Mr Todd's Reckoning

by Iain Maitland

  “Adrian,” she says, looking at him and smiling in an encouraging, well-practised manner, “how do you know Mr Rennie?”

  I sit there impassively, my hands resting gently on my thighs, with a pleasant smile on my face as I look at Adrian as he answers. I am calm. I pick a small thread of cotton off my trousers and put it in my pocket.

  He leans forward, keen to help. “I don’t kn… know him really. He’s a friend of my mum’s. They work together at the school.” He then pauses and looks across at me with a half-smile. I am not sure what to make of it.

  The policewoman looks briefly at me too before she continues to talk to Adrian, “When you say your mum’s friend…” She looks at and then addresses me, “Are you and Adrian’s mother married?”

  I clear my throat, “Oh yes,” I answer. “Dawn and I… my wife and I, have been married… very happily… for, oh let me think, almost 30 years.”

  Adrian looks at me, but I ignore him. “And is Mrs… Todd in at the moment?” the policewoman asks. I am not sure if she is asking Adrian or me.

  I pause, waiting.

  Adrian breathes in sharply, making something close to a snorting noise.

  Almost derisive, it is.

  “… Dawn…” I answer mildly, ignoring Adrian, “… is away at present, her father’s been ill. Seriously ill.” I look at the policewoman, with my steady gaze.

  She looks back at me and then turns to Adrian. “Do you know when Mum will be back, Adrian?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugs and turns to me as if I am expected to answer both questions for him.

  “Where is she at the moment?” The policewoman presses.

  I clear my throat again. “I seem to have a frog in my throat.” I try to smile but my lips are sticking to my teeth. I clear my throat once more as she waits patiently, looking steadily at me all the time. Two or three more goes and I can speak.

  “She’s up north… with her father. She should be back soon. Her father’s been ill. Very ill. She should be back when he’s better.”

  The policewoman nods, taking it all in, processing things, working it all through, creating a list of questions in her mind. Answers she expects to hear. I could do with a glass of water right now, to be honest.

  “When did she leave?” she asks.

  “Sunday night, three weeks ago. The… um… ninth, I think.”

  “Have you heard from her since?”

  “She calls once a week, Sunday nights.”

  I know, as the words leave my mouth, that I’ve made a mistake. But what else could I say? No, she’s never been in touch? That would be odder, surely. The policewoman would dig deeper if I said that, wanting a phone number, an address, so much more than I can provide without giving myself away as soon as she makes that call or an officer goes to the address.

  Adrian looks at me. He knows it’s not true. The Sunday night calls anyway. I ignore him. Have to hope for the best. Hope that she does not now turn to him and ask if he has spoken to her. I can hardly breathe as the interrogation, for that is what it now is, goes on between the policewoman and me.

  “Is it possible Mrs Todd and Mr Rennie could be in touch with each other?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so… they were just work colleagues, that’s all.”

  “You know Mr Rennie well then?”

  “I don’t… No, I don’t know him at all.”

  “So, they could be in contact with each other?”

  I don’t want to look at Adrian, don’t want to turn to him for help, but I don’t know what else to say or do.

  “I assumed… from what Adrian said…” I turn towards him.

  “Adrian?” she says, looking at him.

  He’s not sure what to say; his early enthusiasm has ebbed away and I can see he’s sitting there tense and nervous. His eyes flicker this way and that; another of his tics, no more, but one that makes him look dishonest. He shrugs and says he doesn’t know. She turns back to me.

  “Mr Todd, if you know Mr Rennie… your wife’s friend… well enough to say you don’t think they’d be in touch… why did you say you did not know who he was…?” She holds the picture of him up in front of me.

  “I know the name… a little about him… passing conversations… but I do not know him personally… have never seen him… or a picture… I’ve not met him.”

  Adrian speaks up. “Mum showed me a photo of herself at a works do and pointed everyone out to me. She said he was nice to her, a good friend. I wouldn’t remember all of them but I remember him because he has a ’tache.”

