Grey Ladies

by William Stafford

  “The children?”

  Mrs Billings laughed, a rasping cackle that exposed the pink vacancy of her gums. “They’m not all mine, chicken!” The idea seemed to tickle her. “I just takes them in. Lots of the neighbours, um, work nights, you might say.” Her expression darkened. “But Kyrie was mine. She was the best of ‘em. She loved that job. She went all the way to Halesowen to learn how to do it. Got certificates in it and everything. Barry blames her. I know he does. Says this is what education gets you. By that reckoning, that bastard’ll live forever.” She laughed again, but not as heartily. She cast a guilty look at the door.

  “Is there anything you can tell us, Mrs, um, Stibbons?” Brough produced a business card from his wallet.

  “Billings,” the shrivelled woman corrected him. “Barry’s not the marrying kind.”

  “Hmm,” said Miller, “there’s a lot of them about.”

  Brough handed Mrs Billings the card. She held it like an alien object, peering at it as though expecting it to do something.

  “You think of anything, you can call me directly on that number.”

  Mrs Billings looked at the card as if she had been told that it was the telephone.

  Brough moved away. Miller hung back.

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” she said quietly.

  Mrs Billings nodded. She waited on the doorstep until the cops had driven away.

  ***

  Brough rubbed his eyes. Before him on the desk were the notes he had made so far. They didn’t amount to a foothill of beans. Not yet. He rubbed his eyes again. It was late. Later than he’d anticipated.

  The station was quiet - but then it invariably was, these days. Since its decommission as a charging station it was little more than a staff room for the community police - the hobby bobbies - a place for them to meet, get briefed and exchange their civilian anoraks for Day-Glo jackets. Brough had held onto the key to this office. He liked having a place of his own, away from the hubbub of the snazzy centralised cop shop a couple of miles down the road - the very same all-singing, all-dancing cop shop that housed the arrogant Serious Crimes Department. They could fuck off. Brough was keen to keep as much distance as possible between himself and that lot. Wankers. And that Stevens was the worst.

  Grrr.

  It was tiredness that was aggravating this bad mood. He was too tired now to do any clear thinking on the Billings case. Time for home and bed. Meaning sleep.

  He looked again at his mobile. The screen listed three missed calls from Alastair and a string of text messages, inviting him over. Any time. Let yourself in.

  Brough cleared the screen. I just want to sleep tonight, he muttered. He knew that if he sent a message it would trigger a response and perhaps a heated exchange. No time for that and his mood was too low to be anything but snappy with his boyfriend.

  Boyfriend. Brough was uncomfortable with the term - along with everything else.

  There had to be a different word, a better word -

  Movement in the corridor arrested his attention.

  Suddenly alert, Brough crossed to the door. Slowly he reached for the door handle and then suddenly yanked the door open.

  There was no one there.

  Over tired.

  He got his coat and things together and made his way downstairs.

  “Night, Inspector,” the duty officer manning the reception tipped him a salute. Brough nodded in reply. He toyed with the idea of a taxi back to his rented flat.

  Fuck it. He’d walk. He needed the exercise. It had been a few weeks since he’d been running with Alastair. He didn’t want to be dumped for getting flabby.

  In fact, Brough considered, I don’t want to be dumped at all.

  ***

  The walk took Brough through Dedley town centre and about a mile to the south. The marketplace was deserted - even by the ubiquitous pigeons. Brough walked quickly, his back straight. The town wasn’t threatening at two a.m. - the lights blaring from the shop windows helped with that, he supposed, even though they were a waste of money and resources. It was a particular bugbear of his and, one of these days, he would contact the shop managers and their head offices if need be. And then there were the shops that were empty, their windows boarded up, providing patches of darkness among the glare. What a rundown -

  A shape flickered at the town’s central (disused) fountain, interrupting his thoughts. Brough came to a halt. He would have to pass the thing, grey with age, and green with neglect, on one side or the other. A shadow suddenly reached out along the brickwork of the pedestrianized High Street, seeming to reach out towards him. Brough gasped. The events of last year had made him prey to his own imagination and to tricks of the light.

