The Chalk Man

by C. J. Tudor

  “You still with me, Eddie?”

  Crazy. Impossible. It couldn’t be Mr. Halloran. Couldn’t be. He was dead. Gone. Buried. But then, so was Sean Cooper.

  “Ed?” Angie looked down at me quizzically. “You okay?”

  “I…”

  I looked back toward the Ghost Train. The figure had moved. I saw a black shadow disappear around the corner.

  “Sorry, I have to go check on something.”

  I hopped down from the Waltzers.

  “Ed? You can’t just run off!”

  Angie glared at me; it was as close as she’d ever got to being really pissed off. It left me in no doubt that our encounter in the Ghost Train might well be the last I could enjoy for a while but, right then, it didn’t matter. I had to go. I had to know.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled again.

  I jogged back across the fairground. I rounded the corner of the Ghost Train just as the figure disappeared behind the candyfloss and balloon stalls. I picked up my pace, bumping into a few people en route and causing them to tut and swear at me. I didn’t care.

  I’m not sure if I believed that the apparition I was following was real, but I was no stranger to ghosts. Even as a teenager I still checked outside my bedroom window at night in case Sean lurked below. I still worried that every bad smell might signal the touch of a decaying hand upon my face.

  I hurried past the Dodgems and the Orbiter, once such a big draw, and now, with the advent of roller coasters and even bigger-thrill rides, kind of tame. I was making ground. And then the figure stopped. I paused, too, lurking behind a hot-dog stall. I watched as they reached into their pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.

  That’s when I realized my mistake. The hands. Not fine-fingered and pale but coarse and dark brown with long, jagged nails. The figure turned. I stared at the haggard face. Lines so deep it looked like they had been carved with a blade; eyes blue stones buried within the scars. A yellow beard trailed down his chin, almost to his chest. Not Mr. Halloran, not even a young man, but an old man; a gyppo.

  His voice was gravel in a rusty bucket. “What you starin’ at, sonny?”

  “Nothing. I…I’m sorry.”

  I turned and scurried away as fast as dignity—the remaining shreds of it—would allow. When I was far enough away to be out of sight, I paused, trying to breathe, trying to rein in the waves of nausea that threatened to swallow me. Then I shook my head and, instead of vomit, laughter spewed from my mouth. Not Mr. Halloran, not the Chalk Man, but an old fairground hand, probably with a bald crown beneath that cowboy hat.

  Crazy, crazy, crazy. Like the fucking dwarf in Don’t Look Now, a film we had illicitly watched at Fat Gav’s a couple of years ago, and only because we had heard that Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie really “did it” on camera. (Actually, it was really disappointing, because you didn’t see enough of Julie Christie, and you saw far too much of Sutherland’s skinny white arse.)

  “Ed. What’s going on?”

  I looked up to see Hoppo running toward me, followed by the girls. They must have all got off the Waltzers. Lucy looked pretty annoyed about it.

  I tried to stop laughing, to appear sane.

  “I thought I saw him. Mr. Halloran. The Chalk Man.”

  “What? Are you joking?”

  I shook my head. “But it wasn’t him.”

  “Well, of course not,” Hoppo said, frowning. “He’s dead.”

  “I know,” I said. “I just…”

  I looked up at their worried, puzzled faces, and nodded slowly. “I know. I was wrong. Stupid.”

  “C’mon,” Hoppo said, still looking concerned. “Let’s go get a drink.”

  I looked at Angie. She offered me a faint smile and held out her hand. I was forgiven. Too easily. As ever.

  Still, I grasped it. Gratefully. And then she asked, “Who’s the Chalk Man?”

  —

  We broke up not long after that. I guess we didn’t have that much in common. Didn’t really know each other that well after all. Or perhaps I was already a young man with history and baggage, and it would have to be a special person who could share the burden. Maybe that’s why I have remained resolutely single for so long. I still haven’t found that person. Not yet. Maybe never.

