A Confusion of Murders: There's murder on his mind...

by Marina Johnson

  Sprocket’s better company than Gerry. He doesn’t whinge or prattle on about his oh so important job and he’s happy to watch whatever I want on telly too. I sometimes wonder how Gerry’s new young wife is finding her much older husband and how her much older husband is enjoying life with his very young wife and young family.

  Gerry and I were married for twenty years and we were happy enough, we rarely argued and had a good life together. We agreed early in our marriage that we didn’t want children, or maybe Gerry decided and I just agreed with him – I tended to do that. We had a lovely home and money wasn’t a problem and we always had nice holidays and doesn’t that just sound completely dull and boring? We met when we both worked in the same office although Gerry was swiftly promoted and is now a director whereas I was quite happy as an accountant. When I think back now, our marriage had probably run its course as we were more like friends than lovers and if he hadn’t been so spineless and devious it would probably have been an amicable split.

  I remember the night it all went wrong – the divorce was going through and Gerry had moved into a flat while our lovely house was up for sale. He’d insisted that there was no one else involved and although I had my suspicions I decided it was easier just to believe him; it was less painful that way, less humiliating. The company Christmas dinner dance was being held at a plush hotel just outside town. I’d dropped quite a bit of weight without even trying due to the divorce-diet and I was wearing a slinky black number with killer heels and I felt pretty good. I didn’t have much of an appetite so left most of my meal but drank glass after glass of wine and couldn’t seem to stop. Loud and obnoxious that was me, basically showing off and if Gerry hadn’t been there I would’ve probably fallen asleep, been helped into a taxi and gone home.

  I don’t remember a lot of it, just snapshots of me cavorting around on the dance floor and going to the toilets to constantly spray myself with perfume and reapply lipstick until I looked like the joker with jammy red lips. I cringe just thinking about it but I’ve seen the photos on Facebook to prove it.

  In my drunken stupor I think I was trying to show Gerry what he was missing even though I didn’t want him anymore. He was sitting with the other directors and their wives who had once been my friends, too. I was strutting past him to go to the toilets yet again when I saw his secretary, who was standing behind him, lean down to talk to him, and it was the way he looked at her, I just knew. He used to look at me like that and I knew in that instant that there was someone else and it was her. How could I have been so dim and not have known? She was young, extremely pretty and it was just such a cliché and I felt a complete idiot. All the sympathetic looks directed my way suddenly made sense, obviously everyone knew except for me.

  I carried on walking to the toilets only this time I didn’t bother applying more lipstick and when I came tottering back I was holding a big filthy mop that I’d found in the cleaners’ cupboard. I remember Gerry’s lopsided smile that I’d always loved but now find so irritating, the disgusting smell of the mop, Gerry’s smile turning to horror as he saw me approaching. He shouted at me to stop being ridiculous and calm down – telling someone to calm down never works does it? I can’t recall my exact words as I shoved the mop straight at his face but it was something along the lines of ‘you fucking cheating bastard’.

  I try not to think about the rest of that night as it only got worse and I actually got arrested and spent the night sleeping it off in a police cell. I could have avoided being arrested if I’d agreed to be taken home but I wouldn’t; I created such a scene and wouldn’t shut up so they had no choice. I never have known when to shut up.

  Detective Inspector Peters happened to be at the station when I arrived, luckily for me. The arresting PC was sick to death of me and my arguing by then and if DI Peters hadn’t stepped in and defused the situation I think I would have been charged. He arranged for gallons of black coffee to be given to me and tried to talk some sense into me. The shame of waking up the next morning in a cell still makes me break out in a sweat.

  So, I never went back to Bracewells, not even to clear my desk out. They graciously put me on gardening leave then made me redundant, which Gerry probably instigated. I would have left anyway, there’s no way I could have gone back, I felt too ashamed.

