by Paul Magrs
They let Liz ride for free that day. ‘I feel like an old-age pensioner,’ she said with a grin, standing next to Cliff. All his loose change was jangling in the dispenser at his side. ‘A pensioner with an everlasting bus pass and no desire to get off.’
The countryside outside Darlington, muggy and olive green, went swirling by. Their bus was as yet empty.
‘You’ll never be a pensioner,’ Cliff insisted with his eyes on the road. ‘I can’t actually picture you being old.’
She considered. ‘No. Neither can I.’
They pulled into a little village, an up-market village featuring a suitably picturesque ginger pony in a tiny field. The bus began to fill.
‘I haven’t asked where we’re going yet,’ she observed over the top of somebody’s headscarf.
‘The Metro Centre. Straight up the motorway.’ He slammed his palm down on the dashboard and Radio Two burst out of every speaker. ‘God, I love the motorway.’
Liz grasped her handrail and tottered expertly on her heels, buffeted by the acceleration. Cliff’s glossy black head was inching nearer to the steering wheel, his elbows flexing out like wings. Pensioners went scuttling for their seats.
‘Yeah — straight up the motorway and then an afternoon spent with you.’
‘An afternoon?’ she asked. A bus driver’s lot was beginning to sound like quite a cushy number.
‘Important business. We’re going shopping.’
They hurtled north, into the driving rain.
Detective Inspector Collins waited for Tony to haul himself out of her car. He had a bit of bother doing this, because he was cupping something precious in both palms. Collins grunted as she locked her car behind him and firmly led the way to Fran’s house.
Fran was waiting. She was wondering what she should say about the Dog Man, and whether such a thing was worth mentioning. Tony was following the policewoman, head bowed. Collins seemed impervious to the rain, eyes hard, face clenched like a fist. You could chop sticks on that face of hers, Fran thought. Honestly, it’s like being in one of them Ruth Rendells.
‘I’ve brought him back to you,’ Collins said coldly. ‘We can’t get any sense out of him. Ask him what he was up to last night.’ Her walkie-talkie was fizzing dangerously in the wet.
‘Well, Tony?’ Fran asked, and felt sorry for him. His curls were pressed down damply to his forehead. He looked like Benny off Crossroads.
Fran was struck by another thought. ‘Have you dropped the vagrancy charges?’
Collins nodded. ‘He is clearly very upset and disturbed.’ Uninvited, she sat down. ‘How are his children?’
‘The baby’s having a nap. I gave the other one to my friend Jane.’ Fran looked at Tony. ‘What’s he got in his hands?’
‘He won’t tell us. I presume it is something belonging to his wife.’
He looked up sharply. ‘It’s her locket. Her mother’s locket.’ Tony held it up so that it glittered in the steamy kitchen. The two tiny photos, shiny and hard as thumbnails, dangled between his plump, red hands. ‘Pictures of Meg Mortimer and Elsie Tanner. She always wore this. Strong women, she said.’
Fran grabbed his wrist. ‘Did you find it, Tony? Did you find this last night?’
He nodded. ‘Under the bridge. When I went looking. I found it in the light.’ His face crumpled. ‘She left it behind for me.’
Detective Inspector Collins was already speaking into her radio.
Penny opened another packet of biscuits. The first two were cracked, so she ate them quickly in the kitchen, put the rest of the packet on the tray with the mugs of coffee, took a deep breath, and carried the whole lot into the living room where Jane was staring blankly at This Morning. Judy and Richard were talking about keeping warm this winter.
Penny wasn’t going to school this morning. She was having a quiet day.
‘I thought I’d come and see Liz. I needed someone to talk to. I couldn’t get any sense out of my mother.’
Penny nudged the biscuits at her, nearly choking on her own crumbs. ‘So what’s it all about then? You said something about a dog man?’
‘Vicki said her mum’s been taken by the dog man.’
‘Right.’
‘I think the world’s gone mad.’
Penny didn’t want to even think about madness. This morning she had woken up with the distinct impression that she had dreamed of driving a tank, crushing everything in her path. Her foot clamped on the accelerator (did tanks have accelerator pedals?) had been wearing a sandal. She woke with cramp.