  “And yet, of all the places Mr Rennie could go,” says the policewoman, looking from Adrian to me and back again, “his car is parked over the road from you, just 30 or so metres away from where his good friend… your wife… your mother… lives. He’s driven here from across the other side of town. Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  She looks at me. I shrug and pull a slight face, expressing surprise, a little bewilderment.

  She looks at Adrian. He doesn’t answer; doesn’t know what to say. His eyes, those empty, mad eyes, steady for a moment; as if he’s trying his hardest to disguise something.

  She reaches for her radio, to call her superiors, to get them to come and speak to us. To dig deeper. To finish me off. To end it all here and now. As she goes to speak, there is a high-pitched, ear-piercing scream from Adrian’s bedroom.

  FRIDAY 28 JULY, 10.20AM

  The policewoman is up and out of her chair, radioing “Back up, back up” as she moves quickly towards the door.

  Adrian is slow to react.

  Two steps behind her.

  I follow him into the hallway.

  The policewoman has already pushed open Adrian’s bedroom door. She stands there looking in as Adrian and I come up behind her.

  The little girl stops screaming, surprise on her face as she looks up at the policewoman. She is standing and her finger is caught in the side of one of the drawers of Adrian’s chest. It cannot be as painful as the scream suggested as she is silent now, awkward even, cowed by the uniform as she silently takes her finger out. I could swear she mouths the word, “oops”.

  Josie, sitting on the bed with her handbag on her lap, looks over at Adrian and whispers “sorry” at him before speaking, adding that the child was looking for a towel. It is unbearably hot in here. There is a strong smell of sweat, of musk, of the woman’s body. She has not opened the window, for fear of the policewoman hearing, I suppose. Her face looks flustered, her brow and hair damp with sweat. The girl looks wet, the edges of her hair all frizzy.

  I worry, as we stand there and the seconds pass, why this Josie has hidden herself away with the little girl. Why she did not follow Adrian out when he heard me talking to the policewoman on the doorstep. Why she did not sit next to him, holding his hand, the child at her feet, everything normal, as the policewoman asked her questions she could not answer. Why did she stay in the bedroom, keeping as quiet as she could?

  There is a sudden, loud banging on the door, “Open up, open up!”

  I look towards it, a policeman’s face at the pane of glass, contorted with anger.

  “You,” he bellows, seeing me, “open it now.” I run towards the door before he breaks it in.

  He pushes – shoves – me to one side as he moves towards the policewoman. There is a moment’s confusion as the two of them touch each other’s arms and hands and the policewoman speaks, “It’s okay.” He relays that into his radio to call off more back-up. And then the policewoman explains to the policeman that she was speaking to us and heard a scream. “Just the child… caught her finger.”

  A moment’s silence as we all compose ourselves. I stay standing rather than inviting everyone out of the hallway to the living room, to indicate to the police that they’ve done all they need to do here. That they need to go.

  Josie puts her handbag by her feet and pulls the girl onto the bed and hugs her. Adrian squeezes by the policewoman and sits next to them on the b
ed and turns and smiles at the policewoman. “My girlfriend… come to visit,” he says proudly, “Josie… Josie Wilson.”

  I can’t help but notice the glance – slightly longer than a glance actually – between the policewoman and the policeman when they hear the name. Or is that my imagination? There was no obvious look of recognition from either of them when they saw her. Josie smiles slightly in their direction but does not, as I would expect her to have done, say something like, “And this is Lily.” I find that peculiar. Most peculiar.

  The policewoman then steps forward and shows Josie the photograph of him.

  Josie shakes her head, “No, I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Have you heard the name Philip Rennie?” presses the policewoman.

  Josie shakes her head again as the small child holds her finger up towards the policewoman. There is, I think, a tiny smear of blood on it, where the nail has been nipped. The policewoman, too young to be motherly, ignores the outstretched hand and continues speaking.

