by Paul Finch
She clipped her bike to the fence at the front, walked up the path to the door and took the key from her Afghan pocket. Des was right: this was none of their business. But Shirley was still Elsie’s official carer. So whether people liked it or not, she was going to investigate. The front door opened on a house that was dark and quiet, but immediately Shirley smelled something she’d never smelled in there before – bacon and eggs. Previously, Elsie had only breakfasted on muesli and, in her own words, “a sip of tea”.
Shirley stepped inside.
The interior’s sombre, brownish decor had always leached out the light, but at present the house was in darkness because most of its curtains were drawn. The door to the living room was open. Shirley glanced inside. Nobody was there, but a newspaper lay folded on the armchair.
A newspaper had been delivered? That was also a first. The fact that it was The Sun was not encouraging.
She pressed on, reaching the staircase and glancing up. The dimness at the top gave nothing away. There was no sign of movement, no sound. She continued on towards the kitchen. This door also stood open, and she could see there was nobody in there, though clearly someone had been. The smell of a cooked breakfast was strong. When she entered, she saw there were two dishes on the draining board – one a bowl that had contained either bran or muesli, the other a dinner plate still bearing traces of egg and tomato ketchup. She stared at this for several moments, before padding quietly back to the foot of the stairs, now with a firm conviction that something was wrong. Slowly, stealthily, she ascended.
Superficially, it might seem that she was overreacting. After all, what did the evidence suggest other than that Elsie had a guest? But Shirley couldn’t help wondering if the old woman was being exploited. It wouldn’t be the first time something like this had happened. And quite often it was the least likely people you’d expect – relatives for example. Okay, Elsie’s demeanour didn’t suggest that she was under stress; quite the opposite. But why was a man staying here? Why was she cooking his tea and breakfast and ordering newspapers to be delivered for him?
Shirley reached the top. Directly facing her was the bathroom, but she could see into this and it was empty. To her left, the landing ran towards the front of the house and Elsie’s own bedroom. That door was only partly open; somebody could be in there and she wouldn’t necessarily see them. She listened, but heard nothing. She glanced the other way, to the rear of the house and the second bedroom, the one directly above the kitchen. Elsie had specifically asked that Shirley never go into this one. It was private, she said; it was Tommy’s.
Despite that, Shirley had never regarded the room as sinister. Several times, its door had been left open and she’d been able to glimpse through. It wasn’t like some dead person’s room off a movie; it wasn’t preserved as a macabre shrine, or draped in cobwebs. It was clean and ordinary: it contained a single bed, an armchair, a wardrobe and dresser, and that was all.
However, something was now different.
The door was partly ajar, the gap extremely narrow, but it afforded Shirley a glance inside and, even from this distance, she could see that the armchair had been turned to face the window and that someone was seated in it.
Again, she only saw his shoulder and the back of his head. He had short, dark hair, and was sitting very still.
Shirley crept forward, only stopping when she was a couple of feet away. An ear and one side of the man’s face were now visible: it was very smooth, yet somehow off-colour; pinkish but unnaturally pale.
Shirley knew she was going to have to announce herself. You didn’t walk into someone’s private room without knocking, even if you were worried they had no right to be there. Despite an overwhelming urge to sneak away and leave the house, she cleared her throat …
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Shirley spun around, startled.
Elsie was behind her on the landing. She was wearing an old dressing gown fastened with large, mismatched buttons. Her white hair was in disarray, but her normally pallid cheeks were bright with colour. Her once-rheumy eyes blazed.
“How dare you!” she hissed, scuttling past Shirley and closing the bedroom door firmly.
“Mrs Dawkins, I …”
“How dare you!”
“Please understand, I was concerned about …”
“Who gave you permission to enter my house?”
“You did. I mean, you always have before.”
“There’ll be no more of that, let me assure you!”
Shirley pointed at the closed bedroom door. “There’s someone else staying here. I didn’t know anything about it, and I was getting a bit worried …”
“It’s none of your business who stays here.”