  Gerry’s married to her now and of course like most twenty-somethings she wanted the lovely house with two lovely children. Well she has the lovely house and the two children though on the occasions that I’ve bumped into them they’re always screaming and definitely not lovely. Gerry always looks completely frazzled. She made it her mission to update Gerry and he quickly dropped a couple of stone and took up cycling to keep trim. He may be slim and toned but to me he just looks grey and thin. I prefer a bit of chub myself especially as you get older. Poor Gerry, 49 with two children under 3, sounds like a nightmare. That’s the trouble with marrying someone so much younger – they just make you look old and knackered.

  Anyway, we’re civil to each other, although now the finances are sorted there is absolutely no reason to ever see him again.

  I wish him well.

  The prick.

  Sprocket snuggles into my neck and gazes up at me adoringly and gives a big sigh. I know he’s spotted the chocolate biscuit left on my plate and is hoping I’ll give it to him. I decide I’ll have to eat it so he can’t.

  ‘Sorry but you can’t have it or you’ll be a dead dog,’ I say as I cram it into my mouth. Sprocket frowns at me and then suddenly his head jerks up and he emits a low growl – this means the phone is about to ring. I don’t know how he knows but he always does. On cue the phone rings and I look at the clock, it’s half past ten and I know it must be Dad as he’s probably the only person in the world who doesn’t text or WhatsApp me.

  I pick the phone up, ‘Hello,’ I mumble through the biscuit.

  ‘Hello. Is that Louise.’

  ‘YES, IT’S ME DAD,’ I shout.

  ‘Is it? It doesn’t sound like Louise. Are you sure?’

  ‘YES, I’M SURE,’ I shout louder. We go through this palaver every time he rings and I often end up just going round to his house to find out what he wants. It’s easier than shouting myself hoarse.

  ‘What’s the matter Dad?’

  ‘It’s him,’ he whispers.

  ‘You’ll have to speak up Dad I can hardly hear you.’

  ‘I don’t want him to hear,’ he says a bit louder. ‘It’s him next door. He’s done it again. I’m going to call the cops.’

  Call the cops? My dad doesn’t say call the cops. Why is he talking like that?

  ‘It’s okay dad. I’ll come round, don’t worry I won’t be long.’

  ‘NO! You can’t it’s not safe. He’s in my garden, I’ve seen him...I can hear him, he’s taunting me, he’s laughing at me. I’m going to get my air gun and see him off...’

  ‘No, don’t Dad. Stay indoors and keep the door locked and I’ll come round. I’ll bring Sprocket with me, he’ll scare him off.’’ A vision of my dad careering round the street with an airgun pops into my head. God, it doesn’t bear thinking about. With a lot of cajoling I manage to calm him down and get him to promise me he’ll stay indoors until I get there. I quickly throw my jacket on, grab my keys and pick up Sprocket’s dog lead – I daren’t let him loose in Dad’s garden or I’ll never find him again.

  ‘Come on Sprocket, time to get your harness on.’

  Sprawled on the sofa with his paws in the air, Sprocket yawns and looks up at me.

  Guard dog, indeed.

  Chapter 3

  I can hear a bell ringing and it won’t stop.

  It’s the alarm. I reach out to silence it, unable to believe it’s time to get up. Typically, I tossed and turned all night after my visit to Dad but half an hour ago I went into a deep and lovely sleep. Sprocket is a dead weight on my feet and showing no sign of moving. I reach my hand down to him to make sure he’s still breathing – he’s sleeps so soundly without moving that I sometimes
wake in the middle of the night and put the light on to make sure he’s not dead.

  Last night. After Dad’s panicked phone call, I drove over to his house. What’s normally a fifteen-minute drive took me less than ten as I put my foot down, worried what I was going to find when I got there.

  The house was in darkness. I tried to open the front door with my key but Dad had deadlocked it and I couldn’t get it open, not without a lump hammer. I then spent ten minutes banging the door knocker, ringing the bell and phoning him from my mobile. All sorts of things were running through my head – was he wandering the streets with his airgun? Was he dead? I was just about to give up and go and ask Simon next door to help me break in when the door was yanked open by Dad. With an extremely annoyed look on his face.

  ‘What are you doing here? It’s late you know. I was just going to bed.’