‘And my mother’s too busy with her peg-leg boyfriend and, would you believe it, his wet nephew, who’s a you-know-what if ever there was one —’
‘So your mother’s not interested?’
‘She’s wound up in her wedding plans. Oh, she was very concerned about Nesta’s vanishing and the wellbeing of the poor orphans left behind. But what about me being stuck with her brats?’
‘What do you think a dog man can be, then?’ Penny was pushing idly at different avenues of conversation, urging Jane here and there because she was bored with her. Jane consented to be shoved, her voice quavering.
‘You can’t listen to everything that kid says. I’ll have to go and pick her up soon. And Peter. God, I hope I’m not neglecting him over this!’
She dunked a chocolate biscuit in her coffee, held it there a moment too long, and it sank without a trace.
He lay around for a while that morning, having fond memories. Andy had gone, purposeful and independent, striding across town to sort his life out. He’d used all the hot water in the tank, too. Vince heard his dad going in some time after him and cursing. Vince lay low.
It was the weekend. It was like weekends when he was a child: dismal, nagged by dread. He realised that he hated the idea of the next week. It was too familiar a feeling. The dread came back like an older, more intimate friend than Andy. Once his dad had told him that, of course, everyone hated the week ahead. Everyone hated work. But they had to do it. It was grown up. It was responsibility. The problem with Vince was that he expected to love what he was doing. He thought he was so bloody different. As if he deserved something. And at that point, leaving school, Vince had been told in no uncertain terms by his father: ‘You are just like everyone else. Get your act together and believe it.’ Vince was shocked. Really shocked. He knew his dad thought like this, but at the same time to hear it put into words was crushing. Especially the night before he caught the bright pink Primrose coach to Lancaster for the first time. His dad was trying to make him feel just as good as everyone else, as good as all the new people he’d meet. But Vince didn’t want that at all. One of the last things his mam had said to him, maybe the last thing ever as she went, kissing him and shouldering her handbag, was: ‘You are like no one else in the world. You’re more special. And you never have to do anything you don’t want.’ His dad had never heard this, but Vince had nursed her words to him like a parting gift. It was only rarely he thought they’d done more harm than good.
The fond memories he dredged up were to counteract the anxiety. He thought about broaching the idea of living together with Andy and this led to remembering the weeks they had spent together when they could. A week in Stratford once, and one in Windermere. They’d grown tetchy and difficult with each other. Vince had slept through and laughed about Andy electrocuting himself in the middle of the night, spilling a cup of cold tea on a bedside lamp. ‘I went off with a bloody bang and you never noticed!’ Andy complained. And then, one night after Macbeth in Stratford, Vince woke up in their bed-and-breakfast room, straddling Andy and hitting him with a shoe.
Sometimes, looking back, Vince thought there were distinct and fundamental reasons for their not being together. A deep animosity would occasionally surface; he wondered what it was about. What did he resent about Andy? Surely the fact that he found things so simple, so clear cut. There was a sentimental streak through Andy that laid him wide open. Together they lay awake late one night watching Andy�
��s favourite film, Escape from the Planet of the Apes. At the end Vince turned his head on the pillow, looked at Andy and there were tears soaking his face. ‘But she chucked her baby in the water! The FBI killed the baby!’ Andy cried. ‘It’s terrible!’
Vince had to hug him. He shuddered under the blankets. ‘It’s just too sad! They were so nice and trusting!’
Vince kept thinking, but didn’t say, it’s only about apes. Not even that, it’s people dressed up as apes. He kept quiet, though. Now, Terms of Endearment, there was a sad film. Who Will Love My Children? too. That knotted him up inside just thinking about it. And Andy got worked up about monkeys.
He thought about getting up. He slithered over to look at the clock and it was almost lunchtime. He stood and slid open the mirrored cupboard door. A nip of gin. It was early but he was allowed to be decadent on a Saturday. He lay back down with a second glass of gin. He stared at the little colourful jar that sat beside the gin bottle. It was the purple bottle he’d nicked from the taxidermist’s shop. He imagined it had a genie in. A small whiff of magic. Brimstone and treacle. Or a Blue Fairy.
