Mr Todd's Reckoning

by Iain Maitland

  I dip my head down, put my head back in my hands, and wait for Josie to put a comforting arm around me. She does and I lean into her, my body shaking slightly as if I am fighting off tears. And then I realise. Exactly what I should do. What I should say. I sit up, brush at my eyes and talk on, looking at the policeman with the beard who seems to be in charge.

  “I need to find my wife. Talk to her. Tell her how I feel. Can you find her for me? Trace her. And him. So I can talk some sense into her?”

  A pause and then he replies. “I’m afraid not, sir. If two adults choose to leave their partners and move away together then legally, unless there’s any sign of wrong-doing… evidence of foul play… then it’s not a police matter.”

  “Are you going to trace her, though? Find out where she is?” I raise my voice, tinged with anguish. A poor, broken husband. His heart in pieces. “Could you tell her… I mean… could you at least pass on a message for me? You can do that, can’t you? That I… miss her… I want her back.”

  He shakes his head and adds, as they look at each other and start to get to their feet, “We’ve one or two more enquiries to make but there’s no apparent risk to either of them or the public so it will go up to our superior officer, who’ll review the papers and make a decision.”

  “So that’s it, then, you’re not actually going to do anything to find my dear wife?” I try to sound as disappointed and as bitter as I can as I stand up.

  “As I say, sir,” he speaks almost over his shoulder as they leave the room followed by me and then Josie, “it’ll be reviewed and we’ll get back to you if we need any more information about your wife. In the meantime, if you do hear anything from her, do…” His words are obscured as he goes to pull open the door.

  It jams and he stops, looking and noting that it has been damaged. I hold my breath. He mutters something, that I “need to get that fixed”, before pulling it harder so that it opens.

  They are away down the path.

  I watch them go.

  And that, I think – no, I know, in my heart – will be the last I see of them.

  SATURDAY 29 JULY, 1.22PM

  We sat, all now dressed properly, in the living room, with trays on our laps, and ate the vegetarian meal and the fruit salad that Josie (and the child, supposedly) prepared from what I bought at the local Co-op. She had also found some (what must be old) spaghetti in the back of a cupboard and had boiled that and cut it up into little pieces and mixed it in with the peppers and some sort of vinegary dressing. Very tasty it was too.

  Josie has been talking quietly to me about why she did not use the (cheese and ham) quiche and how she feels about vegetarianism and films she has seen about animal welfare. I have tried to smile and nod and agree without really listening to the more graphic descriptions of animals being tortured and butchered. When I was young, I did go through a phase of stamping on mice and hamsters to see them burst, but I seem to have become more squeamish as I get older.

  I am scared of rats. Have been for years really.

  When I was young I tried to stamp on one I had trapped in the corner of the shed. As I lunged, it moved so fast, I missed it.

  It ran up my leg, over my shoulder and away. I could scarcely believe it. They have always scared me ever since.

  The child now sits in front of the television set and watches something or other that Josie has found for her. It is a film with a dog in it, a Jack Russell, I think it is, and the child likes these dogs apparently and so is quiet for a while. Josie laughed when she saw my TV, saying she had never seen one so big behind the screen and that, if I bought a new one, we could get Freeview, whatever that is, and receive all sorts of channels for nothing. I said I would look into it and I will.

  We chatted for a while about the types of film and TV we enjoyed. She named several of what sounded like American shows and I smiled vaguely at the right times about those and something called Netflix. I then opened, and realised the danger as I did it, the cupboard and showed her my collection of VHS tapes. This triggered a giggling fit. I pointed out the Poirot and the Morse and the Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies tapes one by one and she said, between snuffles and giggles, that she had not heard of any of them (which I found hard to believe).

  I pointed to a box of Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em tapes and explained it was a very funny programme we might all enjoy.

  I was tempted to do a Frank Spencer impression at this point to make her laugh. I do it rather well (and had done it two or three times to great gales of laughter at office parties at Christmas).

  But I hesitated and the moment passed. Josie smiled at me and said that we could watch it later. For now, we are both sitting back and watching the dog film on the television.

  “Do you think Adey will call this evening?” Josie asks suddenly.

  (I knew this moment was coming at some point and can’t help think this might prove a tricky conversation. I give her my prepared answer.)

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure he could do if he lost his phone and can’t remember your number.”

  “But… if he’s with your wife… and she called you here… and he’s with her… could he not ring me on your home phone? Like she did with you?”

  (I pause, not quite sure what to say to that.)

  I shrug, “Maybe… he might not have told his mum yet… about you… might not have had a moment… what with his grandad dying. It might be rather insensitive, mightn’t it?”

  “But he could just ask to use the phone, couldn’t he? Even just to see how we all were? A quick call, that’s all.”

  She sits up straighter and I can tell she is thinking about things. Working it all out. Realising something doesn’t quite add up. Moving ever closer to the truth.

  “What I said for you, to the police. Am I right? Is that how things are? I wasn’t quite sure.”

  (I can handle a conversation but I am not sure what I will do if it becomes difficult, perhaps even dangerous, if she asks too much, probes too far.)

