Play Dead

by Peter Dickinson

  ‘Morning, Mrs Tasker,’ he said. ‘Sorry to keep you. What’s up with the little lad?’

  ‘He wanted to play with the door. There was another child …’

  They looked up the steps. The policeman was speaking to the boy, who pouted, let go of the door and went inside.

  ‘There’s still a few do what a copper tells them,’ said Mr Firth. ‘Couple of years older and it mightn’t have worked. I’ll get your pram.’

  He nipped up and fetched the push-chair, then wheeled it empty along the pavement. Poppy followed with Toby still screaming and struggling in her grasp. The photographers had their cameras up but she spoilt their sport by leaving too large a gap for her and Mr Firth to appear in the same shot. He nodded cheerfully to them as he passed and turned down an alley beside the police station. Following, Poppy found him pressing numbered keys to open a side door, an activity in which Toby would normally have demanded to join but was now too engrossed in his tantrum even to notice. He didn’t seem to notice the lift controls. Upstairs was a corridor with windows on to a central well on one side and labelled doors on the other. A few chairs stood against the inner wall. Mr Firth turned two corners and paused at a door.

  Just got one call to make,’ he said. ‘And I’ll lay on a WPC to look after Toby.’

  ‘Oh, please not. She wouldn’t have a hope with him in this state, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to concentrate. He’ll be asleep in half an hour.’

  He went in, but emerged almost at once.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Tasker. Something’s come up. I’ll have to ask you to wait a bit more, I’m afraid. At least it sounds like he might be quieting down.’

  Indeed Toby’s yells were modulating into sobs.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Poppy.

  ‘Thanks a million.’

  She put Toby down on one of the chairs and began to organise for another session with But Martin. She was re-stowing the changing bag when she heard the sigh of a door.

  Toby was off his chair in an instant and charging down the corridor. A WPC with an armful of files had just come through a fire door half-way along the corridor. It did exactly the same trick as the ones below, hurtling towards closure and then slowing for the last few inches. The WPC stood out of Toby’s way but lost control of her files as she was trying to do the same for Poppy, and they collided. Files slithered to the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ muttered Poppy and dashed on, but he had reached the door. Oh, all right, she thought, and softened her defeat by turning it into a lesson on the swing-door menace, crouching by the jamb, pretending to get her hand trapped, miming agony. Toby, his face still swollen and smeared with his tantrum, ignored her and sternly adhered to the course of his experiment. At least his approach was gratifyingly different from that of the child downstairs, who had simply exulted in the physical effort of shoving the door open and letting it swish shut. Toby did that a few times, but then became fascinated by the invisible barrier which stopped the door from slamming. He experimented with opening it only a few inches, and then with trying to hurry it past the deceleration point. He held it part open with one hand and felt at the space in front of it with the other, to see if the air was somehow thicker there. From time to time people came past. He held the door for them and then returned to his exploration.

  Poppy hovered by the jamb, waiting for the moment when he’d trap his fingers, but he justified her anxiety only once, at the point when he’d finished his investigations and needed a fresh audience to demonstrate to. Behind her in the corridor footsteps squeaked on lino. Toby turned to the newcomer and held out a summoning arm. As the door closed towards his other hand Poppy snatched it clear and held it till the danger was past. At that point she became aware that his stance had changed, to one of disappointment. The footsteps, two sets now, were no longer approaching but receding. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a man and a woman turning the far corner and moving out of sight. She caught only a glimpse of the woman—brown tweed coat, thick stockings—because she was largely screened by the man—blond hair, dark grey suit. For an instant she thought it had been Laura, but immediately became uncertain. She hadn’t seen enough. But whoever it was had started to approach, stopped and turned back.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Mr Firth’s voice from beyond the door. ‘Where … ? Ah, there you are. Calmed down now, have we? Come in.’

