Almost Dead In Suburbia

by Douglas Pearce

  But that was the way it was. So for Sergeant Bill Williams to lose his cool it had to be something bigger than aliens or Royalty.

  PC Griffith was on the verge of blubbering, but thought better of it when she caught a glimpse of the look in her sergeant’s eyes. With hands shaking slightly she picked up the phone’s handset and dialled.

  Blimey, she thought. Never mind Ben. Right now, sarge looks more like Dirty Harry than Finch could ever hope to.

  The phone at the other end of the line began to ring.

  ‘Hello?’ A voice answered. Constable Griffith didn’t even bother to acknowledge, merely handing the phone to Bill before it was snatched out of her hand.

  ‘Mary, Bill Williams.’

  ‘Oh, hello sergeant. How are you?’ she asked, pleasantly.

  ‘Fine, fine. I’m fine. Mary, Fenwick didn’t leave you his key this morning did he?’

  ‘No, sergeant. He seemed in a bit of a rush.’

  ‘Damn. Well, I need something else from the house. Has Ernest’s lad put that pane of glass in yet?’

  ‘He was just finishing the putty when I took him a cup of tea two minutes ago. Do you need to speak to him? I can go and call him if you like?’

  ‘No, don’t fetch him, just yell through the window across the fence and tell him not to close the door. It’ll lock if he does, and I’ll have to break in again,’ Bill explained.

  Mary Robbins’ telephone was on a half-moon oak table in the hallway. The small frosted window behind it faced the Fenwick’s fence that divided their properties. If the window was open, you could just see the back garden of Ralph’s house.

  Yell, thought Mary. She did not yell, and especially not through a window at a neighbour. What did Bill Williams think she was; some fisherman’s wife?

  Bill sensed Mary hesitate. He had to think on his feet, which he usually did.

  ‘Mary Robbins, I am temporarily deputising you in the name of the law. This is serious; now open your window and yell, deputy.’

  This is what happens when you spend too much time in the company of Ben Finch, he realised. Damn cowboys!

  Mary opened the window and yelled.

  ‘Rodney! The police are on the phone.’ It was a high-pitched screech, her vocal dynamics having been honed from years of directing the local drama group.

  Rodney fancied himself as a bit of a wit. His immediate response was to yell right back.

  ‘It wasn’t me!’

  ‘Oh, do shut up, Rodney. Sergeant Williams says you are not, I repeat, not to lock the back door. Do you understand?’ My god, she thought, I could almost fit right in on a council estate. The thought horrified her. There was no response from Rodney.

  ‘Rodney, do-you-understand?’ she yelled once more.

  While Mary Robbins had been yelling out her deputised orders, Rodney had put down his putty knife and walked around to her house.

  ‘Yes, Mary, I understand,’ said a clear, calm voice from just below the window sill.

  Mary screamed and dropped the phone. Rodney, grinned, reached through the window and picked it up from the table.

  ‘Sergeant Williams? Rodney Skinner.’

  *

  Bill arrived at Cherry Blossom Close within five minutes. Mary was at the front gate to meet him. She looked a little pale. At the mere thought of council estate, she had gone weak at the knees and had to sit down with a cup of tea for a few moments. Her head was still full with visions of hair in rollers under a scarf from Marks and Spenser’s, (not even French!) pink slippers, pale blue house coat and a half-smoked number six cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.

  Bill noticed the expression on her face. He was not unsympathetic to the idiosyncrasies of the folk of Wiggleswood, and he apologised for putting her out.

  ‘Like I said on the phone, I need to fetch something from Mister Fenwick’s house. There’s a piece of evidence that we forgot, and I need a deputy to witness the entry. Don’t want people thinking I’m robbing the place, now do we? Especially not a big, bad black man the likes of me, eh?’ he winked.

  Mary blushed. ‘Oh, stuff and nonsense, Bill Williams. Who on earth would think that of you?’

  ‘Well, best be on the safe side, that’s all. Ready, deputy?’ he asked.

  Mary suddenly went into a flap.

  ‘One minute, sergeant; just one minute please. She turned, almost ran back inside her house, and emerged exactly a minute later, sans apron but with hair neatly brushed.

  ‘Ready, sergeant. We may proceed now,’ she informed her superior officer.

  Bill smiled.

  He and his deputy ‘proceeded’ to the back door.

