First published in 2005 by Crème de la Crime. Crème de la Crime Ltd, PO Box 523, Chesterfield, Derbyshire S40 9AT
Copyright © 2005 Maureen Carter
The moral right of Maureen Carter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Typesetting by Yvette Warren Cover design by Yvette Warren Front cover illustration by Peter Roman
Printed and bound in England by Biddles Ltd, www.biddles.co.uk
ISBN 0-9547634-6-7
A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library
www.cremedelacrime.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Author’s note
The idea for Dead Old was planted more than twenty years ago when as a television news reporter I covered the vicious murder of an old woman in Birmingham. The elderly victim had been picking flowers when she was attacked and robbed of just a few pounds. The image of a bunch of daffodils discarded at the scene has been with me ever since. My revulsion at the nature and pointlessness of the killing was exacerbated when I learned later that day that I’d known – albeit briefly – the victim. Before her retirement, she’d been a doctor. And for a few minutes one afternoon I’d been her patient.
Dead Old is of course a work of fiction, as are all its characters. But the daffodil image – like, perhaps, half-a-dozen others from my long career in journalism – is as moving and potent for me now as it was on the morning I first saw it.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to Douglas Hill, Lynne Patrick and Iain Pattison.
For endless support and encouragement, thanks also to: Suzanne Lee, Corby and Stephen Young, Frances Lally, Paula and Charles Morris, Christine Green, Sophie Shannon.
For Beryl and Fran and Peter Shannon
Sophia Carrington was becoming invisible. People passed her without a glance. Days went by when she didn’t speak to another soul. She knew it happened to old people. She’d heard it often enough from her patients. Women over a certain age with eyes as empty as their days had told her so. Back then she hadn’t believed it. Strictly speaking, she hadn’t believed it would happen to her.
And now it had.
Not that Sophia felt old. The problem was, no one knew how she felt.
She reached for her hat from the hallstand and moved nearer to the mirror. No wonder everyone ignored her, she barely recognised herself. An old person peered back; an old woman with white hair and beige skin that didn’t quite fit. She pursed her lips, hating the result. “God, Sophie, you’ve got a mouth like a mince pie.”
And that’s another thing, girl, stop talking to yourself.
People said it was the first sign of madness but Sophia knew better. It was loneliness.
She sighed and pulled the hat firmly down over her ears. It was a rather fetching cornflower-blue beret, bought by an admirer in the days when it matched her eyes. He was long dead and now the hat was worn to hide thinning hair. She shook her head, sighed again and tightened the belt on her coat. Like Sophia, the coat had seen better days, but it was fine for a spot of gardening. The pockets held scissors and twine. She added a few pounds and took her keys from the hook on the wall.
Then she remembered the note to Maude. She’d scribbled down the train times to Birmingham for Maude’s visit next week. Sophia smiled. Maude was her oldest and dearest friend but she fussed and fretted over the slightest thing. Having the journey times in black and white would help a little. The envelope too went in her pocket. She must remember to pop it in the post box.
The entrance to the allotments was at the brow of Princes Rise. It was a stiff climb but Sophia told herself it was good exercise. She shared the plot with a neighbour. It would have been too much for just one of them and the arrangement worked well. Sophia grew flowers; Ernie preferred to grow vegetables. Come to think of it, Ernie usually had more to say to his greens than he did to her. Not that he’d be there. As he’d mentioned several times, Ernie was staying with his daughter and her family in Kidderminster. It was an all-too-rare weekend visit and the old man had been as excited as Sophia had ever seen him. She smiled as she recalled him dusting down an ancient battered suitcase before packing it with almost certainly unsuitable presents for grandchildren he rarely saw.
Her smile was tinged now with a hint of sadness. She suspected that Ernie, like herself, felt a touch lonely from time to time. He’d popped in that morning to ask her to keep an eye on the place. It wasn’t a problem. She wasn’t going anywhere; she rarely did. She’d be spending the night in with Trollope: Anthony, not Joanna.
But first things first. Earlier in the day, she’d had an inkling that the daffodils would be ready. They’d always been her favourite flower. She loved the way their golden brashness banished the greys of winter. Cutting them was like picking sunlight. Sophia smiled at the thought and made an effort to put a spring in her step. She was determined to slough off the uncharacteristic depression and enjoy what remained of the day, the warmest of the year so far.
Across the park, over the treetops, the city skyscape was discernible on the horizon: a sprawling greyness of jutting concrete towers, dwarfed in every way by the nature around it. The sky was beautiful. She wanted to paint it, preserve it. Impossible, of course. The backcloth of colours changed every time she lifted her glance. Now the brightest of blues was streaked with tapering fingers of gold; smudges of mauves and lilacs lay like bruises on the tenderest of flesh.
