Turning Blue

by Benjamin Myers

  The question throws him.

  Rutter leans on the door jamb.

  I’ve not done anything. Ask Roy Pinder.

  I don’t know Roy Pinder. I don’t care about Roy Pinder. I don’t give a fuck about Roy Pinder – or you. Only the girl. I know that you are involved in her disappearance. We might as well admit it now and then we can progress.

  I’ll admit to nowt.

  You know I don’t need witnesses – only evidence.

  I know you need to arrest us first.

  Arrest you? says Brindle. Good heavens no. I believe I just intimated that you were involved. That you are withholding information.

  Rutter’s eyes flicker. He cannot make sense of the odd-looking detective on his doorstep. Brindle is not like any policeman he has ever met before.

  There are so many opportunities up here aren’t there continues Brindle. So much space. So much soil.

  Rutter shrugs.

  I mean it’d be easily done though wouldn’t it continues Brindle. Getting rid of a body. A young girl. Only small. Lost in all this space. All that soil. Those moors. I bet nobody knows up here better than you do they Mr Rutter? You’re probably a handy person to know.

  They look at each other.

  How long have you lived up here?

  You know how long says Rutter. Or you would if you’d done your job.

  Seen some changes I bet says Brindle turning away again.

  He is acting the part now. He knows other detectives are better at this side of things but he continues anyway: the world never stands still does it he says. These wind turbines must be annoying.

  You get used to them.

  Much else changed?

  Rutter shrugs again. Looks from the sky to the ground and then at Brindle’s shoulder.

  You must have seen some changes says Brindle. To the landscape and farming I mean. What about the famed waterway? How did that affect things for the farm? The reservoir I mean.

  Rutter looks away.

  It didn’t. I never go up there.

  Brindles feels an itch in his nose coming on. He removes a handkerchief and then sneezes into it. Once and then twice. He carefully folds it and then puts it back into his coat pocket. He hopes that he is not getting a cold.

  For a moment it looks like he is going to sneeze again but then it passes. He turns his back again and looks over to where the dogs are penned.

  I think I might have a dig around he says. That’s what I do you see Mr Rutter. Dig around. I’m known for it. I’m good at it. Bloody good at it. I’m like those terriers of yours: once I get a hold of something I don’t let go. I lock on. I bite down. It’s a weakness in a way – a character flaw – because once that happens no one can pull me off. You’d have to kill me to end the process. But it helps get the job done.

  Brindle steps out of the rectangle of light and into the darkness. Into the darkness of the yard. Into the cold dark blue space of it.

  Merry Christmas Mr Rutter. I’ll be in touch.

  BRINDLE ONLY MAKES it down the hill from the hamlet before the road becomes impassable. The drifts deepen and swallow the stone walls. There are no straight lines in the landscape; no vertical or horizontal. Only cambers and curves and smooth fresh slopes. His chest feels constricted as he scans the landscape for grids or patterns or parallels or anything that offers continuity but he sees nothing but nature’s chaos.

  At the bottom of Back Haslet Road the few cars that are still out have been abandoned at odd angles at the roadside or around the perimeter of the market square.

  Christmas Eve and Brindle is stuck. Trapped. The town has him. Fucksake.

  He goes back to his room in the Magnet. He walks through the bar and up the back stairs. Along the stale creaking corridor. Enters his room.

  He calls the train station only to be told by an automated message that all trains have been cancelled. He gets numbers for the nearest taxi firms – there are two – but neither is operating. No point they say. The third one is thirty miles away and won’t risk it.

  The snow has shut down the dale. For a moment he considers calling for a cop car to come get him but dismisses the idea. That would look terrible. And besides – that may not make it through either. He is going nowhere.

  Brindle unlaces his boots and takes his socks off. They are wet. He takes his tie off. He puts his socks on the radiator and turns on the TV to drown out the noises coming through the floor from the pub below. It will only increase over the coming hours.

