“Basically it’s my mum,” Rupesh says. “She’s fine most of the time, but sometimes she goes off work because she has these sad spells, and then we’ve got to be extra nice to her because where we lived before she used to disappear for these walks.”
Adeline’s heart is a cold stone in her chest. Steve is staring at the wall. This is going to be bad.
Rupesh continues: “Dad used to take me with him when we went looking for her, and we’d always find her. In a café, or sitting in a cemetery. She said sometimes she needed to find her thoughts. Anyway, one time she went missing and Dad was so worried, and when he came home I could just tell something was wrong. And he’d basically found her down at the train station, which at the time I didn’t know what it meant. I overheard him telling my grandparents on the phone that she’d had this Russian novel in her bag and I didn’t know what that meant either. I just knew that something bad happened to Mum involving a train.”
“How old were you?” Adeline says.
“It’s been all the time I’ve been alive,” Rupesh says. “But this was when I was probably six or seven. So then every time I went past the station or heard the train I got scared. I’ve worked it out since. In that book a woman throws herself in front of a train. And since then we’ve found her at road bridges and at cliff tops. That’s why Dad moved us to Blythe, to be away from danger. And I still get weird with trains. It’s silly. Sorry.”
No one says anything else. Rupesh, who has been staring at the floor while talking, lifts his head to look at Adeline.
“I understood the clue and everything,” Rupesh says. “It was great. But even seeing the word stationary made me feel funny. I sort of worry if my legs go or I pass out I’ll fall onto the tracks.”
“It was our fault,” Jen says. “We should have told you not to involve trains, should have made something up. But, Rupesh, none of us even connected it until we were in Birmingham waiting for you.”
“Sounds horrible, mate,” Steve says, turning away from the wall to address Rupesh. “And sorry, you know, about earlier.”
“I would have told you, too,” Rupesh says. “It’s just, well, a bit pathetic.”
“It’s not,” Steve says, and like that the atmosphere in the room begins to return to normal. Then he says, “It’s only the first round, anyway.”
“There’s still plenty of time to catch up,” Will says.
“Exactly,” Steve says.
Jen stops rubbing Rupesh’s back. She’s about to say something when Steve stands up and leaves for the kitchen.
“That’s so unfair,” Jen says once he’s gone. “We’ve got to void the first round.”
“Well,” Will says, “I suppose getting Adeline to do it again would be harsh, and the game wouldn’t be fair unless everyone got their points from this round.”
“I don’t mind,” Adeline says.
“Fuck the game,” Jen says, whispering now. “That’s just horrible. I don’t know if I can stand to be around you lot right now.”
“It’s okay,” Rupesh says. He touches Jen’s hand. “I’ll make do with one point. I’ll catch up. Can we just… move on?”
Jen tries to smile for Rupesh. They look intimate to Adeline. Romantic even.
“You’re next, though, Rup,” Will says. “That means you’ll be slinking into round three on one point.”
Jen gets to her feet. “I’m going. Rupesh, I’ll walk you back if you want.”
“Thanks,” he says. He stands up, offers the three of them a bashful smile, and he and Jen leave.
Once he’s gone Will says to Adeline, “This has all gone a bit weird.”
“Yep,” she says.
“I thought your round was good,” he says.
“Thanks,” she says. “I was a bit worried some of the clues would be too hard.”
He makes a noise of agreement. His right foot is up on his knee and he plays with the laces.
“I wonder what it’s like to want to kill yourself,” Will says.
The remark has barely sunk in when Steve returns. “Where are the others?”
“Home,” Will says.
“Listen, sorry, but I just remembered, Dad’s back tonight so I need to get this place clean.”
Will rises and makes his way to the door. Adeline gets up too, but when Will turns his back to them Steve gestures at her with wide eyes and a shake of the head—don’t really go.
“Do you want a hand clearing up?” she says.
“Thanks, Adeline,” Steve says.
