Mrs. Oswald shook her head. “We don’t hear from that one much these days.” She cautiously looked behind her, then whispered: “He’s the person non-grata around here.”
“Is he?” Steve said.
“Sorry to disappoint you. Would you like a bit of mulled wine, though?”
Before I could speak, Steve gave an enthusiastic yes and went inside. I followed and the door shut behind us. I’d expected the briefest of exchanges, a quick blast of information to get us off the doorstep so they could get on with their Christmas. That had been an advantage of today—no time for chatter. Now we were in the Oswalds’ bloody hallway.
It wasn’t much warmer than outside. The house smelled strongly of incense, but just beneath it lurked a more unpleasant smell, bad feet perhaps. Mrs. Oswald disappeared into the kitchen. Noddy Holder, a fellow West Midlander, was getting over-enthused about Christmas—as he did every year—on a distant radio.
Like the drive, the hallway was cluttered: shoes on the stairs, a coat on the floor. A bookcase filled with DVDs stood up against the wall and above hung a framed photograph of what looked like Marilyn Monroe. Only this woman’s nose was larger, and her lips weren’t quite as full. The DVDs kept to the same theme: Some Like it Hot. The Asphalt Jungle. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Mrs. Oswald returned and handed me a mug of mulled wine. On the opposite wall were more framed photographs of Marilyn Monroe, one with JFK, another dancing with Gene Kelly—his gaze locked on Marilyn, hers focused straight at the camera. I brought the mug to my chest for warmth with no intention of drinking any. Immortalised on the ceramic was a black-and-white photograph of the great woman and the legend: If You Can Make a Girl Laugh You Can Make Her Do Anything.
Appraising his own Marilyn mug, Steve said, “I didn’t know Will was so into Marilyn Monroe.”
Mrs. Oswald laughed. “Oh, I’m afraid that’s me. I love our Marilyn.”
“You should talk to Adeline about films, she’s an expert,” Steve said.
When Mrs. Oswald turned to me with a coquettish smile, I pointed to the tinselled photo frame above the DVDs. “Is this you?” I pretended to sip the wine. What the hell were we doing here?
“A long time ago, yes. A long time ago. They used to pay me to be her. At parties and the like.”
“You look a lot like her.” I chose my words carefully, look not looked. Mrs. Oswald’s eyes welled up with tears.
“You are sweet, my darling,” she said. “Do you two lovelies not have anywhere to be today?”
“The turkey’s in the oven,” I said.
“Awwww, how lovely. What were your names again?”
“Were you a lookalike?” Steve said. Excellent swerve.
She nodded. “I was Barbara Windsor, too. Not as often, and I didn’t like her like Marilyn. Not that there’s anything wrong with our Babs.”
The door to the front room opened. A stout little man in a pair of denim overalls waddled into the hall holding a spanner in one hand.
“Hello,” he said and flashed two rows of uneven teeth.
“These are some of Wonks’s friends,” Mrs. Oswald said.
Tempting though it was, I didn’t look at Steve. Wonks?
“He still has some of those, does he?” the man said.
I smiled politely, assuming this was a stepdad or boyfriend. Unless I’d completely misremembered, Will’s real dad had left around the time we’d all been friends.
“We knew Will when he lived in Blythe,” I said.
“We haven’t heard from him in—what is it now, love?—couple of years,” the man said.
“It could be that.”
Steve glanced at me and raised his eyebrows.
“Was he here Christmas two years ago?” the man said.
“No, I don’t think he was,” Mrs. Oswald said. “No wait, maybe he was.”
“No,” the man said. “Monks was here, but not Wonks.”
With that the man walked through into the kitchen to bask in the music, now “Thank God It’s Christmas” by Queen. The sounds of rattling cutlery followed, and Mrs. Oswald leaned towards us conspiratorially: “They had a bit of a falling-out, the two of them. They don’t really speak.”
“Oh,” I said.
