by John Noonan
‘I don’t know nothing. My life has been a shambles this last year,’ she immediately began without prompting. ‘Michael was very kind to take me in. She’s been a bloody curse she has. I done nothing to no one to deserve this kind of thing.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t,’ I said, sitting next to her to hold her hand.
‘What are you doing?’ she said moving her hand away.
‘I thought you needed comforting,’ I mumbled.
Tutting, SH sidled up next to Susan and stared intently at the side of her head.
‘Who’s a bloody curse?’ she asked, prodding Susan’s era once with her finger.
‘My sister Sarah. She was living with me till about a month ago. Pain in the arse she was. Always has been. Left home at 16 and only ever looks back to see if someone will catch her when she falls.’
‘You mean you and your other sister?’ SH asked.
‘How’d you know about Tracy?’
‘I noticed the pictures above your couch, showing three women who look roughly the same and appear to be enjoying themselves. I knew they had to be related somehow, and you’ve given me the reason to think sisters.’
‘Yeah, well, Sarah has been a bloody thorn in mine and Tracy’s sides for years. Only reason why she turned up at mine was because Tracy kicked her out of hers. Didn’t get along with new boyfriend or something. I don’t know, I can’t imagine Sarah gets along with anyone.’
‘There’s only one photo of the three you together. I take it you don’t get along ordinarily?’
‘We’re not the closest sisters in the world. That’s no crime,’ Susan said defensively. ‘We contact each other when we need to. Like when Sarah needs a bleeding roof to sleep under, then we’ll help each other out.’
‘And what makes you think she had anything to do with this?’ I asked pointing at the ears.
‘Oh I don’t, she just brings trouble with her wherever she goes.’
‘And where is Sarah now?’ SH asked.
‘Probably at The Northumberland Arms, a pub just down the road.’
‘Right, reckon I might need a chat with her as well. Can you let me know if your sister Tracy gets in contact? I’ll want a word with her too.’
‘I suppose,’ Susan shrugged, non-committedly.
With some confidence, SH turned to Michael and promised him that she would have an idea of what was going on by the end of the day.
‘But you’ve got to promise me that we call the police!’ she said. ‘You don’t have to be here. Just get rid of that stuff…’
‘Once James is here, I will consider it,’ Michel smiled. Was it a smile?
SH suggested that the ears be kept in the freezer for preservation, and whilst Michael, box in hand, was followed into the kitchen by a protesting Susan Cushing, we left the house in search of Sarah Cushing.
Meet Michael
Your first paragraph goes here.
And so on…
When you get the end of the book, added centered hashtags to let the reader know they’ve reached the end. Or, enter the words, “The End.” I added centering by highlighting the text and then assigning the text to my custom “Centeredtext” style. You’d be surprised how many writers don’t denote the end. By letting the reader know they’ve reached the end, it puts them in the mental mindset to read the important end matter sections that come next!
Sarah
The pub in which Sarah worked, The Northumberland Arms, was only a twenty-minute walk from Susan’s house and I used the time to ponder on what had just happened in the house. I found it hard to link the SH I knew most of my life with the one who was performing criminal acts for others.
‘I’m not performing and they’re not criminal acts,’ SH said in response to my thoughts. ‘It’s usually really simple things. Well, simple to me, you know. There was a bookie once in Nottingham who had closed his business for like five days. No word or nothing. Michael asks me to look into it and I found the place had been broken into. Cleaned out. I manage to track the owner down to a motel where he’s copying out the Encyclopaedia Britannica, first volume. Anyways, I talk to him, explain Michael isn’t happy and he starts telling me about this email he got telling him to come to a will reading. Some bloke he could only vaguely remember had left him a huge sum, six figures, which was his if…’
‘…he wrote out the Encyclopaedia Britannica?’ I said coming to a stop.
‘Yep,’ SH giggled as we commenced walking. ‘The pillock was so money hungry, he didn’t think anything odd about it. Just booked himself a room for privacy and got straight to work. Well, it didn’t take me long to deduce that whoever set him up were also the same people that robbed his place whilst he was absent. Michael took the business off him and he’s a dish cleaner for a curry house now.’
As we continued our walk, SH continued to justify her absence telling me how, even when she was in Manchester, she chose to avoid me. How could I possibly understand? How could I comprehend her shame and exhilaration at what she did for a living working for Michael? Whilst I agreed, I made it clear that I knew exactly why she did it.
A loss of a mother, then a brother. You didn’t have to be Colombo to understand that even SH would yearn for family. I told her that I would continue to help her, that this ‘case’ was too much for one person. She would need help and, with Michael appearing to be least likely to make too much effort, I would be the next best thing. SH didn’t argue. I reached out for her hand and we walked like that, in silence, for the rest of our trundle.
When we arrived at the Arms, it may have only been a little after opening time, but the bar was already occupied by several men and women whose mornings weren’t going to get any cheerier and had already begun their descent to the bottom of a bottle. Thirsty and impatient, they waved five pound notes at a barman who was running between them under serious duress.
We positioned ourselves at the empty end of the bar and waited for the crowd to dissipate. When the last person had wandered back to their table with a prized pint in hand, SH flashed a smile at the barman who sauntered over.
‘Alright, love,’ He said. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m here to see Sarah if she’s in.’
‘Sarah? That makes two of us.’
‘And you are?’ I asked, trying my best to seem like interrogating people was my day to day occupation.
‘What’s with the tone?’ asked the man.
‘He does that,’ replied SH. ‘But it would be good to know who you are?’
‘Keith, the landlord,’ Keith the landlord said. ‘Look, who are you?’
‘Just an interested party. We’re looking for Sarah on behalf of her sisters.’
Keith the landlord poured himself a shot of whiskey which he immediately downed. He went onto explain that if we were looking for Sarah than we were ‘shit out of luck.’
‘She got a phone call during her shift early yesterday. Whatever it was, gets her in a full tizzy. Then this morning, she doesn’t turn up for work. Called her myself and she mumbles something about needing to find herself. Says she’s gone travelling, doesn’t know when she’ll be back.’
Realising that we had reached a dead-end, we ceased questioning, and after ordering two Cokes, we sat outside the Arms to smoke. As I lit my cigarette, the thought occurred to me that if Sarah was missing, what was to say then that one of the ears wasn’t hers?
‘Neither of the ears are hers,’ exhaled SH.
‘Stop doing that!’ I exclaimed.
‘Well, you’re obvious when you’re thinking. Neither ear can be hers as Keith the landlord said he spoke to her this morning. Hard job to speak to someone when you don’t have ears. Though you have touched upon something that’s been crossing my mind…’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah,’ SH had become distant as if picking her way through a thought. ‘If it wasn’t hers…’
SH appeared to go into a trance. She didn’t even appear to blink. Then as if nothing happened, she t
urned to me and smiled.
‘Right, Watson, my old boy! We’ve done two sisters, let’s go and find the third.’
SH made a call to Michael and, establishing that Tracy hadn’t been in contact, she got the address for the third Cushing sister. A taxi journey to Chorlton later and we were stood outside an almost palatial red brick house that appeared to have been built exclusively to oppose Sarah’s abode in Wythenshawe.
‘Jesus, one sister did alright for herself,’ I commented as we walked up the driveway.
Arriving on the doorstep, we noticed that the front door was open. After swapping glances of curiosity, SH made her way cautiously to the entrance.
‘Hello? Tracy?’ SH chimed. ‘Hello? Is anyone in?
The front door swung in and an undetermined shape flew out, pushing both me and SH to the ground. Winded, I stood up in time to see the back of what I determined to be a man disappear down the drive. I cried out for him to stop and, of course, he did no such thing. Realising that giving chase would be a terrible idea, I instead decided to help SH up off the ground.
‘What the hell was that?’ I asked as SH brushed the drive’s gravel off her coat.
‘That bloke?’ SH said lighting a cigarette. ‘There’s a good chance we know who exactly that is. Come on, we need to go back to yours.’
‘Why?’
SH held up a phone in a pink Hello Kitty case.
‘Because we need somewhere for that bloke to come pick this up.’
The Reasoning
Protesting the entire time that I didn’t wish to have Mum’s house become part of a criminal investigation, we made our way to my abode on foot. A near one-hour walk was apparently just what SH needed to think things over. She batted away any questions and protestations that spewed from my mouth; the whole time keeping her eyes firmly locked on the phone the intruder had dropped at Tracy’s home. Were they an intruder? Perhaps ‘burglar’ would be a more apt description? ‘Murderer’ was even more apt if they were connected to what we were looking into.
As I was to receive no response from SH, I made it my duty to ensure she didn’t walk in front of traffic. She tapped and prodded at the phone, occasionally emitting a tiny giggle; completely unaware of the number of the times I had saved her life.
Three, if you wish to keep track.
When we finally made the haphazard journey to my home, SH instructed me to push all the furniture in my living room to the side leaving a solitary chair in the middle. I was not naïve enough to disbelieve that she was setting up an interrogation room in my house. To think that less than 24 hours ago, I was just in the mood to get rat arsed with my mates and now I was ready to go Zero Dark Thirty on someone.
After performing SH’s interpretation of Feng shui, we sat ourselves on the couch slurping cups of tea I had made. Half an hour passed in this manner until, finally, SH yawned and stared at me as if she had completely forgotten I was in the room.
‘John!’ she even sounded surprised, ‘This is could all be wrapped up before you go to bed. Exciting isn’t it?!’
‘Is it?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Deffo, mate. You’ve probably already twigged who that was that nearly knocked us out this afternoon. Flicking through the phone that they dropped…’
‘Evidence, as the police would call it.’
‘Whatever. Flicking through the phone, it quickly dawned on me that I was holding the phone of Tracy Cushing.’
‘Well, it came from her house, so that’s obvious.’
SH made a little coughing noise that could have been interpreted as a sign of annoyance in being interrupted. I promised to remain silent and she continued.
‘Indeed. The phone tells me quite a lot. It also tells me that Sarah was the last person she called. Which is impossible.’
A pause.
‘Ask your question.’
‘…why is it impossible?’
‘Because Tracy is most certainly dead. Along with whoever the other poor sod is whose ear sits in Susan’s freezer. Once I decided that, then the possibility she called Sarah is ridiculous. No, Sarah spoke to someone this morning and whoever it was, made her flee. That was obvious.
‘If you return your attention to the parcel this morning, you and I both decided that it hadn’t been posted through the proper channels in order to stop the sender being tracked. Well, nah. I mean who wraps parcels in paper and string these days? The way it was put together, that was a last minute decision. An epilogue to this whole shitty affair. One which I will finish tonight. I’ve sent two text messages from Tracy’s phone, both saying that she is fine and, well, wishes to talk. In five minutes, we’ll know who the bastard was.’
I noted the levity in SH’s voice had dissipated as she talked. Whether the seriousness of the situation had become evident to her or she was dropping all pretence with me, I did not know.
Before 6pm there was a knock at the front door. SH sprung from the couch and ran to answer it, murmuring under her breath. Resolving to stay in the living room, I heard a male voice alongside SH’s. Several seconds later, the smell of booze assaulted me as a dishevelled man entered the living room. His bright red eyes and greasy hair spoke volumes about a man who not slept for the last day or so.
SH followed the man into the room; her face a mask of dark calm. She pointed towards the chair in the middle of the room and without protest he sat down. SH took a stance in front of him and loomed over like a hawk. I noted when he entered that the man was a full foot taller than SH, but in this pantomime he looked like a small child getting ready to be spanked. Not taking her eyes off him, SH spoke.
‘This is Jim Browner. He is, or was, Tracy’s boyfriend. He’s also Tracy’s killer.’
It took a moment for Jim to comprehend what SH has said and then his body convulsed in self-pity. SH let carry him on like this for several seconds before finally shaking the man.
‘Come on now, mate,’ she said sternly. ‘There’s no point with all this. Tracy had a family who loved her. My employer wants to know what happened to her and why. So, have you got anything you want to get off your chest?’
The man stopped snivelling and upon hearing SH’s words, a new resolve overtook him. He seemed bolder, ready to face up to what he’d done.
‘Have I anything to say? Yes, I have a deal to say. I killed Tracy. And that lover of hers.’
‘And that would be the other ear?’ I interrupted.
SH shot me a glance that asked me to remain a silent witness and I found I retreated into the back of the chair on which I sat. I made a mental note that should I ever be involved in something like this again, I would barter for some rights to deduce things once in a while.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Jim responded. ‘But it’s not my fault. It was a crime of passion. It was all Sarah’s fault. You have to believe me on that. She moved in with us about eight months ago. I’d heard rumours that she was a wild one, and true to Tracy’s word, she was.
‘She’d be coming home in the early hours, banging and crashing. She’d bring blokes over. One night I came downstairs, after hearing a particularly loud crash, to find her shagging this bloke on the couch. The bloke didn’t see me, but she did. She stared at me and smiled. I was embarrassed and never brought it up with her the next morning or ever. However, one day when Tracy was shopping Sarah comes up to me, starts making a grab for me. She starts asking if I enjoyed the show I’d seen and would I like a taste. I pushed her away, told her she was a whore. I may have even hit her. She didn’t like that. She swore she’d make me pay. I ignored her, but then I noticed a change in Tracy.
‘I can’t be sure if Sarah had said anything, but Tracy seemed quiet around me. Like she was seeing me in a new light. I’d have questioned her, but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew I was losing her. And then her and Sarah started going out. Nearly every night. At first Tracy told me it was for a gym class, but I’m no fool. I knew… I knew there was another man. I told Tracy, I said ‘Sarah has to leave!’ She reluctantly made
her go about six weeks ago. I was an idiot. I thought that this other bloke, this person Tracy was seeing would disappear too. He didn’t. She still went out at night, coming back smelling of tart’s perfume, always on her bleeding phone. I checked her phone this week and there were all these texts from some bloke called James. Jim… James… I mean, at least have it off with someone who didn’t have my name.’
The utterance of James made my ears prick up. Was that not the name of Michael’s handyman? The guy who would be transporting his stolen goods from Susan’s house? I could see by SH’s face that she was making the same connection.
‘I followed her, you know?’ Jim continued. ‘When she went to ‘the gym’ again. Daytime this time. I followed her to the heritage site, Dunham Massey. I found them tucked away in the trees near a lake. They were so bleeding happy.
‘How is she allowed to be happy when I’m not?! I have done nothing wrong and yet I’m the pariah. I called Sarah, told her what I was watching. Told her to watch her back. And then… And then Tracy kissed James… He kissed my Tracy.
‘You have to understand. I just wanted to scare them. I didn’t even know I had a rock in my hand until I’d brought it down on both their heads. James had produced a knife, but I got him before he got me. I stood staring at their bodies. Even in death Tracy looked like she was taunting me. I put rocks in their pockets; I was going to push the bodies in the lake. No one would find them until long after I’d gone.’
‘But you didn’t just do that, did you?’ SH interrupted.
There was long pause and Jim shook his head.
‘I took James’ knife,’ he paused, as if weighing up the severity of his actions in his head. ‘When I’d finished, I pushed the bodies into the lake, and took the ears with me. I can’t tell you why I did it. I sat with them in the living room whilst I got drunk. I remember phoning Susan on Tracy’s phone. She’d obviously left it before her ‘date’ so I couldn’t contact her. I told Sarah I was after her and to check her post. I wrapped the ears up and dumped them at Susan’s house.’