  After the fair, I kissed Angie goodbye and walked wearily back home in the still-smoldering late-afternoon heat. The streets were strangely deserted, residents seeking shelter in the shade of beer gardens and back lawns; even the traffic on the roads was sporadic, no one wanting to swelter for too long in a big metal can.

  I rounded the corner of our street, still feeling a little out of sorts from the incident at the fair. I suppose I felt a little stupid, too. I had been so easily spooked, so easily convinced it could be him. Idiot. Of course it wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Just another cheat.

  I sighed, trudged up the driveway and pushed open the front door. Dad sat in his favorite armchair in the living room, staring blankly at the TV. Mum stood in the kitchen, making dinner. She was red-eyed, as though she had been crying. Mum didn’t cry. Not easily. I guess I took after her on that front.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She wiped her eyes but didn’t bother telling me it was nothing. Mum didn’t lie either. Or so I thought. Back then.

  “Your dad,” she said.

  As if it could have been anything else. Sometimes—and I still find it shameful to admit it—I really hated Dad for being ill. For the things it made him do and say. For the vacant, lost look in his eyes. For how his illness affected Mum and me. As a teenager, you just want, more than anything, to be normal, and nothing about our life with Dad was normal.

  “What’s he done now?” I asked, barely managing to hide my contempt.

  “He forgot me,” Mum said, and I could see fresh tears welling. “I took him his lunch and, just for a moment, he looked at me like I was a stranger.”

  “Oh, Mum.”

  I drew her to me and hugged her as hard as I could, like I could squeeze out all the pain, even as a small part of me wondered if, sometimes, forgetting was the kindness.

  Remembering—perhaps that was the killer.

  2016

  “Never assume,” my dad once told me. “To assume makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.’ ”

  When I stared at him blankly, he went on, “See this chair? You believe it will still be here, where it is now, in the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you assume.”

  “I suppose.”

  Dad picked up the chair and stood it on the table. “The only way to be sure this chair is going to stay in the exact same spot is to glue it to the floor.”

  “But that’s a cheat?”

  His voice got more serious. “People will always cheat, Eddie. And lie. That’s why it’s important to question everything. Always look beyond the obvious.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  The kitchen door opened and Mum walked in. She looked at the chair, and then at Dad and me, and shook her head.

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  —

  Never assume. Question everything. Always look beyond the obvious.

  We assume things because it’s easier, lazier. It stops us thinking too hard—usually about stuff that makes us feel uncomfortable. But not thinking can lead to misunderstandings and, in some cases, tragedies.

  Like Fat Gav’s reckless prank, which ended in a death. Just because he was a kid who didn’t really think of the consequences. And Mum, who didn’t think that telling Dad about Hannah Thomas could do that much harm, who assumed her husband would keep her confidence. And then there was the young boy who stole a small silver ring, and tried to give it back because he thought he was doing the right thing, and was, of course, so very, very wrong.

  Assuming can trip us up in other ways, too. It can stop us seeing people for who they really are and make us lose sight of the people we know. I assumed it was Nicky who visited her father at St. Magdalene
’s, but it was Chloe. I assumed I was chasing Mr. Halloran at the fair, but it was just an old fairground hand. Even Penny the Garden Lady had led everyone up a winding path of assumptions. Everyone believed she was waiting for her dead fiancé, Ferdinand. But Ferdinand wasn’t her fiancé. That was poor old Alfred. All those years, she had been waiting for her lover.

  Not a case of undying love but of infidelity and mistaken identity.

  —

  First thing the next morning, I make some phone calls. Well, actually, first thing I make several cups of extremely strong coffee, smoke half a dozen cigarettes and then I make some phone calls. First to Gav and Hoppo, then to Nicky. Predictably, she doesn’t answer. I leave her a garbled message, which I fully expect her to delete without listening to. Finally, I call Chloe.

  “I’m not sure, Ed.”