“He’s not had an easy time of it, Wonks. He doesn’t help himself.” She looked over her shoulder, then up the stairs, then said even more softly than before: “Drugs.” Her voice at a more reasonable level, she said, “We did our best to help him, but they wouldn’t let him restart university a third time. He wanted to come and live with us, but that didn’t work either. What could we do? He lived with his brother for a bit, though, didn’t he, Monks?”
A tall figure emerged from the kitchen. It was Will’s older brother, whose beer and music and cigarettes Will used to steal. I remembered him, how similar he and Will were in appearance. He probably wasn’t much older than us; when he was younger we’d viewed him as a grown-up.
“What’s that?” Monks said. His bassoon of a voice was like Will’s too.
“Wonks lived with you, didn’t he?”
He tutted. “Mum… Yeah, Will lived with me for a bit, not long. In York.”
“Any idea where he is now?” Steve said. “We were hoping to catch up with him but none of the contacts we have for him work.”
Monks’s eyelids narrowed. He took a noisy breath before saying: “I think he’s still in York. Last I heard he got a room in a house share with someone connected to his band. See, he doesn’t tell us anything, so, I mean, he could be anywhere. Why do you want to know?”
“I told them about the drugs,” Mrs. Oswald said through the corner of her mouth.
Monks nodded. “Right,” he said, his face stolid.
“What sort of band was he in?” I said, wanting to move things on from the drugs but also asking out of genuine interest. “I can’t get my head around him playing music. He didn’t play an instrument when we were kids.”
“He did,” Monks said. “I should know because it was my drum kit he kept smashing. Was a punky band. They were all right, actually. Don’t know if they’re still going.”
“What were they called?” Steve said.
“The Geppettos.”
“Should have been The Pinocchios,” the man that might’ve been a stepdad yelled from the kitchen. “Lying git.”
“Who are you, again?” Monks said.
“Just some old friends,” Steve said. “From Blythe.”
“Oh.” He sounded suspicious, but to me he said, “I think I remember you. You look the same. Hair and everything.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”
“You all still around here?” he said.
“My parents are,” I said.
“I remember you, yeah,” he said. “You lived on Elm Close. You were the little punk?”
“I was indeed.”
He appeared satisfied and mooched off in the direction he’d come from.
The full mug of wine in my hand was starting to cool. I asked where the toilet was and Mrs. Oswald directed me upstairs. On my way up Steve began to make our excuses. He’d clearly seen enough. Will was off the radar as far as his family were concerned.
I threw the wine down the sink in the bathroom, then turned the tap on to remove any evidence. On the way out I saw a wooden name plaque on one of the bedroom doors: Wonks. I pushed my fingers against it experimentally and it opened with a click.
There were lots of reasons not to go in, lots of grown-up, sensible reasons. But given I’d come this far it was fitting I did the Velma Dinkley bit. Plus, Steve would get a kick out of it; his face when I told him about this on the way back would be priceless. I was Jessica bloody Fletcher.
I went inside slowly, taking care not to give myself away with a misplaced foot on a creaky floorboard.
Even though the curtains were open, the small window and the overcast morning meant my eyes needed to adjust to the darkness. From what I could make out it was still a typical messy teenager’s room: s
helves jammed with CDs and badges, magazines poking out from beneath the immaculately made bed, a few random posters on the wall (the Nirvana logo with the smiley face, the Pixies’ Trompe le Monde, Jack Nicholson as The Joker). Strange, and sad, it was preserved that way—and if you’ll follow me upstairs, we have the final parts of our Marilyn Monroe exhibit, and also our very special 90s Teenager exhibit—though nothing obviously murderous was lying about.
On the CD shelf, next to Dookie, were spines marked “The Geppettos.” I picked one of them out. The cover was a black-and-white cartoon of a half boy, half donkey; the band name and DEMO were printed in the top left-hand corner. On the back was a track-list with a small photo of the band and some contact information. The photograph was only big enough for me to make out three shapes with messy hair, all of them potentially Will.
If they were still going the website might be up. We could call the telephone number on the back, too. It might even be Will’s. If not, we could at least ask his band mates about what had happened to him.
I took a picture of the website and number on my phone.