  His office was a functional, cramped mess, less decrepit than Poppy had expected. Stacked files, shelves of books and pamphlets, charts, organisation diagrams. Another door opened into a larger room, where several people seemed to be working. Mr Firth dug around in the drawers of his desk and found Toby a stapler, a fancy key-ring and a ruler with rollers in it. He settled Poppy into a chair opposite his desk and gave her a couple of sheets of paper.

  ‘Anything like, d’you think?’ he said.

  Dismally Poppy stared at the drawings. Likeness or not they were so infinitely other than the living flesh that comparison seemed impossible.

  ‘I don’t think his beard was quite like that,’ she said. ‘Longer, and not so thick. And it had a sort of silky look—you know, as if it had never been cut. I’m not sure. I only got one good look at him, across the street. Otherwise I think it’s quite like.’

  ‘Thanks. We’ll see what Jim Bowles says.’

  ‘What’s going to happen now?’

  ‘We’ll wait for Bob Caesar to come back. I like him here from the start, so he knows what line to follow while he’s taking your statement. Then I’ll ask you to tell me what happened and maybe question you about it, and then Bob will take you next door and get it down in detail.’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘Two or three hours, if you’re lucky.’

  ‘Oh, God. He’ll sleep some of that, but then he’ll be wanting his lunch.’

  ‘We’ll be as quick as we can. He’s a nice little lad. Two yet?’

  ‘Not till after Christmas.’

  ‘Talking much?’

  ‘He seems to get a new word every day.’

  ‘It’s a great age.’

  Mr Firth looked down at Toby, who was slithering the ruler across the carpet like a snowplough, pushing the stapler in front of it. He shook his head, inwardly rejecting a thought. The movement, with its speaking humanity, made Poppy look at him more closely. In the shock of events in the playground she had been aware of Firth mainly as a bearable presence, almost sympathetic, autumnal with his brown suit and tanned and time-marked face, appropriate to the presence of death. Sitting in his office, without his hat, he was still like that, superficially, but she was aware of an inward energy, a sense of purpose, or perhaps of dedication, not subject to the shift of seasons. If he’d been an actor there’d have been a tendency to typecast him as a priest. He was younger than she was, by several years she guessed, but was already bald right across the top, an effect enhanced by the dense, short, dark brown hair at the sides of his head.

  ‘How old are yours?’ said Poppy.

  ‘In their teens. Two girls. I don’t see much of them these days. I split up with my wife when they were nine and eight and she’s taken them to live in Scotland.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yes, I miss them. It was the job did it, really. It’s a lot to ask of a woman … Here’s Bob.’

  A man’s voice, macho-mocking, said something to a WPC in the inner room. When he came through he was the one Poppy had seen in the corridor, large, blond, grey-suited. So Laura, if it was Laura, had already been here when Mr Firth had arrived. He hadn’t expected her, and had had to ask Poppy to wait. Sergeant Caesar had then taken her out through the further room and the other door and she’d then turned the wrong way, but almost at once turned back. Realised her mistake? Recognised not Poppy, crouched by the door and facing away, but Toby, manifest and commanding attention? If so, it had to be Laura. It wasn’t any of the others
r />   ‘Right,’ said Mr Firth. ‘I’d best explain that I’m not in charge of this case. That’s Detective Superintendent Collins from the Area Major Investigation Team. I’m the local officer working with him. We’ll start with the occasion when a man who may have been the deceased seemed to be following you. September the tenth, according to the report. About three o’clock in the afternoon something took place. Will you tell me in your own words about that?’

  Poppy told the story yet again, unemotionally, as if explaining the plot of a serial episode to somebody who’d missed it. She stressed her unwillingness to swear that the man who started following her out of the park was the same as the one who’d been watching from under the trees. Mr Firth interrupted once to clarify a point.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Clear and concise. There’s just one aspect I’d like you to expand on, Mrs Tasker. When you saw this man watching you, you say you and the other adults in the playground stared deliberately at him until he went away. What did you do then?’