  “I need you to do this.”

  “I haven’t spoken to him in years. We’re not exactly close.”

  “Good time to reconnect.”

  She sighs. “You’re wrong about this.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But—as if I need to point it out—you owe me.”

  “Fine. I just don’t get why this is so important. Why now? It was thirty years ago, for fuck’s sake. Why not just leave it be?”

  “I can’t.”

  “This isn’t about Mickey, is it? Because you certainly don’t owe him anything.”

  “No.” I think about Mr. Halloran and what I stole. “Maybe I owe someone else, and it’s about time I repaid that debt.”

  —

  The Elms is a small retirement estate just outside Bournemouth. There are dozens of such estates dotted around the south coast. In fact, the south coast is pretty much one massive retirement estate, although some areas are a little more exclusive than others.

  It’s fair to say that The Elms is one of the less desirable developments. The cul-de-sac of small square bungalows is tired and a little shabby. The gardens are still neatly kept but the paintwork is flaking and peeling, the cladding weather-worn. The cars outside tell their own story, too. Small, shiny cars—all cleaned religiously every Sunday, I’m willing to bet—but all several years old. It’s not a bad place to retire to. On the other hand, it’s not much to show for forty years’ hard graft.

  Sometimes, I think that everything we strive to achieve in life is ultimately pointless. You work hard so you can buy a nice, big house for your family and drive around in the latest 4x4 Countryside Destroyer. Then the kids grow up and move out, so you trade down to a smaller, eco-friendly model (maybe with just enough room for a dog in the back). Then you retire and the big, family home is a prison of shut doors and rooms gathering dust, and the garden that was so great for family barbecues is far too much work and the kids have their own family barbecues these days, anyway. So, the house gets smaller, too. And maybe, sooner than you ever expected, there’s just you to look after. And you tell yourself that it’s good you moved when you did, because smaller rooms are harder to fill with loneliness. If you’re lucky, you’ll make your own exit before you are reduced, once again, to living in a single room, sleeping in a bed with bars, unable to wipe your own bottom.

  Armed with such cheery thoughts, I ease my car into the small space outside number twenty-three. I walk up the short pathway and ring the doorbell. I wait a few seconds. I’m about to ring the bell again when I see the faint outline of a figure approaching through the frosted glass, and then hear the rattle of chains and the door being unlocked. Security conscious, I think. But then, that’s hardly surprising, considering his former profession.

  “Edward Adams?”

  “Yes.”

  He holds out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I shake it.

  The last time I saw PC Thomas up close was when he was standing on the doorstep of my own home, thirty years ago. He is still thin, but not as tall as I remember. Obviously, I’m quite a bit taller myself, but it’s true that age does diminish a man. The dark hair is now mostly gray and mostly gone. The square face is less rugged, more haggard. He still looks a bit like a giant piece of Lego, but slightly melted.

  “Thanks for agreeing to see me,” I say.

  “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure…but I suppose Chloe piqued my curiosity.” He moves away from the door. “Come on in.”

  I walk into a small, narrow hallway. It smells faintly of stale food and strongly of air freshener. Really heavy on the air freshener.

  “Living room’s ahead on your left.”

  I walk forward and push open a door into a surprisingly large lounge with sagging beige sofas and floral curtains. The choice of the former lady of the house, I imagine.

  According to Chloe, her grandfather moved back down south a few years ago, when he retired. A couple of years after that, his wife died. I wonder if that was when he stopped whitewashing the walls and weeding the garden.

  Thomas gestures for me to sit in the less worn of the two sofas. “Drink?”

  “Err, no, thanks. I just had a coffee.” A lie, but I don’t want to make this visit a social occasion, not with what I want to discuss.

  “Okay.” He stands for a moment, a little lost.

  He doesn’t get many visitors, I think. He doesn’t know how to act with someone else in his home. A bit like me.

  Finally, he sits, stiffly, hands resting on his knees. “So, the Elisa Rendell case. Long time ago now. You were one of the kids who found her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you have a theory about who really killed her?”

  “I do.”

  “You think the police got it wrong?”

  “I think we all did.”

  He rubs his chin. “The circumstantial evidence was convincing. But that’s all it was. Circumstantial. If Halloran hadn’t topped himself, I’m not sure there would have been enough to bring a case. The only solid evidence was the ring.”

  I feel my cheeks flush. Even now. The ring. The damn ring.

  “But there was no murder weapon, no blood evidence.” A pause. “And, of course, we never found her head.” He looks at me more sharply, and it’s like thirty years have been stripped away. Like a light has been reignited behind his eyes.

  “So what’s your theory?” he asks, leaning forward.

  “Could I ask you some questions first?”

  “I suppose, but bear in mind I wasn’t that closely involved in the case. I was just a lowly PC.”

  “Not about the case. About your daughter and Reverend Martin.”

  He stiffens. “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”

  Everything, I think.

  “Just humor me.”

  “I could just ask you to leave.”

  “You could.”

  I wait. Bluff called. I can tell he wants to throw me out, but I’m hoping curiosity and the old instincts of a copper will get the better of him.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’ll humor you. But this is for Chloe.”

  I nod. “I understand.”

  “No. You don’t. She’s all I’ve got left.”

  “What about Hannah?”

  “I lost my daughter a long time ago. And today was the first time I’ve heard from my granddaughter in over two years. If talking to you means I get to see her again, then I’ll do it. You understand that?”

  “You want me to persuade her to visit you?”

  “She obviously listens to you.”

  Not really, but she does still owe me.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Fine. That’s all I can ask.” He sits back. “What do you want to know?”

  “How did you feel about Reverend Martin?”

  He snorts. “I would have thought that was pretty bloody obvious.”

  “And what about Hannah?”

  “She was my daughter. I loved her. I still do.”

  “And when she got pregnant?”

  “I was disappointed. Any father would be. Angry, too. I suppose that’s why she lied to me about the father.”
/>
  “Sean Cooper.”

  “Yeah. She shouldn’t have done that. I felt bad afterward, saying what I did about the boy. But at the time, if he hadn’t been dead, I would have killed him.”

  “Like you tried to kill the reverend?”

  “He got what was coming to him.” He smiles thinly. “I suppose I have your dad to thank for that.”

  “I suppose you do.”

  He sighs. “Hannah, she wasn’t perfect. Just a normal teenager. We had the usual disagreements, about makeup, the shortness of her skirts. When Hannah got in with Martin’s religious crowd, I was pleased. I thought it would be good for her.” A sour chuckle. “How wrong could I be? He ruined her. We were close before. But afterward all we did was argue.”

  “Did you argue the day Elisa was murdered?”

  He nods. “One of the worst.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she had gone to visit him, at St. Magdalene’s. To tell him she was going to keep his baby. That she would wait for him.”

  “She was in love with him.”

  “She was a child. She didn’t know what love was.” He shakes his head. “Got any children, Ed?”

  “No.”

  “Wise man. Kids, from the moment they’re born, they fill your heart with love…and terror. Especially little girls. You want to protect them from everything. And when you can’t, you feel like you’ve failed as a father. You’ve saved yourself a lot of pain by not having children.”

  I shift a little in my chair. Even though the room is not especially warm, I feel hot, suffocated. I try to get the conversation back on track.

  “So, you were saying, Hannah went to visit Reverend Martin that day, the day Elisa was killed?”

  He gathers himself. “Yes. We had a terrible argument. She ran out. Didn’t come back for dinner. That’s why I was out that night. Looking for her.”

  “You were near the woods?”

  “I thought she might have gone there. I know it’s where they used to meet sometimes.” He frowns. “All of this was reported at the time.”

  “Mr. Halloran and Elisa used to meet in the woods, too.”