  Rodney was still outside packing away his tools. He greeted the pair with a grin.

  Bill headed straight for Ralph’s study, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves as he went. He handed a second pair to Mary who almost went into rapture. Once inside the office, Bill immediately reached for the photograph of Stephanie, lifting it from the wall and laying it face down on the desk. He gently bent back the retaining pins of the picture frame, carefully removed the hardboard backing, and lifted out the photograph.

  ‘Could you switch on the photo-copier please, deputy,’ Bill asked.

  Mary, who looked for all the world as though she was in a daze, walked to the copier and did as she was asked. The machine hummed its way to a state of readiness.

  Bill nodded towards the cover and Mary lifted it. Bill laid the photograph face down on the glass screen and asked Mary to press the start button. The copier churned out a copy. Bill nodded once more; Mary pressed the start button again, and a second copy appeared three seconds later. Bill always liked to have a backup.

  He removed the photocopies, handed them to Mary to hold while he put the photograph back in its frame, and then re-hung it on the wall.

  ‘All done,’ Bill announced. ‘I can leave you to close up the crime scene, Mary, yes?’

  She nodded dumbly.

  ‘Good, then I’m off to the pub.’

  In a moment of completely un-policeman-like and un-Bill-like behaviour, he leant close to Mary and gave her the tiniest of pecks on her cheek. ‘Thanks, deputy!’

  Mary’s eyes went wide, and if she had been that type of person she would have wet herself.

  Bill took the photocopies from Mary’s unresisting hand and left the house, offering a cheery ‘Bye Rodney’ as he walked briskly up the garden path to his Jeep.

  Later, back in her own house, a starry-eyed Mary Robbins had forgotten all about hair-rollers and council estates. She had been a deputy on a police investigation.

  Then, to her own surprise, she realised Sergeant Bill Williams had not un-deputised her. Did that mean she was still in the service of the police force, she wondered? I must be, she decided, her face breaking into an almost naughty grin.

  Then she began to think of her husband. He was currently in Europe on business. But he’ll be back in a couple of days, she mused. If she were going to be a real policewoman she would need handcuffs.

  Now where was that risqué catalogue with all the glossy pictures, she thought. It’s around here somewhere.

  *

  Bill parked the jeep and trotted into the Coach and Horses.

  Albert was sitting alone at the bar supping a pint and eating a ploughman’s lunch.

  ‘Ah, Dick Tracey. Had a feeling you might come calling,’ Albert said in greeting.

  ‘What colour was the cat you saw, Albert?’ Bill asked without preamble.

  ‘Cat? Don’t you mean ghost Sergeant Williams? I never saw no cat,’ Albert answered grinning around a mouthful of pork pie.

  ‘All right, all right. Ghost, then. What colour was the ghost?’

  Stanley the barman inhaled and opened his mouth.

  Bill held up a warning finger.

  ‘You hold your peace, Stanley Gubbins, I’m in no mood.’

  ‘Wasn’t going to say a word, sergeant. Honest,’ Stanley assured him. The wicked grin he was sporting suggeste
d otherwise.

  ‘Black, I think,’ said Albert, regarding one of two large pickled onions on his plate, which he poked with his fork. ‘Yeah, definitely black,’ he confirmed.

  ‘What was it called?’ Bill asked. There was note of urgency creeping into his voice.

  ‘Who do you think I am? Bloody Ace Ventura, Pet Detective or something? How the hell would I know the name of a ghost cat?’

  ‘How the hell do you know about the film Ace Ventura?’ Bill asked, surprised.

  ‘The kid. We watched it together once. Stupid film it was. But he laughed all the way through it, an’ I suppose it was funny in some parts. All righty then! Yeah that was funny,’ Albert remembered.

  ‘Kid? You mean Michael, I presume.’

  ‘Course, Michael. How many people d’yer think have the time o’day for a homeless bloke like me, hey?’

  Bill shook away the cobwebs that metaphorical spiders were beginning to spin in his mind. There wasn’t the time for this. Bill pulled out one of the photocopies from his breast pocket. He laid it on the bar in front of Albert.

  ‘Was it this one?’ He asked.

  Albert gave the picture a cursory glance. ‘It was a black cat, for gawd’s sake. Could you tell the difference?’

  ‘Ghost, Albert. Ghost. Remember?’