Will studies them both before giving them a wonky, closed-mouth smile. He roams out, raising a hand by way of goodbye, his back to them.
They don’t clear up. Steve suggests they watch Grosse Pointe Blank again and Adeline doesn’t resist, even though she must have watched it twice in the intervening year and can quote whole sections by heart. At first Steve sits in his chair, a distance that from the sofa feels much further than it really is now that the others aren’t in the room. Adeline doesn’t mind. She is just happy to be alone with him finally.
Fair is fair, he has made his move, so she should make the next. She asks for a blanket because she is cold, then insists that he should join her because it would be more environmental than starting the fire—although in reality she’s terrified he’ll set the fucking place alight the way he handles that petrol can. He does, and, not long afterwards, they are holding hands under the blanket, and then not long after that, kissing, mouths open. Her hands push under his clothes to find skin. It happens so easily; why has it taken this long?
But he breaks the kiss when her hands try to explore beneath the waistband of his boxers. He smiles and turns to the film, pulling her close.
“I thought you were brilliant today,” he says, watching the television. Dan Aykroyd is telling John Cusack that they should form a union.
“Thanks,” she says.
“I was just pissed off that Rupesh ruined it. Was I too harsh?”
“Are you still annoyed now?” she says.
“No. Not really. Yes.” He laughs at the little journey he’s just taken. “It’s unfair, isn’t it?”
“For him,” she says. “He’s been through a lot.” She’s abrupt, irritated by the sudden end to the kissing. She wants to go back to it.
“I just can’t help but feel he does it deliberately. Not what he told us. Just, why is it always him that’s doing things like this?”
Adeline goes to the bathroom, and when she returns he is looking out of the window.
“You’ll never guess what I just saw? Will coming out of Mr. Strachan’s drive.”
“What’s he up to?” she says. There’s no one there when she looks.
“Exactly.”
It’s really cold now, and all at once she’s aware of how grim the farmhouse actually is. While it is always neat—Steve often tidying up rubbish and burning it in the fire while they are all still there making mess—when was the last time it had been cleaned properly? If his bedroom is dirty like this maybe it’s best she doesn’t ever see it. It’s not on the bloody cards today.
They watch the rest of the film but don’t kiss any more. It is like his mind is somewhere else. She hopes she hasn’t upset him. Perhaps he is just embarrassed still, trying to deal with the secrets the others knew and he didn’t. When she kisses his head and says goodbye, he looks up at her, shocked. But he doesn’t protest, even though she wishes he would. Just a little bit.
Winter, 2015
By the time I rose from bed the gang had agreed to meet at Rupesh’s in an hour’s time, before he went to work. Mum and Dad were already up, Dad down in the garden doing God-knew-what given the time of year, Mum shut up in her room with the television on. I made them each a cup of tea, then got ready, getting round to Rupesh’s ten minutes early.
Rupesh was in the shower readying himself for a quick departure to his session at the out-of-hours clinic once we were done, and it was Jen who showed me to the lounge. Surprising, as her car hadn’t been on t
he drive.
“Engine’s still playing up so I taxied it here,” she said. “What are you thinking about this then? How much did this bloke say, how much detail?”
“Not much,” I said. “It was third-hand information. We managed to take a phone number for this friend of a friend of his before we left, and Steve’s chasing the guy.”
When Steve arrived, though, he told us the number was a voicemail bust. We all sat around the dining table again with the hot drinks that Rupesh, now in his work suit, had prepared.
“It’s not much to go on, is it?” Jen said. “If it’s just a rumour. There’s nothing online for a dead Will Oswald and if we apply to the General Records Office it can take months. But anyway, let’s say he is dead, isn’t it still just as weird that these suicides happened the same year he dies? He could have done them before he died, presumably?”