What he really wanted was to wake up with Andy again, now. He wished he hadn’t dashed away. He wanted to make love with him now, more slowly and tenderly than they had yet managed during this reunion of theirs. He wondered why it was always so rushed and intent these days. Brusque, almost. Then, thoughtfully, he began to masturbate. It was with a peculiar sense of guilt, as if he shouldn’t when he was seeing someone. As if it was a betrayal, this slow, practised ease with himself. He squashed that thought and with long, perfect strokes and an occasional sip of neat gin, he made himself come.
Another police car arrived in their street. Jane and Penny watched its blue light give a brief flicker of interest. Something was up, but nothing huge. Jane sighed wearily. ‘I can’t cope with this now.’
Two burly policemen went into Fran’s house. It seemed to be the centre of operations.
‘I’ll have to pick the bairns up from playschool.’
Penny realised for the first time that the kitchen and dining room were still strewn with the wreckage of last night’s entertainment. What’s going on? she thought. Order has collapsed, there are pasta twirls swimming in orange grease in our sink. Jane told her, ‘Keep an eye out here. Let me know when I get back… if they’ve found a body or anything. I don’t want to know yet.’
A body. Penny didn’t know Nesta, but she would certainly have a body. A body that could be found, dead, and have an impact on everyone here. Even those who hadn’t known her. She might be disliked but she could still be murdered and mourned.
Fran caught Jane before she could reach the garden gate. Her slippers slapped on the wet tarmac and she carried a tea towel.
‘They’re starting up a body hunt, down the Burn. We need everyone’s help. Get your coats on.’
‘I’m just off to fetch the kids,’ Jane began. ‘I’ve got to get their dinners on.’
Fran looked at her with sympathy. It sounded so simple. She was jealous of Jane’s evasion. ‘Hurry up and get them. We have to help.’
Shit, Penny thought. I don’t even know the woman.
Fran was looking at Penny. ‘Will you come over to help?’
‘Sure,’ Penny said, sounding surer than she was.
‘I’m going to go round the other doors,’ Fran told her. ‘See who else is about.’
Jane made her apologies again and was gone. Fran rolled her eyes.
He walked the long way round the town, down the Burn, through the blustery morning. He thought he would go and see Penny since, of all the people he’d talked to lately, she’d been the most sensible. His dad was out in the car, looking for things at B &c Q. He’d asked if Vince wanted to come too, to look out for some tools for doing up the garage. He never usually asked him to come. But Vince had demurred anyway, making some tea, feeling woozy from the gin. On the way to Penny’s, crossing the Redhouses, he decided to stop off for some cans. Might as well make a day of it. He wondered what Penny’s mam might think, her daughter’s teacher turning up with booze at lunchtime.
In the shop the woman serving had hair like Gary Glitter: thinning, teased up, hard with lacquer. The radio was playing Status Quo and, under it, she was talking with the women in the queue, their voices low and intent. There was a woman in a smart suit and clunky gold earrings, a very fat woman in a mustard-coloured cardigan and a short, thin woman who looked about ninety. They were all talking about Nesta Dixon, who had disappeared.
‘They’re reckoning they’ll have to comb the Burn,’ the fat woman was saying. This was Big Sue. ‘And all the surrounding countryside.’
‘So they think she’s dead then?’ said the old woman. She was wearing a cape and a dashing hat with a feather in it.
The woman behind the counter in her blue gingham pinafore said, ‘They aren’t going to rule out foul play, that’s what I heard.’
‘I’m not going traipsing about looking for bodies,’ said the smart woman. ‘I can’t be arsed. I’ve got work to go to.’ With that she prompted Judith (her badge read ‘May I help? I’m Judith!’) for her change and was gone.
‘Isn’t she short with people?’ asked the old woman.
‘I’ve not got much time for her,’ Judith sighed. ‘She’s the one that left her husband for a copper.’
‘Her husband with all the tattoos?’ asked the old woman. ‘Now they reckon he’s with a feller.’
‘Never.’
‘It’s true,’ pitched in Big Sue, who knew everyone because she ran the Christian cafe and craft shop in the precinct. ‘They live together in the flats where the bus driver lives.’