  ‘Let Toby go on playing for a bit, then started to take him home. It was a bit early, but the atmosphere wasn’t happy. We were all upset.’

  ‘And angry?’

  ‘Yes, of course, and frightened and shocked and everything else you’d expect.’

  ‘And did people express their anger?’

  ‘I suppose so … I know what you’re trying to get me to say, and I’m not going to. It was just talk, just a gut reaction. You can’t really believe that a group of ordinary women, in this day and age … I mean … and anyway, how did they find him, how did they know who he was? Do you know who he was?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that at the moment. Look, Mrs Tasker, I understand what you’re saying. That’s what I think, too. At least, suppose I had to bet on it, I’d lay about twenty to one against any of your girls getting together and killing this man. Maybe I’d lay better odds against one of them telling her boyfriend, and him and some pals doing it, or at least setting out to teach him a lesson and it going wrong. But those are still possibilities I’ve got to look into. You follow?’

  Poppy shook her head. She’d never met Big Sue’s Trevor, a crass-sounding, beer-swilling, football-going van driver for a builders’ merchant, by Sue’s account. He sounded just the sort to get a group of his mates together for a lynching, and what’s more he wouldn’t understand the importance of the play centre to the women. He’d desecrate it without a thought.

  ‘You’re an intelligent woman …’ began Mr Firth.

  ‘I’m not saying anything.’

  ‘Don’t you see that by refusing to tell me what was in fact said, and by whom, you are reinforcing the suspicion that much more was in fact said than would be normal on such an occasion? That you have, in fact, something to hide?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to hide. I just don’t want to tell you. You’ll have to ask the others, that’s all. I’ll tell you that I didn’t say anything along those lines myself, but I certainly felt it. I tried not to, but I did.’

  ‘Very well. Put a note in, Bob, to the effect that Mrs Tasker is unwilling to say at this juncture what was said among those present after the man had left the playground. Now, Mrs Tasker, a point you’ve already raised—how would anyone know where to find the man? Did any of those present say or do anything to show they might have recognised him?’

  ‘No. I’ll tell you that much.’

  ‘Are you sure? You answered very quickly.’

  ‘I’d already been thinking about it.’

  ‘You had? So the possibility of a connection was already in your mind?’

  ‘I didn’t sleep much. And you’d pretty well asked me yesterday, hadn’t you? I mean, just by suggesting some of us …’

  ‘All right. Now we’ll move on to yesterday. I took you into the hut and asked you if you recognised the deceased. Carry on in your own words.’

  It didn’t take long. There wasn’t a lot to say. By now Toby had exhausted the possibilities of the ruler and was attracted to the word-processor console on the table beside which Sergeant Caesar was sitting. Sergeant Caesar didn’t notice his approach till he began to climb into his lap.

  ‘My do it,’ said Toby.

  ‘Not now, sonny.’

  ‘My do it,’ said Toby, slowly and loudly, like an English tourist coping with the stupidity of foreigners. The sergeant mimed helplessness.

  ‘Wait till you’ve got some of your own, Bob,’ said Mr Firth, getting out a sheet of paper and a felt-tipped pen. Bring him over here, Mrs Tasker, and we’ll see if the trick still works. What’s this, Toby?’

  Already he’d started to draw. Poppy picked Toby up and carried him across to watch.

  ‘What’s this, Toby?’ he said again.

  Towards one edge of the page he had drawn a small, half-open book with a mouse on the cover.

  ‘Tory,’ said Toby, wriggling, not interested.

  ‘Ah, but what’s this?’

  A cat had appeared, reading the book.

  ‘Miaow,’ said Toby.

  ‘Aha! But what’s this?’

  A few quick lines turned the picture into the cover of another book, and then almost as rapidly a pig appeared, reading that book, only to recede into the cover of a still larger book, perused by an elephant, filling the page. The pictures had humour and fantasy, unsuspected in Firth’s manner. But the trick wasn’t over. He folded the paper in half, and in half again, several times, down to a book-like shape with the original book on its front cover. He turned it over and drew a quick cartoon of a small boy.