  “Pretty much,” I answer slowly.

  She looks at me and I can see she is waiting for me to explain things more fully.

  “Dawn… I think she’d been seeing this Philip Rennie for a while. When her father was taken ill, she went up there. Thought about things. Then she told me about… their relationship… that she wasn’t coming back.”

  “Yes, that’s what Adey thought, pretty much. But I don’t understand… if the police think this Philip is missing… why don’t you just tell them where your wife is and give them her number? Otherwise, they’re only going to keep coming back if you’re their only lead.”

  I sigh as if I had explained this a thousand times. “Because Dawn was estranged from her father until recently and didn’t know where he lived. He – his wife, I cannot remember which – got in touch with Dawn out of the blue.”

  I shake my head, suggesting I am frustrated in having to explain myself. That I am disappointed with her for asking. I hope that she will stop this line of questioning. Today was meant to be a happy day, our first perfect day together, and all I get is questions.

  “All I know is it’s Manchester, or thereabouts, which isn’t very helpful. And she withholds her number when she calls. So I’ve nothing to give the police. If I tell them that, they’d be suspicious.”

  “Suspicious of what?” she asks and I could curse myself for saying the word. I think she is moving ever closer to the truth of the matter.

  I shrug, as if it’s no matter. “I don’t know. This Philip Rennie disappearance. A missing person. All he’s done is leave his wife and stolen mine.”

  She goes to answer, to say something more, to ask the next question she has in her mind but, as she formulates the words, the child suddenly stands up and knocks over her tumbler of orange squash. Josie jumps to her feet to clear it up and I take the opportunity to take the trays into the kitchen to start tidying everything away. The moment – leading to the end – passes, but I know she will come back at me with more q
uestions soon.

  Why did Philip Rennie leave his car by my bungalow two weeks or so after she had left?

  Why, as the police said, hasn’t he been in touch with anybody since or used any cards? What is he living on?

  Why did Adrian go up to Manchester without taking a change of clothes or even taking two minutes just to say goodbye?

  What has really happened to her, him and Adrian?

  When these questions come, as they will surely do sometime soon, I have to decide what to say. And then what to do as I examine her face, her mind working through my answers, trying to make sense of them, struggling to understand before her ready acceptance of everything at face value turns to doubt and scepticism and, eventually, suspicion. And then what will I do?

  SATURDAY 29 JULY, 1.42PM

  Josie stands by the kitchen sink, washing up the knives and forks and plates, looking out across the garden. I stand to her right, slightly behind, drying each item that she puts on the draining board and then putting these away in the cupboards.

  She has given the child a bag of cheesy Wotsits from her handbag, to keep her quiet while watching television.

  I can hear the child chomping away, her mouth open, as she pushes in one Wotsit after the other. I am not imagining it. I hear it clearly.

  I do imagine her looking at her bright orange hands when she’s finished and wiping them on my settee. The dirty child has no manners at all.

  When Josie cleaned and tidied, she found an iron and a nylon washing line, still in its packaging, under the sink and has suggested that I put that up later, when it has hopefully stopped drizzling. I am not sure where I will put it. We used to have a rope washing line across the trees at the end of the garden, but I took that down when I removed them, and the rope, which is perfectly serviceable and could be used again as such, is in the garage.

  The nylon washing line lies on the table beside me and I idly read the label: ‘20-Metre Clothes Laundry Washing Line Metal Steel Core Braided Rope Nylon String’. Quite a mouthful really. ‘Nylon Rope With Steel Core’ would suffice. I do not know where it came from nor why it was under the sink. I do not recall buying such a thing.

  She would often buy random, useless things from catalogues in Sunday newspapers. A rubber safety bath mat. A bottle of tissue mist for spraying on toilet paper. A portable foot spa. Moisturising gel gloves. Dehumidifiers galore. Anything that smelled of lavender; manicure sets, mouthwashes, foot pastes. An endless flow of cheap tat that she would buy for her birthdays and Christmases and then discard, worn out or broken, within six months.

  This should have been a sweet and lovely day. Laughs and giggles galore. Falling in love.

  Shared confidences. Our heads bobbed and close together, conspiratorially. Two as one.

  Instead it’s all been sharp and jagged and edgy. That stupid child. Endless questions from Josie, who just won’t shut up. I wish to Christ she’d stop talking.

  After babbling on about ironing their clothes later and the washing line, the length of the garden, how quiet it is (it isn’t) and how we must sit and watch the trains go by when it’s dry and bright (what fun), she turns her attention to what, inevitably, is coming next. The air-raid shelter. I had expected these questions and so I am prepared for the conversation.

  “Why do you have an air-raid shelter in your garden?”

  “Oh, that? It’s from the Second World War. It was still here when we moved in over 25 years ago. The previous owner used it like a shed, for storage… We should have knocked it down and filled it in, but it was too expensive… they couldn’t get a digger in… We used it for storage at first but everything got damp and musty so it’s empty now.”

  She nods and I can sense she thinks nothing of it, is just making polite conversation. But then she adds, by way of a joke.