I turned back to the door and stopped. The wall on this side of the room was not obscured by furniture or curtains, but neither was it bare. I stepped closer to make sure I wasn’t imagining it, which I definitely wasn’t. Hundreds of different models and porn stars, all in various stages of undress, were displayed here on posters and calendars. They filled every space from floor to ceiling, a wonderful wall of objectification. It must have taken a long time because nothing really overlapped. And the wall faced the bed too, grim. I took another picture, wanting the others to understand.
Perhaps the display alone might have simply upset me. But many of the women, probably over half, had been defaced. A blonde lady in a red-spotted white swimsuit had two tiny holes where her eyes should have been. Another model had tears and biro marks where her nipples once were. And of course some ladies had suffered the indignity of having been poked through either the front or back of their crotch, depending on which direction they’d been facing.
The whole thing was so grim. Why had Will’s family let it stay this way? Had his bedroom been like this in Blythe? And if so had any of the others seen it? The thought of the boys in particular, sitting around in Will’s room and not even finding such a strange display in the least bit unsettling made me feel incredibly lonely in a way I’d felt only too recently.
Silly bitches all over the internet think they can’t be found?! Careful bout shit you say.
I stepped out onto the landing and released a long breath I’d been holding unawares.
At the bottom of the stairs another Marilyn Monroe winked at me. Maybe the whole family were fucking serial killers.
“So the question is,” Steve said on the walk back to the car, “does she dress like that every day, or is it just for Christmas?” I couldn’t laugh. I still felt soiled. Was I overreacting? Plausible perhaps, now free of that strange house. “And what was all that Monks and Wonks stuff?”
The other two were waiting for us in the back seat of the car, engaged in what looked like a thumb war, for Christ’s sake. They let go of each other when we climbed in.
“Well?” Rupesh asked before the doors were even closed.
“Well,” Steve said, “they haven’t seen him in what they say was years, and they don’t know where he is. But it doesn’t mean anything really.”
“Still,” Rupesh said, “not a brilliant start for the sceptic camp.”
Steve recounted the other things we’d discovered, and wasn’t able to resist mentioning the mum’s Marilyn Monroe obsession, like it might be extra proof.
“Oh, she had that when we were kids, don’t you remember?” Jen said.
“I don’t think I ever went to Will’s,” Steve said.
“Did you go in his bedroom?” I said, mainly to Rupesh.
“Yeah, I must have done.”
“Was there anything weird about it? Do you remember what he had on his walls?”
“No, not really. Maybe some band posters, I don’t know.”
“I never saw it,” Jen said. “Thank God.”
“Did he have any women on the wall?” I said.
“Maybe, he was a teenage boy. Why?” Rupesh said.
“Well, I just saw Will’s old bedroom,” I said, “and, you know, if I was on the fence about all this stuff I’m definitely wobbling now.”
When I showed him the picture I’d taken, Rupesh said, “I’d have probably remembered that.”
“So that is weird to you?” I said, relieved to hear it.
“Yeah,” Rupesh said, though I could hear his caution. “I mean, you come across some bizarre things in my line of work, but the defacement is, well, not nice.”
I looked at Steve whose mouth hung open. “That’s a man with women issues,” he said. “Dare I say, Mummy issues? It’s strange he’s kept it all up, he’s been back since he was a teenager, right? They said that.”
“He’s definitely been back,” I said, and told them about the CD.
“Will was in a band?” Jen said.
“There was a phone number on there,” I said, scrolling to the photo.
“Shall I call it now?” Steve said.
“Do it,” Jen said.
Steve took out his phone and I recited the number. After a while Steve shook his head.
“It’s saying it’s not recognising it.”
“There’s a website, too,” I said, having already started looking.
The Geppettos’ stark internet presence came up on my screen. It had three links: Shows, Listen and Contact. The Contact page offered the same phone number as the CD, plus a basic web form for emails. The Listen link was broken. The only image anywhere was a banner with the donkey-boy hybrid at the bottom of the page.
“I’ll send a message later,” Steve said. “When I’m on a laptop.”
“Hang on,” I said. I was looking at Shows now. “They’re still gigging, and they’ve got a bloody gig on Boxing Day. A Fuck Christmas extravaganza, apparently. And the night after, but that’s up in York. Then they’ve got some in the New Year. We should go to one.”
