Truce straightens up and smiles. “I’m with the police,” he says. “I need to check a couple of things with Mr Whiles. Purely routine. No need for concern.”
“It’ll be about his dad then. Jonny,” says the old man with a small nod. “Never liked that man much. Dead now, though. But you’d know that.”
“Actually,” says Truce, taking a deep breath, “I’m new to the area. I don’t know very much at all.”
“Ah, well, all old history now. Jonny was a copper — an inspector, I think — back in the day. His golden times were the seventies. That’s when he bought this place. Me and the wife bought ours around the same time. I was in insurance and doing well.”
Truce waits hopefully. Most people need little encouragement to talk once they start, or at worst, can’t stand a silence. But this man sighs, and looks down at his feet, though Truce realises he is not seeing them but gazing back into the past.
“You’ve been here a long time, then?” says Truce finally.
The man starts slightly. He looks up and registers Truce with an expression of surprise as if he has forgotten he was there. Then he shrugs his shoulders in a circular motion as if hauling himself with difficulty back to the present. “Bought it new,” says the man. He pulls off a gardening glove and extends his hand. The clippers crash to the ground. “Micky Delong,” he says. “In the old days, you might have heard of me, but not now. That world’s gone.”
“And the man next door? You’ve known him some time?”
“Jonny’s only son. A bit odd, on account of losing his mother so early. Never done a mite of harm to anyone, but never done a mite of work as far as I can tell either. Always gathering his finds.” Seeing Truce’s blank expression he adds, “Treasures. Little bits and pieces.”
“He goes metal detecting?” says Truce, guessing.
“Oh no. He goes through the bins. Davie doesn’t like to see things thrown away. Anything. His dad once told me it started with sweetie wrappers, but by the time his dad noticed, the boy was already half daft in the head.”
“How does he manage on his own?” says Truce.
“No idea,” shrugs Micky. “Maybe he eats scraps out of the bins. Certainly never asked us for help.” He lifts his chin defensively as if Truce has accused him of not being a good neighbour.
“Difficult to live next to, were they?” says Truce, trying for empathy. The old man’s eyesight isn’t going to be good enough for Truce to convey anything with body language. He’s struggling. Chit-chat was never Truce’s forte. That’s where Leighton came into his own. Leighton could make anyone like him — that lazy, carefree charm. Truce forces his attention back to Mickey.
“They had their times,” says Mickey. “But it’s all so long ago. Been here over fifty years. Can’t believe it.”
“You said Jonny Whiles died,” says Truce, suddenly thinking it might be the father June saw on the fateful night, and not Davie at all. He’s trying to remember if June said anything specific about age. She said the men had shone a light in the victim’s face. Surely she’d know father from son? “When was that?”
“Not entirely sure, they read it out at the news part of the Sunday service. He was a church elder, you know? Let anyone in nowadays. It’s all tolerate this and tolerate that. Where are they going to find the sinners to keep hell’s fires going, that’s what I want to know? You know what they say about hell freezing over.” Mickey starts rocking and wheezing. Truce takes half a step forward before he realises the old man is laughing. Mickey hawks and spits. “Sorry,” he says. “Wife says I’m disgusting, but she’s the one who bought me a new pipe each Christmas! Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, Jonny. Pillar of the society, committee member at the golf club, and elder at the church. What you’d expect from a police inspector. Died in the nursing home. Sad, it was.”
“Which one?” asks Truce, feeling as if he is clutching at straws, but if Jonny played golf, could it be him who was killed? His body taken back to the nursing home by his killers? A lazy doctor who attended the body or one who was ripe for a pay-off? The possibilities tumble through his mind, opening new avenues of investigation.
“Scented Pines. No, that’s not it. That’s what the wife puts in the downstairs loo. Sacred Pines. Though what’s sacred about a pine tree or an old people’s home, beats me.” He sighs. “She says it smells of piss.”
“The home?”
“The downstairs loo. Aim isn’t what is used to be. Now what about that cuppa?”
“Another time,” says Truce.