It made her glad to be alive. Again she chided herself for her previous dark mood. She must try not to let real – or imagined – snubs and slights get her down. Life was good, her health was fine and she had no money worries. Sometimes she wondered what difference a family would make, but what was the point? There was nothing she could do about that now. She’d opted for a career in the days when most women saw marriage and motherhood as a job for life. She’d loved her work as a doctor, enjoyed the respect her position commanded and relished her independence. If an old age lonelier than she’d have liked was the price, it was a cost she could live with.
She was almost level with the gates. She usually crossed on the corner near the general store but a woman she vaguely recognised was waving from the other side of the road. How nice, Sophia thought, maybe we could take a stroll together. She lifted a hand to return the greeting before realising th
e woman was hailing a bus. Mortified, Sophia glanced round, hoping no one had seen her make an idiot of herself. There was only one man nearby and he was engrossed in a newspaper. She knew her embarrassment was out of all proportion to the simple mistake. Why couldn’t she just laugh it off like anyone else?
Momentarily flustered, she decided to pop into the shop. Mr Vaz usually had a kindly word, always asked how she felt, even though she had the good sense not to tell him. Maybe his old-fashioned courtesy would restore a little of her fragile self-esteem.
Emerging a few minutes later, Sophia held a flimsy plastic carrier containing a bar of dark chocolate and a half-bottle of brandy. She paused, dithering, in the middle of the pavement. Maybe she should go home, forget the flowers? Two youths were approaching, clad in black, with rings through their lips. It was clear from their body language they had no intention of making way for her. Nervous of making eye contact, Sophia glanced down and moved out of their path. They strutted past with nothing more wounding than a muffled “Shove it, grandma.”
Sophia breathed a sigh of relief. She knew the days were long gone when a person’s advanced age might be accorded a level of respect, but many youths nowadays showed a staggering contempt. They either saw the elderly as a waste of space or failed to notice them at all. It wasn’t just the boys, either. Last week a schoolgirl had actually spat at her in the street. Sophia’s eyes welled with tears at the memory. For a second or two she was tempted just to give up and go home, but she tightened the belt on her old coat and simultaneously stiffened her resolve. She wouldn’t let unpleasant encounters deflect her. She’d come out for daffodils and she wouldn’t return without them.
It was a busy road and she waited patiently for a gap in the traffic. As she stepped out, a gleaming red car with music blaring from dark-tinted windows appeared from nowhere. The driver beeped his horn as Sophia scuttled back to the kerb. She couldn’t read his lips, didn’t need to. His face was screwed into an ugly look that said it all. Why were people so aggressive, so impatient with the elderly? Even those who weren’t rude were chillingly indifferent. They just didn’t care. No one listened any more. No one had time.
Whereas Sophia had all the time in the world.
1
As wide boys go, Marty Skelton warranted a police escort. The grubby little man spent more time at Highgate nick than some of the officers. Marty’s crimes, though minor, were myriad; his record only just fitted on to a floppy. Dodgy gear and hot goods didn’t fall from lorries, they flew into his outstretched arms.
Those scrawny limbs, covered with cheap tattoos of loose women, were currently drawing back the remnants of a pair of bedroom curtains – Marty ’s take on interior design being as tenuous as his grasp on the market economy. Early-morning exercise almost complete, Marty rounded off with a little weightlifting by raising the window as high as the frayed sash would allow. Eyes closed, he inhaled deep breaths of fresh air before lighting the first of the day’s skinny roll-ups.
Still framed in the window, Marty surveyed his thief-dom and spotted an additional subject. A woman was sprawled on top of a rotting mattress at the bottom of the garden. Marty would have executed a double-take but for the fact his features were frozen in shocked disbelief. He rubbed a clammy hand over post-binge bleary eyes and looked again. The troubling vision was still there.
The Dreamland wasn’t giving him any grief. It had been dumped over the non-existent fence a couple of weeks before Christmas. The woman, on the other hand, was a problem. He hadn’t a clue who she was or how she got there, but he was damn sure she wasn’t auditioning for Sleeping Beauty.
Hauling fake Levis over counterfeit CKs, Marty grabbed a mobile and descended the stairs two at a time. Thoughts vied for pole position as he headed for the action: Who? Why? When? And what was with the flowers? Marty’s backyard was a growth-free zone but he could’ve sworn he’d caught a flash of daffodils.
As the distance from the woman narrowed, Marty’s eyes widened to take in the bigger picture. In painting terms, it was a still life. There was more movement in the flea-ridden mattress than in the body. Marty stopped and stared, hoped desperately it was an alcohol-induced hallucination or that the message from his eyes had somehow been scrambled on the way to his brain. Either option was preferable to this. He hadn’t imagined the flowers but couldn’t believe where they were. He put a hand over his mouth. The human body as vase was a challenging concept for any art lover, let alone a man who couldn’t tell a Picasso from a Pollock.
As for the liberal splashes of crimson, even Marty could see they hadn’t been applied with a brush.
