by Russ Thomas
“Again, ma’am, with respect, DI Doggett—”
“DS Tyler, prefacing your remarks with the words ‘With respect’ does not alone make them respectful.”
He swallows what he wants to say and settles for “No, ma’am.”
She pauses again, her hand fidgeting as though she regrets throwing away the cigarette so quickly. “What did I say to you the day I gave you this job?”
“That I had my father’s eyes?”
She raises an eyebrow and stares at him.
He drops his gaze. “You said I had one last chance.” He sees the dog-end at her feet, flattened but still smoking. “You told me not to fuck it up.”
She sighs. “I’m not saying you’re fucking anything up. Not yet anyway. Look . . .” She pauses, her eyes drifting unconsciously to the scar on his cheek, as they always do when she raises the subject. “What happened with Bridger wasn’t entirely your fault. But I took a big chance here—you know that, don’t you? I put my head above the parapet, and there’s any number of bastards lining me up in their sights right now.”
“I didn’t ask for special treatment, Diane.”
“You got it anyway,” she snaps. Then she sighs again and reaches out to place a hand on his arm. “You have so much of your father in you, Adam. How am I supposed to treat you like everyone else?” She lets the hand fall away. “He was always shit at playing nicely with others as well. Is there anyone in the department you haven’t managed to piss off yet?”
“There’s a girl in the comms room I get along with quite well.”
“I need someone on this investigation who knows how to work as part of a team. Forgive me, but that’s not you.”
“Diane, I . . .” The eyebrow goes up for a second time. “Ma’am. This is a cold case.” He stops short of telling her it’s his case. He stops short of telling her how this case is his way back, a chance for redemption, to prove to her she was right to take a chance on him. “I can behave myself.”
She says nothing more for a moment, merely stares at him. Then she says, “What about DI Doggett?”
He hesitates, the words he has to speak refusing to drag themselves out. “Perhaps we could work together?”
She continues to stare, eyebrow still raised. He finds himself looking down at the ground, his eyes drawn back to the smoking dog-end.
He hears her say, “Well?” and a voice behind him says, “I’ve already got a sergeant.”
He turns to find Doggett leaning against the mobile unit, his leg dancing to a rhythm only he can hear. How long has he been there?
“You’ll need more than one,” Jordan tells him.
He shrugs at her, as if to say It’s your call.
“Fine,” she says after a few moments. “But DI Doggett has lead on this. I have no intentions of refereeing a pissing match, gentlemen. Is that understood?”
As they both mutter their assent, Tyler realizes something. Doggett’s easy acceptance of him at the crime scene. They expected him to come. They knew he would want to be involved. Was this all some sort of test? To see if he was willing to fight for it?
“One more thing,” he says.
The eyebrow goes up for a third time, but it’s less effective now that he knows he’s been played.
“Constable Rabbani. I understand she’s made inquiries about joining CID. I’d like to see what she can do.”
Jordan’s mouth actually falls open. He’ll show her who plays nicely with others.
“Which one’s Rabbani?” she asks Doggett.
“Girl who was first on the scene,” he says.
Jordan nods. “Oh yes, wouldn’t know a common approach path if she tripped over one. All right, DS Tyler, but she’s your responsibility.” As he turns to leave, she catches hold of his arm. “And Adam. No more fuck-ups!”
* * *
—
On the patio at the side of the house, the sun rebounds off the red-brick wall of the Old Vicarage and smacks Tyler hard in the face. It feels like someone’s left the door to a kiln open. The lawn that stretches in front of them to a wooded copse a couple of hundred yards distant looks abandoned, the grass dry and brittle and peppered with thistles and wildflowers. A lone oak tree stands in the middle of the wasteland, cut off from the other trees, like a scout sent out from an advancing army, now dangerously exposed. Hanging from one branch, a plank of wood dangles limply on a piece of rope, the remnant of a childhood swing.
Doggett is staring at the tree as though challenging it to make a break for cover, or perhaps imagining the cool shade offered by its twisted limbs. “Right then, hotshot,” he says, scratching at the several days’ growth on his chin. “Next move?” He isn’t asking because he doesn’t know.
“We get Uniform to canvass the neighbors while we wait for Elliot’s results. We can’t just assume the body is Cartwright’s.”
“Bloody big coincidence if it isn’t.”
“There was a gardener,” Tyler says, “up the road.”
“Good-looking lad, was he?”
He knows by now not to take it personally, but that’s number three. The third one has to be answered. “Not really my type, sir, but I could put a word in for you, if you like?” Maybe he imagines it, but he thinks he sees the trace of a smile.
Doggett’s leg jiggles up and down. “Six years,” he says.
“Sir?”
“This, DS Tyler, is what we on the Murder Team call ‘a right bloody ball-ache.’” The leg slows a little, and he shuffles one foot forward, begins kicking at a clump of weeds caught between the flagstones. “Right, I’ll leave you to organize things. Get Uniform started on the interviews; Daley’s around somewhere, he’ll give you a hand.”
“Where are you going?”
“I thought I’d better refresh myself of the original investigation. See if we missed anything.”
