Gone Tomorrow

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Mad Sam must now be nearly forty, though he looked younger until you studied his face closely. He was hardly taller than his father, but round where Bernie was gaunt; a chubby fellow with a rolling gait and the unlined cherubic face of a choirboy. His hair was thin now, though still dark, and his eyes were blue and round, his expression amiable and harmless. He dribbled slightly from time to time, when his mind, distracted by the necessity to think about something hard, was forced to let go of his jaw to compensate. He always wore the same greenish old tweed overcoat, buttoned up and with a yellow muffler filling in the neckline, winter and summer alike. Slider had no idea what he wore underneath it and was not eager to make the discovery. The two lived together and managed somehow, had done so since Sam’s mother died thirty years ago. They spent most of their lives walking about the streets, Bernie’s hand on Sam’s shoulder: Sam leading, Bernie directing; Sam describing, Bernie explaining.

  They lived, as Slider had known but dismissed from his thoughts, in Frithville Gardens – about halfway up, on the right – in the ground-floor maisonette of a two-storey terrace house conversion.

  ‘I’ll buy you a pint afterwards,’ Slider said to Bernie now. ‘And something for Sam,’ he added, smiling at the lad (it was impossible not to think of him as a lad, despite the deeply grooved fine creases round his eyes).

  ‘No beer for him,’ Bernie said sharply. ‘He’s not to have alcohol.It’s not good for boys.’ He had never lost his slight northern accent, and from talking almost exclusively to his dad, Sam had it too.

  ‘I don’t like beer,’ Sam said easily, in his rather childish voice. ‘I don’t want beer, Dad.’

  ‘You’d better not,’ said Bernie. ‘Orangeade’s good enough for him, Mr Slider, when he’s done telling you what he saw.’

  ‘If it’s something important, I can do better than orangeade,’ Slider said. ‘How about a Coca-Cola?’

  Sam’s eyes lit up. ‘I like that, I do. Can I have Coca-Cola, Dad?’

  ‘It’s too good for you,’ Bernie grumbled automatically, ‘but if Mr Slider wants to waste his money …’

  ‘So what’s all this about?’ said Slider. ‘Something to do with that nasty business in the park, is it?’

  ‘Nasty,’ said Sam.

  ‘He saw something,’ Bernie said. ‘That night, the night it happened. Someone coming out of the park.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come to me with this before?’ Slider asked.

  Bernie spread his hands. ‘I didn’t want to get mixed up in it,’ he said defensively. ‘Don’t hold it against me, Mr Slider. You know what people are like. They want to put me and him in a home. Any chance they’d get to say I was a bad father, they’d use it to put us in a home. If I was to get mixed up with the police … Always after us, the social people, ever since Betty died.’

  Sam was looking at him in alarm. ‘Dad, Dad!’

  ‘Take him away, they would, and then what’d happen to me? Him in the asylum and me in an old folks’ home, and we’d never see each other again.’

  ‘Don’t let ’em, Dad,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t let ’em take me away.’ He began to rock a little.

  Slider intervened hastily. ‘They won’t take you away. Don’t you worry, Sammy. They wouldn’t punish you for doing your duty, coming forward and helping the police. That’s the right thing to do. That’s good.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t know,’ Bernie moaned. Any excuse, that’s what they want. They’d blame me for taking the lad to a pub. Bad influence, that’s what they’d say I was.’

  ‘Well, they won’t say that because they won’t know,’ Slider said firmly. ‘I shan’t tell ’em. And they can’t touch you for taking Sam to a pub. He’s over eighteen. It’s perfectly legal.’

  Sam looked at him across the table, blue eyes as round as an owl’s. ‘I don’t want to leave me dad. I love me dad.’

  ‘You won’t have to, don’t worry. I’ll make it all right, Sam. Just tell me what it was you saw.’

  He didn’t understand the question, and only stared, a drop of drool elongating at his mouth corner.

