by Adam Baron
It was then that I saw him. A thin guy in a shiny grey suit, with a bang-on mullet and a shaved goatee. He was on his own, carrying a briefcase, walking into a bookies. I waited until he came out, fifteen minutes later, getting a picture of him as he stepped out the door. He looked pleased with himself. The snap on the case was open. It hadn’t been before. I watched him walk into a grocer’s opposite and when he came out he was carrying the bag in a different hand. I watched him step into a big blue Merc and pull away. I didn’t follow him because Sal had told me where he hung out. Instead I walked to Notting Hill Gate, stopping for half an hour in an Internet cafe.
On the Central Line out to Leyton I sat looking at the three newspapers I’d bought. They all made a lot of Jack’s allegations, the Mirror indeed dipping its toe into the idea that Jack might not be such a villain after all, running his picture alongside a shot of Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. ‘Is Jack Draper trying to prove his innocence?’ one byline mused. I wondered if they’d be saying that tomorrow, a picture of Jeff McKenna on the front page.
There was also a small piece about the woman who had found Alison Everly’s body. Karen Mills. The paper said that it was on her wedding day, and gave a short description of how she’d come to call on Alison. I read it quickly before leaving the paper on the seat next to me.
I called the Everlys from Leyton Station, telling a very cautious, late middle-aged man that while I wasn’t a policeman, I was trying to find out who had killed his daughter. I wasn’t really expecting him to agree to see me, and I could hear his wife in the background telling him to say no, but when I said I was working for Louise Draper, he wavered. She wants to know if her husband is a murderer, I said. She’s devastated by all this as well. There was silence for a second or two before John Everly finally gave me the go-ahead to visit them.
‘I think we owe her that,’ he said. ‘She, at least, has never done anything to us.’
* * *
Alison Everly’s parents lived in a small bungalow on a clean, modern housing estate, ten minutes’ walk from Leyton High Street. I knew, from the newspapers, that up until six months before her death, Alison had lived there too. A limp sun peered through thin cloud like a lazy eye as I came out of Leyton Station and I wondered whether or not to thank it for showing me the jag of glass in McKenna’s turn-up. I had the feeling that that jag was not going to make life easier for me. I walked past the football ground, before turning off to the left. I found Borsley Avenue easily enough, and strolled along the line of small, neat bungalows until I got to twenty-seven. I opened the gate and walked up to a brown door with a brass knocker on the front but no bell. A large plastic cross was nailed above it, an agonized Christ frozen in his Passion.
The living-room curtains moved, and ten seconds later John Everly met me at the door. He was a stooped but still very tall, slow man in his late sixties, with no hair to speak of, but long, grey sideburns. He held a soft, warm hand out to me, then asked me if I minded showing him some sort of identification. I told him I didn’t mind at all, handing him my card. He squinted at it, shrugged his large shoulders and nodded, before opening the door wide and following me into the hall.
The bungalow I stepped into smelled of new air freshener and old dog food. I could see why when a small highland terrier ran forward from the kitchen and jumped up at me, before John Everly called it down with a wearily affectionate rebuke, bending to take hold of its collar. Everly’s voice was old-fashioned, rounded Cockney. He led the dog back to the kitchen where he shut it in, ignoring a couple of barks as he walked back down the hall towards me. He took my coat and hung it on a peg.
‘This way,’ he said, holding his hand out to the left.
Everly pushed open a thin white door, the bottom of which brushed heavily against a thick brown carpet with lighter brown swirls. He stood in the doorway, his arm across to the door handle, and I stepped past him awkwardly. The room was small, with a bay window and walls covered in heavy cream wallpaper with woodchips beneath. It was also very hot, a gas fire burning a livid orange on the far wall. Mrs Everly was sitting in a high-seated chair in the far corner, a remote in her hand though the TV was off. I don’t know what I expected Mrs Everly to look like – I’d given it no thought – but seeing her was a complete shock, which I tried to keep to myself. Mrs Everly was at least five years older than her husband, probably more, and was sitting bolt upright in her chair. While he was a slow, roundabout-seeming man, she sat there rigid but motionless, acknowledging my entrance with barely a movement, the merest tightening of thin, downturned lips. She had a waxen, almost yellow complexion, her eyes covered with large, grey-tinted glasses. Her hair was nylon, unmoving, an improbable purplish-brown. She wore a blue and white checked housedress, a large cross, complete with Christ, hanging down over a flat, almost sunken chest. On the walls surrounding her were other images of Jesus, all in varying degrees of torment. There were none of Alison, as far as I could see. My eyes flicked around them before returning to my hostess.
Mr Everly pointed me to a low sponge sofa and took a seat on a small stool next to his wife. He looked nervous, a weak smile playing on and off his lips like a bulb that won’t quite fit the socket. I sat upright, my elbows on my knees, and told the people before me how sorry I was about their daughter. Mr Everly nodded his head quickly and looked down, while his wife just stared at me, her arms spread out on the rests of her chair. The disdain on her face unsettled me. I took my notebook out of my pocket and thanked them for their time. I said I wouldn’t be long, I just wanted to find out a little about Alison.