‘That lovely-looking bus driver?’ asked Judith. ‘He’s a smashing lad.’
‘Well, I’m off down to see what’s going on with Nesta,’ Big Sue decided. ‘I’ll go and see Fran. I won’t shirk my public responsibility.’ Big Sue was, in her own way, fond of Nesta, even though she was always coming round after bread in the mornings. She picked her bags up off the counter. ‘Will I see you later then, Judith? Charlotte?’
‘Aye, reckon so,’ said Judith, taking Vince’s eight cans of Red Stripe for him and ringing them in the till. He was looking at the spirits and wondered if a little shop like this would have tequila.
Rose had a marvellous idea.
‘Jane rattles around that empty house of hers like a maniac. She has two spare bedrooms. One’s for Peter when he’s old enough to sleep by himself…’
Ethan eyed her narrowly. He felt married all of a sudden. She went on, ‘You look a nice enough lad, Andrew. I’m sure if I introduced you properly to our Jane…’ Not like this morning, she thought. Poor Jane, virtually chucked out of her own mother’s house. Rose was thinking of ways to make amends. Bring two families together. ‘Jane could do with a few extra bob.’
‘I’m not sure —’
‘How urgently do you need to move?’
‘I don’t want to go back to that bloody shop. Not now that I have to go anyway. It’s like a morgue. I’m staying with a friend at the moment. Vince. Who you met.’
‘Then there’s not a moment to lose. Ethan, grab your coat and brolly. We’re going to Jane’s.’
She gun-barrelled the two of them into a fresh rainstorm, sure that somewhere in it their problems might be resolved.
They would arrive in time to find everyone heading for Fran’s kitchen, already soaked to the skin, kids whingeing in the confusion, and receiving deliberate instructions from the impressive Detective Inspector Collins.
Fran was proud of herself. She had corralled most of Phoenix Court and a few people she knew from nearby streets. She’d even bumped into Jane’s mam and roped her in. Only one or two had refused to come out, or even answer the door. They were the people you’d expect not to want to help. The snobby lot from Sid Chaplin and that Gary. They could do without their help anyway.
Soon she was dealing with a whole kitchen full of familiar faces. At first, with everyone arriving
and talking loudly and steamy condensation running down the paintwork in the kitchen and hall from the press of so many damp people and coats, it was like a party. Like the clothes parties and toy parties they used to have, or New Year’s Eve. Sure enough, there was Frank in the corner by the fridge, being Mein Host and drinking a can. He had given one away, which surprised Fran. That Mark Kelly was standing there, drinking a can with him, his tattoos sinister in the gloom.
While they waited for the Inspector to arrive with her notes and instructions, Fran was mentally ticking off her list. Suddenly she was taking this all very seriously. For Nesta’s sake, and also as a kind of charm, warding off fear. If she could get everyone together, here, then it might be all right. The door clattered open and Jane came in with Peter and Vicki. She looked startled to see the room heaving. Almost as if this was her own kitchen. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ she mouthed. Fran nodded.
‘Have you seen Liz?’ Fran asked.
Jane shook her head, with her lips pursed as she went to hunt out enough cups. She looked as if it was only to be expected. As if she’d always been right in thinking that Liz was flaky.
‘Here,’ Big Sue weighed in. ‘Let me help.’
Fran counted round the room: There’s me and Frank and our four bairns and Nesta’s two bairns and Tony looking daft, head in his hands and Jane and her bairn and her mam and the old bloke with one leg and his… nephew, did he say? and Big Sue and Charlotte from the bungalow and Mark with tattoos and the bloke he’s got lodging and he’s got his quiet little bairn here her grandma Peggy and her baby, which Big Sue reckons she had when she was sixty and Liz’s lass Penny and a friend of hers and dirty Sheila and Simon but I shouldn’t call them that their bairns little Ian and Claire who hasn’t gone to school for two years because of nerves Judith from the shop, she came straight from work, bless her, and her twins Andrew and Joanne and who’s left?
‘I’ve brought drink,’ Vince had grinned, holding up his carriers.
‘Great,’ Penny said, pulling her DMs on. ‘Bring it with you.’