“Problem is that we don’t know when he died,” Steve said. “Might’ve been before any of these suicides, which rules him out. This Gaz guy last saw Will a year and half ago; you heard from him, when, December? And even supposing he was alive for the Loch Ness one, we don’t even know for sure that one was a suicide, not unless you’ve found anything since?”
“It’s an obvious suicide,” Jen said with a wave of her hand. “They just couldn’t say it with certainty, probably because of how Will made it look. I’m not convinced by this at all. Don’t you think his parents would know by now if Will was dead, or that there wouldn’t be something on the internet about an unclaimed body being found or something? I’ve looked for that too, and there’s not.”
“That’s a good point,” Rupesh said, and she flashed a grateful look his way.
“What we know so far is that he was definitely off grid for whatever reason,” Steve said. “Maybe he was living under a different name? If he had nothing to identify him on his body, and no one knew his real identity, it’s possibly they might not have got around to it identifying him yet for whatever reason. I don’t know how long these things take. Do you?”
“There are dental records and DNA analysis they can do,” Rupesh said.
“But those things take time, presumably,” I said. “And rely on there being existing records, so in theory it’s possible he’s sitting in a morgue somewhere unclaimed.”
“It’s possible,” Rupesh said. “I mean, Will might have had some troubles but I wouldn’t have thought he’s in the standard cohort for an unidentified, unclaimed corpse. But in theory it’s possible. Except how did this person find out he was dead in the first place?”
We all thought about this. He was right, he couldn’t have died in such obscurity if someone knew he was dead. It didn’t make sense.
“Unless,” Steve said, “the fallout with his family was bad enough that whoever dealt with his funeral arrangements kept it from them, perhaps at Will’s request.”
“He might’ve left instructions in a will,” I said.
“This is all complete speculation,” Jen said. Her tone sounded increasingly agitated. “There must be a list of unclaimed bodies? How big can it be? Can’t we phone the coroners in York?”
“If he died in York,” Steve said. “We don’t even know that. We don’t know he was unclaimed either. We could try those lists, yeah, I suppose. But if he’s been disfigured? Or doesn’t look like we think and we misidentify him.”
“Come on,” Jen said. “Isn’t it just as likely this is rubbish and the man you spoke with got the wrong end of the stick somehow?”
“Of course,” Steve said. “He gave the impression the guy he got it from was reliable, though. But yeah, maybe reliable in the musician world means turns up to practice on time. I mean, I’ll keep trying this number—but I’m just a bit uncomfortable now about pressing on with all of this Will being a murderer stuff. I’m not going to lie, I only half believed it anyway, and it was a bit exciting before. Now I don’t really want to have to tell Will’s parents that in the process of deciding whether or not he was a serial killer we actually found out he’d died and nobody had told them. That’s not really what I signed up for, sorry if that sounds awful. This has just gone from odd to sad too quickly.”
“You want to just forget it all then?” Jen said. “You don’t think we owe Will’s family this?”
“If I’m honest,” Steve said with a quick glance my way, “no. We don’t know what was going on in that family. I’m sure there’s a reason Will lived his life the way he did. Things that drove him that way.”
My instincts were with Steve, perhaps because he and I were there last night, live at the scene of Gaz’s revelation. I hadn’t yet shaken that feeling of shame—a bunch of middle-class professionals essentially contemplating whether our old friend was a murderer in part because he’d had the misfortune to slip down into the borders of the underclass.
“What about all the stuff I found?” Jen said. “What if those bodies have badges on? We still need to report that to the police. This isn’t over. And Adeline, come on, the thing—the face—on the back of your car? That’s like… a calling card. Like The bloody Joker or something.”
I shrugged. “There are a lot of Nirvana fans in Birmingham still, I suppose. Steve’s car was in the car park at a hotel. Could have been anyone.”
“So now we all believe in the coincidence fairy?” Jen says. “Nothing’s changed.” Her eyes were darting left and right, addressing us all.
