Barn’s café at lunchtime is keeping him alive. “It’s not what I want,” he says, pouring a large measure of liquid amber into the glass. “Rose says she’s still negotiating wher
e to put me. How to use my skills.”

  “Your skills are with people,” says Leighton, lowering himself onto the sofa beside Truce. “Not papers. You read people. You don’t understand them, but you read them — know what they’re going to say before they say it, know when they’re lying, know when they are going to commit a crime. God only knows how …”

  “I read a lot,” says Truce, trying to contradict him. “It’s called learning, Leighton.”

  His friend carries on as if he hasn’t spoken. “You got your talents. You can work for heaven or hell, but you can change things, stop things. You could make the fucking world a better fucking place, but you’re content to sit on your arse doing nothing.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be up for a Nobel prize any time soon,” says Truce trying to take the sting out of the conversation.

  “It’s like a ripple, man,” says Leighton getting to his feet. “Like a tiny pebble in a pond.”

  “So now I’m a pebble?” says Truce with a false smile.

  “We’re all fucking pebbles,” says Leighton, running his hand through his hair, leaving it to poke out at all angles, like flames of a wildfire. If the conversation weren't so serious, Truce would laugh at the absurdity. “But if we throw ourselves into the pond, we send out ripples that meet other ripples, and the ripples get bigger and bigger until they’re waves. Whether they’re good waves or bad waves depends entirely on which pebbles have the balls to throw themselves in. Think on that, man. Think on that.” Leighton steps over him. “I’m going out,” he says. His foot catches on the newspaper, and he picks it up and tosses it at Truce once more. “Read your bloody paper,” he says and goes out.

  Truce picks up the sprawling sheets and tries to shuffle them into some order. He’s intending to stow it under the coffee table, when the article on the upper left catches his attention.

  Beloved Pensioner on Winning Streak Loses Life.

  A sixty-nine-year-old woman was killed in St Morag’s Street yesterday outside the Wonder Luck Bingo Hall. Manager Jamie Begbie said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. She won three jackpots in a row. She’s a regular. Four of them come in together every Tuesday and Thursday like clockwork. Never won much. A bit here and there like all our Lucky customers. But last night she couldn’t lose. Everyone was cheering. The four of them had a right little celebration. Then she walks out of here and lands straight under a taxi. Life can be one sick joke.”