“That’s an idea,” Rupesh said. “Hey, Will, great gig, killed anyone recently?”
“That’s exactly what we’d say.”
“Where is the Boxing Day one?” Rupesh said.
“Manchester.”
“It’s not that far in the scheme of things,” Steve said.
“It’s like, what? An hour?” I said.
“I’m working that evening,” Rupesh said.
“Oh, come on,” Jen said. “We have to go.”
Steve started the engine. “If I don’t get a response to the web form it’s at least another lead. We can have a reunion road trip.”
Rupesh sighed and leaned back in his seat.
When we drove away I noticed something in the wing mirror, a person emerging from the end of the cul-de-sac where we’d just been parked, someone who had the same general shape as Will’s brother. I couldn’t be certain, but if it was him did he see the four of us? He’d probably have some questions about the story we’d spun back at the house if he had. I didn’t mention it. Wouldn’t matter now.
Back in Blythe, we pulled up outside Rupesh’s house. He had work commitments later on that night, while Jen needed to show her face at home for the big family meal.
“Rup, do you still think we’re chasing a wild goose?” Jen said.
Rupesh shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. I’m still a bit hungover.”
Steve turned to face them both in the back seat. “We’ve fulfilled a lot of your criteria this morning.”
“Yeah,” Jen said. “If this doesn’t count as off the radar… And does he seem stable to any of you based on that room? On the uni story.”
Rupesh made a noise like a creaky door. “Sort of. You still need to connect these two suicides to each other for me. Just keep me in the loop, yeah?” He held up a hand. “It’s been good seeing yo
u.”
Jen and Rupesh both got out of the car and we watched them walk up the drive.
“I think I need to go and sort out my accommodation,” I said, not quite ready to face Mum yet.
“Hope it isn’t too stressful.” He touched my shoulder, and I reached up and touched his cheek briefly. In this harsh light I saw wrinkles I’d not noticed before. How strange that I should feel tenderness for him again, protective of him even, like I held a secret belief that Steve Litt should be immune from time’s effects.
I left the car and spun to wave him off from the pavement. He rolled down the window. “Honestly, do you think I was a bully, Adie?”
Rupesh had really got to him.
“You know what I thought of you,” I said. “Stop fishing.”
He contemplated this and finally nodded, satisfied for now at least. I meant the sentiment too, but there on the pavement with him about to depart, something else came back to me from that time. No, he hadn’t been a bully, not that I saw. Arrogant and thoughtless at times, though, yes. He’d abandoned me after that first summer, hadn’t he? Without even a goodbye. And I’d done all sorts of stupid things that year out of anger as a result. He’d made it up to me, of course, sent me a homemade Christmas card, then a letter, all before that second summer started. But at my grotty new comp in Balsall Common I’d been so irascible all year that I’d made no friends, and instead spent every night alone watching films.
“Oh, have you got your parents a gift?” he said. And of course, I hadn’t.
“Shit. No. Thanks. Fuck.”
“Christmas is important, Adie,” he said, and wound up the window.
And that was the Steve I remembered. The one who never forgot important dates and their relevant gifts and cards. Christmas. Anniversaries. Birthdays. The first time we ever kissed, hidden in a maize field not far from where I was now standing, had been on my fifteenth birthday. Such a powerful memory. He bought me the most thoughtful gift, then pretended it was from all of them. I’d sat with him on the baked soil between the stalks that afternoon, a strange energy filling the space between us. For once I’d not been nervous; not worried about my hair looking greasy, or if I had any spots around my mouth. I’d been drunk too, which helped. I remember Steve’s long eyelashes. As pretty as he was handsome. We’d laughed at first, when we realised we both had our eyes open. Then we’d kissed more forcefully, and while I’d been there before with boys, the pull of him had been new. I’d put my hand under his shirt, felt his heart beating through the skin, and we’d fallen and banged our teeth together. But we kept going. And if we hadn’t been interrupted… who knows?
The Killer You Know Page 7