It comes out before he can stop himself. “Gerald Cartwright was missed.”
Doggett stops kicking, turns on him, and stabs a finger into his chest. “Right, listen here, son. Jordan wants you included in this. Fine. I think she must be fucking nuts! But who gives a sweet Fanny A. what I want, eh?” He catches sight of something above them and frowns.
Tyler follows his gaze and looks up at the roof. There’s a tile hanging alarmingly over the edge of the guttering. It’s flapping slightly in a breeze that fails to reach them on the patio. “Is this place even safe?”
“Builders reckon so.” Doggett turns back and smiles at him. “But then, why do you think you’re the one who’s staying, while I go back to the station?”
The mention of the builders reminds Tyler of his thoughts from the cellar. “Why did they start there?”
Doggett turns and squints at him. He shades his eyes against the glare with one hand. “What?”
“The builders. Why start in the cellar?”
Doggett shrugs. “Makes sense, doesn’t it? Ensure the foundations are sound before working your way up?”
“Maybe, but why knock a wall down? Why that one? It’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? They only started work this week, and they went straight to the wall where the body was buried.”
Doggett chews on his lip for a moment and then shrugs again. He seems to enjoy shrugging. “Coincidences happen,” he says, but he doesn’t sound as though he believes it. Doggett looks over to a door on the side of the house. “Why don’t you ask the owner? He’s waiting for us in there.” He moves off toward the door.
“I thought Gerald Cartwright was the owner?” Tyler says, catching him up.
“‘Was’ being the operative word. His son just inherited the place when he turned twenty-one. Along with a small fortune. It’s him what’s doing the renovations. Congratulations, Sergeant. I’ve found you your first suspect.”
The door into the house is stuck, and Doggett is forced to take his shou
lder to it. The wood groans stubbornly and then the rotting linoleum behind finally gives and the door flies open, pitching Doggett into the room. There’s a man waiting patiently on a rickety kitchen chair. Doggett makes the introductions.
“Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler, this is Oscar Cartwright.”
The man with the blackberry laugh doesn’t even blink. “Detective Sergeant,” he says.
* * *
—
Lily is sitting on a stool in the garden trying to catch a breeze. The heat is like a physical force, pinning her down, holding her in place. She thinks of the year Gerald took them all to Spain and how she spent the best part of the fortnight playing the wilting English rose; Edna said she wouldn’t travel well and, as always, she was right.
Edna is seated on the sun lounger, gently rocking back and forth while she reads from a copy of The Inferno.
The letter folded into the pocket of her slacks burns a hole in Lily’s thigh. It feels remarkably heavy for a single sheet of paper in an envelope. She can see its outline and feels sure Edna will notice it at any moment. When she moves, she worries the rustle and crinkle will give her away. Again Lily considers just pulling the thing right out and confessing. It would be so easy to pass on the knowledge, to pass on the problem. She could make out it just arrived, though Edna will see through this, of course, since they have already had a conversation about the lack of post that morning.
It might be easier, Lily thinks, if she could just get away from this place. If she could get away from all the jumbled-up memories, perhaps then she could decide what to do. They need an outing. “Perhaps we might feed the ducks later.”
Edna has stopped reading and taken to fanning herself with the pages instead. She is blowing out air through puckered lips. “This’ll be global warming,” she says, ever the teacher. “Melting ice caps and the like.”
Lily has found an answer. “We could stop by the river and make an afternoon of it.” If she can get the wretched thing out of the house, she can be done with it. She can drop it into a litter bin as she pushes Edna ahead of her in the chair. Edna will be none the wiser.
“We never used to have summers like this, I know that much.”
This is something Lily has begun to notice, how often the two of them hold separate conversations. And then she wonders if they ever really talked about anything. She feels herself blush. That’s hardly fair. In the beginning, they were always talking. Talking was what brought them together in the first place; there was little else to do on that rooftop. They would sit up late into the night—into the morning even—sharing each other’s hopes and fears for the future. When did all that change? Lily feels she should know the answer to that, but she can’t quite remember.
“It’ll be cooler by the river. And there’s some bread in the larder we could take for the ducks.”
“That bread’s stale,” Edna grunts.
“Yes,” says Lily. “Still, I don’t suppose they’ll mind.”
Edna coughs and wheezes, though Lily is far from sure as to the legitimacy of this sudden attack; it feels remarkably well timed. “I’m too tired.” And that is that. There will be no grand outing today.
The letter pulls at Lily’s leg. A blackbird lands in the apple tree in the center of the lawn. Below it, a number of wasps buzz lazily around the pots of jam that Lily has placed there to distract them from the fruit. She watches a wasp crawl up the glass of a jar, its tiny feet crossing Mr. Robertson’s name. She finds herself urging it on. What use has a wasp anyway, other than to annoy? To buzz and sting. How they drone, on and on. Not the productive busy droning of a bee, but a relentless, irritating noise that serves only to warn you you’re about to get stung for no reason. Waspish, what an appropriate adjective!
“Damn woman’s forgotten the papers again.”
“Sorry?”