  He can smell the fresh cigarette smoke. He could do the landlord for that if he wanted to – but then what?

  There are five channels on the television and every programme is Christmas-related. He washes his hands and face and then pats them dry. He combs his hair.

  He looks in the mirror and sees the tightly drawn mask of his face. The weak lips and the dark red defect – thinks: short for defective. Defective detective. Defective man.

  Mirrors he thinks. Always mirrors and masks and memories.

  He turns away and from his suitcase he takes out a clean tea-towel and spreads it on the bed and then opens one of his cartons of cold rice and vegetables and places them on the towel. He takes a plastic fork from a cellophane wrapper and pulls the one chair in the room over to the side of the bed and then awkwardly leans forward to eat the rice and vegetables. As he does he reads his way through one of the many box-files that are stacked by his bed.

  There is no kettle in the room so he takes fresh socks from the drawer and puts his tie and jacket back on. In the bathroom he combs his hair again and brushes his teeth and counts bathroom tiles and then closes the door behind him. He walks down the hallway and the bright swirling patterns of the worn carpet make him feel dizzy. He smells chip fat and aftershave cutting through the cigarette smoke as he walks down the narrow stairs.

  3

  SHE IS PROPPED up like a puppet that has been put aside between performances. A puppet with its strings cut. Slumped inanimate.

  She is staring at him and she has brown eyes and she is dead.

  The scream is in his ears still. He can hear it. Piercing and girlish. Way over the top that was he thinks. A right fuss she made over a few thumps.

  He may have used his feet too. Then again he may not.

  In some small and unexpected way he is both surprised and disappointed; she was meant to be a country girl this Melanie Muncy. Rural stock. He thought it would be stronger than this. Tougher than this. Sturdier than this. Hardier than this.

  He only gave it a few thumps. A slap.

  A couple of kicks. A boot or two.

  A little slice. A nick.

  She should consider herself lucky in a way. He had had a rifle and a machete and a paring knife and he had been polite enough to use none of them. Man enough. Gentleman enough. With his own hands he had dispatched her. He had shown love.

  Dead though. No pulse no warmth no blinking eyes.

  Dead and always dead now.

  She is something else now.

  Somewhere else now.

  All his now.

  THE HUM OF the wind turbines cuts through the air as the blades spin elongated circles of shadows across the hillside. Their shapes wheel across frosted rock and brittle heather. Darken the snow.

  The fire is not lit. Rutter is in the crepuscular light of a mid afternoon in winter.

  He is straight he is still he is staring ahead at the wall.

  He is staring at the dancing windmill shadows entranced.

  And remembering.

  Remembering the other girl. That first girl.

  He is allowing himself to recall her. To raise her up. Revisit her. She had not been much younger than him.

  Late teens the pair of them. Must have only been a year or two in it.

  It was a long time ago now. Two decades or more ago now. A long long time. Before the X. Before the car park and the whisky and the cameras and the cellars. Before all of that.

  She was not a hamlet girl not a village girl
not a dale girl not this one – no she was just passing through. Stopping down at Muncy’s camp site. Not a town girl. No.

  It was summer. High summer. A hot August. Scorching it was.

  The girl. She was doing the Coast to Coast walk carrying her tent roll-mat and sleeping bag on her back. Tins of beans pots and pans and a map in a plastic case around her neck. All of that. Fetching up on a different site every night. Mad that lot said his mother.

  Here was where she chose to rest up for an extra day before heading off to meet her boyfriend. So the papers said. Him leaving her alone like that. This lad. Leaving her up in the hills to fend for herself. It wasn’t right.

  She could do better. Young Rutter knew this. He saw a nice girl a polite girl a clean girl. A bit of a scruff maybe but not a dirty cumslut. Not a dirty spunkjar. He saw an outdoors girl a sunny girl a free girl.

  Marriage material maybe. Yes. A keeper this one. Maybe.

  What was he thinking letting her camp out like that? The boyfriend.

