by Jeff Gulvin
He had been nineteen when he first met Jane. She was the daughter of his commanding officer when he went to Sandhurst. He had already spent three years as a regular soldier by then; already been to Belfast. He found the company of his contemporaries singularly uninspiring.
He had watched Jane for a long time, interested and not interested, just observing from the sanctuary of his silence. While his colleagues had fallen over one another to dance with her (openly speculating on the contents of her tight white dresses), he had looked on from a distance. It had been at the regimental dance when first he had spoken to her. Vanner hated these occasions of organised fun, when the dignitaries gathered with their womenfolk. He would dine, and smile when it was required, and very quietly get drunk; while one by one his colleagues tried to get inside Jane’s dress. But on this occasion she was only accompanied by her mother, and perhaps it was the oppressive absence of her father that drew his attention.
All night would-be suitors danced with her while Vanner stood at the bar; aloof, she had told him later. Perhaps it was that very aloofness, that quantifiable silence, that attracted her. He was leaning with a whisky glass in his hand and an open pack of cigarettes on the bar in front of him when the scent of her drifted into his nostrils.
‘Not dancing?’
He turned and looked at her; white gown, off one creamed shoulder supported only, it seemed, by the fullness of breasts in youth. Gleaming auburn hair, scraped back from high cheekbones that seemed to lift in an expression of permanent defiance.
‘Sorry?’
‘I said—not dancing?’ She stepped closer and he could smell her.
‘I don’t dance.’
‘No. I’ve watched you and I’ve never seen you dance.’ She perched herself on a stool. ‘Would you like to buy me a drink?’
Vanner bought her a gin and she sipped it. ‘Had too much really. If one can actually do that.’ She burst out laughing then and had to stop up her mouth with her hand. ‘Sorry,’ she giggled. ‘That’s just what I hear my mother say when all you lieutenants are chatting her up.’
‘We’re not lieutenants yet.’
She sobered again and took one of his cigarettes from the pack. Vanner lit it for her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But you’re a real soldier aren’t you. Not like the fools that cluck round me all night.’
Vanner looked more closely at her. She was smiling, only it did not seem to be reflected in her eyes.
‘You’re the one who’s been there already; an enlisted man. A tough guy. Tough guys don’t dance.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘They don’t.’
He walked up through the centre. He had not walked in Norwich for so many years. The closeness of the buildings; the height of the Castle and the Roman Catholic Cathedral, defying the flatness of the land.
He had seen her a few times after that night and his indifference, his security of silence, was gradually eroded while he did not even guess at it. One night she asked him to come to her parents’ quarters, as they were dining with friends off the base and she would be alone. Vividly now as if he relived it, he remembered how she looked when she caught his arm as he strolled towards the shower block with his towel across his shoulders. The expression in her eyes; the softness of her voice, sweet in his veins, and the tightness of her fingers on his upper arm. All the time he had stood in the shower, with the water coursing over him so hard that it puffed his skin to crimson, he had not been able to shake the weight from his throat.
She had stood before him in their living room, with her back to the fire and her father’s trophies displayed at every quarter like some crude extension of his manhood. She had made him stand there while she stared in his eyes and piece by piece, removed every item of her clothing. Naked in the firelight that dimmed the contours of her body; hair falling to shoulders as perfect as silk, breasts heightened by the tightening of her nipples. The strength and poise of her legs. She had lain down on her side just to wait for him.
Love. Biting, painful love. It rose in him now so that he stopped where he was on the street and the stillness of remembering threatened to choke him. But what of her, memory now; that night, the need to be taken, the way she lay down for him so open and empty as if she lay down to die? What was that? Was it some misguided youthful passion, some drama being played out on a stage that dwelt only within her? Or was it a disturbed attempt at love, born out of need; a need to be needed, wanted, desired? The taker being taken? The tantalising teaser of a hundred mess dances slowly succumbing to the silence?
