Firewatching

by Russ Thomas

  But she also spots him. He sees her glance him up and down as he gets to his feet. She comes straight toward him, clearly not doubting for a moment that she has the right man. First Wentworth in the churchyard, now her; perhaps he has the word cop written across his forehead. Perhaps it was there the night he met Oscar.

  The way Denham holds herself, she looks as though she’s heading into battle in the courtroom. “Detective Sergeant Tyler,” she says, not bothering with the question.

  He holds out his hand and warrant card. “I’m DS Tyler. This is Constable Rabbani.”

  Denham takes the warrant card from him and examines it closely. Then she does the same with Rabbani’s. The gesture reminds him of Edna Burnside checking for bogus gasmen. “Can I get you a drink?” he offers.

  She sits, tucking her satchel very precisely under her chair. “I’ll have a green tea, please. And a banana.” She stares at him, the banana clearly some sort of challenge.

  He goes to fetch her order, using the queuing time as an opportunity to examine her more closely. She sits perfectly still and upright. Rabbani tries her best to make conversation, but Sophie Denham shuts her down each time with the barest of smiles. She seems out of place here, surrounded by partying students whose motivations for attending university differ widely from her own. But she’s unembarrassed about it. He struggles to work out how the chaotic Oscar might fit into this tidy, focused life.

  When he returns she seems to have softened a little. “Thanks,” she says. Perhaps the banana did the trick. By contrast Rabbani looks ready to take the girl down and restrain her. He doesn’t know what was said but it’s clear Denham got the upper hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, “I don’t have very long.”

  “This shouldn’t take long.”

  She eats the banana in small bite-sized chunks, breaking them off with fingernails neither long nor short, coated in clear nail polish. “To be honest, I don’t really know what I can tell you.”

  “We’re speaking to as many people as we can who are involved with the case.” He watches her chew; everything about her is so measured and precise. “You were at school with Oscar Cartwright, is that right?”

  “Childhood sweethearts,” she says. She laughs but it sounds a little forced. “All very romantic. There was a group of us used to hang out together, usually up at the vicarage; there was always something to do there. Oscar used to have this enormous treehouse, and there was always the chance Edna or Lil had been baking. We got to do pretty much what we wanted, no parents to tell us off.” She laughs again. “It was a teenager’s dream house.” Then the laugh fades away. “I only met Gerald a couple of times. He was hardly ever there.” She’s a little too quick to distance herself from Cartwright.

  She takes a sip of tea, and he gets the impression there’s something else. Something she wants to tell him. Then a thought occurs to her and her face changes. “Is Oscar a suspect?” she asks, appraising him with the professional cynicism of a hardened defense attorney.

  “Just routine,” he says. “How is he taking all this?”

  She answers slowly, obviously working out the best way to phrase her response. “He’s doing well. Considering.” She falters, perhaps worried she’s made Oscar sound too cool about the situation. “I mean, he’s not great, obviously.” Now she blushes; she’ll have to learn to control that when she goes to court. “I haven’t seen that much of him lately, to be honest. Apart from last night.”

  Last night. The words clatter around his head. She was with him as recently as last night.

  “Is that unusual?” Rabbani asks.

  Sophie Denham answers without looking at her, still talking to Tyler. “We don’t live together or anything. I’m in a student house, and Oscar has his own place in town. He stays over sometimes.”

  “I see,” he says. And he thinks he does. He sees them together, this perfect couple with their perfectly skinny waists and perfectly coiffured hair. He sees Oscar’s thick lips pressed against her pale breasts.

  She misinterprets his silence. “We’re not one of those couples who have to be in each other’s pockets all the time.”

  “But you saw him last night?”

  She nods. “We had dinner. He stayed all night.”

  She sounds as though she’s providing Oscar with an alibi, but he can’t think of a reason why Oscar would need one for last night.

  Rabbani takes over again. “How long have you been seeing each other?”

  “I thought I just said, we were at school together.” Her voice is so much cooler when talking to Rabbani. He wonders at first if it’s a race thing. If it is, he’ll find a reason to take her in.

  “You’ve been dating all that time?” Rabbani’s voice is cool as well. What was said while he was away? Not a race thing; a woman thing then?

  “It’s complicated,” Denham says. “And personal.” She puts down her cup. A little of the pale tea spills onto the table. Tyler passes her a napkin. She mops at the spillage, caught between the invasiveness of Rabbani’s questioning and the small kindness of his gesture. Good cop, bad cop. Perhaps they make a good team.

  Denham lets out a small sigh. “Oscar’s a bit of a free spirit,” she says, still talking to him rather than Rabbani. “He comes and goes.” She hesitates for the briefest moment. “I know he sees other women. That’s fine. I have my studies anyway.” She blushes again, recognizing how all this must sound to them. “It works for us,” she adds defiantly. He suddenly sees her vulnerability; she’s a child playing at an adult relationship. She knows what Oscar gets up to, but she chooses to ignore it. She’s convinced herself this is what she wants as well. He corrects the thought: she knows some of what Oscar gets up to.