  If she had been Rutter’s he would never let her go. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight. No. Too many weirdos out there.

  No. Not this one. This one was a keeper.

  A nice girl a polite girl a clean girl like that. A rarity.

  It wasn’t right. There were dangerous people about. Even around here.

  Nice girls need protecting.

  She was out walking. Just a little leg-stretch up top past the hamlet. A gander round the locale.

  He met her coming down the Corpse Road and into the gorge. He had been fishing. He was green himself then. Green as a winter sprout. He’d not even started shaving. Not properly. Once a month maybe.

  He met her hopping great boulders along the rusted river where the steep gorge-sides ran right up to the sky.

  Oh hello she said. You gave me a shock then.

  It’s a lovely day and so beautiful here she said.

  So wild and unspoilt she said.

  He said nothing because there was nothing to say to that.

  I’m so lucky to be camping by this river.

  He cleared his throat. Held his rod in his hand.

  At Muncy’s are you? he said.

  What’s that?

  The farm.

  Oh yes. At the campsite. I’ve got it all to myself. And thank God for that shower block. Any luck?

  She nodded towards his rod.

  With the fishing.

  He looked at her feet. She was wearing plimsolls.

  My boots she said reading his mind. They’re drying out.

  She looked at his feet. He was wearing rigger boots.

  I could do with some of those.

  She could smell him from where she stood: sweat and farmyard effluence. Stale tobacco.

  Are there many fish in this river?

  He looked down at the water.

  Yeah.

  What kind of fish?

  A few trout.

  He sniffed and cleared his throat and then said they say there’s grayling but I’ve not seen any of them.

  The girl pushed a strand of her hair behind an ear. The ear was bright and translucent. He could see sunlight through it. She was wearing a button badge too. It said: Madchester. It said: Rave On!

  I’ve been eating noodles all week.

  Eh? he said.

  Oh I was just saying I’ve been on the old walker’s diet all week. Super Noodles.

  What’s them then?

  Super Noodles?

  Yes.

  Well you boil them in the pan said the girl. They’re the eastern spaghetti. They’re pretty boring.

  She smiled and cleared her throat then she looked away.

  He wondered if perhaps this one was a filthy cuntslop after all. A lot of them were these hippy girls. Not wife material. No. He’d not allow that type of behaviour. No. Never knowing what she was up to when his back was turned. Men knocking at the back door all day long. Work men delivery men old men dirty men. No no no. Not that. Not that never. Not that again.

  What was she really doing by the river on these boulders anyway? No one ever came down here but him. The path ended a half-mile back then after that it was a scramble and a clamber to the best pools. No one knew about it. It was Rutter’s land.

  She was lurking and looking that’s what she was doing. Looking for a man. She must have been. She was looking for a local lad. Looking for fun.

  Looking for him.

  He had read the stories in the magazines that people dumped down the back lanes around town. He salvaged them. He saved them and he collected them and he pieced them back together like wet flesh-coloured jigsaw puzzles.

  Horny girls in the country. Randy girls in the bars. Yes. Rolls in the hay and romps in the heather. Or like dogs by the river.

  Yes. He had read the stories about these girls who dropped their drawers at the first sight of a man.

  Well she said and swatted a fly away. One landed on his cheek but he didn’t seem to notice or care.

  He moved towards her this boy. He moved across the rocks. He hopped from his boulder to her boulder and his tackle bag rattled.

  The girl went to brush the lock of hair behind her ear again but it was already there. Her translucent ear was a delicate shell glowing in the sunlight.

  Well she said again. I should get back. Back to the noodles she said then gave a forced little laugh.

  I could get you a fish he said. He heard himself stammering.

  For your tea like.

  That’s really kind said the girl. But there’s no need.

  It’s no bother.

  They were standing on a boulder at the bottom of the gorge by the rust-coloured river. Up close the smell of him was stronger. Toxic almost. She wanted to gag. She had smelled tramps on the tube in London and she had worked for a week in a shelter for the homeless in Leeds helping men who pissed themselves and sweated out Special Brew and never ever showered. This smell was just as bad. This smell was worse.