The sight and smells tipped the little man’s already shaky equilibrium. His fist proved ineffectual in stemming a rising nausea, and he made a mental note to chuck his trainers in the Hotpoint. First, revolting though the thought was, he’d have to take a closer look. Clearly the sooner he reported this the better, but he needed a few facts before making the call. Marty checked there was enough credit on his mobile. It was a pay-as-you-go. Not that he had.
Johnny Depp was on the line again. She’d told him a million times not to phone her at the nick.
“Bev! Shall I get him to call back, or what?”
Reluctantly an eye opened. It wasn’t Johnny Depp; it wasn’t even Johnny Vaughan. Detective Sergeant Beverley Morriss wasn’t on the job. Fully awake now, if not entirely alert, she clocked the time: half-past-late. She shot up and immediately regretted it. “No,” she yelled; regretted that as well. “Tell him to hang on a minute, mum. I’m on my way.”
Bev clutched her head in both hands and tried focusing on a part of her anatomy that didn’t throb. The acute pain as she stubbed a toe on the foot of the bed was almost a relief compared with the dull malady afflicting every other cell.
She grabbed a rainbow-striped dressing gown from a hook on the door and wrestled with the belt before deciding déshabillé would do. Why, oh why, had she had that last drink or four? She put a hand to her forehead. The girls’ night out had been the latest in a series of sorrow-drowning sessions; with hindsight, it could have sunk a flotilla. It was a month since she’d heard, but even now phrases from the appointment board’s letter still made her wince. On this occasion… not successful…
Not successful? As in loser? She’d wanted the Acting Detective Inspector post so badly she could taste it. The failure probably explained the sour taste in her mouth. That and a vestige of the vindaloo she vaguely recalled picking at several hours earlier.
The post had become available because DI Mike Powell, her erstwhile boss, was on suspension pending an internal inquiry. There was no love lost between them; there’d never been any to lose in the first place. Bev had fantasised about stepping into his fancy Italian footwear, then running professional rings around him. Verbally she already did. And he loathed it; didn’t know how to handle it. In Powell’s book, women were either decorative or domestic. Bev made no particular effort to be either. Way she saw it: if life’s too short to stuff mushrooms, it’s not long enough to mess around with lip-gloss.
Anyway, as far as she was concerned, Powell was a yes-man without a single original idea under his expensive blond highlights. Christ, if the man weren’t so dense he’d be an airhead. Nah, the DI post had her name all over it. It was a shame the men-in-suits couldn’t read. The girls had done their best to cheer her up last night. Her best mate, Frankie, had even raised a laugh of sorts when she suggested Bev get a sex change. Either way you looked at it, it was a slap in the face.
She avoided looking in the mirror as she took the phone from her mum, at the same time attempting what she hoped was a bright smile. Emmy Morriss’s pained expression made plain the attempt had failed. Bev clearly looked as bad as she felt. She ran a hand through her hair, not that it did any good, and mouthed, “Who is it?” The way Emmy had been twittering on, she probably had the man’s life history by now.
Her mum shrugged. “Didn’t ask. He sounds awfully nice, though.” She added, almost as an afterthou
ght, “He’s from work.”
Bev would have rolled her eyes but feared an ensuing wave of pain. Emmy pursed her lips, turned on her fluffy pink slippers and headed for the kitchen. There was nothing in Emmy’s world that a cup of tea couldn’t fix. Her mum was one of Powell’s domestics: Delia with a Dyson. Bev loved her to bits but if she had to live at home much longer it would drive her round the bend. She’d only been back three weeks after a deal on a house she’d been hoping to buy had fallen through.
At least Bev’s gran wasn’t down yet. Sadie, unlike her mum, wouldn’t hold back from asking about Bev’s night out. She’d want the low-down. Sadie had the curiosity of a big cat and an interview technique that made Paxman look like Graham Norton. Bev usually had no problem indulging the old lady, but not this morning.
“Hello?” A frog with laryngitis appeared to be lodged in Bev’s throat; then she remembered all the Silk Cuts and indifferent Soave she’d got through in the Prince of Wales.
“God. You sound rough. You should have phoned in.” Vince Hanlon’s voice veered from sympathy to censure in seconds.
“You what?”
“If you’re that sick, you should have called in.”
She cleared her throat a couple of times. Highgate’s longest-serving sergeant would have heard every lame excuse in the library. She opted for the truth; well, part of it.
“Sorry, Vince. Bad night. I overslept.”
She tried to read the silence. Vince was a good mate but he had no time for slackers.
“Not like you, Bev. Anything up?”
Life, the universe, everything. “Nothing serious.”
“If you say so.” He paused in case she wanted to elaborate. “Any road, we’ve had this call. Some punter reckons there’s something going off down Cable Street.”
Cable Street? That was Kings Heath. She pulled up a mental picture of redbrick terraces, boarded windows and a smattering of graffiti. “Go on.”
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