by G. M. Dobbs
She quickened her step and when she got back to her house the sight of several police vehicles parked in the street greeted her. A tent had been constructed in Stan and Edith’s front garden and there was police tape cordoning off the house from the rest of the street, a street that was filled with curious people and it seemed to Granny that everyone on the entire estate was standing there, watching, gossiping.
‘Oh my,’ Granny said and took her pipe from her pocket and popped it in her mouth. She noticed Arthur waving to her from her own front garden, calling her over.
‘They’re searching Stan’s house,’ Arthur said as Granny entered the garden. ‘Won’t tell me why.
‘You spoke to them?’
Arthur nodded.
Well, what did they say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Only that it was a police investigation and that the house was a potential crime scene.’
‘Crime scene?’ Granny looked at the tent.
She wondered if the police would be digging up the garden within the privacy of that tent and for one moment she thought that Stan might turn out to be some sort of crazed serial killer, that he had many bodies buried in that garden. No, this was all nonsense and Granny frowned as she watched a police officer, uniformed, emerge from the tent and go to one of the vehicles and start talking into the radio. She couldn’t hear what he was saying.
‘Let’s go inside,’ Granny said, aware that several of the neighbours were looking at her and Arthur, no doubt trying to figure out what they were saying.
‘It’s all around that Stan murdered Edith,’ Granny said. ‘The whole village is talking about it.’
‘I know,’ Arthur nodded and then sat down on the corner of the sofa. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Nor can I. Stan would never do that.’
‘Someone did, though,’ Arthur pointed out. ‘The police wouldn’t be going to all this trouble for nothing.’
Granny told her husband what she had learned and then concluded with: ‘And that means that if Stan had done it, he’d spent all evening with you in the beer tent after the grisly deed.’
Arthur nodded, looked confused.
‘Well?’ Granny prompted.
‘Well, what?’
‘Well, how did Stan seem to you? ‘
‘I’m not sure what you mean. He was Stan.’
‘Did he appear nervous? Like someone with a dark secret on his mind? Like someone who had done away with his wife?’
For several moments Arthur didn’t answer, seemed to be considering all this but then he said simply:
‘Don’t be daft. He was Stan.’
‘Well judging from the commotion next door you’d think he was Fred West.’
‘It’s all too much for me to take in,’ Arthur grumbled and sank down into the sofa. He buried his face in his hands.
‘What’s for breakfast, Mam?’ Gerald asked as he came into the living room. He had clearly just gotten out of bed and didn’t seem to be fully awake. His hair, what little he had left, was sticking up and he still wore the jogging bottoms and T-shirt that served as pyjamas. He also wore a bright purple dressing gown, which trailed on the floor.
Granny turned to look at her eldest son. Forty-one years of age and he was a right layabout, acted as if was still a kid.
‘Get your own bloody breakfast,’ she snapped and turned her attention back to the window.
Gerald grumbled but knowing it was no use arguing with his mother he wandered off to the kitchen. He had fancied the full works; a nice fried breakfast to start the day but seeing as how he was cooking it looked like being coco pops and a smoothie.
‘I’m going to talk to the police,’ Granny said.
‘What?’ Arthur looked at his wife. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I can and I will,’ Granny said, firmly and then marched out of the house.
Five
There was police tape around the garden to keep the curious away from the house but Granny was having none of it. She lifted the thin tape, stepped under it and stormed into the tent.
She was immediately greeted by the sight of several police officers in full forensic suits, which reminded the woman of a post apocalyptic science fiction movie. She didn’t know what she had expected to find within the tent but it most certainly hadn’t been this and for a moment it gave her pause.
‘And who the hell are you?’ a plain clothed man came out of the house and stormed towards Granny, his face a tsunami of fury.
Granny looked at the man. He was middle aged, somewhere around fifty and certainly wasn’t a very big man but he held an air of authority about himself that made him seem bigger, much bigger.
‘I’m Mary Smith,’ Granny said, though whimpered would be far more descriptive.
‘And what dammed business do you have here?’
‘Who are you?’ Granny seemed to have regained some her usual demeanour. She wasn’t going to be bullied by this man. Whoever he was.
‘I’m Chief Inspector Miskin,’ the man said, not bothering to produce any identification. ‘And I ask you again – who are you?’
‘Mary Smith,’ again Granny was stammering. ‘I live next door.’
Two uniformed constables joined the chief inspector. The three of them stood there, glaring at Granny while the forensic team went about their work around them.
‘Did you not see the police tape around the house, woman?’
Granny, who disliked being referred to in this way, took a dislike to the chief inspector and this gave her some strength. She had never reacted well to the bullying tactics of authority and so she stood up to the man.
‘Oh, I ignored that,’ she said and then added with emphasis: ‘Man.’
‘Evidently. Now what is it you want?’
‘To know what’s going on,’ Granny poked her corncob pipe at the policemen as she spoke. ‘Stan and Edith are family friends. You come in here with your tents and tape and men in Star Trek suits. And no explanation to those that live around here.’