“In which case, if everything’s okay, this is just a misunderstanding …”
“Yes, I’ve misunderstood you very badly, my girl. Coming into my house like a thief. Coming to this very bedroom, which I’ve expressly forbidden you to enter.”
“Just tell me what’s happening.”
“Excuse me?”
“What’s happening here, Mrs Dawkins? Who’s in that room? Why won’t he come out and speak for himself?”
“I think you’d better leave.” With surprising strength, Elsie shoved Shirley towards the top of the stairs. “In fact you will leave, right now. Or I’ll call the police. And you won’t return either. I’ve no need of you anyway. Not anymore.”
“Okay,” Shirley said, descending. “But come downstairs with me please. Let’s discuss this in private.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
“That may be. But if you don’t come downstairs right now, you’re going to have to call the police because I won’t leave until you do.” Shirley stopped at the bottom, and folded her arms stubbornly.
Elsie came down after her, but suddenly she looked tired again.
“Throw me out by all means,” Shirley added quietly, “but if something’s going on that isn’t to your liking, please tell me first. You know we can help.”
“There is nothing going on here.”
“Mrs Dawkins, at your age you’re the one who should be waited on. You certainly shouldn’t be waiting on someone else.”
“It’s no concern of yours. Please leave, and don’t come back.”
“Let me get someone else to call in on you.”
“No.”
Shirley walked to the front door. “You may feel fine today, but you’re an old lady with health problems. If you don’t let me pop in to see you now and then, I’ll be very worried about your safety.”
“And if I do let you pop in, I’ll be very worried about yours.”
Shirley turned on the doorstep. “What?”
Elsie closed the door to a tiny gap. “You’ve been helpful to me in the past, but I think it’s best for the both of us if we end this arrangement now.”
With a click, the door closed.
*
“So she hasn’t actually filed a complaint against me?” Shirley said, the following Monday. She and Des were in the canteen together, getting their lunch.
He shook his head. “Just says she doesn’t want anyone to visit anymore. Says she doesn’t need it.”
“Which both you and I know is completely absurd.”
“We can’t force people to accept care, Shirley. It’s not as if she’s mentally incompetent.”
“We should at least inform Social Services about her.”
“I’ve already done that, but they, like me, are inclined to feel that if a member of her family has moved in with her, it’s all to the good. It’s the sort of thing we should be encouraging.”
“‘A member of her family’? We don’t even know who this guy is.”
“And it’s not our job to find out.” He led the way to an empty table. “Especially if she seems okay with it. Has it occurred to you she might be having a relationship with someone?”
“At seventy-eight?”
“Life doesn’t end
just because you get old.”
“Des, whoever this guy is, he’s a lot younger than she is.”
“You haven’t seen him properly. How do you know?”
“I just …”
“Drop it, Shirley. Social Services are aware, and they’re the experts. We’ve done all we can.”
Shirley decided that she wasn’t going to drop it. She went back to the office and checked through the files until she located the relevant one, then spent a good hour perusing it. The back story of course was the thing that made this case so unique.
Tommy Dawkins’s execution had blighted his mother’s life, and as it had happened in the mid-1960s there hadn’t been much in the way of counselling or aftercare for her. Even her local parish church, of which she’d been an active member for years, had found difficulty acclimatising to the new situation; Elsie hadn’t exactly been made a pariah there, but there’d been quite a few former acquaintances who’d given her the cold shoulder afterwards. What this basically boiled down to was the nature of the murder her son had committed, not to mention his willing confession, which had removed all doubt.