  Bernie, recovering himself, took up the questioning. Slider saw him pinch the back of Sam’s hand sharply. ‘You ready to tell, Sammy? Like we talked about? That night we were down the Red Lion, and we got talking to Mrs Wheeler, and we walked home late? That was the night of that trouble in the park,’ he added to Slider. ‘I may be blind, but the lad isn’t – and he’s not daft either, whatever people say. He doesn’t know much, but what he knows, he knows. He told me right there and then what he saw, but I was afraid of the fuss and bother, and the social people saying I couldn’t look after him.’

  ‘All right,’ Slider said soothingly, ‘just start at the beginning. You were coming home from the pub. What time would that be?’

  ‘It’d be half eleven easy ’fore we left the Red Lion,’ Bernie answered. ‘Mrs Wheeler’d tell you, and Sid Field, the barman. And then twenty minutes or so to walk home. Near on midnight it must have been. We was just coming up to our front gate when Sammy says, “There’s a lady,” he says. “Coming out of the park.”’

  Sam’s face suddenly illuminated, as though someone had just switched him on. He bounced a little in his seat with pleasure at understanding something. ‘That’s right, that’s right!’ he said excitedly. ‘A lady, I saw a lady. She came out of the park.’

  ‘Was the gate open or closed, Sam?’ Slider asked, not from a need to know but to focus him on the memory.

  ‘Closed, it was closed. She closed it behind her. I saw her. She didn’t see me, though. She was too upset. She just ran by. She didn’t look at us.’

  ‘How do you know she was upset?’

  ‘She was hurrying along and all like hunched up. And she was crying,’ Sam said. ‘I was sorry for her. She was a pretty lady.’

  ‘Can you describe her to me?’ Slider said. ‘What did she look like?’

  ‘She was pretty,’ Sam said. ‘And she smelt nice.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘She had a dress on, a nice blue one, like Oxford and Cambridge.’

  ‘Light blue,’ Bernie translated. ‘The boat race. We’re Cambridge, but he always calls it Oxford and Cambridge. He thinks it’s the same thing.’

  ‘What else, Sammy?’

  ‘She was a black lady,’ Sam said helpfully.

  ‘If you saw her again, would you recognise her?’

  Sam nodded his head. ‘I would. I would know her. I would.’ Then his mouth turned down. ‘Because of the nasty thing.’

  ‘What nasty thing was that?’

  Sam looked at his father. ‘I don’t have to say, do I, Dad? I don’t like saying it.’

  ‘Aye, you must,’ Bernie said. ‘Like I told you, you’ve got to say it to Mr Slider, and you’ve not got to get upset, or they’ll come and take us away and put us in a home. Now get on and tell what the lady did.’

  Sam’s lip trembled, and his eyes were moist. He rocked again, gently. ‘She had something in her hand, something nasty. I saw when she went past. It was all covered in blood. It was nasty.’

  ‘Was it a knife?’ Slider asked. Sam nodded, near to tears. All right, Sammy, go on.’

  ‘Go on, son,’ Bernie encouraged. ‘Tell what she did.’

  ‘She threw it away,’ Sam said. ‘In the house with the weeds, down the area. She went across the road and threw it in there. And then she ran all the way down the street and turned the corner that way.’ He made a gesture of turning right.

  ‘I understand,’ Slider said. ‘Is that all?’

  Sam nodded.

  ‘That’s all,’ Bernie said. ‘But when we heard about the murder, I couldn’t decide whether to say anything or not. You won’t let them hold it against me, will you, Mr Slider? I know I’m old, but we manage all right. We look after each other. If they split us up, I don’t know what would become of the boy.’

  ‘I won’t let it make any trouble for you,’ Slider said, with more conviction than he felt. It wasn’t that
anything they had done or not done was reason for institutionalising either of them; but Bernie knew with the instinct of self-preservation that in their situation you did not draw attention to yourself. Journalists might get hold of the story and decide to splash it for ‘human interest’; or simply being in court might direct official eyes in their direction. And then questions would be asked, and appalling things done to them for their own good. A social worker would only have to smell them to know they ought to be put in a home; and God knew what the inside of the maisonette was like.