  That’s fine. But hey it was nice talking to you.

  She turned to leave and then a hand settled on her shoulder.

  No one will see us.

  See us. Sorry?

  His hand was still on her shoulder but she was facing him now. Now was the time. His time. Yes. He had been waiting and now he was going to make this happen. Yes. Time to make the move. He had read the stories he had read the magazines. Those flesh jigsaws. He knew what happened next.

  He leaned in to kiss her. His breath was foul and the river was fetid. There were flies everywhere. She could not disguise her feelings. She recoiled. Wincing.

  He knew her game. Wasn’t this what they always did? Cat-and-mouse they call it. Well OK then. He would be the cat and that was fine.

  There was a pool below them. The water was slowly gliding through it then running down to a lower level where it made a music of sorts – like broken glass being poured onto cold concrete.

  Sorry she said. I think perhaps you’ve got—

  His tongue. He stuck the tip of it out and closed his eyes and leaned in again.

  Stop she said but he dropped his fishing rod and his tackle bag and his other hand was around the back of her head now. His fingers were in her hair now and he had her clamped.

  She pushed at his chest with her hand and said don’t wait please stop but he knew that when they said don’t and wait and please and stop they meant the exact opposite. Do. Now. Come on. Don’t stop.

  He went in harder and she tried to knee him in the groin; she tried to remember everything she had been taught everything she had been warned about if ever a man tried to attack her but he sidestepped and though he saw this coming he was still wrong-footed. He stumbled. He stumbled and they teetered and then they fell together. They fell from the boulder to the rocks below. Pure accident. It was six feet or more. He still had a hold of her and their heads clashed as they landed and he heard something crack and give within her. She was beneath him. She had cushioned his fall. He was winded. She was hurt. They
were both hurt.

  The girl tried to speak but her breath was trapped in her throat and then he was at her shirt ripping at it yanking at it buttons popping material tearing and she was not wearing a bra.

  She was unable to move.

  Silent. Blinking. Choking in the shadow of the boulder the foul river silently gliding by a halo of flies around his head. Fetid and foul.

  Then he was thinking: fish flesh boulders flies eyes films maggots hooks gills scales slime blood button badges pins spikes rave on.

  Then he was becoming a man a real man a powerful man and the secret seed was planted in the soil of his silent dark centre.

  MACE SEES HIM across the bar and knows who he is straight away. He doesn’t need telling. The blood-red birthmark is a giveaway.

  His stiff posture makes him look like he’s been dipped in varnish and his white shirt and tie – are those croupier’s armbands lifting his cuff from his wrist? – and fighter-pilot short-back-and-sides with oiled parting confirm it. He doesn’t look like a detective but neither does he look like someone who might otherwise be in the Magnet. Mace had heard Brindle was an oddity but he didn’t know he was such a freakishly formal-looking one.

  The detective is at a table in the corner. A cup and saucer sit in front of him. Spoon on the side. Notepad. Mace looks again and sees that he is drinking what looks like tea. Christmas Eve and the fucker is drinking tea and staring at the evening punters as they fill themselves with beer and spirits and smoke.

  Mace takes a drink from his pint. He cuts through bodies and trades acknowledgements and greetings. Brindle looks up. Looks at him. Through him. Mace nods at Brindle. Raises his glass. The policeman stares back. Blinks.

  Merry Christmas to you says Mace.

  Yes says Brindle not moving. And you.

  Mace thinks he see the flicker of a frown pass over the detective’s face but then it is gone and something far more unnerving is in its place: a blankness. Nothing is being revealed.

  So says the journalist. Seems the trains are cancelled and the roads are fucked.

  Brindle sighs and then clicks the end of his pen and places it on the table. Touches it once.

  I’m stuck says Mace. Can’t get back to my parents’ now. Not tonight anyway. Though that might not be such a bad thing.