“Suit yourself,” says Mickey. He wanders off muttering, “Where are those shears? Must have left them in the shed.” He disappears through a side gate to the back of his property.
The tool lies on the grass by the path. Truce thinks about calling him back, but then it occurs to him it might be better if the old man forgets all about him.
He gets back into his car and googles Sacred Pines on his iPhone. It’s only a few miles away, and it seems a shame not to pay them a visit having come this far … He punches the postcode into the satnav and drives off.
***
Sacred Pines turns out to be a set of recently built interconnected balconied flats. Every balcony bursts with greenery. Truce remembers reading somewhere that old people cope better with something to look after. He supposes plants are easier for the care home than a colony of cats.
The road detours away from the flats and winds on and on until he thinks he must have been mistaken that it was connected to the home at all. But then he finds himself pulling up into well-maintained car park.
A path cuts across the gardens, and he walks the quarter of a mile along the flower-lined tarmac to the main entrance. It’s down a slight slope. All designed, he thinks, to give the inmates something to look at, while making it difficult to escape. Or smuggle in a body. God, he never wants to be left in one of these places. Maybe he should ask Wendy to shoot him if it comes to that. Better still, Coop. Coop would do that for him — he’d enjoy it.
He walks up to the main entrance. Along the side of the building runs a series of glass panels that can be pushed together like a concertina. They open up into a communal lounge. While the residents have their individual flats, they must have common rooms like the lounge and maybe a restaurant. This cheers Truce up. It means the inhabitants must mix a fair bit. Various old men and women are seated in chairs, wrapped in blankets, gazing out at the view, some shivering in the cool air.
Truce avoids the main entrance and steps in through one of the open glass panels. The moment he does, a small, amber-skinned woman with a mane of thick black hair wound up in a bun, wearing a white coat and who is tending a trolley, looks up, frowning.
“You have to go through reception,” she says frostily. “We don’t allow anyone in that way.”
“I’m …” begins Truce, reaching for his card.
The woman jumps back and hold a pen out at him as if it were a sword. “Stop right there. Or I’ll call security. Security!” she cries.
Truce notices she has a distinctly muscled outline. He has no intention of grappling with her, but he has to admit, she is quite intimidating for a woman of less than average height.
A few of the blanketed crew stir. One man in a wheelchair pivots round to watch the action. An elderly woman opens wide, washed-out blue eyes, and blinks at him in a startled manner.
Truce doesn’t move. The man in the wheelchair looks him up and down. Then he winks. He’s a striking-looking man. He has sticking-up mad-professor-type hair that he has apparently tried unsuccessfully to tame with some kind of hair product. Wrinkles carve the map of a life well-spent across his face. There are as many laughter lines as there are frown lines. His eyes hold a mischievous twinkle. He is dressed in a polo-neck shirt, jacket and trousers with a knife-edge crease. Truce gets the impression that, in his day, he must have been quite the man about town. Instinctively Truce likes him.
“It’s okay, Bess,” the old man says. “This is Brian, my nephew. I told
you he’d be coming to visit me.”
“Brian?” says the orderly. “This is the infamous Brian, your nephew, the philander and part-time pirate? I thought that was another of your tales, Larry.”
The man in the wheelchair raises his eyebrows at Truce, who steps up to the plate.
“Ah, yes,” says Truce, “guilty as charged.”
“Pirate?” says Bess.
Truce shrugs. “DVDS, games, anything you want for the place, I can get, no charge.”
“Ah right, that kind of pirate. Larry made out you were some kind of swashbuckler.”
Larry sniffs.
“Sorry,” says Truce.
“Poetic licence,” says Larry. “And I’ve told you to call me Mr Compton. I’m old enough to be your grandfather, young lady, and you’re not too old that I can’t put you over my knee and spank you. Show your elders some respect!”
Bess laughs heartily. “He’s a one, your uncle,” she says. “Make sure you have him back by tea time.” Then she undoes the brake on her trolley. “I can’t put it off any longer, Mrs Sandbach needs her meds. Excuse me.”