  ‘Hmmmpf!’ Albert replied indignantly. ‘Anyways, they’re like you lot. All look the same t’me.’

  ‘Careful, Albert,’ Bill cautioned.

  ‘What you so touchy about? We all look the same to you.’

  ‘Not you, Albert, that’s for sure,’ Bill smiled.

  ‘That’s not nice, sergeant,’ grumbled Albert.

  ‘Well did you hear Jacques Clouseau, the ghost, mention his name?’

  Albert speared one of the pickled onions, put it into his mouth, and then began to mumble, ‘Mmm, Mmm’ as he made a show of trying to remember.

  ‘Can’t be sure. Something about chickens, I think.’

  ‘Chickens?’ Bill sounded deflated. This wasn’t what he was after.

  ‘Yeah, chickens. I wasn’t exactly standing right next to ’em y’know andI ain’t got hearing like Clark Kent, have I?

  ‘Clark who?

  ‘Superman, for gawd’s sake. Anyhow, Coostow called him “hen dicks”.’

  Bill slapped the counter in triumph. ‘Yes, gotcha!’

  The remainder of Albert’s ploughman’s lunch danced off his plate and the second pickled onion rolled off the bar counter.

  ‘Bless you, Albert, you’re a genius. Round of drinks for the house. On me.’ Bill Williams crowed in triumph then marched out of the pub.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Stanley asked.

  ‘Dunno. Typical of that copper though. “Round of drinks for the pub.” Bloody skinflint. There’re only two of us this side of the bar. Oh well. Same again, Stanley,’ said Albert. Then he turned to his left. ‘And you, Alfred. Wotcha ‘aving?’

  ‘Spirit, please, Albert. Don’t mind which.’

  ‘Double scotch for my friend Alfred, Stanley, and make sure you put it on Bill Williams’ tab, you hear me?’

  Bill looked like a man on a mission as he entered the police station.

  ‘Finch still in?’ he called to PC Griffith as he strode past the front desk.

  ‘Yes he is, sarge,’ Sharon Griffith replied to thin air. ‘And good afternoon to you too, sarge.’

  Bill was already in his office before Griffith had finished her reply.

  ‘Get hold of Sergeant Courtney, Ben?’ he asked.

  ‘Blimey, you’re chirpy, all of a sudden, sarge. Yes I got the info.’

  ‘Thought you would. Good copper is Courtney,’ said Bill as Finch handed him the note with all the details concerning his request.

  ‘The Rev phoned for you too, sarge,’ Finch added. ‘Sent you this fax.’

  He handed the A4 over to his sergeant. Bill looked at the heading and smiled.

  ‘Thought so.’ The title of the fax read ‘Transference.’

  Bill sat at his desk, pulled the telephone across, and flexed his fingers.

  ‘All righty then!’ and he began to dial.

  17: Hello Fred, I’ve Been Expecting You

  The taxi pulled up outside 47 Lake Lane. The five-minute journey had taken nearly fifteen minutes. Big Mick, the driver, was forced to drive around the block twice so they could finish the last of three stirring renditions of Ferry across the Mersey. The song’s composer, Gerry Marsden, would have given them an A for effort. Had Fred’s old school music teacher been there, she would have written ‘Tries hard; fails miserably’ on his report card. And if she had been alive, the final screeching chorus would have short-circuited her pacemaker.

  ‘Oh, for the love of Pete! I forgot to switch on the meter,’ Big Mick moaned. Four zeros were all lined up neatly in a row.

  The passengers looked over Big Mick’s shoulder. Hendrix assumed that the numbers represented the score this impromptu barbershop trio had been awarded.

  ‘Oh, what the ‘ell. Call it five quid, as we’re mates, loike,’ Big Mick announced.

  Fred produced a fifty-pound note.

  ‘For you, mate. I haven’t had so much fun in ages. Here, take it. My pleasure.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be . . . You sure, loike?

  ‘Too right. Good night, Mick,’ said Fred, grinning, as he climbed out of the taxi, keeping the door open just long enough for Ralph and the cat to follow.

  ‘Thank God for that. Free at last!’ Hendrix announced to the night. ‘Do you think it’s safe for cats to take aspirin?’

