Grey Ladies

by William Stafford

  Brough returned the smile with even less sincerity. Having deciphered the execrable dialect and translated it into English, he tried to explain to the girl who he was and what he was doing.

  The girl held up her hand to stop him.

  “I know, lover, I know. I know all about it. They filled me in in the staffroom. Not like that!” She squawked in delight at her own innuendo. “I’m agency, you see. I can’t afford to have wossnames. Qualms. I need the money, like.”

  “So you haven’t been here long, then?” Brough prompted. He may as well fill the time with something approximating professional business. “You didn’t know the, um, victims?”

  “Not to talk to, no,” the girl reflected. The badge on her lanyard read Maria Keenan. Brough thought the photo didn’t do her justice. “And they won’t be saying much now, will they?” She laughed again but this time became aware it was perhaps not appropriate. “Knew him more than her. The cook. He’s been - well, he was - here the longest. Every time the agency sent me. I kept my distance. Bring my own sandwiches, that kind of thing. I don’t want to get nobody’s backs up.”

  “Bad tempered, was he?” Brough wondered if Paul Cook the cook had been too short with someone once too often, and they had locked him in the freezer to cool down... But how did that tie in with the girl’s more spiky death in the cleaning cupboard? Were they two separate incidents after all?

  He asked the temp what she knew of Kyrie Billings.

  The temp pursed her lips as though drawing in air would kindle something in her brain. “Not a fat lot,” she conceded. “Been here a while, from what I gather. Bit young to be a supervisor, if you asks me, but there you go. Must have been good at her job.”

  “She was a supervisor?”

  The temp gave him a look. “Blimey, mate. Thought you was a detective. How did you get your job? On your knees, was it, with your mouth open?”

  It took a while for Brough to work out what she meant. He turned scarlet, which made her giggle. Brough was sensitive about his, some would say, rapid advancement through the ranks. He knew there were whisperings about Daddy pulling strings - and those were the kindest ones. Did people (i.e. that wanker Stevens) believe he had been promoted so speedily because he had sucked all the right cocks? He tried to tamp down that consideration and focus on the situation in hand.

  Had Kyrie Billings’s promotion to supervisor ticked someone off? Did they feel overlooked and unfairly treated? And hadn’t the boss - the Fogg woman - said something about the girl’s lack of aptitude?

  And how would that link in with the cook’s iceberg encounter?

  He decided to ask that p.a. - Janet? - for staff appraisals of the past few years. Perhaps some malcontent could be found lurking among those files.

  “You fit?” It was Miller in the doorway. She knew the answer to her own question: David Brough was exceedingly fit, in her estimation, but, alas, never to be hers.

  Brough got to his feet. His smirk had returned.

  “Hey up, you’ve pulled!” the temp nudged his arm. He blushed again. He hurried away from the girl and out along the corridor, leaving Miller and the temp to share a grimace that communicated their continuing exasperation with the male gender.

  One of the old ladies nudged the other. “Your daughter’s here!” But long before the woman could be roused from her dozing, the round-faced woman in the raincoat was gone.

  ***

  Miller’s quick pace and set expression could have told anyone who wasn’t even a detective that she wasn’t in the mood to be made fun of. Brough either neglected to see those signs or he chose wilfully to ignore them. He chased the D S back to her car, hurling remarks about old ones being the best and you’re only as old as the one you feel, and other unoriginal remarks.

  She sat fuming in the driving seat while he tapped on the passenger side window for her to let him in. She pressed a switch and the glass slid down into a groove in the door. Just a little.

  “Don’t you say a word,” she warned.

  Brough held up his hands in a display of innocence and dipped his head in apology. Miller unlocked the door. Brough got in and fastened his seatbelt. Miller kept her gaze directly ahead.

  Silent minutes passed.

  Then she glanced at Brough, who glanced back.

  And they both burst out laughing and laughed until it hurt.

  Noisy minutes passed.