“Iona Sandbach is a right bugger,” says Larry Compton. “She’s a pincher.”
“A thief?”
“No, she pinches. Thinks being almost ninety she can get away with whatever she wants. Says there were always people she wanted to pinch, and she never did. So, she’s making up for lost time. Nasty nip she’s got too.”
Truce looks down at his newly acquired uncle.
“Are you some kind of perv or serial killer?” asks Larry conversationally.
“No,” says Truce.
“Terrorist?”
“I’m with the police.”
Larry’s face falls. “Oh, a copper. If it’s Jonny Whiles you’re after, he’s dead. Unless you’ve come for the secret papers?” His eyes light up. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” says Truce. “Why did you say I was your nephew?”
“Because I want to go to the pub,” says Larry.
“I think we might be able to help each other out,” Truce says.
Larry grins, exposing a full set of yellowing dentures. “I knew you were a good ’un the moment I saw you.”
Truce moves behind the wheelchair and takes off the brake. “But what if Brian turns up?”
“What Brian?” says Larry and gives a shout of laughter.
Truce pushes him out the patio door and onto the grass.
CHAPTER 16
Larry refuses to go in the car. He makes Truce wheel him all the way to the local pub, which turns out to be a mile away. “I want to remember what the world looks like,” he says. “That there’s more to it than ruddy grass.”
“So, about Jonny Whiles,” says Truce.
The old man shakes his head. “Not until we get the important stuff done. I think I’ll go with a half of shandy. A lass’ drink, but when you get to my age, bitter has a terrible effect on the bowels. The major decision is macaroni cheese or breaded fish and salad. I used to love my macaroni cheese. Wife used to put just the right amount of mustard in. That’s the trick. Now The Railway Inn does a good macaroni. Not great but good. But then Sacred Pines does this terrible mush. Total travesty. When you get the good stuff, you can’t help remembering the bad. And when you get the bad stuff, you can’t help remembering the good. Heh?”
Truce, who has been only half-listening, says, “Sounds like life.”
“Life as macaroni cheese,” says Larry. “I love it.” He laughs so hard he ends up in a coughing fit. Truce halts the chair and waits worriedly for him to stop. Larry puts up his hand, signalling he is okay. Then he thumps himself hard on the chest, apparently a tried and tested response to curtail his coughing fit. “I regret never smoking,” he says. “Got bloody smokers’ cough regardless. And yes, you’re right. Breaded fish for me. I’ve had enough of life.”
“Okay,” says Truce. “I take it I’m buying?”
“Yeah, and you’re having a burger. Can’t stomach red meat anymore. Blocks me up for days. But I like the smell of it.”
The Railway Inn is a typical gastro-pub, with outdoor seating, a spacious dining room and plenty of space to manoeuvre a wheelchair. A waiter whisks away a chair to make way for Larry as they enter. Truce realises this place must survive on people paroling their ancient relatives for a few hours.
He obediently orders his burger and Larry has his shandy and fish. During the meal, Larry hardly says a word. He concentrates on eating, not only because of his false teeth, which click at each bite, but because he savours every mouthful of food. Sometimes he even closes his eyes as if he is transported far away. Truce wonders if the man was once a chef, or if this is the last sensual pleasure left to him.
Finally, when the plates are cleared, and Truce has a black coffee in front of him and Larry has his camomile tea — “Smells like something a lass would put in her bath. Tastes like it too. But does wonders for the digestion.” –Truce says, “Do you know anything about Jonny Whiles?”
“Do I know anything?” says Larry in disgust, spilling tea into his saucer. “I’m a man of my word. What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you can tell me.”
“I met him when he came in — what, almost eight years ago now, I think. Didn’t want to be at Sacred Pines at all.” Larry slurps some tea. “None of us do, but it hit him hard. Rude, sullen, demanding. As difficult as I aim to be but without the charm. Hated anything being done for him. Took age as a personal affront and blamed everyone around him.”
“Sounds like a great guy,” says Truce.