John Everly sat up on his stool. ‘And you’re working for his wife?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And how…how is she taking all this?’
I heard her voice: I hate her. I nodded, slightly. ‘She’s very distressed. I think she wants to know what happened as much as you must.’
‘I know what happened,’ Mrs Everly said.
I turned to Mrs Everly and looked at her, trying not to show my surprise. Her voice was sharp and cold. She was waiting, but I didn’t quite know what to say.
‘Now then, Violet love…’
‘I know what happened. He killed her.’
John Everly let out a long sigh. I looked at Mrs Everly and pursed my lips. ‘That does seem likely,’ I said. ‘Yes. But until the police find him they won’t know exactly. What I want to do is get a picture of what kind of girl Alison was—’
‘You don’t understand.’ The words were spat towards me. ‘He killed her. Because of what she was like.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, would you mind telling me what she was like. I spoke to some people who knew—’
‘She was a little slut is what she was like. She was an evil little slut who sold herself—’
‘Violet!’ her husband said.
I sat on the sofa, my mouth open before I remembered to close it. I had a roll neck on and the heat from the fire was adding to my discomfort. Everly stared at his wife. Mrs Everly’s face was completely blank for a second and then she withdrew into herself, into thoughts there was no point sharing. Her head turned towards me. I couldn’t see her eyes and I was grateful for the thick darkened glasses that covered them. Her look was piercing enough.
‘Have you any more questions?’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Yes. Yes. I mean, did you know her friends, who she hung round with…?’
‘No,’ Mrs Everly said. ‘I didn’t. Her friends never came here. Well?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Is that all?’
I found that my mind was a complete blank. It wasn’t all, I’d made a list of things I wanted to know.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Right,’ she said.
Mrs Everly stood very suddenly and moved towards the door. She’d sat so still that I was surprised by how quickly she moved. She left the room without looking back, and I heard another door opening down the hall, before closing again.
I sat on the sofa, stunned by what had happened, how quickly Mrs Everly had gone off like that. I was making a habit of this. I looked at her husband, stooped on his stool, his mouth flickering again, not this time with a smile.
Everly looked up at me. The blood had fled from his face, leaving it a mottled white. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I…I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay. Really. I understand, it must be hell for you.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It is.’ A weight seemed to descend somewhere inside of him, crushing his voice. ‘But you don’t understand. Don’t say you understand, lad. I don’t bloody understand so I don’t see how you can.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, of course not.’
Ten seconds later I was alone in the room. I heard Everly in the hallway, repeating his wife’s name. He didn’t get a reply. I heard a handle turn, then turn again.
‘Come on, Violet.’
There was still no response. I heard nothing for a second and then I heard footsteps and another handle turning. It was followed by three short barks and the scampering of canine feet. The dog rushed into the living room and Everly lumbered in after it, a lead in his hand. The dog turned and saw him, then rushed out to the door. It looked as keen to get out of there as I was. Everly too. I stood up and followed them both outside.
We took a long route to the station, walking beneath lamp-posts just beginning to flicker into life. We didn’t say anything until we got to a small park, where Everly bent to let his straining dog off its leash. A bench overlooked a children’s play area and Everly lowered himself onto it. I sat next to him.
‘Now then. That’s better. How can I help you? I’m sorry about before, but the wife, it’s tough for her. She’s been through a lot, even before this happened.’
I nodded. Cheryl had told me Mrs Everly had been ill. I saw the wig, the colour of her skin.
‘Is it cancer?’
‘It is,’ Everly said simply. The question had caught him off guard slightly but hadn’t surprised him. He carried on nodding to himself, his eyes on something far away.
‘I see.’
‘Of the breast.’ He turned towards me as a thought flitted through his mind like an owl across the moon. Then it was gone. ‘It started ten, maybe eleven years ago. That’s when she had her first mastectomy. Last year she had chemotherapy, then eight months back she had to have another operation. Her ovaries as well, this time. There’s not much we can do now but hope. There are some new drugs but we can’t pay for them.’
‘Right, I see. Well, I’m very sorry I troubled her. It was obviously the last thing she needed.’
‘Not your fault. I should have just met you here. Violet, she’s got her own ideas about what happened. I can’t tell her. She and Alison, they had a difficult relationship.’
The dog was running its hind legs backwards on the grass as an empty crisp packet tumbled past its head. Everly reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. I took the chance to slide my notebook out of my pocket. Everly watched the dog closely, seeming to enjoy its simple, mechanical actions.
Once again I heard Cheryl. She used to hit her, the bitch.
‘Difficult how, Mr Everly?’
‘Well,’ he said. I could see him deciding whether or not to tell me, then giving way as if it just didn’t matter any more. ‘It was all right for a long time. We used to be a happy family, though it seems so long ago I have to remind myself. Violet was strict. But Alison never gave us any trouble. She was a withdrawn, quiet little girl, good as gold. She was the only child we could have and she made Violet very happy. Until she began to change.’
‘Change?’
‘You know, boys and things. Wanting to go to discos, the lot. Vi wouldn’t have it. I used to tell her that the world was different now, but Vi just shook her head. It used to send the girl crazy. It got worse and worse until Alison left home. Still only sixteen she was and she didn’t see her mother for three years after that. I used to meet her in cafes, in the park, places like that. I never told Vi.’