Stopping in the rain, he sat on a bench at the top of Elm Hill and glanced down at the sharply cobbled street. Like something out of Tudor London. He liked sitting here; as if the past could be replayed; as if the present was yet to come and the future not even conceived. So much of so many places was transient, all familiarity lost in the rushed symmetry of the modern world. Here he could sit and think and reflect, though the rain threatened to banish him. Sit he did, though, and his thoughts moved from the past into the present and he found himself thinking of Sarah.
Leaving the bus in the village he walked along the rain-sodden path, through the wind that swept across the headland from the northeast. The road to the house was pitted, and the potholes brimmed with foamy, silted water. In the driveway he saw his father’s car.
Vanner stopped and looked at it for a long time, the wrinkles in the bumper, testimony to his father’s parking. ‘Where it stops it stops.’ A quote; words mumbling from the past when his father drove an Army jeep with no windscreen. Vanner saw him now, dark hair, longer that it ought to have been for an Army chaplain; khaki shorts greased with sweat and a circular collar that once upon a time had been white.
Smoke sneaked skywards from the chimney, creeping over the rim as if unsure of the way up. Vanner could smell the wood burning as he stepped across the threshold.
His father was sitting in one of the high winged armchairs that crowded the fire. He had his back to the door, facing the huge casement that overlooked a sea laced by the threads of winter. From where he stopped in the living-room doorway, Vanner could see the white crown of his head where the hair lifted wild above the chair back. He looked past him then to the coffee table. It was littered with an array of national newspapers. From all but one of them his own picture rose up to greet him.
‘Hello, Aden.’
‘Hello, Dad.’ Vanner smelled whisky. ‘See you found the bottle.’
‘Cold day.’
Vanner stripped off his coat and draped it over the hook on the door. He moved to the fire and warmed his hands. His father leaned back in the chair, his face as old and grey and hung with life as the sea outside the window. They looked at one another for a moment then his father nodded to the coffee table.
‘You’re famous.’
Vanner said nothing.
‘More than famous. You’re a hero. Suspended for punching a suspect.’ His father drained his glass and reached for the bottle that stood open on the hearth by his feet.
‘Anne know you’re drinking?’
‘Whisky Priest.’
Vanner glanced at his black shirt, open at the neck where the collar was normally housed.
‘What she doesn’t see won’t hurt her.’
Vanner moved to squat on the edge of the other armchair. He nodded to the glass. ‘You want to pour me one of those?’
His father passed him the bottle. He squinted at the newspapers again and shook his head. ‘You’ve really made a name for yourself.’
Vanner sipped his drink.
‘I had a reporter on the phone before I came out here. Little, his name was. You spoke to him back in the summer.’
‘What did he want?’ Vanner asked.
‘He wanted to find you. He wanted to interview me. Vicar’s son and all that. The possibilities were endless.’
Vanner blew out his cheeks. ‘What d’you want me to say, Dad?’
His father stared out of the window. ‘I don’t know. Why you di
d it I suppose?’
‘Hit that boy?’
‘Is that what he was?’
‘Eighteen,’ Vanner said. ‘Old enough to vote.’
‘Did you hit him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he battered an old lady to death and then laughed about it.’ Vanner said it bitterly. His father just looked in the fire.
They sat in quietness while the afternoon faded and the sea dimmed into the noise it made on the beach. His father watched him and Vanner avoided his eye. The familiar clarity of his gaze, as if he could look right into him, into the recesses of his soul and guess at all of his secrets.
‘They say you’ll lose your job.’
Vanner looked up at him. He poured them both another drink. ‘Probably.’
‘That’s a shame. You’re a very good policeman.’
‘Am I?’ Vanner threw more wood into the flames. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Are you telling me you’re not?’
Vanner looked away.
His father still stared at him. ‘You haven’t caught the killer.’
Vanner sipped his drink. ‘The papers speculate about whether we really want to.’