  “Except for scarecrows!” she laughs, and I am not sure what to say. I am not certain what would be normal. I do not want to dwell on the matter in case she decides she wants to go and look at the shelter right now. Nor do I want to be seen to sharply change the subject, which may seem an odd thing to do.

  “Oh yes,” I reply. “They’ve long gone.” (Thinking that will be the end of this conversation and that next we will move on to talking about the weather.)

  “Lily can’t stop talking about those scarecrows of yours. She’s convinced she saw them hiding in there from the farmer.”

  (Go on then, keep talking, sign the child’s death warrant, why don’t you.)

  I smile, more of a rictus grin really.

  I titter a little.

  I laugh, hearing its falseness in my head.

  (I don’t know what else to do, I need to play this down, move on, talk about something else.)

  “It’s all I can do,” adds Josie, smiling to herself, “to stop her hiding in the shelter.”

  (I say nothing as she goes on.)

  “When it’s stopped raining, could you just open it and let her peek inside? It’s the only way I’ll get any peace and quiet tonight.”

  (I do not know what to say or do.)

  She puts the last piece of washing-up on the draining board. It is a large and heavy, smoked glass bowl. It was a wedding present all those years ago and I am amazed that it has survived so long without a single chip or crack. I lift it up and wrap the tea towel, now damp from drying, around it. I feel its weight in my hands.

  Josie turns and looks at me and smiles. And I am lost for a second.

  The look in her eyes is so innocent and beautiful and loving.

  And I cannot, while she looks at me like this, do anything to her.

  “Maybe,” she says, oblivious to my utter torment, “when it’s dry, you could go and unlock it and we could play hide-and-seek and sit in the lounge while Lily goes and finds a place to hide. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  I smile.

  I nod.

  I agree.

  And then Josie is gone, waltzing happily out of the kitchen to the bathroom, completely unaware that everything has now changed. This is not, nor can it now be, a perfect day. We cannot live happily ever after at all. I know that, if these endless questions and the relentless badgering continue and the hide–and-seek game commences, I will have two more deaths on my hands.

  SATURDAY 29 JULY, 2.22PM

  Josie and the child are having what they call ‘quiet time’ in Adrian’s room until four o’clock, when we are due to play hide-and-seek if it has stopped its endless on-off, stop-start raining. I can hear Josie telling stories and the child is quiet for once. I am sitting in my room with the newspapers from the living room cupboard beside me on the bed. My diary, which I need to destroy, is on my lap. I am working through the newspapers, from the past five or six years, and am writing a list. To get things straight, in my head. What I have done. Such terrible things.

  15-year-old girls, Ipswich.

  18-year-old woman, Bury St Edmunds.

  43-year-old woman, Colchester.

  19-year-old woman, Woodbridge.

  It has now stopped raining and the sun is shining and my nerves are all on edge expecting the child to wake up and come running out to play at any moment. I do not know how I will handle that. I need to give it some thought. I pause and add some dates to the list, moving forward from six years to not so long ago, and then write a simple description for each.

  Showed myself, made them watch.

  Satisfied myself on top of her.

  Had sex.

  Had sex.

  I wanted, from this day forth, to live a happy-ever-after life. With Josie and, yes, with the child, Lily. I have tried to do that. But it is one thing after another with them. It is not going to work out. I must decide what to do. Make a decision and stick to it come what may. In the meantime, I add more to the list in second and then fourth place.

  Blonde, 25? Unreported. Touched her everywhere. Wherever I wanted.

  Brunette, 60? Unreported. Stopped halfway through (false teeth).

  The first incident, six or so years
ago, was spur of the moment. They just happened to be passing. I felt ashamed afterwards. Would never do anything like it again. I lasted a year before I succumbed to my urges one more time. Then 13 months. And so on. I think this last one, a park in Woodbridge where she struggled and fought and almost pulled off my balaclava, will be the last.

  I have not done anything like this for a little while now. Not since I was arrested outside the delicatessen. I know now, with the police having my DNA on record, that it is only a matter of time before someone, somewhere, a young rookie policeman with time on his hands, runs it through the main police database. There may be matches. I don’t know for sure but suspect there will be. And then they will come for me. If I were to do anything else anywhere, in another park with another woman, it would only hasten their arrival.

  Her.

  She. The wife. She made me what I became. She turned me away. Spurned me. Forced me to subdue my natural urges until I could last no longer. If it had been a happy marriage, a proper, loving marriage, a physical one, none of this would have happened. And, after everything, she was going to leave me. Take all I owned and more; my self-respect, my dignity, my soul. I do not regret what I did. No, I do not and I never will. I will not apologise for that.

  Him.

  He. Her lover. I do not know if he was her first lover. Probably not. But he was her last, that’s for sure. I saw to that. I did not intend to do what I did. It was not planned. It was not intended. He came round here, uninvited. Strutting about as if he owned the place. Telling me what he was going to do. Speak to the police. I had no choice. To do what I did. It was forced upon me. There is no need to apologise for that.