  “The car over the way, a blue Honda, have you seen that?”

  Josie shrugs and then shakes her head as the policewoman tells her the number plate.

  There is a pause. It’s hard to see where the policewoman’s going with this.

  I reflect, for a brief moment, as the policewoman tucks the photo away, whether I should ask Josie if there is anything she wants to mention to the police. “Leon,” I would mouth. But I hesitate. I can’t help thinking – sensing really – that this would not be well received by her or Adrian. I don’t know why. And I do not want the police – any of them – here any longer than necessary.

  I turn towards the policewoman and see her looking at me, watching me. I smile at her but it does not come easy. There is something about her that unsettles me. She goes to speak – to damn me, I think – when the policeman’s radio goes, a sudden blur of words, something’s “been found”, somewhere “near the top”, I think it was, whatever that means, and he signals that they need to go. Now. Quickly. As if it’s something important. Very urgent.

  I know, as they walk quickly along the hallway to the door, that they will be back. Once the policewoman gets a chance, a quiet moment, to speak to her colleague in more detail. Him being known here. The friendship with her. The fact that they are both unaccounted for. That they have both disappeared. A routine matter becomes something more serious.

  It won’t be long before they return.

  Wanting an address for her. And a telephone number.

  And then, I think, God help me, my time will almost be up.

  FRIDAY 28 JULY, 12.31PM

  I am unnerved by the morning’s events but will, as Adrian and his ‘little family’ sit and eat their lunch, keep to my plans. For now anyway. The worry, the fear, the dread of the police’s return needs to be suppressed while I think over what to do. I must not panic, acting out of the ordinary, giving myself away.

  I have time. Not much, but a little. It will only be when they have come back and I give them various details – the phone that’s never answered, the address that does not exist – that I need to act decisively. Until then, I will hold my nerve and act as normal. If they come back – if. It is by no means 100 per cent certain. If I were to panic, to run now, for example, 1 would give myself away. And, anyway, where would I go?

  So, while I get a moment to myself, I am going to write one last diary entry. The final diary entry before I tear out these few pages and burn them. Away to nothing. So no one ever sees them. Nobody will ever know anything by my hand. This last entry will help me to think things over, get my mind straight and move on from all of this. If I can. I am going to write about him. Everything was done and dusted. Neat and tidy. Then he turned up, banging on the door. Near enough accusing me of murder.

  “Where’s Dawn? Where is she? What have you done to your wife?” That’s exactly what he said. Word-for-word. Shouted more like. On my doorstep for everyone to hear. Neighbours to either side. What would they think hearing that? They’d be puzzled, concerned. They’d turn to each other and one would say, “Thinking about it, I’ve not seen her for a while.” “No,” the other would reply. “She just vanished.” Then they’d look at each other and one of them would reach for the phone, calling the police.

  I opened my front door wide. Bluffed him. Good and proper.

  “Come in,” I said as casually as I could, making eye contact and gesturing him inside with as warm a smile as I could muster. I stepped back. He stepped in. I turned and he followed me down the hallway to the kitchen.

  Thinking on my feet, constructing a plan on the spot. I’d got him, for sure.

  In the kitchen, I stopped by the rack of knives, then turned and faced him, my hands behind my back. He stood towards me, tense and nervous, fiddling with a little brooch, a gold-coloured train, on the lapel of his jacket. The doorstep bravado was gone all of a sudden. Scared he was. I think he’d plucked up the courage to come to my front door, the sad little nobody, and had said what he’d said on the doorstep to shock and maybe frighten me. Now he was inside – following me automatically without thinking what might happen and now realising – and his nerve was failing him.

  “So, have you told anyone?” I said, looking into his eyes.

  “Told them what?” he answered, glancing away.

  “That I murdered her. Who have you told?” (I needed to know, didn’t I?)