  That’s what it was: a trick of the light. A lamp post beyond the fountain was buzzing and humming as its bulb flared up and faded. An electrical fault! Brough swore. His invective was directed at himself for being so bloody foolish.

  He jutted his chin and marched resolutely past the fountain, keeping it in the corner of his eye. The bulbous-headed dolphins and lions around the sides, the rampant horses waving their forelegs at the top and - and - a woman, fashioned from the same grey stone, standing proud, holding a spear. Britannia or Boudicca or even bloody Xena the Warrior Princess for all he knew. Brough willed himself not to look back. As the High Street rose, leading up to the church at the top of the hill, Brough picked up the pace. Don’t be a fool, he told himself repeatedly. Don’t be a bloody fool. That shape in his peripheral vision as he had passed one of the shop windows that was not boarded up - that shape had probably been a mannequin. Or a homeless.

  It had most definitely not been a woman in grey.

  ***

  Two hours later, Brough woke from uneasy sleep to the sound of the theme from The X Files. Alastair. Brough had neglected to switch the phone to silent before turning in.

  “Hurggh,” he grunted.

  “Ooh!” Alastair laughed. “You’re out of breath! Catch you out, did I?”

  Brough cleared his throat. “No!” he protested and found he was blushing even though he was in the dark and alone. “I was asleep.”

  “Sounds like it!”

  “Bit of a bad dream. Anyway, what do you want?”

  “Bit abrupt! Just checking you’re okay.”

  Brough bit his lip. Alastair’s voice had taken that brittle tone Brough invariably engendered. “I’m okay; I’m sorry.”

  A moment of silence.

  “Are you sleepy?” Alastair ventured.

  “Not anymore,” Brough admitted. “Not your fault!” he added quickly.

  “Do you want to be?”

  “Do I want to be what?”

  “Sleepy. Because I can help with that.”

  “Oh, can you now?”

  “If you’ll let me.”

  “Do your worst.”

  Brough’s hand slipped beneath the elastic waistband of his boxers and he listened and responded as Alastair described in minute detail what they would be doing if they were sharing a bed.

  ***

  Across town, Barry Stibbons was also wide awake. An apnoea meant he rarely slept in comfort, propped up into an almost sitting position by a mountain of pillows. But on this night something else was keeping him awake. With a soundtrack provided by his heavy breathing, he replayed his final conversation with his stepdaughter, while beside him, lying on the edge of the bed like a seagull’s nest on a cliff, Mrs Billings fantasised about stifling those rasping breaths once and for all.

  Conversation was perhaps the wrong word. Exchange of differences was probably more accurate, Stibbons reflected. He had gone to the girl’s work - she hated that. People showing up. Perhaps it was just him she didn’t like, dropping by, asking for money. She had money; he knew she did. She was in work, for fuck’s s
ake. She was better off than the rest of the family put together. And it wasn’t like he’d wanted a handout. He had his pride. It was a sub, a loan. For an indeterminate length of time. The girl wouldn’t hear him out. She didn’t give a fig, she said, for his dead certs at Chepstow. She had to get back indoors. He shouldn’t have come. He should be looking for work so he could treat her mother to something nice once in a while. He should -

  Barry Stibbons snorted angrily as he recalled the look of contempt in the girl’s eyes. Telling him what he should and shouldn’t be doing! Who the fuck did she think she was?

  He calmed his rankled mood with thoughts of her final pay packet. How much had she got coming? Perhaps he should go down to her work and claim it. Perhaps Frank in the betting shop would have a tip for him.

  Feeling better, he reached behind himself to plump the topmost pillow. This activity caused a sudden jolt to the mattress. Mrs Billings bounced clean off the bed.