I nodded at Everly, making the odd note. ‘Why did she leave?’
‘Oh, she’d had enough. I think she could handle the rules, but then there was something else. We’d always been churchgoers but Violet suddenly became very religious, when her own mother died. Alison must have been about fourteen. Here.’
Everly reached a hand into his hip pocket and brought out his wallet. He flipped it open and the face of a young girl greeted me, a studio shot on a mottled blue background. Alison was in her school uniform, a big smile on her face. Her hair was tied back and she had a couple of spots on her cheeks. She still looked very young. I thought of the shot of the little girl that I’d seen in her flat that night, the little nurse with the big smile.
‘After that Vi was a lot harder on the girl, though she’d say she was trying to save her from herself. I didn’t know what to do. Alison always got good marks at school, but she began not to bother. Vi started throwing her out of the house, when she came home late and stuff. Drunk, and worse. Then one day Vi found her with a boy. They weren’t doing much, just sitting on the sofa, petting. But Vi threw her out and this time she didn’t come back.’
‘And then you saw her, every now and then. Did you know what she was doing during that time?’
Everly nodded reluctantly. ‘Alison had told me she worked in a beauty salon, in town. Maybe she did for a bit, who knows? But then Vi was at the hospital and she saw Alison in the paper. Page Three, like. It got to her, that did. Me too, if I’m honest. Vi brought the paper home and made me look at it. I mean, I loved the girl but doing that. Everywhere I went after that I imagined everyone would be looking at me. “There’s the chap whose daughter takes her clothes off.”’
I nodded and was silent for a second. I watched the dog, going about its business as a squirrel looked on from a safe distance.
‘And when she came home, was it better?’
Everly cheered up a bit and got ready to stand. ‘Yes. I was very proud of Alison then. When I told her that her mother was unwell, Alison came back. She said she’d finished with the way she’d been living, she said she’d repented. Came to church with us and everything. Never went out. It made Vi happy. She believed it, you see. Alison stayed with us for six months or so, taking Vi to the hospital, looking after her. I was still on the cabs then.’
‘And you supported her?’
‘Gladly, yes. But then she went off again. This fellow had been round a few times to see her. Said he was a friend, but it must have been a bloke from the papers.’
‘Long blond hair, a beard?’
‘That’s him. I reckon you could say he tempted her back into it. Alison said she was going because Vi was better. She said she’d come and visit. But neither of us saw her again.’
Everly’s voice cracked and he shut his mouth tight for a second. He looked like he was shivering. After a minute he looked away from me and stood up, walking quickly to the place his dog had been. He bent over with the plastic bag in his hand and then righted himself. The dog scampered round his ankles before chasing off after some pigeons. He called to it, his chiding tones full of something like relief and eventually it came up and submitted to the lead. Everly scratched its head before straightening up and nodding to me. He dropped the bag in a bin. I joined him and we walked through the park, up to the High Street.
Everly wanted to know what was being done about his daughter’s murder and I told him he’d have to ask the police that. He said he felt nothing for Draper, whether he’d killed Alison or not.
‘It’s terrible,’ he said, as we shook hands at the tube station. ‘But I wasn’t surprised, you know? By what happened. There was something about Alison. When the police came round I didn’t cry or nothing. Just sort of accepted it.’
‘And your wife?’
‘Lord, don’t ask me.’
‘She seemed very bitter about Jack Draper. Did you ever meet him?’
‘Never.’
&n
bsp; ‘Your wife seemed pretty convinced that he’d done it. Apart from all the speculation, does she have any real reason to think that? Did Alison say something?’
Everly looked confused for a second and I didn’t know why. ‘She said she knew he killed Alison,’ I explained.
Then Everly understood what I meant and he hesitated for a second. I heard his wife’s voice again. He killed her. I saw the pictures round the room and the cross on her neck. He killed her… She was a little slut… Everly saw me getting it, and he looked ashamed.
‘She didn’t mean Draper…?’
‘Violet doesn’t have any theories that would be of any use to you,’ Everly said.
I nodded my thanks to Alison’s father and he turned to go.
‘One other thing,’ I said. ‘Did you know of your daughter’s connections to the football club?’
‘Well, I used to take her. When she was little.’
I smiled. ‘You a fan, then?’
‘Man and boy. Still do some fundraising, stuff like that.’ He raised a limp fist. ‘Up the “0”s.’
‘But you didn’t know she modelled for them?’
‘Only when I saw her in the programme. That was only in the last few months. I didn’t mind that, it was tasteful, like.’
‘So you don’t know how she met Jack Draper?’
‘I imagine at a party, something like that.’
‘Right. And one more thing. The chairman.’
‘Korai?’
‘Yes. How long’s he been around?’
‘Oh, must be two and a half year now.’
‘And he’s popular?’
‘Put a lot of money into the club, bought some good players. Saved us from bankruptcy near enough. Should go up this year, touch wood. Why do you want to know? Here, you’re not suggesting…’
I shook my head. ‘Thank you for your time,’ I said.
Chapter Twenty-Five