  The taxi pulled away from the kerb. The three companions were left alone, listening to the sound of Big Mick’s voice fading away into the distance:

  ‘—she loves you yeah, yeah, yeah—’

  Fred faced the green wooden gate that fronted Emma’s property.

  Ralph and Hendrix looked at him. He was chewing the inside of his gum, and appeared decidedly uneasy. He still hadn’t revealed the full reason for his visit.

  ‘What is it?’ Ralph asked. His mood hadn’t sobered as quickly as Fred’s. There were still the remains of a smile on his face.

  ‘This is going to be tougher than I thought,’ said Fred in a croaky voice.

  ‘How bad can this be? You knock on the door, tell her you have a message from Fred and say you’re sorry for whatever it was. End of story. If we’re lucky, we’ll get invited in for a cup of tea. My throat’s hoarse as hell.’

  ‘You don’t have a throat,’ the cat reminded him.

  ‘Well it feels like I have one, okay? Anyway, Fred could use a cuppa by the looks of him, hey, Fred?’

  Fred suddenly felt the need to spill the beans.

  ‘Emma and I were engaged to be married. I broke it off. That’s why I came to apologise,’ Fred explained.

  ‘What’s so bad about that? Plenty of blokes have broken off their engagement, happens all the time. I nearly broke off mine with Steph. Then I had second thoughts about the second thoughts. Her dad’s Italian.’

  ‘Perhaps, Ralph. But plenty of blokes don’t wait until their bride-to-be is waiting at the altar. She probably still hates me. I know she did eventually marry, but her husband passed away about the same time as my Gwen.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ralph. ‘Maybe that’s not so good, ‘

  Fred took a deep breath.

  ‘Oh well, Fred Johnson, nothing for it. Isn’t as if you have all the time in the world, is it? This is no time to be a mouse.’

  Hendrix was instantly alert. ‘Where?’

  A light was on in the front room. He hoped that meant Emma was still up and awake.

  Nervously he opened the front gate and walked up the path to the front door.

  He pressed the doorbell.

  Hendrix counted, ‘One, two three . . .’

  The door opened and there stood Emma. Fred’s knees nearly buckled at the sight. She was still as beautiful as he remembered.

  An angelic voice said ‘Hello?’ Emma appeared to be looking o
ver Fred’s shoulder. It was most disconcerting.

  ‘Harry H Corbett!’ Ralph exclaimed. ‘She’s blind. I hope you can change that book for one in Braille.’

  ‘Blind, but not deaf, Mister Clouseau. Or should I rather call you Ralph?’ She smiled sweetly then turned her head slightly to the right.

  ‘Hello, Fred,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you both come in?’ Emma paused in the motion of turning.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. How rude of me!’ She tilted her head slightly downwards. ‘And you too, of course. Mister Hendrix, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ah, good manners. Here’s a lady with class. Take note gentlemen. Thanks very much. Don’t mind if I do.’

  With that, the cat skipped over the doorstep.

  Emma led the other two dumbstruck visitors into the lounge. As they entered, Hendrix was squaring up to a very large, fawn Boxer dog. The dog was growling threateningly at the cat.

  Hendrix didn’t even bother to arch his back or hiss.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ the cat said, shaking its head. ‘Now listen here, slobber-chops, I’ve had a hard day, so if you want to spend the rest of your doggy days chewing bones as opposed to sucking them, I suggest you move away from the fire pretty smartish. Got it?’

  The dog tilted its head to one side, lifted its ears, and made a noise that in a human would have sounded like, ‘Huh?’

  It then back-pedalled and sat down next to one of the easy chairs a little way from the roaring hearth. Hendrix found a place he liked and curled up, giving the dog a one-eyed warning for good measure.

  ‘Leave the dog alone. It’s his house,’ said Ralph.

  ‘So what? I’m a guest. A special guest. Ask Emma,’ Hendrix replied.

  ‘I . . . How?’ Fred began as they were about to sit down.

  Emma smiled that sweet smile and placed a finger on his lips.

  ‘Ssssh. Sit down, please. I’ll go and make us some tea. Relax. It’s okay, Fred; honestly.’

  Emma left the three travellers and went to put the kettle on.

  ‘How can you lot drink so much tea? You’re always drinking the stuff. Well some of you, anyway,’ Hendrix corrected after a brief look at Ralph. ‘In fact, some of you drink so much of it, you leak.’ The cat laughed.