  “Oh, well, I never said that exactly.” he replied, with a nervous flutter in his voice. He then went on. “No one, I was… just joking really, being a bit daft… I just thought… I wanted to know where she’s gone… why she just took off like she did. I don’t understand. It’s… so out of character.”

  He stopped, paused for breath.

  “One minute she was there, then she was gone.” He went on, “She just disappeared. I called her mobile, left messages… texted here once or two… several times as a matter of fact… and she’s never replied. We’re friends…” he paused for a moment, before adding “… just friends… pals.”

  As I reached for the kettle, I gestured to him to sit down at the kitchen table, at one of the two chairs to either side. He did so, and sat there, half-turned away from me, while he wittered on with his nonsense.

  “Yes,” he said, gathering a little confidence. “I know Sally and Cathy from work had called round to see why she’d not been in and you said her father had fallen ill unexpectedly and she had gone up to Scotland and that she wasn’t responding because she must have left her phone behind but… this is what I don’t understand… well, several things really… I thought her father lived in Canada?” He turned and looked at me.

  I gave my well-rehearsed answer casually, as I busied myself in the kitchen, getting out mugs and teabags and milk and sugar. “He’d moved back last year but never told us. Then his wife called and said he’d been given days to live. She went up straightaway.”

  “But… I mean, they hadn’t spoken for years, had they?… how would he… his wife… know how to contact her… Your phone number? That’s puzzling me. And… you see, the thing is… she’s never been in touch… with anyone… with me… I would have expected…” He stopped – I think he thought he had said more than he should have.

  I put the mugs side by side, noticing one had a crack in it and the other a tiny black speck on the rim. I picked it off with my nail. I’d have that one. I put in the tea bags. Added boiling water. Stirred one after the other with a teaspoon from the drawer and then, the words clear in my head, I replied, sighing as if I had explained this so many times before.

  “… She went up by train the moment she heard. I dropped her at the station. She’s been there since. He’s hanging on in there,” I added cheerfully. “Still with us. I expect he’ll… well, one way or the other… soon enough.”

  I handed him a mug of tea and noticed that, as he took it, he did not look at me, nor say any word of thanks. He seemed distracted, puzzled. I turned back to pick up my mug and then stood looking at him as he
went on.

  “But, you see, the thing is this. As I say, she hasn’t contacted anyone… not her work… friends… any of us. Leaving as she did before the end of term, well, it caused some staffing issues. For someone as… well, as reliable as she is… well, that’s very unusual… don’t you think? It’s rather troubling, I’d have expected her to have contacted… someone… by now.”

  Then he looked at me.

  And did not stop looking.

  Not for a moment.

  I laughed, rather jovially, and replied, “I suppose she’s been busy, what with her father dying, contacting you would be the last thing on her mind at a time like this, I’d have thought.” I stared back at him, but he did not blink or turn away. His thoughts then came thick and fast.

  “The first few days, yes, maybe even a week or so… that’s understandable I suppose… possibly… but, by now, she’d have been in touch for sure. She would have had a moment or two to herself. Her father would have a landline or his own mobile… or she could have written, sent a card, anything. But no one has heard anything. And that worries me… more than I can say.”

  He paused, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He then asked, “Do you have her phone here?”

  “Oh,” I said, thinking quickly. “No, no, I don’t.”

  “Did she take it with her then, lose it somewhere?”

  “No, as I said, she left it here. My son Adrian would have had it, put it somewhere safe.”

  “You don’t know where that would be? I’d like to see it… if I may. Would it be in his bedroom?”

  “Why do you want to see her phone?” I said, with a note of incredulity in my voice.

  “I just would,” he answered, looking back at me. “Just to check out… any clues… Has she been in touch with you at all?”

  “… Yes… well, when she got there – on the phone – just to let me know she arrived safely, nothing since.”

  “Do you have her phone number there… the landline… or the address, somewhere to write to? The school sent a letter here, I believe. Do you have that? Or did you send it on?”