  His mobile rings. He glances at the screen as it flashes the identity of the caller at him. He has the number stored in his phone only because he thought to copy it from a witness statement last night. Just in case. He should hit the call-cancel button. That would be the sensible thing to do. Instead he excuses himself, stands, and looks directly into Sophie Denham’s bright eyes. He smiles at her and leaves the table, answering the phone as he wanders to the window. “DS Tyler.”

  “Hi,” Oscar says. “It’s me.”

  “I know.” He looks out at the grassy bank where the students lie cradling their pints. Another perfect couple is lying together on the grass, hands and mouths all over each other. “You have a girlfriend.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out like that, like an accusation.

  Oscar doesn’t answer straightaway. “Soph?” he says finally. “Well, it’s not really like that.”

  Tyler glances back to the table. Sophie Denham is finding it hard to look anything other than imperious, while Rabbani makes no attempt to hide her disdain. If he doesn’t get back soon someone’s going to say something they’ll regret. A man in a tailored gray suit is approaching the table.

  Oscar’s voice whispers at him from the phone. “I need to see you. I can explain. Can we meet?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Please, Adam. It’s important.”

  He remembers he has something important he needs to tell Oscar as well, the fact they’ve identified the body as belonging to his father. He still has a job to do. The man in the gray suit is arguing with Rabbani. She’s holding her own but because he’s standing over her the man has the advantage. His body language is intimidating and aggressive. He wills Rabbani to stand up. “Fine. The Red Deer. Six.” Neutral territory. He hangs up before Oscar can say anything else.

  Rabbani is up now, and Sophie Denham seems both pleased at her discomfort and mortified at the scene they’re creating in the coffee shop. As he arrives back at the table, he catches the tail end of Rabbani’s attempt to calm the situation down—“. . . only a few questions.”

  “All future questions can come through me,” says the man in the suit.


  “I’m DS Tyler.” He inserts his warrant card into the conversation by way of an opening salvo. “You are?”

  The man squares his chest, but the effect is that of a puffer fish, or an elephant raising its ears and making a mock charge. It’s all show. He’s significantly shorter than Tyler and is forced to look up at him, squinting through thick-glassed spectacles. “I’m Michael Denham,” he says. “I’m Sophie’s father and her legal representative.”

  “It’s all right, Dad, they’re just asking about Gerald.”

  “It’s not all right,” he snaps back. “And frankly you should know better.” He turns back to Tyler. “If you wish to speak to Sophie, you can do so in my presence. Do I make myself clear?”

  Tyler holds eye contact with the man and counts to five, drawing out the tension. When he speaks it’s calmly and quietly. “You’ve made yourself very clear, Mr. Denham. I’ve no objection to you joining us. In fact, I have some questions I’d like to ask you as well.”

  “Then you’ll need to make an appointment with my secretary.” He bustles his daughter up out of her chair. Rabbani steps forward to stop him but Tyler waves her off. She bites back whatever she was about to say. Sophie gives him an embarrassed smile and allows her father to drag her away from them, out of the coffee shop into the corridor.

  “Arsehole,” Rabbani whispers through gritted teeth.

  “Wasn’t he, though?”

  “Actually, I meant her, sir.”

  He watches the two Denhams arguing outside. It isn’t an equal battle by any means. When they say their goodbyes there’s no fatherly kiss, just more remonstrations. Sophie looks defeated. Tyler changes his mind; she’s going to make a terrible solicitor.

  He wonders how her father knew about this meeting. Sophie obviously didn’t tell him. But she might have told someone. A boyfriend, perhaps? The phone call from Oscar certainly made for a timely distraction. He watches her neat, organized body move away down the corridor. She takes out her own mobile, and he’s fairly confident he knows who she’s calling. But there’s another question, and that is how, exactly, Oscar managed to get his number. Tyler’s far less certain of the answer to that.

  * * *

  —

  Lily has realized something. It could be any of them.

  Her visit to the village yesterday has unsettled her, but equally it has awakened something. The need to know. If she can find the person who wrote them, perhaps she can find out what they mean, and all without involving Edna.

  She waits in the kitchen for much of the morning until she hears the clink of the gate and then dives through the back door and is across the yard before Her-Next-Door has even made it all the way through. Lily thanks her, taking the newspaper and ushering her back the way she has come.

  “Anyway, I can’t stop,” she says breathlessly. “She’s not good this morning. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Thank you.”

  Her-Next-Door seems a little put out but nevertheless beats a slow retreat back to her own garden. Lily waits for a moment, then lifts the lid of the dustbin and buries the paper below a layer of potato peelings. She returns to the house.

  “Lillian! Lillian!”

  “Yes, all right, I’m here.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Lily explains the problem. Her-Next-Door hasn’t been able to get to the village this morning, some problem with her hip or some such.

  “Her hip? The woman’s got more hip than anything else as far as I can make out. You think she could have managed.”

  Well, it doesn’t matter, Lily will go instead. It’s really no bother. Is there anything else they need while she’s out?