‘I’ve noticed.’ His father sat forward. ‘Do you?’
Vanner cocked his head. ‘I guess it depends who he is.’
‘Policeman?’
‘Maybe.’
‘A bit of DIY justice?’
‘Well, let’s face it. We’re pretty impotent most of the time.’
They were silent. Silence all around them. Vanner could almost hear it.
‘Frustration then?’
‘What?’
‘The Daniels thing. Just frustration?’
‘Smug little shit. He was singing in the cell for God’s sake.’
‘Violence.’
‘You don’t approve.’
‘Do you?’
‘I used to be a soldier.’
‘So did I—of sorts.’
They looked at one another. His father’s eyes were dark and bright now. Vanner saw himself in them.
His father sucked in a noisy breath. ‘It’s a pity your mother died.’
‘Of course.’
‘I mean the womanly thing. I should have remarried earlier. You needed a woman. Every man—boy needs the touch of a woman. Keeps him from going off the rails.’
Vanner looked evenly at him.
‘Too many men, Aden. Too many hardened men. All your life it was soldiers.’
Vanner opened his mouth to say something, to tell him something. He closed it again.
‘Papers say you beat him up pretty badly.’
‘I gave him back his bat and then I hit him three times.’ He paused. ‘But then I know how to hit.’
His father looked at his watch. ‘I should get back,’ he said. ‘It’s late.’
Vanner looked at him then, not wanting him to go. His father seemed to sense it and settled back once more. ‘Ach, she can wait a little longer,’ he said. He picked up a copy of the Sun and folded it open.
‘Very famous. You’re on page three.’
Vanner smiled and picked up the Mail. ‘Photo is crap,’ he said. ‘Where did they get it?’
‘They’ve taken a few haven’t they—all the time this case has been running.’ His father laughed. ‘Look at this headline. “Copped it”. That’s original thinking for you.’ His face dulled again. ‘They’re digging into Ireland.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘Why should it? It’s the past.’
His father looked round at him. ‘The past has a habit of becoming the present, Aden. Don’t you think?’
Vanner did not look at him. ‘In the past I was a soldier. I’m not a soldier any longer.’
‘No. Now you’re a policeman.’
His father toyed with his glass. ‘Rumours, son. A father doesn’t like hearing them.’
‘Then ignore them. I’m in the news today. It’ll be someone else tomorrow. I’m a hero for God’s sake. Enjoy it.’ He regretted it as soon as the words came out; the slim silver cross that was pinned against his father’s breast seemed to rise up to challenge him all over again.
His father caught the look in his eye. ‘It’s always bothered you me being in the church hasn’t it? Never sat very well with you.’
Vanner held up his hands. ‘It was what you did.’
‘Yes but …’ His father shook his head. ‘All those years in the Army, Yemen and Germany and everything. Surrounded by soldiers with no mother and only a padre for a father.’
‘Listen,’ Vanner said. ‘You were what you were. You didn’t ask to be a widower with a young son. Life is life. I am what I am. I don’t blame you.’
‘No.’ His father put down his glass. ‘And I don’t blame you, Aden.’ He was quiet for a moment and then he stood up. ‘I worry about you, though—even now. But then that’s a father’s prerogative.’
Vanner looked up at him from where he sat. Again he wanted to speak. His father seemed to sense it. ‘Some things are better out than in, son,’ he said. ‘No matter what they are.’ He picked up his coat. ‘I’m your father, remember. Not only that, I was a priest. Listening was what I was paid for.’
Vanner sat where he was, cupping the weight of his glass in his hands.
‘I’m okay, Dad.’
‘Yeah? Well, you know where to find me if you’re not.’
Five
SHADOWS FASHIONED THEMSELVES ALONG cold walls as the November sun waned and the first chill of evening settled the air above the streets. The killer stood by the chair, aware of the gathering of traffic, as the light fell from the room.