The victim, Mary Stillwell, had been found wrapped in bloodstained sheets in the shed on the Dawkins family allotment – in fact the same shed that stood on the allotment right now. There’d been no sign of a sexual assault, but the girl had been horrifically tortured: slashed up and down and side to side with a cutthroat razor, apparently over a period of hours. It had been a truly repulsive crime. Tommy Dawkins was arrested initially on circumstantial evidence, but after only a brief time gave a statement to the effect that he’d lured Mary – who was only one year his junior – into the house while his mother was out, and attacked and killed her in a fit of dementia. He refused to say any more, even to investigating psychiatrists. However, other witness evidence seemed to corroborate his story. Laura Stillwell, for example – Mary’s mother – had once in the past complained to Elsie that young Tommy would routinely spy on her daughter while she got undressed at night; he’d been seen watching from the yard at the rear of his mother’s house. Elsie’s response that young Mary ought to consider closing her bedroom curtains from time to time had caused a lasting rift between the neighbours, and some scandalous gossip in the street.
Several prints of old photographs were contained in the file. These included shots of both the victim and her killer. The picture of the girl had apparently been taken while she was on holiday in Brighton. In it she was young and pretty and looked very ‘Sixties’, with big eyelashes and lipstick so pale that it was almost white. The other photo, in contrast, was the same police mugshot that featured on the newspaper clipping in Elsie’s house: her handsome son, dark-haired, square-jawed, but with a bleak, rather mournful look on his face. He didn’t strike Shirley as the sort of man who would be a peeper, much less a murderer, but you could never tell. By the same token, the girl didn’t look the sort who would be lured into a young man’s house, but looks could be deceptive.
There was nothing here, of course, that Shirley didn’t already know. She dug through a few more documents, many of which she herself had filed, with regard to Elsie’s health, mentality and general wellbeing. But nowhere were there any references to other relatives.
Reluctantly, Shirley put the folder away. The last item she slid back into it was the photograph of Tommy. She thought about the sad and terrible end he’d come to. To be left standing on a trapdoor, with your hands cuffed behind your back and a belt around your legs – at least, that was the way she’d always seen it in films; to then have a sack pulled over your head and feel the halter be tightened around your neck; to have the metal bracket that would actually shatter your spinal cord secured below your ear.
How indescribable it must have been, that moment as the executioner stepped away. You were probably drenched with chill sweat. Breathing would already be difficult thanks to the damp material on your face. You couldn’t see anything, but you could hear – the ongoing prayers of the minister, a shuffling of feet, a fumbling of hands, and then CLUNK as the lever was pushed and the floor fell away …
How often since 1965 had Elsie been tormented by thoughts like these: as she lay in bed at night, as she sat on the bus, as she wended her solitary way around the markets and shopping precincts of rain-soaked Camden?
Shirley didn’t have children of her own. But she had a younger brother who she doted on, and the mere thought of something like that happening to him was unbearable. Imagine having to endure that for the next half-century. Turning into a lonely misanthrope would be the very least of her reactions.
*
Shirley didn’t see Elsie for another week or so.
She took on replacement and even additional casework, so there was no spare time during the day. But that Friday evening she was out hitting a few bars with a bunch of girlfriends, when she suddenly spotted the old lady. It was still early evening and Shirley and her mates were moving arm-in-arm down Camden High Street, halfway to the next pub, tittering and giggling, when Shirley glanced across the road and sighted a tall, thin figure, dressed in its usual shabby mac and headscarf, emerge from an off licence, struggling with what looked like a crate of beer.
Shirley stopped in her tracks. But there was no mistake. It was Elsie. Red-faced, the old lady set off along the pavement, the hefty burden in her arms.
“Shirl?” one of the other girls called.
“Sorry,” she said, and she hurried to catch up.
It was difficult to shake what she’d just seen from her mind. As they sat in the next pub, fending off the attentions of predatory guys, and laughing with increasing raucousness at ever more ribald jokes, Shirley couldn’t help wondering and worrying. Elsie had been limping badly; as though the exhilaration of whatever it was that had changed her life a couple of weeks ago was already wearing off, and the reality of having to do extra work weighing on her.
Extra work – like buying armloads of beer?