  When they had calmed down, Brough filled her in with the thoughts he’d had in the common room. Miller listened, nodding slowly.

  “Something else to share with the wankers,” she concluded. She started the engine.

  “And how’s your mother?” Brough tried to sound as sensitive as possible. “I mean, after her spot of how’s your father?”

  This got them laughing again. As they joined the heavy traffic that skirted around Dedley town centre as if it was a forbidden zone, she told him what had happened.

  ***

  Miller had knocked before entering. Her mother was sitting up on the bed but not in it. She was fully dressed and had a dressing gown over her day clothes. One care worker was making tea and another was patting Sandra’s liver-spotted hand. Both girls had an air of suppressed amusement about them.

  Miller flashed her i.d. That got rid of them.

  Alone with her mum, Miller perched on the edge of the bed and took up the hand the care worker had dropped. Then she thought about where that hand might have been just recently and gently placed it on her mother’s lap.

  “Are you all right, Mum?” she asked.

  “You’ll have to ask Mel,” said Sandra. “She’ll be here in a bit.”

  “It’s me, Mum; I’m Mel,” Miller tried to make eye contact. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Oh, Mel!” Sandra looked at her daughter for the first time. “I am mortified! That poor man. Whatever must he think of me?”

  “Um...” Miller grimaced uncomfortably. “Not much, probably. He’s dead, Mum.”

  “Who is?”

  “The man, Mum. Harold.”

  Sandra searched what passed for a filing system in her mind. The light of realisation washed over her and was quickly clouded over by regret. “Oh, him!” She squirmed with embarrassment. “Oh, Mel! I’m so ashamed. It’s been such a while since I had my chimney cleaned. I didn’t mean to kill the sweep. You’ve come to arrest me, haven’t you? I’ve murdered a man with my old fanny. Not bad considering my age. You’d think it would have lost the thread, wouldn’t you? You were a big baby.”

  It was Miller’s turn to squirm with embarrassment. “Nobody’s going to arrest you, Mum.”

  “I mean,” Sandra was on a roll now, “there was probably so many cobwebs down there, he must have thought my virginity had grown back.” She screeched and then clamped a hand to her mouth. “I shouldn’t be laughing, should I, love? But you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? Oh, I’m so relieved I can talk to you. I couldn’t say these things in front of my daughter.”

  Miller decided against trying to un-confuse the scurrilous old woman and adopted a more professional demeanour.

  “Can you tell me what happened? From the beginning, I mean.”

  “Yes, Officer,” Sandra adopted a more sober demeanour. “He was a lovely man. This is Harold I’m talking about, dear. Attentive. Ever so kind. Made a lovely cup of tea. Oh, I could tell what he was after. I’m not as green as I’m cabbage-smelling, I’ll have you know. I’ve been around a few blocks in my time. Before I met my Eddie, this was, of course.

  “Any road, he - Harold, this is - started sniffing around. He was probably lonely, I expect. We all are in here. And, well, I liked the attention. The things he said! Some of ‘em unrepeatable but most of ‘em ever so lovely. Haven’t had a man speak to me like that for a long time. So of course I was bit flattered. I mean, I took it
all with a pinch of salt, but it brightened my day up no end. And, like I say, I knew what he was after so I thought, well, why not? Why not give him what he wants?

  “So we slipped away, while the rest was playing bingo - I say playing but most of ‘em just sits there staring and farting and pissing their pants. We come in here and we drew the curtains and we puts the radio on. At first he can only find the traffic report. I mean, we’re not as young as we was. Can’t be going at it in time to a helicopter. Well, at last he finds some music, some proper music like, not like them shouty poems those men do. You know the ones, those men who dress like big children and wear too much jewellery. Anyway, Harold finds some Rita Coolidge or somebody and he starts, ever so slowly, to do a strip tease. Oh, it was comical. Off came his tie and he never takes his tie off and there he was thrashing it about like he was trying to kill a snake. And he unbuttons his shirt, cuffs first, like, then the collar. Oh, I was laughing my head off by this point. It was funny, like, but also bloody sexy. I like a man with a sense of humour.