For a long time the killer stood facing the desk, staring at a photograph, delicately framed; a man, a woman: between them—the past. Eyes bunched and then hardened once more as the real sounds of real traffic broke against the window from the street. The killer moved to the desk. Four files lay next to one another, thickly carded files with plastic flexible ring binders. All were curled at the edges now. Carefully, the killer opened the newest one which was not that new any more. The reality of its newness had dulled into the same sediment of the mind as the other three. Rubber-encased fingers, stiff as the stuck down clippings. Rachel Lind and her sister; bright, bubbly faces with the full-fleshed cheeks of children. The killer flicked through the pages.
The killer closed the file and moved from the desk, steps edged with sharpness now, rubbered fingers balling into fists, face reflected in the glass against the yellow glow of the lamp. The killer turned, eyes crimping once more as they lingered over the photographs on the wall. At the end of the top shelf—the picture of the soldier. An old photo, cut carefully to preserve the likeness. A tall, lean, familiar man with dark hair and dark eyes and a maroon-coloured beret on his head. The killer stepped closer and looked deeper into the face. Young face. Closed face. Hard face—even then.
The typewriter was placed in the middle of the desk, the keys still protected by the full plastic cover that smothered them. Dust gathered in a line that discoloured the crease across the top where the seam met the side. The killer ran a rubber-bound finger through the dust and lifted it to the light. A copy of the Times newspaper lay next to the typewriter and the killer hovered above it. Darkness grew up to close the room from within now; the lamp, as if weakened by its onslaught seemed to bend its head to the desktop. The killer stared at the picture, an old man in a long white wig that reached down to his shoulders. The killer flicked off the lamp and darkness took over the room.
Morrison sat in his study with his half-rimmed glasses bridging the length of his nose. He heard movement outside the door and looked up. His eldest son, James, came in dressed in his pyjamas and Morrison smiled at him.
‘Come to say goodnight?’
The boy moved to the side of his chair and laid both hands on the arm. He looked from his father’s face to the file that lay in his lap.
‘Wha
t’re you reading?’
‘Work.’
‘What is it?’
Morrison looked at his son’s half-bowed head, the copper that tinged his hair like the beginnings of a fire; the smooth paleness of his cheek and the fine line of his neck. He touched his hair, tousled it with thick, firm fingers and the boy tossed his head out of reach. Morrison smiled at him and tried to pull him towards the chair. His son giggled and stepped away, picking up the open file as he did so.
‘Hey,’ Morrison said. ‘You’re too young to look at that.’ Leaning forward sharply he plucked it from his son’s grip. The boy stuck his chin in the air. ‘I’m eleven,’ he said.
‘Not old enough.’
‘What is it—murder?’
‘Yes, if you must know.’
The boy shrugged. ‘Happens all the time.’
For a moment Morrison just looked at him. The boy stepped back, a jokey grin on his face. ‘Well it’s true.’
Morrison opened his mouth and then closed it again.
‘Who was killed?’ His son tried to glimpse the file once more.
Morrison watched him. He shrugged, wondering why he felt so shocked when it was so true after all. Perhaps it was that very truth that shocked him.
‘Four people.’
‘The Watchman.’ James looked triumphant.
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen it on the TV. Everybody knows about it. The vigilante killer.’
His son moved to the chair again. ‘Why’re you looking at it?’
‘Because …’ Morrison stopped. Why indeed? Because he did not trust a policeman? ‘It’s just something I’m working on. Anyway,’ he tapped the boy’s scalp with the file. ‘Past your bedtime, young man.’
After he had gone to bed Morrison poured himself a small glass of whisky and stood at the window, sipping it and thinking. The streetlamps were lit but they could not seem to penetrate the heaviness in the air. No stars glinted tonight, no moon to lighten the darkness. Everything was dense and black and weighted enough for snow. He still held the file between his forefinger and thumb as he leaned against the window frame. Vanner. The name in his mind. The name on the lips of the caller.