  ‘You rang me,’ I shouted loudly, aware that he didn’t have his hearing aids in.

  He looked at me as if I was mad then begrudgingly said, ‘Come in.’ He glared at Sprocket and said, ‘I suppose you’d better bring that in as well.’

  ‘YOU RANG ME,’ I shouted once we were inside the house.

  ‘Rang you? Why would I ring you?’

  He looked genuinely puzzled, his hair sticking up in fluffy tufts and his pyjamas buttoned up on the wrong buttons. I felt a rush of protective love for him. He looked so vulnerable. So old.

  He didn’t remember ringing me at all although it was less than half an hour previously. We then had a surreal conversation where I tried to convince him that he really had phoned me and that I wasn’t mistaken. I gave up in the end and made a cup of tea while Dad followed Sprocket around the lounge telling him not to touch anything. It obviously didn’t work as I found a china rabbit of Dad’s in his basket this morning next to my television remote control.

  While I was in Dad’s kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil I unlocked the back door for a look in the garden. I walked out a little way from the house shining my phone torch in front of me. It was so dark out there that only a tiny patch in front of me was lit and my imagination started wondering what was in the bits that I couldn’t see. I didn’t like it one bit and hastily went back into the kitchen and closed and locked the door. I shut his kitchen blinds as well as I had the horrible feeling that if I looked out I might see someone looking right back at me. Paranoia, I told myself.

  I don’t think I could live there on my own.

  I finally got home after midnight and Dad seemed fine when I left him although he still didn’t remember ringing me, at all. He almost convinced me that I’d imagined it. Perhaps I’m the one going doolally.

  Work seems never ending, the dullest Friday morning ever, not helped by the fact that I have to answer every phone call as I have the listening equipment on my phone. The Scottish lady doesn’t ring and I feel disgruntled and irritable that I’ve got stuck with answering the phone all the time as well as all my other work.

  The sun is shining through the window and when I look down into the precinct I can see people in t-shirts and summer dresses and there’s even a few with shorts on. At lunchtime I grab my bag and wander down into the precinct to enjoy the sunshine and eat my sandwiches. I settle myself on a free bench in front of Specsavers, take my mobile out and ring Jean to find out how Dad is.

  ‘He’s fine,’ says Jean. ‘He’s been busy sorting out the understairs cupboard – has everything out all over the hallway and wouldn’t let me help even though I offered. I think he’s quite enjoying himself.’ I know she thinks Nick and I are fussing, but she hasn’t witnessed any of Dad’s episodes. Maybe I am fussing, maybe Dad’s fine and it’s a normal part of getting old.

  ‘Anyway, dear,’ she says, ‘there’s no need to worry about tomorrow as that nice Mr Harper next door said he’d pop in and have a cup of tea with your Dad.’

  I’m relieved that Simon is going to pop in, Dad likes him and his wife, Eileen. I know Simon will let me know if there’s a problem. A small, selfish part of me is also pleased that I won’t have to interrupt my Saturday to go round there. I’ll take him out for Sunday lunch instead. We could go to the Swan; it’ll make a nice change for him. Well, he’ll probably moan to be honest, but the Swan cook a better roast than I do.

  Saturday morning dawns bright and sunny, unbelievable weather for a weekend. I wait while Linda locks her front door and Sprocket and Henry run around her legs tangling their leads together.

  ‘Not sold yet then?’ I nod at the for sale sign nailed to next door’s garden wall.

  ‘Not as far as I know. Loads of people have looked at it, that slimy estate agent seems to be there every day. Ugh. He’s horrible, eyes everywhere when he talks to you, really fancies himself. I hope someone buys it soon. I don’t like it being empty.’

  ‘Where did they move to?’

  ‘Nowhere. Was a little old lady on her own, she died and the family are selling it. I’ll be glad when it’s sold – gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Dunno,’ she shrugs, ‘it just does. I keep hearing things. Maybe it’s haunted.’

  I look at Linda to see if she’s joking, she’s not.