  “Well, I kicks off my slippers and undoes my cardigan and I lies back on the bed. He’s fumbling with his trousers so I try to help him and he’s lifting up my dress and we’re laughing ‘cause we’re like bloomin’ teenagers, and he pulls my dress up and it’s over my head, and I’m laughing as he climbs on top and he’s pushing away down below, like, and then... bosher! He’s flat on his face on top of me and I think he can’t be finished, can he? And he’s not answering me and I’m trying to shove him off me and the dress is still all up on my face and I begins to panic a bit.

  “Well, I manages to wriggle out from under him and get my face free and I can tell what’s happened right away. The look on his face. Sort of pleasantly surprised while concentrating. I suppose you’d have to have been there.

  “Well, I presses the red button for help. When I’ve adjusted myself like. But they knew what we’d been up to. He was still hanging out of his trousers you see, proud as Punch.”

  During this monologue, a range of conflicting emotions coursed through D S Miller. Repulsion, amusement, scandal... But all of these were overridden by the feeling that she had let her mother down, bringing her to this place. On the face of it, Sandra Miller didn’t seem to be adversely affected by this ‘romantic’ episode but even so... Melanie Miller wondered if she had done the right thing.

  Not the ‘right’ thing. The only thing! There had been no alternative. She couldn’t cope with her mother at home and work at the same time. Even if she chucked in her career, she wasn’t capable of being a full-time carer. The home had been the only viable option. And it had felt like such a relief to find it, and to find it had space, and all right, so the fees were just a bit exorbitant, she had worked out a way to cover them for many years to come - if the sale of the family home ever went through!

  She found her mother was patting her hand.

  “Don’t chew your lips like that, Mel,” the old woman admonished. “The boys won’t want to kiss your scabs.”

  Mel got to her feet and kissed her mother on the forehead. It was probably untouched by Harold.

  “I’ve got to go, Mum,” she said softly. “But I’ll be back.”

  “Will you come with me, love?” A pleading look came to Sandra’s eye. And a tear.

  “Come where?”

  “To say goodbye to Harold. The funeral.”

  “Course I will.” Miller kissed her mother’s brow again and headed for the door.

  “Oh and if you see Mel will you ask her and all?”

  “Of course, madam.”

  ***

  “Funeral?” said Brough, pulling a face. They were pulling into the car-park at Regional HQ.

  “Yes, people do have them, you know,” Miller snapped, “It’s when you put dead people in the ground.”

  “Funny,” Brough sneered. “But I don’t think there’ll be a funeral for a while. Not until the death is fully investigated.”

  “But it - it was natural causes?”

  “Probably. But not for the likes of us to say. The old sod croaked at the scene of two nasty homicides. We can’t afford to overlook any line of inquiry.”

  Miller nodded. Brough undid his seatbelt but when he tried to open the door, the lock thunked into place.

  “Miller?”

  “Please, sir,” her round face was looking at him with a concerned frown, “this business about sharing everything with the team...”

  Brough nodded. He assured her that her mother’s identity would be protected if only to spare Miller’s blushes.

  Miller didn’t know if she could trust him but she unlocked the car.

  9.

  Maria the temp looked at her watch. Then she consulted her phone and finally the large clock in the common room. Its loud ticking was supposed to be a calming influence but to Maria it seemed like cruelty, counting out the remainder of the residents’ lives, second by second. Why not go the whole hog and have a giant egg timer in the middle of the room?

  The timepieces agreed. She had only fifteen minutes to go before her shift was over. She bustled around the common room, gathering emptied and forgotten coffee cups, plates and so on, piling them on a tray. The common room had a small kitchenette attached so that the care workers could keep the tea and coffee flowing without having to go down to disturb Paul the cook.

  Poor bleeder.