‘We are conducting a criminal investigation,’ the chief inspector said. Granny’s appearance and the fact that she was waving a pipe about led him to the conclusion that he was dealing with a mad woman. ‘We are not obliged to share details of our investigation with the residents. If and when we have anything to say we will say it through the correct channels. The official channels.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ Granny said, keeping up the attack and knowing that to take a defensive position now would be a mistake. ‘Where’s Stan? The last I saw of him he was being bundled into the back of a police car.’
The policeman frowned. ‘By Stan,’ he said, as though talking to a child. ‘ I assume you mean Mr Sullivan?’
‘Well I don’t know of any other Stan I could mean. Seeing as how this is his home you are rampaging around. What do you expect to find here?’
‘We know what we are doing,’ the chief inspector replied, trying but mostly failing to keep his usual authority in his voice.
‘I’ll have to take your word for that,’ Granny watched as a police officer in full forensic suit, carried a bag from the house and out to one of the waiting police vehicles. ‘No what have you done with Stan?’
‘Mr Sullivan,’ the chief inspector was struggling to hold onto his patience, ‘is helping us with our enquiries.’
Granny looked around herself. This all looked like something from an episode of CSI.
‘What are you looking for here?’ she asked.
‘We are conducting an investigation,’ the chief inspector said and it was evident he was losing the battle to control his anger and was fast losing patience with the woman. ‘And you being here could be destroying vital evidence. I could have you arrested for this.’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘You went through a police cordon. And what did you think this is, a beer tent?’
‘If you didn’t want anyone to come in you should
have had someone standing guard,’ Granny pointed out.
The chief inspector looked at the two constables and frowned.
‘The police tape is clearly marked,’ the inspector said. ‘It’s not put up for decoration and it should be clear to any idiot that this is a police scene. There’s a street full of people out there and you are the only one who barged in here.’
‘Stan was with us last night,’ Granny said, feeling it prudent to change the subject. ‘If Edith was murdered then Stan certainly didn’t do it. Couldn’t have done it and from what I’ve heard Edith’s body wasn’t even found here.’
‘It doesn’t matter where the body was found,’ the chief inspector said. ‘Look we know what we are doing. We are professionals, you know. We’ve been trained and everything.’
Granny snorted at that, feeling his patronising tone deserved no reply.
The chief inspector took a long hard look at the woman before speaking again.
‘You say Mr Sullivan was with you last night?’
‘Yes,’ Granny nodded. ‘With me and my husband.’
‘And where was Mrs Sullivan?’
Granny was about to say something but seemed to think better of it and instead she shrugged her shoulders.
The chief inspector frowned.
‘You live next door you say?’
Granny nodded.
‘We’ve been neighbours for more than twenty years,’ she said. ‘And close neighbours, very close. I’m telling you that there is no way Stan would ever hurt a hair on Edith’s head.’
The chief inspector turned to one of the constables.
‘Take this woman home,’ he ordered. ‘And stay with her until I get there,’ he turned back to Granny. ‘I’ll be needing a talk with you. Officially.’
Granny didn’t like the way he had said, “officially,” but she saw no use in arguing further and she allowed one of the constables to take hold of her arm and lead her out of the tent.
She felt the eyes of the street upon her as the policeman led her into her own house.
‘Now what time did you get home?’ the chief inspector asked.
He was sat on Granny’s sofa, a cup of tea that Arthur had insisted on making in his hands. He took a sip of the tea and swallowed noisily. He felt awkward with Granny sat opposite him and the two men, her husband and son who came across to the chief inspector as flamboyantly gay, hovering in the room. They all stared at the inspector and the policeman felt like a goldfish behind glass.
‘It was late,’ Granny said and then looked to her husband for confirmation.
‘Aye,’ Arthur nodded. ‘After eleven I would say.’
‘And Mr Sullivan was with you?’ the chief inspector put his tea down carefully on the coaster at his feet and scratched the time down in his notebook.
‘He was,’ Granny answered. ‘I told you he’d been with us all-evening. And stop calling him Mr Sullivan. I have to think who you’re talking about. He’s Stan, plain and simple.’
The chief inspector had a good idea whom he considered to be plain and simple but he said nothing.
‘So what about his wife,’ he asked, instead. ‘Where did Mr, er Stan say she had got to?’
‘He didn’t,’ this time it was Arthur who answered.
‘Didn’t you ask?’
Granny took the question.
‘When Stan arrived he said that Edith was about somewhere. We thought she was looking at something or other, there was a lot going on at the fete. We thought she’d show up.’
‘And when she didn’t?’
Again Granny answered.
‘Well, Stan had said she wasn’t herself, that she didn’t seen quite with things and likely had one of her headaches. Martyr to headaches was Edith. She could have felt unwell and gone home to bed.’
‘Without letting anyone know?’ the chief inspector was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the way Granny’s son was staring at him. ‘Didn’t that strike you as odd? It was the village fete after all and mostly everyone in the village was there.’
‘We didn’t think anything of it,’ Granny said and took a match to her pipe, taking delight from the inspector’s look of discomfort as she sent billows of fragrant smoke into the air. ‘I was busy with the cake stall and the men were at the beer tent. Nobody really had time to miss Edith or even think about her.’