“Well,” says Larry, “don’t be too quick to judge. I reckon he’d rather have died than gone into a place like SP. Unsteady on his pins, shaking hands and getting more tired and grey by the day. Hard load for any of us to bear. And he’d been someone. In the force. Inspector, at least. I’m guessing he was the kind who ruled his kingdom like your silverback gorilla — did you see the programme on the telly about them last night?”
Truce shook his head.
“Big male, dominant. Not above using his fists, I should think. Old policing methods. Doubtless beat up a few suspects in his time — and put the fear of God into everyone. But that’s what we needed to keep the order. Maybe not a nice man, but back in those days a bit of a god. Small ‘g’. Lord of all he surveyed, I’d bet.”
“What days?” asks Truce.
“Seventies into the early eighties. Edinburgh had the kind of gangster problems you hear about in Glasgow now.”
“That bad?” says Truce with a grin.
“You might scoff, laddie, but it wasn’t a happy city back then. Gangs behind the restaurants, the casinos, the take-aways — used to set each other’s places on fire. Whiles might have been an evil sod, but it worked.”
“Old methods the best?” says Truce, trying to keep his tone neutral.
“No idea, son,” says Larry. His face sags and he folds in on himself. “This isn’t my world. All cyber-crime and young suicide bombers. It’s not a better place like we hoped it would be. Only different.”
“Did Whiles want a better world?” says Truce.
“Nah, his types always want the same thing.”
“Which is?”
“Like I already told you. Be the dominant force. Be in charge. Be a big man. When you take away all their perks and powers, they’re afraid they’ll end up like the rest of us, weak and scared — like he did in SP.” Larry’s face collapses into sadness, and he suddenly looks a hundred years old. All the life in him vanishes into wrinkles and his eyes go dull. “Rotten thing, old age,” he says. “No matter how bad you’ve been, living like this is a harsh punishment. Take my advice, son, shoot yourself when your pecker stops rising. Nothing after that is worth the effort.”
“Maybe we should head back,” says Truce. “You’re looking tired.” He shudders, trying not to think of the mental image Larry has evoked.
“Feel like shit,” says Larry. “But then I do most of
the time. What else you want to know?”
“Did anyone visit him here? In the home?”
Larry snorts. “Home! Pah!” He makes a disgusting spitting sound, but swallows whatever it was he hacked up. “He got a fair few visitors at the start. Coppers, I reckon. Always sat with their legs too far apart, fiddled with their jackets and kept an eye on the door.”
“Young? Old?”
“Older men in the main. Not as old as him, but no spring chickens. One of them got thrown out for pinching one of the lasses’ bums. Quite a to-do, there was.”
“What about his son?”
Larry frowns, deepening the wrinkles in his forehead to an inky black. “Yeah, his son. Don’t think he ever came, no. Can’t be absolutely certain. But Whiles hated him. Not just for putting him in the home. Apparently the boy was too different for him. Not the chip off the old block he’d hoped for. Only times he ever talked about him, he always said he was simple.”
“Did he talk about anything else?”
“Oh, he told a lot of stories of how he was a big man on the force. Said he knew where all the bodies were buried and that kind of thing.”
“Details?” presses Truce.
Larry shrugs. “Can’t say I listened that much.” Truce feels a pang of frustration, but the old man continues. “His stories always ended with him proving to be the Big Man. I got tired of listening. Got my grandson to send me some of those new in-your-ear earbuds. That way I could nod along when he was ranting, and all the time I was listening to my podcasts.”
“How often did he go out of Sacred Pines?”
“Never,” says Larry. “The people who came to see him didn’t seem to like him enough to spend a whole day in his company.”
“When did he die?”
“Quite recently, I think. You should be able to look up the date. At my age the days tend to run together.”
Truce feels a sense of dismay run through him. Even if Whiles died recently, if he never left the home, then the body can’t be his. But then Larry’s description of Whiles is entirely at odds to what his neighbour thought. Did he change in his old age? Or was Whiles one of those men who could keep their lives compartmentalised — the kind of man who would have loved secrets. Vaguely he registers that Larry is now talking about his favourite podcasters.
Only the Dead Know Page 14