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Creaks, thuds. Footsteps like someone’s going up and down the stairs.’

  ‘Well it’s an old house, you know how houses make funny noise. It’ll be the sudden warm weather, makes the wood dry out.’

  Linda doesn’t look convinced.

  It is warm though, typical British weather, going from frost at night into shorts and flip flop weather in the space of a few days. No doubt next week I’ll be back in socks and boots. I have my springy soled flip flops on for the first time this year. I look down at my feet, they look decidedly hoof like and are definitely not summer ready. Certainly lacking in the nail varnish department. Linda has pink doc martins on. Apart from taking her coat off she wears the same summer and winter: black trousers, black t shirt. She has vampire white skin and always sits in the shade so she never gets a tan. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen her sweat. I know by the time we get back from our walk she’ll be cool and unruffled and I’ll be a clammy mess. She laughs when I joke that I’m afraid she might bite me. And she’s afraid of noises from next door.

  We amble the short walk to the Rise, the distant drone of a lawnmower and a whiff of barbeque in the air. They’re starting early, it’s only ten o’clock.

  We unclip the dogs’ leads and Sprocket and Henry gallop off, ears flying. I don’t know why it’s called the Rise, or to give it it’s full name, Frogham Rise. Just a large field with houses backing onto it on three sides, it’s not even a slope let alone a hill. Funfairs pitch up here a few times a year and the local radio do a firework display in November but mostly it’s just dog walkers and kids kicking a ball around. As well as the usual dog walker the sunshine has bought out packs of Lycra clad joggers and water bottle holding power walkers.

  ‘Oh shit, there’s The Truth. Quick, walk the other way before he sees us,’ says Linda out of the corner of her mouth.

  Too late, Norman Shuttleworth, more commonly known as The Truth due to his finishing most sentences with ‘and that’s the God’s honest truth,’ and Frogham’s most insufferable bore, has seen us and is marching purposefully towards us dragging his poodle Lulu behind him. Ten minutes in The Truth’s company and you feel like throwing yourself under the nearest bus.

  ‘Hellooo.’

  ‘Morning.’ We attempt to edge away in the opposite direction.

  ‘Have you heard about....’ he starts prattling and walks with us until we give in and stop. Lulu lies down, yawns and closes her eyes for a long sleep.

  ‘We can’t really stop,’ I shout over him as he launches into his monologue. ‘We’re just on our way home.’

  ‘...and God’s honest truth...’ he doesn’t even pause for breath and continues talking over us, nothing will stop him, he’s started his script and will finish it. I’m sure if a bomb dropped on him his m
outh would still go on talking. I can already feel the life being sucked out of me and start to pray that my phone will ring. I wonder if it’s possible to ring Linda’s mobile from the phone in my pocket.

  Pushing fifty, The Truth has thinning sandy hair and wing nut ears. He still lives with his mum who is stone deaf, luckily for her. He often cycles past my house, usually with a crowd of kids behind him shouting, ‘Get off and milk it.’

  We try edging away again, he follows.

  Fifteen minutes later he’s still going and I’m starting to feel panicked. We could be here for days at this rate. I’m considering feigning a heart attack or epileptic fit when an unlikely rescuer appears.

  ‘OI YOU!’

  We all look around to see a short, square woman waving a plastic bag in the air stomping towards The Truth.

  ‘Yeah, you with the ears.’ She yells, shoving the plastic bag at him. ‘Clear up your dog shit, mate, or I’ll report you.’

  Miracle of miracles, he actually stops talking. Lulu wakes up and jumps up then shakily reverses backwards behind The Truth in an attempt to hide.

  ‘I’m, I’m really sorry. I didn’t realise, God’s honest truth.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what they all say mate. Just shut your gob and clear it up. If I catch you again I’ll definitely report you.’ She jabs a meaty index finger at him to punctuate every word.

  Amazingly, The Truth stops talking and scuttles over to the offending pile and with shaking hands attempts to clean it up with the bag. Square woman stands over him and watches to make sure he does it properly.

  Linda and I speed walk away.