‘We have heard reports that Stan and Edith were seen arguing at the fete.’
‘I never saw that,’ Arthur said.
Granny sighed.
‘How could we have? We didn’t even see Edith,’ she reasoned.
‘Was Mr Sullivan,’ the inspector frowned. ‘I mean Stan – was he a violent man?’
‘Never.’ Granny, Arthur and a rather high pitched Gerald, together in some sort of harmony.
‘There must have been some violence,’ the chief inspector said. ‘Stan had a cut on both the bridge of his nose and his upper lip. Any idea how he obtained these injuries? We’ve asked him of course but he claims not to remember.’
‘Well he wouldn’t,’ Granny replied.
‘I think you’d better explain that remark,’ the inspector said.
Granny was smiling.
Arthur looked puzzled.
Gerald wore his usual vacant impression and simply looked like Gerald.
‘He fell,’ Granny said. ‘Out there in the street.’
‘Oh yeah,’ the penny had dropped with Arthur. ‘He did. Almost took us with him.’
‘Fell in the street?’ the inspector looked incredulous, more than that he seemed a little suspicious. Were these three involved in all this? Was this more than a domestic murder? The woman was definitely odd, dressed like a bag lady whose best rags were at the cleaners. Her husband seemed to be rather vacant looking, and the other man, the son, was definitely not the full shilling. For a moment the inspector considered the possibility that he might have stumbled into some bizarre murder cult, a geriatric Manson family.
‘Oh yes,’ Granny said. ‘Follow me.’
When Granny took to a notion there was no stopping her, and before anyone could protest she had leapt to her feet and was marching down the street, the chief inspector, Arthur and Gerald behind her.
She reached the bottom of the road and stopped, pointing at the kerb.
‘There,’ she said and bent to examine the kerb where only last night Stan had tripped.
‘You say Mr Sullivan obtained his injuries by falling against this kerb?’ the inspector was seriously considering taking them all in for questioning.
Granny peered carefully at the kerb but there was nothing to be seen. However she noticed that there was a sweet wrapper, Fruit Salad, by the kerb and the old woman noticed a coppery coloured stain that was undoubtedly blood.
Stan’s blood.
She carefully picked it up between a thumb and forefinger and pulled a small plastic bag that had once contained mints from the pocket of her body warmer. She turned the bag inside out and dropped the sweet wrapper into it.
‘As I’ve said Stan tripped on the way home last night,’ Granny said. ‘Gave himself a nasty whack he did. And this,’ she held up the bag, ‘ is proof of that. I think you will find it is Stan’s blood.’
The chief inspector took the bag from Granny and looked at it.
‘I think you’d call that evidence,’ Granny said and puffed on her pipe.
Six
The following afternoon Granny was stood at the sink trying to get a beer stain out of one of Arthur’s shirts, when she saw a police car pull up out back.
An officer stepped out and opened the rear doors.
A moment later Stan got out.
Granny had been listening to a Saxon CD, humming along quite happily to Denim and Leather. She quickly pressed pause on the player, stopping the heavy metal barrage mid-riff, before going out of her back door and into the garden. When she reached the garden fence the police car was pulling away, and Granny waited until it was out of sight before marching next-door an
d shouting Stan’s name through the letterbox.
Stan looked awful when he opened the door. It had been less than forty-eight hours since she had last seen him and yet he appeared to have lost a little weight, and was unshaven. His hair hadn’t been combed and his eyes looked to have sunken back into his face.
‘I’m so sorry about Edith,’ Granny said, thinking how inane that sounded but not knowing what else to say. What did one say to someone who had just lost their partner in the most horrendous of circumstances and then had to spend the best part of two days being questioned by police?
‘They think I did for her,’ Stan said and Granny could see that he was struggling to hold back the tears. She had never really believed that Stan had killed Edith, but at that moment any doubts she may have held in that little cubbyhole at the back of her mind were vanquished.
‘I never for a moment thought you did,’ Granny said and that was largely true.
‘They think I did though, the police.’
‘Then it’s up to us to prove otherwise,’ Granny said. Though how she would achieve that was beyond her. In truth she was still shocked by events and it hadn’t truly sank in that Edith was gone forever, murdered by someone unknown.
‘You’d better come in,’ Stan walked, shuffled more like, towards the living room, knowing that Granny would follow him. The house would have been in silence except for the ticking of the wall clock above the fireplace and as a result those ticks and tocks sounded impossibly loud.
‘They’ve taken my passport,’ Stan said and sunk into his usual chair. He stared at the floor. ‘I wouldn’t hurt her, I’d never hurt her.’
‘I know,’ Granny said and sat down on the edge of the sofa. She took her pipe from her pocket, the bowl only half smoked, and, using a lighter, sucked it to life. She’d always smoked in Stan and Edith’s house and it seemed the natural thing to do. She looked at Stan and yet again felt a wave of sympathy. With all that was going on, all that had happened, Stan was not being allowed to properly grieve his wife, nor to feel anger at her murder. ‘If you want to talk about any of it.’
For a moment Stan sat silent, eyes staring off into vacant space. Then: