by Gavin Smith
“Well, we both toil against the unbelievers, but at least he stands a chance of redemption.”
He’d fumbled at his books and half-remembered skills like a senile locksmith fussing at the locks and hinges of a safe. Then the safe had sprung open and the universe had unfurled in every imaginable direction, leaving him enthralled by its complexity and wonder and in no doubt as to the transience of his problems and his blistered flesh.
For five days of blissful absence, he’s allowed it to consume him, rarely going outside save to study the occasional glimpse of clear night sky. He’d taken his drugs, sunk his whisky and ignored telephone calls and letters. He’d diligently conversed with Hayley about office politics, exploitative talent shows, the pitfalls of an interventionist foreign policy, and how good it was that they were talking, really talking again. At her urging, he’d ordered himself a superior astronomical telescope online; a good use for all that overtime money and a distraction from work.
Then the universe had collapsed back into its appointed space in a ‘big crunch’ with its own precise formula: the degree of distraction is directly proportionate to the gravity of the issue being ignored. While he itched and healed and cogitated, the answers hurtled away from him in every direction. If he wasted too much more time, they’d be megaparsecs away and accelerating hard.
Compared to knotting his tie, buttoning his shirt and tying his shoelaces, driving to Glamorgan Mews was easy. A week had passed since his discharge from hospital and his hands were healing more quickly and completely than he deserved, the old skin sloughing off in flakes to reveal pink new skin beneath. The pain had faded but still found new and nauseating form in the lugs and dimples of the steering wheel and gearstick that he forced himself to grip tightly and correctly while he drove to Sharon Jennings’ address. Bandages or gloves might have afforded him some relief, but forcing his hands to grip and flex and exposing them to fresh air would surely hasten his return to duty.
He parked his car out of sight of 3 Glamorgan Mews. The pretence of being on duty would be strained by the brash, bulbous and plainly unofficial shape of his Focus RS. He bid the few neighbours who glanced at him a hearty “good morning” and made himself amble rather than stride, desperate not to appear as much of an imposter as he felt.
Sharon’s Mini was slewed across the driveway and a discrete waft of the hand across the radiator grille suggested it hadn’t moved that day. The house’s side gate stood closed and padlocked and the front window was blank, opaque curtains blocking the strong sunlight. Harkness breathed deeply, drew back his shoulders, gritted his teeth and knocked on the door with his least tender knuckles.
The spy-hole flickered, locks and chains rattled and Sharon drew the door open carefully. She wore an overlarge heavy metal t-shirt over ripped jeans and worried at tangled hair with ink-stained fingers. An aroma of sweet coffee escaped from the house; tempered bitterness.
“Sergeant, erm….?”
“Harkness.” Was she affecting vagueness to give herself time to think? “Hello again, Miss Jennings.”
“Hello yourself.” Perplexity wriggled across her forehead. “I’ll be honest with you, officer. I haven’t got the time or inclination to talk to you. Not after what happened to Nigel.”
“About that…”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not my place. Part of me wants to scream questions at you. Or just scream abuse. But there are….processes underway. We shouldn’t even be talking at all.”
“I am sorry….”
“Just save it. Keep it on the record. I don’t want to hear it. The fact is you’re wasting your time here. And mine. I’m on my own again. Mum took dad and Jeremy home again last weekend. Against the insurance assessor’s advice because the place hasn’t been patched up or cleaned or refurbished. Still smells like a coal bunker. So, there’s nobody here for you to take your statements from. And I’m not sure why you’d need them now anyway.”
“Actually, I’m here to speak to you. Sharon.”
She paused, perhaps toying with upbraiding him for over-familiarity but not wishing to sound like her mother.
“You want me? But it’s a weekday; why aren’t you at my office?”
“I rang. They said you were on leave. I pegged you as a workaholic and took a punt that you wouldn’t have gone far.”
“Like to peg people, don’t you?”
“Like? No. But I have to.” He sighed, appraising her posture; she leaned on the door jamb, curious but unyielding, some way from inviting him in. He brandished his hands. “As you can see, I didn’t exactly walk away from this unscathed.”
“Job requirement?” she mimicked.
“Touché. You think we – I - got a few things wrong. Here I am with some of the consequences burnt into me. If you know better, why don’t you help me get it right?”
She stared at him, eyes alternating between his eyes and his hands, mind weighing the work stacked up on her kitchen table and her wariness of him against her curiosity.
“You’d better come in. Before the neighbours talk.” She ushered him in and pointed him towards the open patio doors and the garden chairs outside. “Coffee?”
“As much as you can spare.”
Harkness peered into the lounge on his way into the kitchen; it belonged in a show-home, so empty of clutter, polished and orderly that it could only be used by one person, rarely. By contrast, the kitchen table and half of its work surfaces held a plethora of notebooks, pink-ribboned files and hefty reference books with arcane titles picked out in gold and burgundy. He stepped over the power-lead for a laptop, its screen a scene of typographical carnage, half of a document’s neat black text underscored or overwritten in red. He tried to pick out a title or a phrase but Sharon ushered him onwards, folding shut the laptop’s lid as she passed.
“Any more of that and I’ll have to insist you get a warrant.”
“Sorry. Again. Force of habit.”
“Isn’t that dangerous? Letting habit govern your thought processes?”
“Dangerous for whom?”
“For you. For any suspect you handle. For the cause of justice if you want to think that far ahead.”
“I try not to. Ruins my sleep. But you’re right. Up to a point. I thought you were supposed to be on holiday?”
“I am. No appointments. No court time. No phone calls. Nobody asking me silly questions. It’s the only way to catch up with my workload.”
“But don’t you need to escape?”
“That sounds like an order.”
“Maybe you need to be ordered to work less hard.”
“And who’d be giving the order?” she said, spooning an extra, bitter spoonful of coffee into the cafetiere.
“Somebody with more balls than me. Milky. One sugar. Thanks.” He smiled again, trying it for size. “Seriously. Why haven’t you escaped this tiny house and this tiny town while you can?”
“Because I have work to do. And haven’t got the time or the inclination to sit on a beach or mooch around a castle or queue with the other sheep getting hot and bothered and thinking about work that I could have been getting on with. Seriously.”
She proffered a steaming mug and he pinched its handle between thumb and forefinger, grimacing and gasping.
“Shit. Sorry. That must really hurt.”
“A little. S’alright. Got it now.” He gently placed the mug on the nearest surface, flexing his fingers and blowing on them. “My fault. Keep forgetting.”
“I didn’t do that on purpose. In case you’re wondering.”
“Maybe I deserved it anyway. Disturbing your working day. Prying into how you spend your holidays.”
“So, about harassing and killing my client.” She frowned and looked away as soon as she’d said it.
He laughed again, a mirthless braying.
“Is that funny?” she asked, wrong-footed.
“Not especially. It’s just good to hear someone finally come out with it. Someone honest enough to say it and decent en
ough to be a little squeamish about it.”
“Happy to help. Want some whisky in that coffee?”
“I’m glad you’re joking.”
“Am I?”
“You must be, unless you want an eighteen-stone copper cluttering up your ever so tidy house all day.”
“That would be a treat after my family. Besides, you look a bit traumatised. Those burns might go a bit deeper than the dermis. Maybe I should get you sloshed and exploit grill you.”
“To what end?”
“If I knew that, where would the fun be?”
“Wait. You spend your holiday time alone, catching up on paperwork, and you think I’m in trouble?”
“Ok. Quid pro quo then. You tell me how you got damaged and I’ll tell you why this is a good holiday for me.”
Harkness stilled his tongue. He almost forgotten why he was here, then realised he’d never been entirely sure of his reasons. His notebook bulged with unanswered questions; but wasn’t it one simple, skulking question lurking at the back of his mind that had brought him here, a closed question that could never be committed to paper?
“I’d love to. I will. Another day, perhaps.”
“Spoilsport.” She brushed her hair back behind her ear with her free hand, sipped her coffee and put the mug down. Hooking her thumbs in her waist pockets, she reclined against the work surface, ankles crossed, tanned knees showing through the ripped jeans. “But my cooperation has a price. Copper.”
“Name it.”
“I’ll answer your professional questions if you answer mine.”
“What if you ask for particulars that are privileged, sub judice, prejudicial or just plain embarrassing?”
“Stomach the risk or don’t play the game.”
“Don’t you play rough? Your boss could learn a thing or three from you.”
“Tell him that next time you see him. If he’s stopped sulking. Shall we play?”
“I’ll go first. Did your mother ever report the Murphys to Social Services?”
“That’s a powerful serve you’ve got there. Bloody hell. I don’t know but maybe; that’s the short answer. The long answer: It’s possible. They haven’t – sorry, hadn’t – lived there for long when she got a real bee in her bonnet about them and it never stopped buzzing. I mean, I got it all whenever I visited and sometimes on the phone. And then when I inherited Nigel Firth and discovered the Murphy connection, well it was a handy excuse to visit a bit less, if I’m being honest. God, look at me. Trusting you. Anyway, you’ve heard most of this.”
“Please. Carry on. I need to know.”
“I can’t embroider it much more. Mum just got cranky about them. Not without reason. The previous residents, Hilda and Derek something or other, were quiet, polite, nice as pie – you know, a ‘good morning’ at the gate, growing roses, picking up litter, helpful, trouble-free. Then Hilda very inconsiderately died and within months Derek’s mind was broken, he was sent to some home and the house was sold on. To the Murphys.
“Who were different. Lively, certainly. Noisy parties. Barbecues from spring ‘til autumn with lots of music and drinking and lariness, when Dale wasn’t on shift. She always complained about the noise. The noise and the smoke. If they weren’t incinerating meat, they were smoking in the garden or in the house – my mum claimed the fag smoke even crept through the walls. She also claimed it made my dad worse but I never heard him say it himself. Not that he would. We’re all very good at silent suffering. Up to a point.
“There might have been more but she was cryptic. I wasn’t to worry myself about it, she always said. Which made me worry, of course. But what a life ‘that poor woman’ must lead. And Lord help those kids ‘when he gets tired of her’. There was ‘banging all through the night’ and ‘it wasn’t just that wretched music’. She wouldn’t elaborate. I got my lawyer’s head on once or twice but she just told me not to worry, she’d been exaggerating and she really had nothing to tell me about. But now, with all that’s happened, I wish I’d been stroppier with her, made her tell me more. I suppose I was too busy. As usual.
“So, to answer your question: It’s possible, even probable. My turn. How did Nigel Firth die?”
A toothsome smile parted her lips but her eyes turned to flint.
“Badly.”
Harkness suddenly found himself grateful for the opportunity to tell the story to someone whose interest was more than professional, caring nothing for the consequences which may as well have been eons away.
“I was watching his flat from my car. He somehow left without my noticing, found petrol somewhere, came back and waved at me. By the time I caught up, he’d got to his flat, poured petrol all over himself and got a lighter out. I pleaded with him. Reasoned with him. You know, the usual desperate, last ditch bluster. He smiled, even laughed at me once or twice, gave me his reasons and lit himself up. I tried to put him out. Burned myself. He died in hospital. I didn’t.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“I don’t remember it verbatim,” he lied. “But he saw no reason to keep living his life and wanted to end it in a way that would somehow purge him and teach the world a lesson. I won’t pretend to understand. It’ll be……on my mind for a long time to come.”
“So why did you push him so hard?”
“Isn’t it my turn now?”
“Res gestae. Germane to the original question.”
“Ok, enough legalese. Why did I push? Because I had good reason to think him responsible for a clutch of nasty murders. Because your boss prevented me getting a sensible account out of pique. Because for all I knew he might have taken more lives if he wasn’t stopped.