  ***

  Over at the Dorothy Beaumont Rest Home, Janet Griffiths was turning up early for the day’s work. It was Wednesday morning and that meant Paul’s day off. Which meant extra work for Janet Griffiths. Getting the plates from the refrigerator, supervising the girls (tantamount to doing everything her bloody self) in the warming up of the meals... She had asked Pam over and over to get a part-time cook in, or even someone from the agency just to cover on Wednesdays but that suggestion always met with chilling disdain.

  Janet locked her car and made her way to the rear of the building and the staff entrance that led to the kitchen. She pressed the code into the key pad and shoved the door open with her shoulder. Her elbow nudged the light switch and the kitchen suddenly sprang out of the darkness. Janet filled the empty air with some aimless, wordless singing as she wriggled out of her overcoat and hung it up.

  She washed her hands and, first things first, put the kettle on. While it boiled she selected an overall from the back of a door and tucked her mousy brown bob into a hairnet. It wasn’t strictly necessary - and Janet knew all about the health and hygiene requirements - but it helped her feel as though she was doing the job properly. Even if that job was merely removing pre-prepared plates of kedgeree and trays of bacon and beans from the walk-in refrigerator.

  She poured water into a mug and dangled a teabag in it with the absent-minded pleasure of a child drowning a mouse. The shapeless tune came again as she yanked open the fridge door, and sniffed at an open carton. She shoved the door shut with her bum and added a small splash of milk to her tea. A couple of drops went astray. Oops. Paul would skin her alive if he caught her making such a mess of his lovely kitchen.

  Bother Paul.

  And bother Pam for not getting an agency cook in. Every week Janet wondered what would happen if she didn’t make the effort. The residents would go without their breakfasts, that was one thing. There’d be chaos and confusion and pandemonium and all sorts. It was a shame what had happened to that girl. That lovely young girl. But life goes on - not for much longer in the case of some of the residents, but they still needed looking after even though that poor wench had come a cropper.

  She shuddered as though to dispel these thoughts. Best to keep busy, Janet, she told herself.

  With the weary martyrdom of someone who secretly enjoys being taken for granted, Janet left her tea to cool and decided to make a start on sorting the plates.

  She unlocked the walk-in and pulled the thickset door open wide. Her screams could be heard up on the third floor.

  3.

  Brough was in the shower when the call came. He hated having to rush and was never sure he had got all the conditioner from his hair. There was no time for any styling product. And he hated the damp feeling of shirt against poorly dried back. And the way his legs itched beneath his trousers.

  Not a great start to the day.

  But, he supposed, the day had started out much worse for others. That mousy p.a. for example. Not forgetting the poor bugger in the fridge. The cook, it was reckoned but as yet unconfirmed.

  By the time he’d locked the flat, the car was outside waiting.

  “Morning!” Miller trilled, her round face pink and devoid of her usual orange mask.

  Brough grunted and fastened his seatbelt.

  “You’ve got something...” Miller pointed at his right ear. His finger found an errant blob of shaving gel.

  ***

  Pamela Fogg seemed extra snitty that morning. She answered the detectives’ questions impatiently as though she had something more important she was keen to be getting on with.

  “And Mister um, Davies’s car...”

  Ms Fogg looked at the female detective as if she were a simpleton. “He walked to work. Local chap. Lives half a mile away. Lived.”

  “CCTV?” the male detective asked. He seemed preoccupied with cleaning his earhole. Ms Fogg’s nose wrinkled in distaste.

  “As I explained to your colleagues yesterday, Inspector Brough,” her chest rose, filling with the sigh she would shortly be releasing, “We have minimal, um, coverage here. Outdoors mainly, to deter prowlers and whatnot. The kitchen and some of the communal areas. We don’t spy on people here, Inspector. Our residents enjoy their privacy and we trust our staff.”

  “But any recordings you may have...”

  “Already taken, Inspector. A Detective, um, Stevens telephoned. Said you’d neglected to request them yesterday.”