“Her next door.” Edna gestures at their neighbor’s fence with a pen. She’s picked up yesterday’s crossword. Her book lies discarded, facedown, brittle pages flaking on the upholstery. She rocks the sun lounger, legs that still remember school-day swings lifting her gently from the ground.
“Shush,” Lily whispers, one eye still on her insect’s fate. And then she spots another opportunity. “Anyway, I don’t mind going.”
“It’s her turn,” says Edna full volume.
The wasp is nearing the pencil-sized hole in the wax paper. It’s going in.
“Oh, I can’t do this!” Edna throws the newspaper down on top of the book. Lily imagines the spine developing a new crack, one more infinitesimal line among a thousand others. Her eyes begin to water. Edna hauls herself from the chair, and the springs groan their release.
“Where are you going?”
Edna hobbles to the conservatory doors. “If you’re going into the village you might as well pick up a few other bits and pieces. I’ll make you a list.” She disappears into the house.
Lily has her way out. She lets out a deep breath and turns back to the tree. The wasp has gone, and suddenly she needs to know if it has gone in. She lifts herself up from the footstool, feeling the letter crinkle in her pocket. She places a hand over it and trots up the three steps to the raised lawn.
It had been on the doorstep with the rest of the post, though there was no stamp on the envelope, which means it must have been hand-delivered. That thought is the most troubling part for Lily.
Under the apple tree, the sunlight reaches her in mottled patches. It’s cool and dangerously inviting; no wonder so many creatures meet their ends here. She kneels down on the bone-dry grass and lifts the jar to peer through the water-damaged label. It’s not jam at all but marmalade.
A single sheet of crisp white paper, folded into three. A single line of text. Typed. Not stitched together out of different-sized letters cut from magazines, which is the way they always do it at the pictures. Typed. On a word processor or a computer, she supposes, rather than a typewriter. Nobody uses a typewriter anymore. There was no telling letter A, set half a width higher than all the other letters. The line was straight and uniform and to the point.
I know what you did.
The wasp works to pull itself from its crystalline fate. Lily watches it tire and slow. Its wings falter, and the creature sinks further into suspension. There are other petrified bodies below it.
Perhaps it’s all a mistake? Perhaps the letter was delivered to the wrong door? It wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, so it could be for anyone. And yet Lily knows, deep down, that the letter was meant for her.
Edna’s ghostly voice emerges from the conservatory. “I think we’ll have chops tonight.”
Lily replaces the marmalade jar, wipes a tear from her cheek, and walks back to the house. To her left there is the hole in the fence that marks the boundary between their property and their neighbor’s. An overgrown path stretches away into the trees. Beyond this copse, its roof just visible over the trees, stands the Old Vicarage. Somewhere ahead of her through the undergrowth she hears a noise she hasn’t heard in a long time. A familiar sound at one point, a car skidding in loose gravel. She hesitates, glances back at the cottage, but Edna is nowhere to be seen.
Lily starts up the path, threading her way through the gloomy undergrowth. She hasn’t been this way since—
“Lillian!”
She hurries back to the garden just as Edna emerges from the house.
“What are you doing all the way over there?”
“Nothing,” says Lily. “It’s just . . . I think there’s someone over at the Old Vicarage.”
Edna shuffles her way along the path and peers through the trees. “They must have started work on the place. Well, we knew it was happening.” Edna frowns at her. “You are prepared for what’s coming?”
Lily has no idea what’s coming, but she won’t admit it. “Yes, of course. It’s just . . . well, perhaps you could talk to Oscar, get hi
m to change his mind?”
“I already have, you know that.”
“I do? I mean . . . yes, of course I do. But you could try again, I know you could. Ever since he got back—”
“You forget,” says Edna, “he’s not a little boy anymore. He’s a grown man. Quite capable of making his own decisions.”
“But what if—?”
“Enough! I’ll deal with it.” But then she coughs and bends double, and Lily has to help her slowly back to the sun lounger. All thoughts of anyone going anywhere evaporate as Edna takes a turn for the worse and Lily’s time is taken up with helping her back to bed.
All the while, the letter burns against Lily’s thigh. She is certain, beyond any reasonable doubt, the message was meant for her.
I know what you did.
If only she could remember what that was.
* * *
—
The kitchen is fetid and damp. Tyler’s armpits are hot and sticky, and his head is beginning to feel the same way. The uniformed officer standing watch over Oscar Cartwright has taken the opportunity to step outside for some fresh air, and he can hear Doggett and Elliot talking together somewhere deeper in the house. Or arguing, possibly. He is alone with Oscar. He paces back and forth across the floor, somehow infected with Doggett’s perpetual-movement syndrome. It’s as though as long as he keeps moving, he won’t have to start. Because he has no idea where to start. How is this man here?
Tyler stops pacing and leans forward, placing his hands down on a gritty worktop to steady himself. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks, more to get his voice working than because he expects an answer that makes any sense.
“Bit of a coincidence?” Oscar says. Even his voice has a slight grin in it.
Tyler presses his hands down hard, feeling the grit that peppers the surface dig small abrasions into the skin of his palms. It’s a coincidence. It has to be. What else could it be?