  She tidied magazines and returned books to the shelves. Another consultation of the clock, her watch and the phone. Ten minutes.

  She supposed she could swill those cups out and leave them to drain. And then by the time she’d got her coat from the staff room and made her way downstairs, it would be knocking off time.

  Sorted.

  She put the plug in the stainless steel basin and ran the tap. A squirt like a wet fart shot thick yellow washing up liquid into the rising water. Bubbles appeared instantly and the scent of lemon rose to her nose.

  Singing to herself, Maria reached for the first cup and rinsed it under the running water before dunking it in the water and rinsing it off again. After a couple of minutes, the draining board was home to several cups and saucers - is it only old people who use saucers these days, she wondered? - and Maria was about to check the time again when she was surprised to find the tip of a carving knife appear from her stomach.

  What the -?

  She hadn’t time to scream or even to think what was happening to her. Her legs collapsed beneath her and she banged her chin on the edge of the sink as she went down, biting her tongue in half.

  She was dead seconds after she hit the carpet tiles, her eyes staring emptily at the fluorescent tube lighting. Beneath her a puddle of blood began to spread into a pool. Water overflowing from the sink mingled with this crimson tide. The kitchenette was soon flooded.

  It was some time before the body of Maria Keenan was discovered. The agency had failed to send someone for the evening shift. In her office below the kitchenette, Pamela Fogg was barking at someone on the phone. She hung up. Surely there must be another agency she could use. She was fed up of those useless bastards. She looked at the staff rota yet again. Perhaps she could ask the Keenan girl to do another couple of hours. She seemed competent enough and not entirely unpleasant.

  A drop of water hit the rota on Fogg’s desk with a splat. Fogg brushed it away, absent-mindedly, and then another drop fell. Puzzled, Fogg looked up. The water was dripping from the ceiling. The paint was wet and staining.

  What on Earth...?

  Fogg got to her feet and pushed her chair from the desk, keeping her eyes on the steady drops of dirty water that were coming down with increasing frequency. The water pitter-pattered on her paperwork, turning it pink.

  What the fuck?

  Fogg’s mind raced. Some absolute shit-arse had left a tap running upstairs. For fuck’s sake. If it was that agency
girl, Fogg would have her guts for - She tore from her office and hurried up the stairs. If indeed it turned out that the agency girl was responsible, she would make sure the useless bastards paid for the damages. In court if need be.

  She dashed across the common room to the kitchenette. Sure enough, the tap was running and the plug was in. Fogg reached for the tap but her foot struck the head of the late agency worker. Blood from her bitten tongue spattered on Pam Fogg’s shin.

  Pam Fogg screamed.

  ***

  Stevens and Woodcock were waiting at the main entrance of Regional HQ. Like encountering bullies when you get to the school gate, thought Brough.

  Stevens made some kind of circling motion with his finger. When this failed to convey his message, he put it into words.

  “You two can turn around and go back where you come from,” he snarled. The puzzled looks on their faces prompted him to elucidate. “There’s been another one.”

  “Another murder,” added Woodcock, looking at Miller. “At the home.”

  “Christ,” said Brough.

  “Race you there!” said Stevens, jangling his car keys. He sprinted away. “Come on, Woodcock!” he urged.

  “Come on, Miller,” Brough urged his own D S.

  Woodcock and Miller rolled their eyes. What was that? Miller wondered. A moment?

  “I suppose we better...” Woodcock smiled.

  “We better had,” Miller agreed. They hurried to the car park together in a companionable silence.

  ***

  It was very late when Brough got home. He had thought about asking Pam Fogg if she had any spare rooms at the home. He might as well move in given the amount of time he was spending there.

  So tired. He grunted goodnight to Miller and stood in the street, not watching her drive off but too tired to move off. It felt like he was a sack of coal or something and he had to drag himself up the path to the front door to his flat. So tired. So ti-

  He paused, mid-trudge. He had that unmistakable feeling of being watched. A shiver ran down his spine and he turned around.