  ‘That’s Toby,’ he said. ‘And this is Toby’s book.’

  Poppy laughed aloud. Toby took the book, and finding that he couldn’t turn the pages, carefully unfolded it. Mr Firth helped him fold it back into book shape again, letting him feel he was doing the work himself. He must have been a lovely father, Poppy thought. When the job allowed.

  Toby studied the pictures on the front and back.

  ‘Mine,’ he said, and tucked the book carefully into the pocket in the bib of his overalls. The telephone rang. Mr Firth answered, then put his hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now Bob will take you next door and take a detailed statement from you. He’ll check it with me, and then if we’re all happy you can sign it. OK?’

  They went next door and settled at a desk in the corner of the room. Toby gave signs of wanting to assist the police in all their activities, but he was tired now and consented to sit in Poppy’s lap and let her read snatches of But Martin to him while Sergeant Caesar was writing whatever she’d just said in slow long hand. He had his rusk, then orange juice, stimuli to which at this time of day he had acquired an almost Pavlovian response. At one moment he was sucking at his mug and pointing with his free hand at a detail of the pictures, and the next he had plunged into sleep. She strapped the inert lump into the push-chair and was able to give her full attention to Sergeant Caesar.

  He wanted to know everything—who else had been at the entrance to the park, for instance, and the exact time of day, and how had she known and whether anyone else had used the crossing. She learnt not to leave things out—it took longer that way. Mercifully Toby, exhausted by his tantrum, slept almost two hours and woke only as Poppy wheeled him into Mr Firth’s office. He had crapped in his nappy while waking, a recent habit, so she laid him out on the carpet and cleaned and changed him while Mr Firth was reading the statement through. The homely pungency she released was pleasing to her in that world of paperwork. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sergeant Caesar wrinkling his nose and averting his gaze with absurd male squeamishness, especially considering the really obscene horrors his work must sometimes confront him with. Mr Firth glanced up, repressed a smile, and went on reading. When he had finished Poppy initialled each page and signed the final sheet.

  ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘I think that’s all. I’m sorry
it always has to take so long.’

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ said Poppy. ‘I don’t know how it works, or who to ask, only when the poor man’s buried I’d like to send a wreath. How do I … ?’

  She stopped. Mr Firth and the Sergeant had glanced at each other and changed, their faces becoming professional, withdrawn.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. Only I was thinking last night, because of Toby, about him having been a baby once too, and being loved, and now no one even knowing or caring what’s happened to him. It wouldn’t be a wreath for him really. It would be for me, for all of us … I know it sounds silly …’

  The weird moment had passed.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mr Firth, relaxing. ‘Just make a note, Bob, to see Mrs Tasker knows about the burial arrangements. Now, Mrs Tasker, what about a spot of instant lunch? There’s a place just up the road if you’ve time?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Poppy, startled, suddenly unable to think. She knew the place he was talking about, a tolerable-looking burger bar. Toby would adore the forbidden food. ‘Well, I mean yes, if you …’

  ‘Even policemen need to eat.’

  He led the way out through the other room, pausing to check work progress with a WPC at a word-processor, and then on into the corridor using the door through which the woman who might have been Laura had come. They turned on, round the far corner, as she had done, so perhaps it was just routine, and she hadn’t recognised Toby at all, had been a stranger …

  Outside it was raining now. Rather than struggle with the push-chair cover for so short a distance Mr Firth held Poppy’s brolly over Toby. The photographers, luckily, had taken shelter. The eatery was too noisy and crowded for talk, and Toby, thrilled by the adventure, made himself the centre of attention, studying how Mr Firth dealt with his hamburger and trying to copy him. Poppy had a tolerable cheese salad. Eating together is a way of communicating, she thought—safer than speech in some ways. They had a moment of privacy outside as she fixed the push-chair cover under the shelter of the awning.