  ‘That man was killed,’ Sam said suddenly and confidingly. ‘I know, I heard it. I saw our street and our park on the telly. That man was killed with a knife, a sharp knife, a pointy knife, and there was all blood and he fell down dead. Bang!’ It was sudden and loud and made Slider jump, which in turn made Sam flinch. He was getting too excited.

  ‘Never mind about that,’ Bernie said sharply. ‘You sit still and be quiet or I’ll give you what-for.’ And to Slider, ‘I don’t like him watching telly. It’s not good for the lad, but they have it on sometimes when we’re down the pub. He saw you on the telly, Mr Slider—’

  ‘I saw you on the telly, Mr Slider,’ Sam nodded.

  ‘He’s not daft, whatever people say. He wanted to tell you about the lady and the knife—’

  ‘It was a sharp knife, all covered in blood! It was nasty!’

  ‘But I was afraid. I told him to forget about it, but then my conscience wasn’t easy.’

  ‘Well, you did the right thing, Bernie, and I’m grateful to you. To both of you. And I’ll make sure there’s a little something for you both to say thank you.’

  ‘Oh, no, that wouldn’t be right,’ Bernie said gravely. ‘Not a reward for doing your duty.’

  ‘I’d like to give you something anyway. There’s nothing wrong with that. You didn’t do it for the money, so it’s quite all right.’

  ‘Well,’ said Bernie, but less doubtfully.

  ‘Now I want you both to come with me to the station, and we’ll take down what Sam saw in writing, to make it all official. And then I’d like you, Sam, to sit and look at some pictures and tell me if any of them look like the lady you saw. Can you do that?’

  Sam looked sly. ‘Can I have a Coca-Cola if I do?’

  ‘You can have the back of my hand if you don’t do as you’re told,’ Bernie said fiercely, and Sam collapsed like a pricked balloon. You could have blown Bernie away with a puff of wind, and Sam was twice his weight at least; but in the minds of both of them Sam was still nine years old and in short trousers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Content – Liable To Settle

  ‘The house with the weeds,’ Mad Sam had said, and Slider, having been up and down Frithville Gardens often enough in the past week, had no difficulty in identifying it. One house on the left-hand side going up (the side opposite to where Blind Bernie and Mad Sam lived) had been empty for some time and was boarded up and semi-derelict. Weeds had sprung up with mongrel vigour from the small patch of earth on the side of the area, ragwort and grass was sprouting from cracks in the steps and windowsills, and the gutters were gay with buddleia so that the house looked as if it was wearing an Ascot hat.

  Atherton looked with distaste down the area, which was choked not just with weeds but with rubbish, carelessly discarded tins, bottles and fast-food boxes, and the inevitable skeleton of a pushchair. The rate of attrition of children’s buggies was so abnormally high, he thought, it was something to bear in mind when looking for shares to invest in.

  McLaren was equally unimpressed. ‘You want me to go down there?’

  ‘Well, I’m not trousered for it,’ Atherton said.

  ‘And there’s got to be some advantage to my higher rank,’ Slider added. ‘If it’s not that, I can’t think what else it can be.’

  ‘You’re breaking his heart,’ Atherton warned. ‘Come on, Maurice, you’re the one who’ll feel most at home among all those KFC cartons.’ He nudged McLaren towards the steps. ‘Be careful, though. There might be rats.’

  ‘Not at this time of day,’ Slider intervened. ‘Get on with it.’

  McLaren donned his gloves and descended gingerly. It was fifteen minutes before he straightened up and said, ‘I think I’ve got something.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ Atherton murmured.

  McLaren was clambering back up. He displayed his booty: a paperknife in the shape of a stiletto, sharply pointed and narrow, double-edged, and with a blade about five and a half or six inches long.

  ‘Probably a souvenir of Toledo,’ Atherton commented.

  ‘It’s still got blood on it,’ McLaren noted happily.

  ‘And with any luck,’ Slider said, ‘fingermarks.’

  ‘It’ll take time to get it processed and get a match on either,’ Atherton observed.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Slider said. ‘Mad Sam picked her photo out without the slightest hesitation.’

  ‘Mary Coulsden, aka Teena Brown,’ McLaren said with satisfaction. ‘Well, at least we know we’ve got her prints on record, so we’ve got something to match the fingermarks with, when we get ’em back.’

  ‘But if Teena killed Lenny, what does that do to our lovely house of cards?’ said Atherton. ‘Doesn’t it all come tumbling down?’

  ‘No, no,’ Slider said distractedly, ‘it all makes perfect sense.’

  ‘All we’ve got to do, of course, is find her,’ Atherton mentioned.

  ‘I think,’ said Slider, ‘that I know where she is.’

  Sassy Palmer was dressed this time when she opened the door – not in the red dress but in a pair of mauve Lycra leggings and a tight, low-cut top of ocelot-printed cotton.

  ‘Not a-bloody-gain,’ she said with enormous, theatrical exasperation. ‘I already spent half me Sunday down the cop shop. Can’t you buggers leave me alone?’ She eyed Atherton professionally and slipped abruptly into her Harlem persona. ‘How you doin’, honey? I hain’t seen you befo’.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to bother you again,’ Slider said, slipping his foot into position, ‘but I’d like a word with your sister.’

  ‘My—?’ Sassy’s eyes narrowed as she recollected. ‘She’s not here. She’s gone.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Slider said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sassy assured him earnestly. ‘She was only stoppin’ over the one night. She lives up – up Birmingham,’ she added inventively.

  Slider looked at her sadly and kindly. ‘The game’s up, Sassy. I know Teena’s here. I smelt her scent when I was here before. She wears Paris and yours is My Sin. Come on, love. We’ve got the evidence now, and we have to take her in. But you know I’ll be gentle with her. Better me than somebody else.’

  ‘You always say that,’ Sassy complained, but she seemed near to tears.

  ‘You’ve been a good friend to her,’ Slider said, laying a hand on her wrist. ‘Come on, be a good girl and let’s get this over with.’

  She seemed to consider resisting, but then to realise it was pointless. She did not, however, let them in: Slider had to push her gently out of the way, understanding that it was her way of salving her conscience.

  They could see through the open door that the kitchen and living room were empty. Atherton looked in one bedroom, Slider in the other. There was a sharp cry and a scuffle, and Slider reversed hastily and ran to help Atherton, who was holding Teena Brown by both wrists while she screamed at him in a mixture of anger and fear.

  She was wearing a white teeshirt and a pair of pink pedal-pushers, and her pretty face was drawn and exhausted with fear and distress. ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ she cried. ‘I ain’t done nothing! You don’t understand!’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Slider said. ‘Calm down, Teena. Stop struggling – you’ll only hurt yourself. I know what’s been going on. I know you killed Lenny, and I know why. It’s all over now.’

  She stared at him a moment and then burst into tears, and feeling the struggle leave her, Atherton released her s
o she could sit down heavily on the bed behind her and sob into her hands. Behind Slider, Sassy was swearing softly and continuously under her breath, but she made no move to intervene.

  Slider had hardly ever been sorrier than when he began, ‘Mary Christina Coulsden, otherwise known as Teena Brown, I arrest you for the murder of Lenny Baxter. You do not need to say anything …’

  ‘Hullo. Am I disturbing you?’

  Slider looked up sharply. Joanna was standing in the doorway of his office, her overnight bag slung over one shoulder, her handbag over the other. It took him a moment of wondering what was strange about her – apart from her actual presence here – before realising that she did not have her fiddle case in her hand. It didn’t look natural, somehow.

  ‘I got tired of having my phone messages ignored,’ she added, seeing his brain was still catching up, ‘and since I haven’t got any work to do until Wednesday morning I thought I’d hop on a plane and come and see how you’re doing.’ She cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Say something, even if it’s only “bleh”.’

  ‘Joanna,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s a start. At least you recognise me.’ She crossed the room and he stood up hastily, sending a plastic dispenser cup tumbling to the floor, where it bounced hollowly but fortunately drily. Then his arms were round her, and she was pressing against him, warm and real and full of the usual interesting bumps.

  When he released her she smiled and pushed him gently backwards and said, ‘Sit. You look fit to fall down.’

  ‘I feel it. What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly seven. When did you last go home?’