  It’s clear from the furrowed brow Edna is searching for some further reason to object, but her unwillingness to forgo her crossword clearly wins out. “Just don’t be too long.”

  Fifteen minutes later Lily is crossing the churchyard and thinking hard. Now that she is out, she realizes she doesn’t really have much of a plan. She’s fairly certain there won’t be another letter today. It’s a risk, certainly, but there were several days between the first and second letter, so it seems reasonable to assume at least a couple of days before the next. She has little doubt there will be a next letter. Part of her is almost looking forward to it. A chance to find out more, a chance for the perpetrator to give himself away. Or herself; she supposes it is just as likely a woman could be responsible.

  But she refuses to sit around and wait for it. In the meantime she can investigate further. She goes back over her conversation with Michael Denham. He seemed to be hinting at something. Or was that just her imagination? And then in the butcher’s. Carol gossiping about Gerald and the Old Vicarage. But then, Carol was always a gossip; that hardly counts as displaying unusual behavior. Perhaps, if she talks to enough people, if she shakes things up a bit, she can force this would-be blackmailer’s hand. Perhaps they will give themselves away in some other fashion.

  She sees him before he sees her and only then realizes he might just be exactly who she has been looking for. He’s scratching around in the undergrowth at the base of the churchyard wall, plucking and winnowing, pulling weeds and shaking them loose of dirt before hurling them with casual abandon into his rusty old wheelbarrow. Just like Mrs. Blackbird, who plucks and tugs at the worms in the grass of Lily’s garden before chucking them into the air to catch them firmly in her greedy beak.

  Joseph Wentworth. Curiously, she feels none of the trepidation she would normally on seeing him. She has been avoiding this man for years, crossing roads and examining unwanted goods in shopwindows, taking the longer route to the post office to avoid passing the rain-spotted windows of his cottage. When they have, on occasion, bumped into each other, Lily has always taken great pains to look the other way, pretending a sudden interest in whatever is nearest rather than be forced to acknowledge the man. It has always seemed to her that he did the same. But what if she has been wrong all these years? What if this man has been to her front door, invading their lives with his typed missives demanding truth? For this reason, or maybe just because there seems little left to fear anymore, she finds herself crossing the graveyard. Her feet pass silently across the stony path.

  He looks up as she arrives and struggles to hide the surprise in his eyes.

  “Hello, Joe,” she says, and promptly runs out of anything else to say.

  For his part he merely grunts and turns back to his weeding, leaving her high and dry.

  “You’re working hard,” she says, and then, to follow it up, “and in this heat as well!”

  Again he grunts and carries on.

  Lily struggles to think of something, anything. A question, so he is forced to respond or else appear rude. “Are you going on the Whitby trip?” She stops herself from going on. She knows she has a tendency to prattle—Edna often tells her so—but she leaves him the silence, in the hope he will fill it.

  He stops working, sits back on his haunches, and sighs. He stands up slowly, using a grubby palm on his knee to lever himself upright. He isn’t as youthful as she remembers him, this “handyman” of Gerald’s. His eyes are creased and hooded, his posture a little more stooped than she remembers it. But he is still the same man. A man she had found quite attractive when she first met him. Attractive, and perhaps a little dangerous. Despite his reduced vigor he still towers over her, his recently expanded waistline now blocking her path. He looks at her for a moment, studying her.

  “How are you?” he says eventually, and she gets the sense he means it not so much the way another might, as a polite opening to conversation, but rather as a genuine inquiry into her being, her state of mind. Or perhaps . . . even as a threat?

  “Very well, thank you. This weather is quite something, isn’t it?”

  Again he just stares, blinking a little as one might at a deer startled in the forest while out walking, unsure whether to go on, to stop and watch,
or simply to back slowly away.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  She swallows and feels her face heat. “I wondered . . . if you’d heard anything . . . about the Vic—”

  Before the word is fully out of her mouth, his arm snakes out and takes hold of her wrist. “Stop,” he tells her. “There’s things don’t need to be said. I thought that was what we agreed.”

  His hand is so firm on her wrist she can feel the thin bones under her papery skin rubbing together.

  “Please, I . . .”

  He lets go just as suddenly as he grabbed her and steps away. “I don’t see no call to be raking all this up. What’s done is done.” And the words sound so much like Edna’s that Lily feels ashamed.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I thought you, of all people, would have sense enough to leave the past be.”

  “I should be getting on,” she says a little desperately, but he is already turning back to his work.

  She hurries away down the path. She wants to run, but her ancient legs will not let her. The strength in his arms . . . she had forgotten. There is a bruise already forming on her flesh that makes her wonder just what he’s capable of.

  She’s almost all the way home before she realizes, in her panic, she has forgotten to go to the paper shop. She opens the gate as quietly as possible. Inside the bin she rummages through the peelings until she finds the newspaper delivered by Her-Next-Door. She lifts it free and brushes it clean. It has a number of faint stains that Edna will no doubt comment on, but Lily thinks she can probably get away with it. She props the paper under one arm where it rests against the heart that is thudding inside her chest. Then she carefully lowers the lid of the dustbin and goes inside.