In a clingy micro-dress, silver, high-heeled sandals and specially painted fingernails – bright pink with electric-blue zigzags – Shirley wasn’t exactly dressed for it, but she grabbed her bag and fleece. Elsie only lived a couple of streets away. It would take next to no time to pop round and visit.
Shirley’s friends expressed disbelief when she told them, but she insisted it wouldn’t be for long. If they’d stay put for half an hour, she’d return ASAP. Of course, in truth, she wasn’t sure this would be possible. Who was this bloke who was evidently still staying at Elsie’s house? He had an old girl like her cooking and cleaning for him, running around to buy beer. Shirley, who was slightly more tiddly than was probably good for her, got vexed at the mere thought. She set off walking, resolute that this time she was going to find out what was going on, and, if necessary, take action.
But when she got to Elsie’s street, she felt a little less sure. It was dark and several streetlights were broken, the one or two that weren’t casting a pall of ethereal yellow gloom. Many of the houses in this row were utilised by Social Security tenants, who weren’t always the most desirable types, as their screaming arguments and thumping rock music regularly attested. Other houses, of course, were empty and at this time of night looked eerily derelict. Shirley passed them nervously, her high heels clicking on the broken pavement. The short dress and silky tights that had so aroused the fellas in the pubs and sent her confidence skyrocketing, now made her feel self-conscious. Her fleece only came to her waist, so that didn’t conceal much either.
By the time she got to the far end of the road, where the shadows under the railway arch were oil-black and where a long, drawn-out meooow sounded as though the cat that had made it was being strangled, she wished she hadn’t come at all. Almost with relief, she hurried up Elsie’s path and knocked on the door.
A faint light glimmered through the closed curtains on the front room window, but at first there was no sound. Only after several seconds did Shirley hear a safety-chain being applied. A latch turned and the door opened a
crack. In the half-light, Elsie’s face was pale, ghostlike. When she saw Shirley she didn’t recognise her, but this was probably understandable. Previously, Shirley had only attended the old lady’s house in a hippie-like ensemble of jeans, jumper, training shoes and scruffy Afghan. On most of those occasions she hadn’t even worn make-up. This pert, preened party girl was a side of her that Elsie hadn’t seen before.
“Can I come in, Elsie?” Shirley said. “Can I call you ‘Elsie’ now I’m off duty?”
Elsie still didn’t seem to know who she was. Her look of puzzlement transformed to a hard frown when she focussed on Shirley’s snazzy fingernail art. “Who are you? What do you want here?”
“Mrs Dawkins, it’s me, Shirley.”
“Shirley?”
“Your home-help. Least, I used to be.”
“Oh … Shirley.” Elsie’s frown faded, but now she looked confused again. “What are you doing? I mean, why are you here?”
“I just thought I’d call round and check you were all right. I happened to be in the neighbourhood. I’m sorry I’m dressed like this, but I’ve been out with friends.”
“I see.” Elsie made no effort to remove the chain.
Shirley smiled very sweetly. “Please let me in, I’m cold.”
Slowly, grudgingly, the old lady moved backwards. There was a clatter as the chain came loose, and the door creaked open. Elsie was still in the mac she’d been wearing earlier. Even in the dimness of the unlit hall, it was apparent that she’d reverted to her old frail self: she was hollow-cheeked, bent. When Shirley glanced down, she saw bare, thin legs and ragged slippers. Elsie had been out to the shops like that on a November night. And if that wasn’t enough, the house was cold – as if there hadn’t been any heating on for some time.
Feeling more than ever that her arrival here was justified, Shirley was led through to the kitchen, which seemed to be the only part of the house where a light burned. Several days of unwashed crockery cluttered the sink draining board. The bin in the corner was overflowing; the carpet tiles were impacted with crumbs. But more telling than any of this were the two dirty plates and two sets of cutlery occupying the kitchen table. There were also two mugs from which tea had been drunk. In the corner of the room was the crate of beer. Its cardboard cover had been torn open and a four-pack removed.