  Brough reddened. The mere mention of that wanker Stevens was enough to make his piss boil, but the suggestion that the wanker had a point was intolerable.

  And that simpering woman was now looking at him with a patronising pout!

  He glared at Miller until she returned her gaze to her notebook.

  “Quite,” he said. “My underling will review the footage and alert me if there’s anything of significance.”

  Miller’s mouth twisted upwards. She was amused to hear Stevens referred to as an underling.

  “Detectives, you have taken a statement from my poor assistant. I’m going to have to send her home. Which makes things very difficult for me. We are run off our feet at the best of times and now - with Kyrie and Paul - well, I need to get onto the agency right away. This is terribly inconvenient.”

  “I’m sure the victims and their families know all about inconvenience, Mrs um...”

  “Ms!” Pamela Fogg insisted. “Yes, well. My residents require round-the-clock care. That doesn’t stop because there’s been a crime.”

  “A crime? Why do you put it like that?”

  “Surely, Paul, um...”

  “Cook,” Ms Fogg supplied. When Brough frowned, she explained. “His name was Cook and he was a cook. It’s like something out of a child’s deck of playing cards, I know, but there you go.”

  “And Mr Cook the cook... it was an accident? Got himself shut in... Improbable,” Brough scoffed, “but not impossible. We’ll let forensics finish up before we know for sure. But on the face of it, Ms Fogg, we’re looking at a double homicide.”

  “Oh?” Pamela Fogg’s artfully drawn eyebrows expressed her surprise. “Who would possibly want to hurt dear Paul?”

  ***

  Miller started the engine but awaited instructions. Brough was inspecting his ears in the mirror on the back of the pull-down flap at the top of the windscreen.

  “Did you notice how surprised she was that the cook was murdered but not the girl?”

  “Um...” Brough pulled up his trouser leg. Miller watched him scratch his hairy shin.

  She forced herself to look away.

  “What now?”

  Brough pointed his finger at the road beyond the car’s bonnet.

  “The wankers,” he said.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, they were in the shiny building that housed Regional HQ. While Brough was giving Stevens a p
iece of his mind, Miller sought out the technician who had been so helpful in the past.

  “I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of my case.” Brough repeated. “If I want you Serious wankers to help, I’ll ask.”

  Behind his desk, looking more relaxed than castigated, Stevens chewed his 1970s moustache in amusement.

  “When you’ve quite finished...” he crossed the feet he had up on his desk. “You know and I know you need our resources before you can do diddly squat. I’m sick of doing you favours, you jumped-up little grass. We kept out of your last big case and where did that get you? Bloody nowhere, that’s where.”

  Brough was taken aback by this counterattack. “Um, a conviction was made. We got the bastard.”

  “I’m not convinced he was responsible for the lot -”

  “Leave it!” Brough roared. It was his turn to surprise Stevens with sudden fury. “That case is closed.”

  Stevens regarded the smaller man, noting the redness of his face, the heaving of his chest, the determined set of his jaw. A nerve had been touched.

  A moment passed. Stevens swung his feet to the floor and sat up straight. He made an expansive gesture towards the papers that covered his desk.

  “I haven’t the time to go digging through old cases,” he said. “Got enough on my plate here with this little lot. But we’re a team here, Davey boy. One big happy family. You share what’s on my plate and I’ll have a bit of what’s on yours.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Stevens laughed. He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Ho, ho! Davey’s got his knickers in a twist!”

  “It’s David,” Brough snarled. “But you can call me Detective Inspector Brough. On second thought, don’t call me at all.”

  He flounced from the office, pulling the door behind him with a satisfying slam.

  Stevens chuckled. He put his feet back on the desk.

  ***

  Miller was waiting for him in the corridor. He stormed right past her until they were well away from Stevens’s door.

  “Did you get them?”

  Miller showed him the edges of two shiny DVDs in her jacket pocket.