“Let’s just take a breather and think this through for a while,” Rupesh said. “Jen, you’re right that nothing’s changed about what we’ve found. But I do think we should consider what all of it means if Will has passed away.”
“He could still be after us,” Jen said. “And we’re meant to just pretend all that didn’t happen?”
Wanting a break from her glare, my attention wandered up to the dresser leaning against the wall in the centre of the lounge. Its shelves were packed with knick-knacks, decorative plates and little ceramic models with a Hindu and Indian theme. That was when I noticed something out of step with the other items, tucked away on top shelf: a green Nessie figurine in a tartan hat smiled out at the room. I found its benign presence briefly soothing.
“I agree with Rupesh,” Steve said. “And all this speculation on Will’s mental state ending with him having died some death his family aren’t aware of… I don’t know.”
“I feel irresponsible,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right.”
No one spoke. I concentrated on the dresser, not sure what more there was to say.
When I turned back to the table, Jen was looking out of the window shaking her head, arms folded. “So what happens if he is dead,” she said, “but then I find out those badges are on the body?”
Steve looked at me, and I looked at Rupesh.
“Why would you do that, though?” Rupesh said.
“Just imagine we decide to find the families of one of the victims,” Jen said. “To stay on the safe side. And they told us those badges were—”
“Well, don’t do that,” Rupesh said.
I agreed; we didn’t want to be like those lunatic Reddit detectives that start harassing the real-life subjects of true-crime documentaries, the ones that Xan laughed at and admired in equal measure.
“Theoretically, theoretically,” Jen said, “what I’m asking, guys, is if it’s not Will and it’s not a ridiculous coincidence—and all the rest is the same—who else knew about his murder spree?”
Again we all looked at each other.
“Dead or alive we’d have a problem,” she said. “So what do we do next? Do we try and find out if Will is really dead, which I don’t believe, or do I look for the badges and then decide which of you three is doing this?” Rupesh frowned. Steve’s mouth was ajar, dumbstruck. “Are you serious?” I said.
“If Will is dead, yes, I am,” she said.
Rupesh stood up sharply. He glanced at his wristwatch. “I need to get going, sorry. This is getting a bit silly now. For what it’s worth, I think it’s a coincidence.”
“Obviously I don’t think it is one of us,” Jen said, “that’s not my point. I’m just saying this isn’t done.”
“Maybe you have a point, Jen,” Rupesh said. “But I really need—”
“We’re not the only ones that know,” Steve said. “Someone else was there that night and probably heard what Will said, too. That’s if we’re actually going down that road.”
It took us a second. But he was right, someone had been out there that night. We’d seen and heard him.
“Strachan,” Jen said.
Steve nodded. “If Will was our first suspect based on his history, what about a guy who went to prison because of Will?”
“And we all had history with him,” Jen said. Rupesh sighed.
“Maybe,” Steve said. “It’s worth considering, isn’t it? I wonder what he’s been up to all these years, whether he remembers us?”
Straight away I knew who might have the answers.
As we were leaving, Rupesh grabbed me in the hall and indicated I should hang back. Once the others were gone, he said, “Listen, I wanted to speak with you about something. I contacted a friend of mine who works on the Fibrox trial up at the Radcliffe in Oxford.”
I wasn’t following him, so he added, “Your mum’s illness. Now, she may not fit the inclusion criteria, and of course she may end up in the control group and be given a placebo. But if she gets the actual medication they’re trialling it could add up to ten years. And to me it sounds like she might be a fit.” His expression was solemn, and he was avoiding eye contact.
“Thank you, Rupesh,” I said, staring at him, overwhelmed. “That’s so sweet.”
“Of course, it might not be that useful, and your mum might not want to do all that travelling. But I thought I should tell you. I’ll let you know what he says anyway.”
I couldn’t help it; I hugged him, and though he remained stiff, he did hug back.
“We all have to go one day,” Rupesh said, “but I know sometimes even a little bit more time can make a difference.”
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