“Did we talk off tape? Yes, or at least I politely appealed to him to tell the truth and he grunted. Did I feel the need to keep tabs on him when my so called superiors prematurely bailed him out? Yes. Did I knock him about or scream abuse at him until he was ready to piss himself and sign anything? No. Did I damage him enough to bring him to this? No. To him, I was a symptom, not a cause. Happy?”
“That’s not the word I’d use.”
“What must you think of me?”
“Is that your question?”
“Do you think I’m the enemy? A cop from another decade, responsible for a malicious prosecution and suspicious death? Something you could expose and build a reputation on?”
“Why do you care what I think?”
“I shouldn’t care what you think. But I do and I’m not sure why.”
“More coffee?”
Sharon turned and tipped black dregs into the sink.
“Definitely. And I will take it Irish this time.”
“That’s a rotten idea, all things considered. But it was mine.” She turned and stretched to reach the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard, her t-shirt lifting to show the smooth, faintly tanned flesh at the small of her back. She turned, producing a half-empty bottle of Jameson’s. “So I’m all for it.”
“And you are on holiday. My turn?”
“Go on then.”
“Tell me more about your family.”
“Why is that relevant? Don’t you want to probe me about my dealings with Firth?”
“It’s my question. Besides, I think you’ve got guts and a conscience. If Firth had given you any indication that he’d killed and would kill again, I think you’d have found some way to tell me.”
“Flattering and presumptuous at the same time. What should I make of you?”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me about your family.”
“If I must.”
She threw heaped spoonfuls of coffee into the cafetiere then half-filled the waiting mugs with whisky.
“Where to start? Dad was a successful architect in his day. A clever man with dirt under his nails. He could handle the law, he could handle the engineering and he could handle stroppy site-workers and still have time to read to me and tell me how clever I was. He choked down a lot of asbestos during the sixties and seventies. Asbestosis clogged up his lungs whe
n I was a teenager. Now he’s grappling with lung cancer. For most of my life, he’s been quietly withering away. Now he’s declining fast. And I want to care more but it’s been so long since he was the man I grew up wanting to please… God, would you listen to me. I haven’t touched a drop yet.”
She filled the mugs with the thickening brew, drew in a breath of its bitter spice and handed one to Harkness. Harkness relished the few seconds of silence she allowed him without small-talk or self-conscious posturing.
“Jeremy is my younger brother, by two years. He’s…..very special. You know that. If you’re looking for a label, he’s ‘HFA’ – ‘High-Functioning Autistic’. His memory is amazing. He picks up interesting words like a magpie but doesn’t always know what they mean. No, that’s not fair. He could give you the dictionary definition but doesn’t always know how to slot them into a sentence. We’re lucky. He likes routine but doesn’t scream the house down the second it’s broken, provided somebody explains it to him and tells him precisely when order will be restored. He rocks and flaps when he’s distracted. He finds comfort in order. I love him to bits and we always have a giggle. I just have to remind myself that he has only an academic grasp of how other people think and feel. He’s like a missionary marooned in a culture he can’t understand; he just repeats the words and apes the behaviour and gets on with his own life.
“I’m telling you this just in case you want his statement. It would be challenging and disorientating for him. Besides, mum says he didn’t see or hear anything. And there’s always the danger he’ll mimic something he’s heard in the police station or anywhere else in a bid to please the strange, babbling natives.”
The sun had crept past its zenith and shadows marked time in the back garden. Harkness uncoiled, drinking in the heady vapour from the coffee and the spectacle of this sparring, sparking young woman.
“And then there’s mother. Once an A&E nurse. Then we came along and she resigned, hoping one day to return. And she did find a career in caring, but not quite the way she’d planned. She was always the capable one, unflappable, even when Jeremy’s specialness became unmistakable. The house was – still is – like an old-fashioned hospital ward. Healthy meals, on time, no arguments. Lights out at bedtime. Everything very clean and neat. Hospital corners on the beds. Now more than ever.